To Be Announced...

Remember that story a while ago about computer use at work? Here's the extreme:

Diary of a goof-off: No work, no pay

A Des Moines hotel worker has been fired for using her employer's computer to keep a massive, detailed journal cataloging her efforts to avoid work.

State records indicate that Emmalee Bauer, 25, of Elkhart was hired by the Sheraton hotel company in February 2005. During most of 2006, she worked at the company's Army Post Road location as a sales coordinator.

She originally began keeping the "journal" and writing it long-hand in one of those things called - a notebook. Not a computer, mind you...but an actual notebook made of trees. Apparently unaware of the success she could have had by starting a blog. She eventually switched to a computer.

"I am going to be typing all my thoughts instead of writing all day... That way, there isn't any way to tell for sure if I am working really hard or I am just goofing off."

Over the next several months, Bauer composed a book-length journal of 300 single-spaced pages, describing in excruciating detail her dogged efforts to avoid any sort of work.

A supervisor discovered the journal late last year and fired Bauer for misuse of company time.

After her firing, she filed for unemployment and was granted a hearing to determine her status for benefits. I've actually had to participate in quite a few of these recently. As an employer representative, I have to sit and listen to the most outrageous, illogical, false and downright weird explanations for why people who are fired deserve unemployment.

At the state hearing, Bauer testified the journal was intended to help her deal with anxiety and frustration. She said she didn't believe her firing was warranted because other employees violated company policy without being penalized.

Administrative Law Judge Susan Ackerman denied Bauer's request for unemployment benefits last week, saying the journal demonstrated a refusal to work, as well as Bauer's "amusement at getting away with it."

In the journal, Bauer speculated that her writings might someday be published even though they dealt largely with the minutiae of her daily life such as rearranging the furniture at home, doing the dishes and planning for a tattoo on her lower back.

You know? She'll probably make a bundle by selling it to a publisher.

It does make the recent unemployment hearing I had much easier to take. Kyle was a worker for one of our crews and didn't show up for three days during one week last year. He didn't call, he didn't contact us or anything. Just simply didn't show up. We assumed he quit. Then, when he finally showed up for work one day, I told him his job was filled already by someone who wanted to work.

The state granted him unemployment benefits because not showing up for work doesn't constitute a reason for firing someone. I kid you not.