Mark Beverly, an employee at a SuperAmerica gas station in Roseville, MN, jumped on a masked robber who was trying to get cash from his co-worker.

The robber fled with only $15.

Beverly cooperated with police after the incident, helping them review security tape footage.

The next day he was fired for violating company policy.

The SuperAmerica company handbook advises employees to “cooperate; don’t argue, resist or attack the robber.” The company says a computer-based training program backs that up, and that Beverly took the course when he was hired.

Police also advise retail workers not to resist when faced with a robbery. They say an armed robber may not intend to use a weapon unless he faces resistance.

Beverly said when he heard his co-worker scream, he looked and thought the robber was jostling with her.

The security tape shows no physical contact between the robber and the other employee. Beverly told local TV stations that from where he was in the store, it looked like his co-worker was being attacked.

Beverly intends to contest denial of unemployment benefits.

Nicole Lilliman was working as an attendant at a Tim Hortons coffee and donut shop in London, Ontario, Canada.

An agitated toddler was pointing at donuts. Lilliman decided to give her a Timbit, a piece of fried dough that sells for 16 cents each.

The store manager fired her for giving away the donut. The manager even went to the trouble to review the store’s video camera records to confirm Lilliman gave away the Timbit, according to the Toronto Star.

The case got lots of press – and negative reaction from the public regarding Lilliman’s firing.

The Tim Hortons’ gang aren’t fools. They’ve reinstated Lilliman, saying the firing was the action of an overzealous manager.

A highlighter goes into a pocket. Some sticky-note pads find their way into a briefcase. As long as employee theft is small and infrequent, many companies may not even notice that certain items are leaving the supply closet more quickly.

So if this incident took place as reported, it apparently took some skill for Carlos Trinidad of Vineland, NJ, to almost get away with stealing hundreds of dollars worth of ribs and prime beef from his employer, Texas Roadhouse.

Trinidad allegedly took the meat out of a freezer and hid it in back of the restaurant near the trash bins.

Someone tipped off the restaurant manager who found the beef and called the police.

Trinidad turned himself in. Police arrested him, and the restaurant fired him.

There’s no word on whether Trinidad had a childhood fascination with the Hamburglar.

(Has your company ever caught an employee ”borrowing” something out of the ordinary? Drop HR Blunders a few lines about it below in the Comment box.)

Target store security guard Dean Babcock saw a 16-year-old girl trying to steal a bottle of tequila. The teen had been caught on a security camera just days earlier stealing a bottle of rum.

Babcock should stop the teen, right? But only certain guards at the Lake, Geneva, WI, Target were authorized to stop shoplifters, and Babcock wasn’t one of them, despite being a retired police officer.

Problem #2: None of the authorized guards were on duty that day. (Who made that schedule?)

So Babcock thought he’d found a way to stick to store policy and keep alcohol out of the hands of an underage teen: He contacted the girl’s father instead of police. Four days later, Target fired him, according to wire service reports.

“They fired me for stopping a 16-year-old girl from stealing alcohol,” Babcock said.

Target declined comment on Babcock’s specific case but said they “take shoplifting very seriously.”

Then why were no authorized guards on duty?

If any employee called a manager at your company a “drunken lemur,” you might consider disciplinary action. But what if the comparison between managers and small, intoxicated animals is posted as a cartoon on a bulletin board, instead?

Insubordination or just a little anti-boss humor? Most times it’s not difficult for HR pros to differentiate between the two.

But an Iowa company didn’t see the humor in a Dilbert comic strip posted by an employee that compared managers to drunken lemurs.

The Catfish Bend Casino in Iowa was so upset, that it went to the trouble of watching surveillance video to identify the employee who put the comic on a bulletin board.

The culprit was Dave Steward, who quickly found himself fired.

Illustrator Scott Adams has come to Steward’s defense by basing a few days worth of Dilbert comics on the fired worker’s situation.

In one, regular character Wally was called into the pointy-haired boss’s office after he posted a comic.

“Do you think drunken lemurs are like managers?” the boss asked Wally.

“No. Some lemurs can hold their liquor,” Wally responded.

While Adams is defending Steward, the comic artist suggests workers stick to posting tamer strips.

How would you have handled this?

So, did the casino make a wise decision by firing Steward? Of course, that’s open to debate, but the results of Steward’s application for unemployment benefits may be one indication.

The casino challenged his claim, saying Steward had accused decision-makers of being drunken lemurs, and that should be considered misconduct. Steward said he was trying to cheer people up amidst layoffs at the casino.

The judge sided with Steward, saying posting the comic represented a “good-faith error in judgment,” not intentional misbehavior.

Aside from that, the law is on employers’ sides if they want to fire employees over something they have written or said at work.

Only five states have laws protecting an employee’s right to free speech: California, Colorado, Montana, New York and North Dakota. There are no moves afoot in Congress to pass a national law.

And with the explosion of personal blogs on the Internet, the question of employee free speech extends beyond what happens in the workplace. Some companies are checking to make sure workers don’t post derogatory comments about their jobs on the Web.

The argument becomes clearer when employees make comments about a particular workplace. But what about general office humor, such as Dilbert comics? We’d like to know what you think.