First it was the caretaker job for a tropical Australian island.

Now, AirAsia is asking for entries from people who want to be a pilot — no experience required.

The Malaysian airline’s Web site makes it seem easy: “So YOU wanna be a pilot? Simple. What do you have to do? Blog. What? That’s it? Yes, you’re reading it right. Blog.”

The airline will select 10 finalists who will take part in the first round of new pilot intake.

The contest starts April 1. Hm. Has anyone noticed that’s April Fools’ Day?

In their new book, Everyday Practices of Extraordinary Consultants, Christine Lambden and Casey Connor have compiled a list of “The 13 Most Annoying People to Work With.”

1. Pontification Person – These people go on and on, telling you what they’re going to say, saying it and then telling you what they said.
2. Um Person – To avoid losing control of the conversation, this co-worker fills every pause with “Um,” not realizing that she might be able to think better if she weren’t talking.
3. Too Much Detail Person – ‘Nuff said.
4. 50,000 Foot Only Person – He is eloquent when you talk about the big picture, but refuses to allow anyone to get into the details, which we all know is where the real work gets done. Unless someone is the CEO of a multi-national corporation, the employee has to be willing to work at any altitude.
5. Hypnotized by E-mail Person – If you go to the trouble to think of a meeting topic, send out an invitation, invent an agenda and prepare slides, you naturally expect people who show up for your meeting to pay attention while you talk. Wireless technology has made it possible for people to multi-task very effectively, but there is nothing more defeating than presenting to the tops of the people’s heads because everyone at the conference table is hunched over his or her laptop.
6. Buzzword Person – This employee is annoying in meetings, team rooms and in cubicles. In fact, this person is just plain annoying all the time.
7. Foul Language Person – Much like Buzzword Person, this co-worker is obviously too lazy to think of the right words to express what he is thinking, if indeed he is thinking at all. But this person isn’t trying to impress you with his knowledge. He isn’t trying to impress you at all. He doesn’t care what you think of him.
8. Reiteration Person – If the only contribution an employee has to make at work is to restate what has already been said, she doesn’t have any contribution to make.
9. Too Busy To Be Prompt Person – If an employee is always late to work or every meeting, there is something wrong with the way he manages his schedule or time. He should fix this behavior. It’s rude.
10. Can’t Control the Meeting Person and her arch-nemesis Wants To Take Over the Meeting Person.
11. Secondary Conversation People – These folks are more annoying if their conversation is less interesting than the meeting.
12. Disagrees With Everything Person – This co-worker honestly believes he is just being practical, or serving as the Voice Of Reason, or playing Devil’s Advocate. This may be true sometimes, and even helpful occasionally, but when it becomes a habit, everyone else just tunes him out.
13. Obscure Metaphor Person – This employee is as annoying as the fool in a troupe of Morris dancers. (See? Wasn’t that annoying?)

For more about this book, click here.

Do you have a story about an employee who would fit a description on this list? Do you have a type of annoying person to add to the list? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

These days, even innocent phrases uttered by HR can make employees jumpy.

So, courtesy of buzzwhack.com, here are the Top 10 things nervous employees don’t want to hear right now:

1. “Can I see you in the conference room?” Just as bad: “Can we talk?” and “Gotta minute?” In all cases, initiating contact with a tap on the shoulder makes things even worse.
2. “Isn’t your performance review coming up soon?” Particularly if it isn’t due for another two months.
3. “We don’t look at this as a problem – but as an opportunity.” Generally delivered with an insincere Pollyanna-ish lilt.
4. “I’ve always thought of us as family around here, but … ” Given the choice of laying off you or his mother, guess which he will choose?
5. “You’re a great contributor, but … “ A compliment followed by a “but” is never a good thing.
6. “Maintaining the status quo is no longer an option.” Generally, the next sentence contains really bad news for someone.
7. “We’re going to refocus and concentrate on our core business.” That generally means refocusing on the business the company was in before it hired you.
8. “We’re not planning to have layoffs, but there will be some restructuring.” Hmmmmm.
9. “Due to the ongoing turmoil in the capital markets …” Any sentence that has “turmoil” and “capital” in it can’t be good.
10. “They’ve asked everyone to come to the Employee Appreciation Room for a 4 p.m. meeting.”

Do you have your own suggestions for this list? Make your nominations in the Comments Box below.

On his first day in office, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket.

While there are signs the Obama White House will be less formal than George Bush’s, there is another explanation for the lack of a presidential jacket. Obama likes it warm in the office.

“You could grow orchids in there,” adviser David Axelrod told The New York Times.

No-jacket weekdays are only the start of the more relaxed dress code.

The president has issued a call for “business casual” on weekends and set his own example. He showed up on a Saturday for a briefing dressed in slacks and a gray sweater over a white buttoned-down shirt.

How does this contrast to the Bush White House? Dan Bartlett, a former counselor to Mr. Bush, said one Saturday in the Oval Office he had on khakis and a buttoned-down shirt and he was chewed out for 15 minutes.

The Anonymous Tip Giver does just that.

The new Web page from CareerBuilder.com allows people to send anonymous messages to their bosses and co-workers who drive them crazy.

Employees can choose one of four characters to deliver your message, such as a man playing the piano with his feet, a human alligator or a woman who looks like a hovering demon from the underworld.

After typing their message, users get to choose a voice, male or female, American or British accent.

Final step: Fill in the recipient’s e-mail address and hit “send.”

CareerBuilder will be airing an ad during the Super Bowl to promote the Web page.

Is this a good idea or not? Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below.

They are three items on CareerBuilder.com’s list of “13 things to keep to yourself at work.”

Those three should be (we know, it’s not always the case) among the most obvious things that people shouldn’t talk about at work.

But there are some other less obvious suggestions that we like of things on the don’t-talk-about-this-at-work list:

• Your privileged life. Despite what some people obviously believe, the rest of us aren’t interested in your latest hobnobbing with the A-list or how difficult it is to find a really good company to clean your Olympic-size pool.
• Your Chris Rock routine. Comedians get paid to be edgy, daring and often offensive. Stand-up comics at work get disciplined or fired.
• Online venting Web sites. Posting something online for the world to see that’s critical of your employer or co-workers is questionable enough. Letting your co-workers know about what you’ve posted is just plain stupid.

The complete list is online here.

Do you have something to add to this list? Or a story about how someone sunk themselves by talking about one of these items? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

An Australian university professor says 90% of research on the subject shows working in open-plan offices (cubicles) has negative outcomes, causing high levels of stress, conflict, high blood pressure, a high staff turnover and boils.

OK, we’re kidding about the boils.

Dr. Vinesh Oommen from the Queensland University of Technology’s Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation told The Queensland Times, “the evidence we found was absolutely shocking.”

Dr. Oommen said the high noise level causes employees to lose concentration, leading to low productivity.

It’s safe to say no one expects companies around the country to start converting from open-plan to small private offices. So what should employees do to survive the cubicle jungle?

The New York Daily News sought advice from Janet Zinn, a licensed clinical social worker in Manhattan. “Play music if you can, to help screen out other workers.”

Zinn also says employees shouldn’t deny their feelings about a stressful workplace. “It doesn’t help you cope, and it can make you feel worse in some ways.”

Queensland’s state government has announced a contest that will award one lucky person $150,000 Australian (about $105,000 U.S.) to live as caretaker on a beautiful tropical island for six months.

The caretaker’s duties: Stroll the beach, snorkel the reef, maybe clean the pool and report to a global audience the wonders of taking a vacation in Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef region.

Qualifications: must be an excellent communicator — and be good at relaxing.

The chosen applicant will stay rent-free in a multi-million dollar three-bedroom beach home complete with pool and golf cart.

The campaign is part of a drive to protect the state’s $18 billion tourism industry during the current tough economic times.

The application is online at www.Islandreefjob.com.

Now Wal-Mart says it’s settled 63 similar cases, which will cost between $352 million and $640 million, depending on how many claims are submitted by eligible workers.

Trial courts must approve all the settlements.

Wal-Mart faced 76 wage cases in courts across the country.

Just weeks ago, the company settled a class-action lawsuit alleging it cut workers’ break time and that its employees worked off-the-clock. That settlement will cost Wal-Mart $54 million.

Under the larger agreement, Wal-Mart will use electronic systems and other measures to ensure its compliance with wage-and-hour policies and laws.

The settlement hasn’t made one particular group happy. Wal-Mart Watch Executive Director David Nassar says the company is settling the cases before the new presidential administration takes over.

It’s time to review the mistakes, catastrophes, near misses and just plain strange stuff in the HR world in 2008.

We determined the list based on your votes — by which posts received the most attention from readers

10. You make the call: Whistleblower or backstabber? Marcy Curlee thought two co-workers were wasting too much time, so she documented their work behavior minute by minute. She was fired. The Idaho Supreme Court said there are genuine questions of whether Curlee was fired for conduct protected under the whistleblower law.

9. Don’t tell ‘Grandma’ she’s being fired. Jolyn McDonald was called Grandma by her manager at a Best Buy. The same manager demoted her because of poor performance. She filed an Age Discrimination in Employment Act lawsuit, and Best Buy asked that the case be thrown out. The court wouldn’t throw out the case, and the next step is a jury trial unless the two sides come to an agreement beforehand.

8. Fired for smoking? Court says that’s OK.The law firm where Karen Kridel worked as a paralegal banned smoking breaks for hourly employees but allowed them for salaried workers such as lawyers. Kridel continued to take two 5-minute smoking breaks per day, and she was fired for misconduct. She was denied unemployment benefits and sued to get them. The court decided she should not get unemployment.

7. Can you top these workers’ excuses for being late? No top-10 list would be complete without … a top-10 list on it. CareerBuilder.com provided the original excuses. Then, HR Blunders readers added more that they’ve heard from employees, including:

• We received a fax from an employee’s wife with this message, “Xxxxx has been real sick and can’t come in until Monday the 28th.” We were happy to see that he had such a precise timetable for when he would recover. (from J. Trent)
• We had an employee call in to say he would not be coming to work as his girlfriend might be pregnant. (from L. Greene)
• My husband had a boss at one time who called in and said he would not be in because his dog was constipated. (from R. Foley)
• I had an employee call me and say she was stuck. I asked her where she was stuck, and that I would go and get her. She said that she was stuck in life. I told her to get herself unstuck and get to work. (from Mary Sharkey)
• An employee called to say she was going to be late because she had to pick up her sister’s boyfriend who was getting out of jail that morning. No one else could go get him because his family was mad at him and her sister had to go to work. I explained that, contrary to popular belief, she had to go to work, too. (from Shirley Busbice)
• Many years ago, an employee was chronically late and always had colorful excuses. My favorite was his cow had been struck by lightning and he had to clean up the yard. He was inevitably terminated. (from Mitzi G.)
• A young lady called in to say that she took too hot of a bath and was dizzy and could not come to work until she laid down to cool off. (from Jamie)
• After a worker got in late, he explained that he’d passed out the night before and the dog drank his beer. The dog normally woke him up every morning, but that morning the dog was too hung over and didn’t get the employee up on time. (from Karen)
• Our salesman came in late to work stating his wife had left him, took all the furniture and turned off his electricity. After taking a cold shower, he accidentally locked himself out of his house and had to break in to get his car keys. This triggered his house alarm, and he had to explain when the police showed up brandishing guns. After this was over, he backed out of his driveway and ran over and killed his dog. We sent him back home, and I suggested he write and country song. (from Jackie)
• A young male employee, a newlywed, was chronically late coming back from lunch, because he would go home to “celebrate” his marriage. I counseled him regarding tardiness. One day he was about 10 minutes late returning from lunch from one of these celebratory trips home. He said he stopped to brush his teeth before he came back, dropped a tube of toothpaste and accidentally stepped on it. He explained that getting the paste back in the tube wasn’t so hard, but keeping the little lines straight was really tough. I let him return to work (that time) without a write-up. (from T. Linneweber)

6. Big court award: Tale of the bogus e-mail. Ronald Luri, a manager for Republic Services, Inc., in Ohio, was told to fire three employees, all of whom were in their early 60s or late 50s. Luri refused, saying the company could face a lawsuit for age discrimination. Republic fired him for alleged failure to follow the directives of his superiors. Luri sued. Testimony in the trial pointed to evidence tampering to try to create a record of poor job performance for Luri. A jury recently awarded him $46.6 million.

5. Hung-over employees and the Web don’t mix. This story turned out to be a hoax. Supposedly, Australian Kyle Doyle called out sick one day to work. The story then suggested that Doyle posted on his Facebook page that he was “still trashed, sickie woo,” and that his employer was not too happy when someone there found his online posting. His employer, AAPT, issued a statement claiming the story is bogus. But Facebook postings about stuff at work can still be dangerous. Just ask the young woman who posted pictures of herself and two co-workers frolicking in a sink at a California KFC.

4. You’ve got mail … and you’re fired. Media agency Carat was facing layoffs. Its HR director prepared an e-mail with a list of employees about to lose their jobs and included “message” points for managers on how people should be told they’d be out of work. The entire agency received the e-mail.

3. Liar, liar, but employee’s not fired. An employee admitted she forged a document. After an investigation by HR, the final decision was not to fire her. The reason: There were no specific rules prohibiting forgery, and the employee was afraid of retaliation by a co-worker. That’s bad enough, but this happened at the Connecticut State Ethics Commission.

2. Woman’s uniform was revealing, but her application wasn’t. Heather Kearney of Des Moines, IA, says she was fired from her job as a criminal intelligence analyst with the state Department of Public Safety for not revealing on her job application that she’d worked at a Hooters restaurant. Her employer said it was investigating her for falsification of her job application. This case will come down to a court decision on whether omitting her work at Hooters amounted to falsification.

1. Worker attacked by candy machine sues for comp. Does a company pay workers’ comp if an employee, returning from an unpaid break, injures his foot while rocking a vending machine to shake loose a stuck candy bar? While a hearing board initially awarded the employee comp, an appeals court reversed that decision.

And from everyone at HR Blunders and PBP Media, Happy New Year. We hope that 2009 is free of HR Blunders at your workplace.