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.

When twice the usual number of employees call out sick — and it happens on Super Bowl Sunday — is it a case of couch potato fever? Or, as union representatives suggested in one case, was it burnout because of staff cutbacks? You make the call.

The city of Atlanta had to close five of its fire stations on Super Bowl Sunday because 27 firefighters called in sick. The average number of firefighters out sick on any given day is 13.

Enough staffers reported to work the following day to keep all the stations open.

City Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran blamed the temporary closures on a combination of staffing reductions, hiring freezes and furloughs, according to The Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Cochran said firefighters call in sick more often on a weekend with a holiday or big event like the Super Bowl. However, he said he didn’t believe this was an organized action.

The head of the firefighter union, Lt. Jim Daws, said staffers called in sick because they get “burned out” by having fewer co-workers. Atlanta has also done away with overtime for firefighters to bridge temporary staffing problems.

Minimum staffing to operate is 147 firefighters. On Sunday there were 131 on duty.

Daws says there wasn’t Super Bowl-related goofing off. He said the larger number of absences is the consequence of budget cuts.

Cochran said, “Some of our members genuinely are sick.”

Can employers prevent this?

Some companies have developed policies to prevent employees from using sick days around long holiday weekends. Example: To earn holiday pay, employees must work the entire workday before and the day after the holiday. Exceptions can be made when an employee asks ahead of time to use a vacation day or if the worker can produce a doctor’s note.

Has your company ever experienced a problem with workers taking sick days before or after a holiday, or on the day of a big event, such as the Super Bowl? Did you have more employees call out the day after the Super Bowl, possibly nursing hangovers? And does your company have a policy to prevent this sort of thing from happening? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

A high school girls’ basketball coach was fired after he said he would not apologize for badly beating another team.

Covenant School in Dallas recently defeated Dallas Academy in girls basketball 100-0.

After the game, Covenant, a private Christian school, posted a statement on its Web site regretting the outcome of the shutout: “It is shameful and an embarrassment that this happened. This clearly does not reflect a Christlike and honorable approach to competition.” The statement was signed by the school’s headmaster and board chairman.

Covenant Coach Micah Grimes sent an e-mail to The Dallas Morning News that said he didn’t agree with his school’s statement.

He wrote: “I do not agree with the apology or the notion that the Covenant School girls basketball team should feel embarrassed or ashamed. We played the game as it was meant to be played. My values and my beliefs would not allow me to run up the score on any opponent, and it will not allow me to apologize for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity.”

The school’s headmaster would not comment when asked whether Grimes’ firing was connected to his statement to the newspaper.

The score at the half was 59-0. A parent who attended the game said Covenant continued to make 3-pointers even in the fourth quarter.

Dallas Academy has eight girls on its varsity team and about 20 girls in its high school. It hasn’t had a win in the last four seasons. The school specializes in teaching students with “learning differences” such as short attention spans or dyslexia.

The Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools doesn’t have a “mercy” rule for girls basketball. However, the association’s director, Edd Burleson said “a golden rule” should have applied in this contest.

According to Burleson, the losing team “showed much more character than the coach that allowed that score to get out of hand. It’s up to the coach to control the outcome.”

Since this case involves a personnel decision which an employer is keeping private, there are details we don’t know — such as exactly why Grimes was fired.

But the situation does raise several questions. Organized sports can provide a means to teach children and teens useful workplace skills, such as teamwork. Do you agree with the fired coach’s decision to allow the score to reach 100-0? Do you agree with the headmaster’s apology? And would sending an e-mail to a newspaper, disputing his boss’ statement, be insubordinate enough to merit firing?

Let us know in the Comments Box below.

That’s what happened to Ulysses Milana. And he lost the weight and got the job.

Milana wanted to serve his country in the military. The Army and Navy took one look at him and said forget it.

But the Marines told him, if he really wanted to join, they’d work with him to lose weight.

Now, 11 months later, Milana is 140 pounds lighter, and he’s scheduled to leave soon for boot camp.

Marine recruiters worked with him, helping to develop a workout regimen.

Milana, a resident of Maine, told the Sun-Journal losing the weight wasn’t easy. He had to give up favorite foods like pizza and hot wings, but the most difficult part was doing without a beer after work.

“You see all your friends drinking beer, and you’re like, ‘Oh, man, I want one,’” he said.

But Milana was determined, and instead of having a beer after work, he would head for the gym or go for a run.

Some companies might find it difficult to justify $23,000 worth of spa treatments at a fancy resort for executives when times are good, let alone when bankruptcy is looming. So the outrage over AIG, Inc., spending $440,000 on a retreat for its executives while it was tapping into an $85 billion bankruptcy bailout loan from the federal government shouldn’t come as a surprise.

The retreat came to light this week at a Congressional hearing that revealed findings of an investigation into AIG’s meltdown.

Rep. Henry Waxman said the executives spent $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for meals and $23,000 for the spa at the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, CA.

Bonuses OK’d despite big losses

The $440,000 expenditure seems like a drop in the bucket compared to executive’s compensation packages which were also revealed at the hearing.

Documents from AIG show as the company’s risky investments were imploding, executives’ pay plans were altered to pay out regardless of losses.

AIG lost more than $5 billion in the last quarter of 2007. When the company’s compensation committee met in March 2008 to award bonuses, CEO Martin Sullivan urged that those losses not be considered. Including the losses in calculations would have slashed executives’ bonuses.

The board agreed to ignore the losses from the financial products division and gave Sullivan a cash bonus of more than $5 million. Sullivan also got a new compensation contract with a $15 million golden parachute.

Sullivan countered that he was mainly concerned with helping other senior executives.

The hearing also showed that AIG executives hid the full impact of its risky financial products from outside and inside auditors.

Of course, there are obvious financial management lessons to be learned by the AIG story. But what about an employee morale angle? How do employees feel when company executives are treated to multi-million dollar salaries, bonuses, and special perks? Does it hurt morale, or are these compensation packages for executives easily explained because of their responsibilities? Let us know your thoughts in the Comments Box below.

Mistakes in payroll happen. And a case in Oklahoma shows just how big those mistakes can be.

Jo Harris is an employee with the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission. She was supposed to get a longevity pay bonus of $850.

However, when the paycheck was cut, it was for $850,000.

The state realized its mistake and asked Harris to cut them a personal check for 850 Gs if the amount hit her account.

But that wasn’t necessary. The state cancelled the check before it was deposited and reissued her one with the proper amount.

Harris says co-workers tease her about the bonus mistake, according to the newspaper, The Oklahoman.

“They want to know if they can slip out of the country with me,” Harris said. “I tell them, ‘Yeah, me and my cocker spaniel, Brandon, could go on a nice cruise with that money.’”

In Washington D.C., about half of the 19,000 students signed up for the summer youth jobs program haven’t received all, or in many cases, any of their pay.

And that’s not the only problem with the program, according to the Washington Post.

Students are supposed to be doing arts programs, such as making jewelry, painting and singing in a choir. They are supposed to learn certain life skills such as job readiness.

But some of the teens have been sitting in a hot school auditorium doing nothing.

Program administrators say the students were stuck in the auditorium of one school for two weeks because the program hadn’t received proper permission for the site from the school system. Programs were delayed in some cases for another two weeks because more than 500 students not in the system still had to be registered.

Officials say all the students should have received their proper pay this week.

Instead, they got a phone number for women looking for sex.

The number for the job hotline was listed incorrectly on the state Web site, as well as in the Verizon Yellow Pages and other Web sites.

State officials say they’re aware of the problem (we’re guessing it didn’t take them long to find out), and they’re working to correct it.

As an HRB  public service, the correct number for Maryland Job Services is 410-767-2148.

An ad offered welders and pipe fitters working to rebuild oil rigs in Mississippi and Texas “permanent lifetime settlement in the USA for self and family.”

An article in the Washington Post tells the story of Vijay Kumar, a native of India, who signed a contract and paid a recruiter $20,000 to travel to the U.S. He hoped to be able to send for his wife and newborn son soon.

Instead, about 500 Indian recruits received a 10-month work visa with no possibility of obtaining permanent residency for themselves, let alone their families back home.

They were employed by Signal International Corp. repairing oil rigs damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Signal says it didn’t know the workers had been promised residency.

More than 100 of the Indian workers have filed a federal lawsuit against Signal and several recruiting agents under a federal law that prohibits “human trafficking” by fraud or force for labor.

Signal has entered the Indians’ lawsuit as a plaintiff, accusing several recruiters in India and the U.S. of hiring workers under fraudulent conditions.

A lawyer for Signal says the company “did not fully understand the green card process. We acted in good faith at every turn.”

The Indians have the support of 18 members of Congress who have signed a letter to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey on their behalf.

One in three IT pros admit secretly accessing confidential data, such as salaries, personal e-mails or board-meeting minutes, according to a survey.

IT security company Cyber-Ark surveyed 300 senior IT staffers and found that one in three snooped, while 47% said they’d accessed info that wasn’t relevant to their role.

Here’s something else HR and IT needs to know: privileged passwords get changed only every quarter in 30% of companies and never at all in 9%. That means an IT staffer who’s left the company could still gain access.

Cyber-Ark said 70% of companies rely on outdated and insecure methods to exchange sensitive data.