A hearing officer has ruled that a city of Denver employee should get to keep his job after failing a Breathalyzer test because the printer hooked to the machine failed to produce a printed record of the test.

John Delgado is an equipment-operator specialist — certainly a safety-sensitive job.

On July 27, 2007, Delgado failed a random drug test given to such employees and tested positive for cocaine, according to The Denver Post.

By agreeing to abstain from alcohol and illegal drugs for three years and seeking treatment, he was able to keep his job.

On Sept. 18, 2008, while operating a road patcher, a follow-up alcohol test showed he had a 0.06% blood-alcohol content.

But, the hearing officer ruled Delgado should get to keep his job because the printer attached to the Breathalyzer malfunctioned and no printout of the test was available.

The state requires a printout of results. Since the city didn’t have one, it failed to prove a violation, according to the hearing officer.

Delgado didn’t dispute the Breathalyzer test results. Despite that, the ruling said he should be reinstated and have any pay or benefits that had been withheld from him restored.

The City of Denver plans to appeal the ruling.

As for the malfunctioning printer: It’s been fixed and a backup system has been installed.

Should Delgado get to keep his job? Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below.

How many times have you had to change your company’s dress code to address situations that no one previously thought of? Next question: Does your company’s dress code cover hats?

The borough of Littlestown, PA, recently told a school crossing guard he could no longer where his signature silly hats on the job because they were unprofessional and a distraction to drivers. They told him to wear his standard-issue crossing guard hat instead.

Children called Larry Douthwaite “Hat Man.” His collection includes a 2-foot-tall stovepipe hat, a pharaoh-style covering and one that looks like he has a jet airplane sitting on top of his head.

Douthwaite told WGAL-TV that he wore the hats for the kids at first. But then he noticed the hats helped him be safe because people were more likely to notice him.

After he started wearing his crossing guard hat every day, it didn’t take long for people in the community to notice that his funny hats were gone.

People wanted Douthwaite’s fun hats back. Public support for him was huge. WGAL ran a survey, and 96% said he should be able to wear the fun hats.

“I think they are tired of having fun things sucked out of their life, and I think the reaction mushroomed because of that,” said Douthwaite.

Happy ending

When citizens speak up in one voice about an issue, politicians often listen.

The Littlestown Borough Council voted unanimously to allow Douthwaite to continue wearing his hats.

How did Douthwaite celebrate his victory? By wearing his pharaoh hat on the job the day after the borough council vote.

So, here are some questions regarding this story:

• Should Douthwaite be allowed to wear the silly hats? Do you think they’d be a help or hindrance for a school crossing guard?
• Have you ever had a special dress-up day at work to help improve morale? Maybe Hawaiian shirt day?
• In these tough economic times, should HR allow some rules, such as dress code, to be bent a little bit if it’ll improve morale?

Let us know your thoughts via the Comments Box below.

Barbara Emme worked 31 years for supermarket chain Kaisers in Berlin. She denies an accusation by her former employer that she kept bottle deposit receipts worth $1.65.

A court recently upheld the decision to fire her. Now, leaders of Germany’s major political parties are criticizing the decisions by Kaisers and the court.

“I don’t understand how a cashier can be fired because of 1.30 euros while managers who lose billions of euros can keep their jobs,” said Horst Seehofer, leader of the Christian Social Union party.

Barbara the Cashier says her phone has been ringing off the hook since news of her firing hit German media.

Unfortunately, she says she hasn’t received an offer of a new job.

Imagine this: A company tells some of its former employees, “We put too much in your severance check. Please give the extra amount back.”

It really happened. And it wasn’t just any employer — it was Microsoft.

The software giant attempted to recoup some severance money from 25 recently fired workers it mistakenly overpaid.

The employees received a letter which said, “This letter is to inform you that an inadvertent administrative error occurred that resulted in an overpayment in severance pay by Microsoft. We ask that you repay the overpayment and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience to you.”

There’s no word on the amount of the overpayments.

On second thought …

A scanned copy of such a letter first appeared on the Web site TechCrunch. After that — well, you know how things spread on the Web.

Shortly thereafter, Microsoft announced it had made a mistake.

“We should have handled this situation in a more thoughtful manner,” an e-mailed statement said. Microsoft “will not seek any payment from those individuals.”

Microsoft had laid off a total of 1,400 employees, the first of 5,000 planned layoffs.

As usual with these types of stories, Microsoft has refused to give any more details — so that’s all there is.

But, we’ll pose some questions anyway: Was it correct for Microsoft to ask for the overpayments back in the first place? Would it matter if the amounts were $10, $100 or $1,000? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

In this tough economy, it’s hardly unusual for people to look for second jobs to make ends meet. Example: A teacher advertised online that she was looking for extra work because her bills were piling up. Unfortunately, her ad was on the “casual encounters” section of a popular Web site. And her school computer was involved.

Update: The Columbus Dispatch has now reported that teacher, Amber Carter has resigned from her teaching position and pled not guilty to a misdemeanor charge of prostitution. Prosecutors are still reviewing a charge of unauthorized use of a computer that the sheriff’s office filed against Carter. HR Blunders’ original post on this story continues below.

Now, fourth-grade teacher Amber Carter has been charged with prostitution. She’s admitted she posted an ad on Craigslist and used a school computer to send an undercover officer e-mails arranging a meeting, according to the Logan County sheriff’s office.

And until her case moves further along in the legal system, she is still collecting her teacher’s salary of $56,000, even though the Bellefontaine, OH, school district has placed her on administrative leave.

Detectives say it appears Carter used her school computer to meet men and women and charge them $50 or $100 for various sex acts.

The investigation started when the local sheriff’s office received an anonymous e-mail saying a local woman was advertising sex services online, according to The Columbus Dispatch.

An undercover officer posed as an interested customer and exchanged 24 e-mails with Carter.

In an e-mail sent on a Monday at 9:07 a.m., well after school had begun for the day, she offered sex and suggested a time.

The next day, Carter took a half-day of sick leave and left work early. She was arrested shortly after noon.

The Dispatch obtained a recording of Carter’s meeting with the undercover officer. She took $50 in exchange for sex. (Caution: The recording contains explicit content.)

Work computer seized

Besides the prostitution charge, which is a misdemeanor, Carter faces a fifth-degree felony count of unauthorized use of property. Detectives have seized her school computer.

She has a spotless 13-year record with Bellefontaine schools. The district superintendent is quoted as saying he’d like to fire her now “but constitutional rights and due process come into play so the lawyers are proceeding properly.”

School district lawyers have suggested to Carter that she resign, but she hasn’t.

Was this an isolated incident for Carter? Sgt. Ryan Furlong doesn’t think so. He suspects Carter has been doing this for a while because “she was calm, cool and collected in that hotel parking lot. Not nervous at all. This wasn’t her first time.”

Certainly, this is an extreme case of an employee in financial trouble looking for an extra source of employment. Does your company have a policy about second jobs? What would happen if one of your employees used a company computer for a side business — even one that’s not illegal? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

El Paso County Clerk and Recorder Bob Balink’s staff stopped answering their phones after a layoff of 19 employees.

Voice messages on the clerk’s phones now refer people to the assessor’s and treasurer’s phone lines, according to The Gazette.

It would have been nice if Balink informed the other two offices of what he was doing, but he didn’t.

Treasurer Sandra Damron says her employees have been slammed with calls.

The Gazette tracked what one person seeking help from the clerk’s office had to go through.

An elderly man who couldn’t get the information he needed called the Area Agency on Aging. They e-mailed the assessor’s office, asking him to get a message to Balink to call the man.

What does Balink have to say about all this? Take a guess.

The Gazette says he couldn’t be reached for comment.

A wire service was able to contact Balink, and he denies telling any of his employees to stop answering the phone.

Few companies these days can afford unproductive employees. What would happen if HR found an employee who sat in his office all day doing nothing and got paid a full-time salary?

For starters, the person might be given something to do, or the position might be eliminated.

But that’s not the case for Randall Hinton, an employee of New York state’s government.

He sits at a desk doing little else for eight hours a day and is paid $93,803.

Hinton, a Native American, says he’s being discriminated against because of his national origin and retaliated against for having sued the state years ago. He’s filed a lawsuit against the state.

His job has been director of investigations for the state Insurance Fund since February 2002. However, he claims he hasn’t investigated anything or directed any other employees’ investigations because his superiors are blackballing him.

Hinton sued Gov. George Pataki’s administration 10 years ago, alleging discrimination, according to the Times Union. At the time, he was chief of investigations at the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and refused to leave his post to make room for a Republican appointee.

An official claims friction developed between Hinton and the DEC because he wanted to go to the police academy to become a sworn DEC officer, but hadn’t taken required civil service tests.

As part of a settlement, Hinton was guaranteed state employment as a director of investigations. He was moved from DEC to the Insurance Fund.

Hinton claims he hasn’t been given meaningful work because some leftover members of Pataki’s team still control the Insurance Fund in Democratic Gov. David Paterson’s administration. His former boss says those in charge told him not to let Hinton handle anything of substance.

Hinton was assigned to supervise a few customer service representatives. He complained that the task wasn’t appropriate for the director of investigations. Those employees were regrouped, and now Hinton’s only official duty is to sign one person’s time sheet every two weeks.

The Insurance Fund did recently offer Hinton oversight of private detective agencies hired by the fund. But Hinton dismissed the offer because he didn’t want to do contract assurance and work for an administrator who was in a entry-level management post.

E-mail set him off

The Times Union reports some of his former colleagues say Hinton was obsessed with becoming a cop. Hinton says he attempted to become an environmental conservation officer because that would allow him to retire to his tribe as a law enforcer.

If Hinton has been sitting around for seven years now without much to do, what caused him to take action now?

In November he got an e-mail from his manager that said the Insurance Fund wanted to recognize “the significant contributions and considerable role of Native Americans” and that Gov. Paterson had issued a proclamation for Native American Month.

Hinton says he wants his dignity back. For now, though, he doesn’t know how he’d get through his “work” day without his iPod.

Let us know what you think about this story in the Comments Box below.

Recently, Dear Prudence on slate.com received a letter signed “Nauseated” asking what to do about a co-worker in the cubicle next to her who was “participating in a solo activity usually done in the bedroom.”

To make matters worse, Nauseated didn’t get much help when she went to HR.

The HR manager asked the woman to notify her when her co-worker started masturbating in his cubicle so she can “know for herself.”

Nauseated says the HR manager is never around when he’s in action.

Part of Prudence’s response: “Your head of HR is an incompetent lunatic.”

Prudence consulted with an employment law attorney who said it’s HR’s duty to handle (no pun intended) this situation, not the offended employee’s.

Short of that, Prudence suggests the employee take her complaint up the ladder of command.

Can you resist commenting on this story? Share your thoughts in the Comments Box below.

You’d think so, right?

Well, it took several hours for anyone at a Chicago police station to notice that an officer who reported for duty — and went on patrol with another officer for five hours — was a fake.

And to boot, the impostor was just 14-years-old.

The boy didn’t have a gun, never issued any tickets and didn’t drive the squad car, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Police figured out the teen wasn’t a real cop because his uniform lacked a star that is part of a regulation uniform.

The department is investigating how the ruse went on for several hours. They’re describing the situation as a serious security breach.

The unidentified boy has been charged as a juvenile with impersonating an officer.

Police say the boy looks older than 14 and once took part in a Chicago program for youth interested in policing. They suspect that may have helped him blend in with other officers.

According to a deputy superintendent, the boy didn’t have “ill intent” — he just really wanted to be a police officer.

Why are employees reluctant to speak up about improprieties where they work? Retaliation is feared, as a municipal employee in Florida is claiming in a lawsuit.

Danilo Benedit, a procurement supervisor for the city of Coral Gables, wore a wire to help police investigate the city manager’s cover-up of questionable credit card charges.

Now he’s filed a lawsuit claiming the city violated the Florida whistle-blower laws that protect government employees who report illegal activities.

Benedit hasn’t been fired from his job, but he claims he’s been subjected to an increasingly hostile work environment, according to the Miami Herald.

His lawsuit lists a five-month delay in his performance evaluation and receiving his first negative one ever as retaliatory acts against him.

Benedit also claims he’s been ostracized by co-workers and has been unable to complete his job functions because they are keeping critical information from him.

The lawsuit alleges the city posted an ad for his job position.

City Commissioner Ralph Cabrera says Benedit’s job was downgraded from a director’s position to an officer position similar to what had been done in another department. He added that Benedit was allowed to apply for the new position.

Cover-up investigated

Last year, after City Manager David Brown’s credit card expenses were criticized in a local weekly paper, Brown asked Benedit to help backdate receipts that would show he reimbursed the city for two questionable charges months before he really did.

Brown was charged with a civil violation of public records laws. He resigned his city position under pressure.

Brown also asked Benedit to falsify documents related to a city project and to award a contract to a firm that wasn’t the lowest bidder.

Benedit claims his problems at work come from fellow employees who are still loyal to Brown.