Newsflash – stealing will get you fired "We've decided to relocate your cubicle due to your illicit asset acquisition practices. Enjoy your new quarters at Supermax."

There's nothing quite like the anticipation involved with waiting for lunchtime, and a yummy meal of leftover pad Thai and chicken satay in the company refrigerator. Especially when that anticipation is replaced with the dawning horror that some complete bastard has made off with your lunch, your Hawaiian Punch, and the last two Double Stuff chocolate cream Oreos you had in your apartment.

There are a couple of lessons here. First, stealing someone else's lunch won't make the situation right. And unlike the person who helped herself to your repast, you might get caught.

Stealing from the office is frowned upon, unless you're an executive receiving backdated stock options at a tech company, then it's just aggressive leadership recruiting in action.

CreativePro.com said CareerBuilder.com's survey of hiring manager found that nearly 40 percent of them had racked someone up for having light-fingers in the workplace. Office supplies, money, and merchandise rated one-two-three on the list of things most likely to find themselves concealed under a bulky jacket in July. ("Nothing for me today, thanks!")

Now here's the second lesson. Exposing a lunch thief just requires a little preparation. And just the right seasoning. And a video-capable phone, because we want to see the fun too.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Theft, Hot sauce

Free yourself from drudgery, Internet overuse will set you free Laura Bora from Bufadora, as she's known on her Clawing Up From Under blog, received the kind of freedom that can only be delivered in one way – by getting fired from a job she hated!

I. NEVER. HAVE. TO. DEAL. WITH. THOSE. NASTY. BEEYOTCHES. AGAIN.

Sure, I need to file for unemployment, enroll in Cobra, buy pantyhose and take my trusty black interview blazer to the cleaners, but WHATEVAH!

The reason I got fired is PRICELESS -- I abused the internet!

Along with her demonstration of giddyness and relief, Laura also wrote that she'll know to scale back her plumbing of the Internet tubes at her next gig.

Fired, Too much Internet, Giddiness

Brandeis softballers prep claws for real world "We didn't mean to get the coach fired, I mean, we meant for her to get fired, we didn't mean for her to find out we caused it."

Thirty-two years as a softball coach for women preparing for careers in the corporate world should have made Mary Sullivan a little more wary of her players.

Maybe 32 years in her job made her complacent. Too bad for Coach, especially since her ladies were right behind her...with sharp knives drawn...

Although Sousa declined to comment on the nature of Sullivan's departure, players said she was fired after numerous complaints they lodged last spring.

"We weren't [complaining] with the intention of getting [Sullivan] fired," leftfielder Marissa Rubin '07 said. "We were just looking for some things to change."

"As a team, we all want to have a winning season, and it becomes frustrating to lose games the same way over and over," Rubin said. "There were obvious mistakes that were being repeated over and over, and we just got sick of it."

They didn't mean to get the coach sacked, either...

"No one was going in there maliciously, like, 'let's get her fired," Schimmel said. "We were all really shocked when it happened."

"When you take a test and get the same answer wrong every time you take it for three years, you're doing something wrong," Rubin said. "We just needed a change to the program."

"Softball has changed so much since Coach Sullivan played," [Schimmel] said. "She was a little bit behind in her methods. We want to be a breakout team."

And worse, the coach just didn't regard their poor little feelings...

"Our team would hardly receive any criticism or praise," Mayer said. "Even though we're at a college level, sometimes we need criticism and sometimes we need help."

Yeah, you'll get plenty of feedback and support in the real world. Just have your passport to Magic Unicorn World handy and make sure the sylvan elf at the gate to the realm stamps it when you get there.

Otherwise no praise for you. Criticism we can arrange.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Brandeis, Softball, Unicorns

The Mike Keenan way to lose an NHL job Canucks Hockey blog kicks some shots out of the crease on the mystique behind Keenan and yet another of his patented job-suicide moves, this time earning himself a firing (possibly) from the Florida Panthers.

First, swap your super-stud young keeper to another team.

Next, bring in a 127-year-old keeper coming off back surgery to replace said stud.

Of course the possibility exists that the Mike-stro quit this job instead of waiting for owner Alex Cohen to arrange for a carload of gangbangers to ventilate Mike's ride some night on A1A.

Rumor has it that coach Jacques Martin won a power struggle with Keenan. I can't imagine why Martin would be upset at Keenan, I mean, Ed Belfour is 438 years old, Martin will be a shoo-in for coach of the year if he can win with him in goal. Who wants to coach the second coming of Dominik Hasek anyway?

Technorati Tags: Fired, Mike Keenan, Ancient, Goaltender

TouchPlay delivers a fired-gram to postman "I thought all that stuff about hair on your knuckles or going blind was some urban legend, who'd have thought TouchPlay could cost you your job?"

A mailman in Iowa lost his job in April after taking a spin on a TouchPlay lottery machine during a lunch break. Lee Schechinger won a thousand dollars with his three-dollar bet, before it all went tragically, horribly wrong...

It wasn't rain, sleet or snow that stopped the mailman -- it was a winning spin on a lottery machine.

He was working for the Logan post office when he went to a store for lunch and decided to try his luck. Postal Service employees are prohibited from gambling while in uniform or on duty, even during meal breaks.

Schechinger immediately admitted his transgression and accepted his firing with humility and stoicism. Ha ha, I kid. Actually, he lied about it at first and has appealed his firing.

"I wish I wouldn't have won the money now," Schechinger said. "It wasn't worth it."

Of course, what he did was to violate Fred's Rule number one: the boss always gets 10 percent off the top first.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Mailman, The boss always gets ten percent

Beyonce fired her dad NO SHE DIDN'T! "Yo Ashlee and Jessica, this is how you handle your power-trippin' dad."

Yeah, I buy this, she recorded her way overhyped new CD in secret from her manager daddy, Mathew, because he would interfere in her creative process.

So she didn't fire him, she just didn't tell him where she was going with the producer, fourteen backup musicians, and whatever entourage follows her around, and he didn't try to find out.

Like Ray Charles used to say: uh huh...

"My dad was never fired. But it took him a while to realize I was getting older. It was when I turned 19, and I started saying 'no' to things."

Things like Dad's 8 pm curfews and his ban on hanging around with drummers.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Beyonce, Daddy's little girl no more

Fred's choice for the "Someone Fire This Jerk" award There are times when someone does things that merit a richly deserved firing. When it doesn't happen, I lose a chance to mock someone who has wholly earned it.

Like that's going to stop me.

So the inaugural award, which I'm going to call the Freddie because Oscar is taken and the Academy's lawyers have no freaking sense of humor. Sorry, no trophy, I'm still upgrading my furniture from 'sleeping bag' to 'futon' here.

Like Mr. Incredible, I believe in equal treatment. Let me present the first ignonimous Freddie recipient, Patricia Dunn of Hewlett-Packard. Seems that Ms. Dunn has been acting like her Crocs are three sizes too small because someone (rumored to be George Keyworth) told a CNET reporter that he, Patty Dunn, the rest of the H-P board, and chief job-cutter Mark Hurd were going to meet for several days at the posh Esmeralda Resort & Spa in Indian Wells, Calif., to craft HP's long-term strategy, which CNET duly reported.

OHMIGODSNO! Executives and board members on a management retreat at an expensive resort and spa, while they're slashing jobs and pension benefits? Why this is simply unprecendented! No one's ever done this before!

No wonder Dunn is on the warpath. But wait, there's more! Ex-board member Tom Perkins has accused HP of questionable ethics and dubious legality (I know, I know, in a corporation? Come on.)

So what's all that about? Click that Tom Perkins link for a look at The Smoking Gun's gleeful revelation. Here's a taste...

According to Perkins, a partner in one of Silicon Valley's leading venture capital firms, the Fortune 500 company's probe included the "fraudulent method" of obtaining the "private telephone records" of board members. The records were obtained, Perkins said, via illegal "pretexting" methods. In his letter, Perkins contended that his own phone records were "hacked" as part of Hewlett-Packard's attempt to discern the source for a January 2006 Cnet.com story about the firm's long-term strategy.

Perkins found out in may that Peppermint Patty Dunn was behind this investigation. Next we'll see if CNET milks this story as much as they did that Eric Schmidt hissy fit last year. In the meantime, Patty, enjoy your Freddie Award, and if you need suggestions on what to do with it, I think ol' Tom Perkins will be able to help you with that.

Technorati Tags: Fired, H-P, Patricia Dunn, pretexting

Wanted: Viacom CEO - must be psychic and a crony Everyone knows Tom Freston. He turned MTV from a lightly regarded cable channel that showed music videos to a global entertainment powerhouse that hasn't shown a music video since Beavis compared Jon Bon Jovi's face and hairdo to Bridget Fonda's.

Sumner Redstone showed an impeccable sense of humor by summoning Tom to the Redstone fortress in Beverly Hills on Monday, Labor Day, and firing his ass. The problem, sez Blogging Stocks, was part falling stock price. No wait! said Variety, that's not why Sumner was hotter than a twice-baked lava sandwich...

Wall Street and Hollywood were equally bemused by the abrupt news despite signs of strain between the two men -- particularly Redstone's pique at losing MySpace to News Corp. He blames Freston for letting it slip away. "When Phil and Tom were at the company, no important deal ever got away from them," Redstone told Daily Variety.

But wait, that's not all...

Some MTV insiders questioned Redstone's interpretation of the MySpace chronology. They recalled that Freston, 60, and his team were deep into the due-diligence process when they were blindsided by a bid from Rupert Murdoch. They say the Viacom board, including chairman Redstone, made the decision to back off. The board figured it was a losing proposition any way around to start a bidding war with Murdoch, who is known to pay stratospheric prices for assets he wants.

And in six months when Sumner and Tom are telling the media how much they respect each other, remember what "trust me" means in Hollywood-speak. No, he didn't say "you go to Fuddruckers yourself!'

Technorati Tags: Fired, Viacom, Tom Freston, Sumner Redstone is scary old

Game over for Joystiq's Robert Summa No more quarters from the Joystiqers for prolific poster and Destructoid fan Robert Summa. The knickers got seriously twisted at Joystiq over this post.

The hype machine cranked up to 11 on the news of Wii chip production for Nintendo's forthcoming must-have game console. Too far, apparently, as Joystiq moved into damage control mode...

we made a mistake in allowing this item to snowball into something more than a mere IBM-Nintendo PR announcement that production of chips is on schedule. Our apologies for allowing this one to get way, way out of hand.

Um, ok. So what are they sorry about again?

Instead of defusing the prolonged PR tease that Nintendo has been escalating for the past year, we contributed to it. Instead of doing our readers a service, we added more confusion to the situation. The post was vague and left only room for disappointment which, inevitably, came at 12:01.

Sure, fine, ok, you're forgiven, but may I ask what the hell the problem is here? Robert has an answer...

Joystiq knew the news (I told them) and they knew I was posting a note to let readers know to come back later. If they, at any point, thought I was sensationalizing things or was not in line with their “mission,� then they had an entire day to edit or take down the note.

Robert got fired for hyping up a bit of non-news, that being IBM announcing they have been shipping the Broadway chip, a sleek custom job for the Wii, to Nintendo in significant volume since July. Wait a minute, it's wrong for reporters to hype a story?

Robert doesn't seem too broken up about the whole deal. But now someone at Joystiq has to explain to AOL why their top poster is blogging about gaming at Destructoid instead.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Gaming, Robert Summa, I like to say Wii

Kareem sky-hooks pregnant employee's job Too bad Bruce Lee isn't around to give Kareem Abdul-Jabbar another lesson in manners like he did in the only real Bruce Lee footage in 'Game of Death'. Maybe Jet Li is available instead.

Or maybe the case against the center formerly known as Lew Alcindor just looks really weird. Like money-grab weird. TMZ.com has all the celebrity weirdness...

In an unusual twist, the employee (Broda's daughter) is not the one suing. Instead, Diana Broda claims she worked for a law firm that represented Abdul-Jabbar. Broda says she contacted Jabbar and his company Ain Jeem and threatened to file suit when her daughter was fired. Broda says Kareem and Ain Jeem then went on the attack, contacting the law firm where she worked, which promptly fired her.

So the pregnant daughter got fired by Kareem, and Mom, who worked at the law firm that had Kareem as a client, called Kareem and his company and threatened to sue them for wrongfully terminating the daughter, and he supposedly called the law firm and complained about the Mom complaining, and then Mom got fired.

And now she wants money. I understand that, but shouldn't we think of the children here? What's their cut of the action going to be if Kareem settles, um, whatever this case is, with Mom Broda?

Technorati Tags: Fired, Kareem, Sky Hook, Bruce Lee

Felon advises bully on firing people Martha Stewart took a break from knitting shank cozies for her homegirls back at the federal pen where she spent five months to rip on her longtime nemesis, The Donald. The NY Daily News continues to burnish its tabloid status to my delight with their account of the Dinnerware Demigoddess snarking on the Trumpster...

"By the time he's finished, he will have fired everyone around him and there will be nobody left. And poor Donald will be sitting there on his little pedestal all by himself. He needs to be careful!" Surely, The Donald will exercise his usual restraint when he responds.

I sure hope not.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Knitting, Martha Stewart, Donald Trump, fight fight fight

Express map to Fired in just a few words Getting fired can be a traumatic experience. Few people want to go from paycheck to unemployment check. And having to explain to a prospective employer your reason for being canned involved your boss's desk and a heavily scorched coffee cup can be dismaying for anyone. Trust me on this one.

Sometimes the job just isn't right, and hearing those three sweet words ("YOU ARE FIRED!!!!!") from your direct supervisor spoken as a volume high enough to etch glass is just what you need for some time to recharge while living off that biweekly check and a carefully assembled store of Top Ramen and Chef Boyardee.

If you can't quit, you have to make yourself noticed in such a way that even the most terminally incompetent of managers will realize that your dismissal is more important than her headcount. There's a pretty good list of things to say when you just don't care anymore...

I can see your point, but I still think you're full of sh*t.

I like you. You remind me of myself when I was young and stupid.

And your crybaby whiny-assed opinion would be...?

Who lit the fuse on your tampon?

I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Opinion, Cheap food for the unemployed

NY Times, masters of the obvious "The Grey Lady weeps with sorrow..."

Where to start with this bit of fish wrapping, let me see. A reporter with the Paper of Record scribbled out an article discussing performance reviews. The writer's first name is Kelley, and I think Kelley's a she, so we'll go with that until some large hulking brute built like a Kenworth kicks in the door of my studio apartment and says he's Kelley.

At which point I will weep openly without guilt or shame.

Back to Kelley, mistress of the masters of the obvious. Here's the insight a professorship gives you into the business world...

“I don’t think a lot of people enjoy getting negative feedback, and there aren’t a lot of managers who enjoy giving negative feedback,� said Edward E. Lawler III, a professor at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California and the director of its Center for Effective Organizations.

"BusinessWeek has proclaimed Lawler one of the top six gurus in the field of management," sez his homepage. Yeah, this guy's a fountain of wisdom. I could have told you the same thing about feedback when I was fourteen and losing yet another mowing job because some sandal-wearing Earth mother didn't tell me the weeds I'd just vaporized in the July sun were some kind of herbs.

Kelley goes on to plumb the depths of forced performance ranking, where managers have to put people into a certain number of rankings, and not everyone can be in the top half. Good old Jack Welch perfected this at GE, way before he got caught in flagrante delicto with a lady reporter, earning himself a low ranking from his wife (Yikes!)

Oh, and here's one touchy-feely solution that will last in the real world about as long as a snowflake in Iraq...

MARY JENKINS, a co-author of “Abolishing Performance Appraisals: Why They Backfire and What to Do Instead� (Berrett-Koehler, 2000) advocates a system in which employees themselves seek feedback from people they work with or who have skills they seek, then review a self-designed growth plan with their supervisor. She is using this approach at Genesys Health System in Michigan, where she is vice president for organizational learning and development.

I'll agree with Kelley that performance reviews aren't going anywhere, so I hope Mary wasn't planning to retire based on the strength of that book on flushing the performace review. This is where your typical backstabbing low-life scum-sucking credit-grabbing lying bastard weasel manager gets to lay the groundwork for firing anyone in the department.

Think about it kiddies, you ever get an awesinine performance review that didn't list some areas for improvement? Uh huh. Fail to meet that unseen bar and it's back to hoping Ralph's hasn't stopped the 8 for a dollar ramen noodle sale.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Awesinine, Performance reviews

She's come un-Dunn First-time Freddie Award recipient Patricia "Pretext" Dunn earned the much-deserved booting from her place as chairman (should that be chairperson? Chairwoman? Ah, who cares now?) Darling Patty brought the word "pretext" into public discussion. For those who have been busier trying to figure out what to do in retirement now that HP has killed your pension plans, pretexting is pretty corporate-speak for "lying."

It's like the difference between crazy and eccentric. Homeless guy on the bus talking to himself? He's actually got a cell phone and a Bluetooth jammed into his ear like Lieutenant Uhura, but if he didn't, he'd be crazy. If he was a rich guy chattering about the NFL conspiracy against the Oakland Raiders, he'd be Al Davis, but all the cash means they call him eccentric.

(Aaron Brooks plays like Albert Brooks, that's your insightful sports commentary from me. Forget the sidelines, the Raiders needed Art Shell back on the O-line.)

Back to HP. They've played this whole PR gig about as well as the Raiders did against the Bolts. As in not very well. As in cringingly awful. Do you know what the worst part of the whole HP virtual dumpster diving for phone records was? They did it to reporters, as CNet, the WSJ, and the NYT will probably squeeze that for months.

Everyone knows the bastard press enjoys being spied on about as much as they enjoyed seeing Bush get reelected.

As for HP, they'll move CEO Mark Hurd into the chairman's slot. Mister Cost Cutter probably is more excited about this than Palpatine was when he ordered the clone troopers to execute Order 66. Don't weep for Dunn. She's still staying on as director, and if Valleywag can be believed Precious Patty has enough dirt on other directors in compromising positions to keep herself entrenched on HP Way.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Patricia Dunn, The HP Way

Bristol-Myers Squibb puts Dolan on the dole Headline from Blogging Stocks, Posted Sep 11th 2006 9:08PM: Bristol-Myers CEO fired? Headline from Blogging Stocks, Posted Sep 12th 2006 10:57AM: Bristol-Myers CEO fired - effective immediately!

And what did this bastion of corporate leadership do to earn his dismissal...

While Dolan's self-importance is such that the company's "about us" web page features his name, under "CEO:" as the first (and only managerial) Very Important Detail, he's made such gigantic missteps that a recent article said he had "precious little credibility." His attempts to delay generic competition for Plavix are being investigated by the Justice Department, and he's been responsible for "major financial scandals."

To complete the corporate canning double play, the drug company sent its general counsel, Richard Willard, packing too, at the urging of a federal monitor.

I'll take a moment to let you shed a tear over their firings.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Drugs, Peter Dolan, CEO and lawyer get canned

NFL means Need to Fire some Losers Hiya, it's the New Fred Lineup of coaches who are sitting on the hot seat. I'm a football fan, especially of the pro game. Now that a week of games are in the books, I'll make some completely unqualified guesses as to who's going to be a smear on the owner's carpet. (And here's where they can find a new coaching gig)

Joe Gibbs in DC has to go into Dallas 0-1, and while he's probably safe, club owner Danny Snyder has all the patience of a hamster on PCP. He could snap if he sees Jerry Jones dancing after beating the Skins on Sunday night.

Rod Marinelli is going to be 0-2 after the Lions play Da Bears, but if they keep it to a field goal there's no reason to call for Coach Rod's head on a plate. Green Bay....ewww. They had an awful 2005, and sacked the coach for being unfortunate enough to lose pretty much his entire offense through the season. Mike McCarthy may commit ritual suicide on the frozen tundra by the time December rolls around, which would make it slightly more difficult to fire him.

Chuckie Gruden's Bucs matched the Raiders in being on the wrong side of a 27-0 shutout by Baltimore. No one wants to say it out loud, but Chris Simms isn't Phil Simms. Chris couldn't win the big ones at Texas, and he's done nothing to show he can do it in the bigs. Chuckie won't wait all year to figure this out if he wants to keep his job, he'll make a QB change.

John Fox found out what it's like to run the Panthers without Steve Smith – it's a welcome to Loserville, population you. Fox is my early pick for Coach Most Likely to be Fired In '06. The less said about Mike Nolan and the 49ers, the better. He'll get part of one more year, at least.

So my picks for NFC losers to be fired are Fox, Gibbs, and possibly the late Mike McCarthy.

Technorati Tags: Fired, NFL, Coaches, Are you ready for some football?

AFC stands for Already Fired Coaches Ok, maybe no one's been fired yet in the AFC, but if they don't survive the season, it'll be time to stump for a new team.

So I'm going to look at the week one losers and figure out who leads the way in needing that pink slip delivered by a screaming, foaming at the mouth, unhappy owner. C'mon, front office types, take your video phones to work and send me the footage of the main man's meltdown in front of a failed coach.

Everyone thinks Buffalo is going to stink up the AFC East and put Dick Jauron back on the unemployment line. But Nick Saban may get there first in Daunte Culpepper continues to have mental meltdowns like he did against Pittsburgh. I really doubt either of these guys are in much jeopardy right now.

Romeo Crennel needs an offensive line in Cleveland. He's got one more year to get one, maybe half a season before the Dawg Pound starts calling for Romeo Tartare. Of course, with Cincy coming to town this week, that howling could begin by dinner time around Lake Erie.

Houston just hired Gary Kubiak. Tennessee just drafted Vince Young for Jeff Fisher's roster. It would probably take a 2-14 finish in Nashville to see anyone asking for Fisher's body to be dropped off somewhere near Music Row.

The only thing that might save Art Shell in Oakland and Herm Edwards in Kansas City are their quarterback issues. Just being a first year coach means nothing to the fans in either town, despite the awful play of Aaron Brooks (ha, no surprise) and Trent Green's concussion (the guy is like 183 years old anyway.)

Mike The Genius Shanahan doesn't have those excuses. The Broncos got stuffed by Jim Haslett's Ram defense and only managed 10 points. Listen close and you can hear the Mile High faithful chanting for Jay Cutler to replace Jake the Snake in the huddle.

Shanahan's been living on rep for a long time now. He's due for a change of scenery, so I'll make him first on my list of AFC Coaches Most Likely to be Cruising Juarez instead of a NFL Sideline, followed by Shell (because Al Davis is, ahem, unpredictable), and Crennel (woof!)

Technorati Tags: Fired, NFL, Coaches, Are you ready for some football?

Altercation loses a fight MSNBC's Eric Alterman moves from cable to the blogosphere starting 9/18, where he'll probably feel more at home than at the little-watched cable news channel.

Alternet has the news about Alterman's alteration by the network...

"Whether my termination is, in fact, a product of a political decision at GE/NBC, which according to reports I read and gossip I hear, has lately taken a much firmer hand in guiding the content of both MSNBC and MSNBC.com, I have no way of knowing. ...But speculation is not the same thing as evidence, and the good folks at MSNBC.com and GE/NBC can, I'm sure, give you good reasons why dumping Altercation is the right thing to do from a business standpoint -- though the natural speculation that arises is a damn good argument against the kind of media concentration that allows a company like GE to own NBC in the first place." I'm quite interested, to say the least, to hear that explanation. If I'm being honest, I'm concerned that, if there's a progressive purge at MSNBC, liberal favorite Keith Olbermann would be next on their chopping block.

Keith probably wouldn't give a rat's backside about being fired. He's been sacked from so many jobs for being a complete ass to people that he'd deserve a lifetime Freddie Award if I gave those out. Besides, Keith's always got Dan Patrick, and the rumor has been that Dan threatened to bolt ESPN unless they swallowed their pride and let Keith come on the air with him an hour a day on the radio.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Eric Alterman, Does anyone watch MSNBC?

Waitresses whacked by weightist New York bosses

Holy portly patronage, Batman! The Gothamist sez a couple of waitresses at the upscale Sutton Place Bar & Restaurant endured some heavy harassment that may have stemmed from some sort of idiotic competition between restaurant managers in the Big Apple, and resulted in both women being fired...

Kristen McRedmond and Alexandria Lipton claim that management was asking only female servers their weights and doing some crazy things, like one manager trying to pick up McRedmond to be weighed on a scale. Or there's the manager who asked waitresses their weights:"The manager, Neil, came over to me and asked me how much I weigh. I said, 'I don't know.' He looks me up and down, and he goes, '135' . . . Then he writes down my weight," Lipton said. Also, McRedmond and Lipton claim that they were criticized when they would order fried food, that their weights were put on a spreadsheet, and that they were fired for being upset over the weigh-ins.

The always trustworthy New York Post said the lawyers are involved and the women have 'come heavy' with ye olde $15 million harassment lawsuit...

They also claim that waitresses' individual weights were tracked on a computer spreadsheet - and the results placed on a Web site that tracked the weights of waitresses in other establishments in the city. "I've been doing sexual-harassment law for 20 years, and this has to be the most egregious case of degradation to women that I have ever seen," said the women's lawyer, Rosemarie Arnold. "It's unbelievable."

Technorati Tags: Fired, Waitresses, New York, Tip the scale I mean server

DJ soon to be laughed out of court over his firing Troi Torain, also known by the cutesy nickname DJ Star, lost his radio gig and now claims he was unjustly fired. He wants $10 million out of Clear Channel for this outrage.

Before you start emailing in support of this manly man, take a peek at the misbehavin' that got him an escort to the parking lot...

Torain, 42, was fired May 10 by Clear Channel Broadcasting Inc. from WWPR-FM, or Power 105.1, after he threatened to sexually abuse and urinate on the 4-year-old daughter of Raashaun Casey, who goes by DJ Envy on WQHT-FM, or Hot 97. Torain also was arrested, but a judge dismissed the charges on the condition he stay out of trouble for six months. In the lawsuit, Torain's lawyers said his statements about his rival's child, "given the entire context, were clearly not serious nor would any reasonable listener of his show deem them so."

His lawyers are also blaming Clear Channel for directing Troi to play a "rotation of songs with sexist, racist and degrading lyrics."

I can see where that would drive any reasonable person to jokingly threaten a four-year-old girl. NOT. Let's hope Troi's security escort helped him down a stairwell or two on the way out of the building, preferably with a hard shove to the back. Stay classy, DJ Star.

Technorati Tags: Fired, DJ Star, Good riddance

Email and the self-inflicted firing Sending sensitive corporate data out of the company with your work email account is about as smart as pulling that container of sour cream out of the fridge, seeing that it expired around the end of the Reagan Administration, and spooning a generous dollop into your mouth.

Yum. Tastes like teen spirit.

The Laszlo Letter found a couple of choice Wall Street Journal paragraphs about an employee who did that stupid act. The email one, not the sour cream one. Here's what the cigar-puffing Laszlo found so I didn't have to look there myself...

"Tom Bowers, a security manager for a big pharmaceutical company, got a tip earlier this year that an employee had accessed sensitive drug data for which she didn't have clearance. Mr. Bowers searched the employee's computer, using recently purchased software that tracks file transfers and Internet use. He found she had sent confidential drug-manufacturing data outside the company. The employee was fired. "We have suspected for a long time that this type of activity was going on, but [until buying the software] we had no way to track it," Mr. Bowers says."

Hey, kids? Listen to your buddy Fred here. Your evil corporate masters are watching everything you do on the corporate network, with plenty of other sleazy companies eager to sell them software that makes it easier to do so.

Here's a pop quiz – who's dumber, the unnamed employee who got the Security Softshoe Shuffle out of the office for emailing the drug details? Or Laszlo, who despite having what looks like a career-length attachment to the life sciences industry, smokes stogies the size of Subway's footlong meatball sub?

Technorati Tags: Fired, Email, Cigar smoking

Shanghai Fired – the commie edition Yeah, I'm shocked too that the superior Chinese government system could produce a grifting money-grabber like Chen Liangyu. He kicked back in Shanghai living large off the city's pension fund...

The government investigation has centred on the alleged misuse of at least one third of the 10bn yuan ($1.2bn) pension fund to make illegal loans and investments in real estate and other infrastructure deals. Chen Liangyu, 60, is accused of seeking benefits for companies and relatives and protecting people around him "who had seriously violated discipline and law", Xinhua reported.

The BBC said a couple of city officials from Shenyang got the ultimate firing for their land deals, as the compassionate Chinese government sentenced them both to death.

Could you imagine if the death penalty was the reward in the US for taking bribes while in public office? The guillotine would be thumping non-stop in DC.

I'm not a cruel person. I'd settle for seeing thieves like our fine Congressionals receive a Singapore-style caning for grabbing bribes. In public. In January. While bare-ass naked.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Bribes, I'll give you 100 yuan for a running head start

Howard Stern gets Post to toss a critic Tag this story with "bad idea." John Mainelli went up against the King of all Media by publishing a column in the New York Post that claimed Howard would leave his fiefdom at Sirius and return to the yoke and harness of terrestrial radio.

Not a big deal so far. Radar Online said John was just passing on a rumor. That's true in a way, but not the "here's the whole story" way.

Here's the whole story, or at least the tasty parts of it...

Though Mainelli was merely picking up a report from Inside Radio, an industry trade, Stern chose to blast him rather than the source—probably because Mainelli spiced up his story with other damaging details, such as a rumor that Stern was having trouble booking high-profile guests and had lost popularity as an Internet search term. Stern's Howard 100 news team called attention to Mainelli's consulting ties on air, and their reporting was picked up by journalism blog Buzzmachine.com.

John then had a brief meeting with the Post's topper, Col Allan. (I think his name's Col, or maybe he's a Colonel, who knows?) Either dump the consulting gigs for radio or say goodbye to your job with the Post. John said goodbye to the Post...

"I consider myself fired," Mainelli tells Radar. "I can't live on what I earn from the Post." "I'm very disappointed, and I'm really pissed at Howard Stern," he says. "From now on, anything I write about him will have to have a disclaimer: John Mainelli has an ax to grind against this man."

LAist gave a few reasons why John's departure from the Post post won't result in a lot of Best Wishes cards posted to the ex-Post radio poster...

What also came to light was Mainelli's primary source in the story was a columnist from Inside Radio, a publication that is about old-fashioned radio and owned by Clear Channel who not only owns tons of radio stations, but also is an investor in XM. So you have a writer who gets paid by traditional radio, sourcing another writer who gets paid by traditional radio conglomerate, spreading lies about a phenomenon happening on satellite radio.

Don't try posting up the King of all Media, unless you want to get posterized in public.

Technorati Tags: Fired, John Mainelli, King of all Media, Howard Stern

Jason Whitlock drops names as ESPN drops him The heavyweight champion of sportswriting got his substantial butt tossed by the Worldwide Leader in Terrell Owens Coverage for being way too honest about what he thinks of Mike Lupica and Scoop Jackson. Here's why he 86'ed ESPN Page2 (watch the names drop)...

I’ve always disagreed with Page 2 about the value of my column. But when I started, it was an opportunity to write alongside Ralph Wiley, Hunter S. Thompson and Bill Simmons. That’s a great lineup, and I just wanted to be in the middle of that order somewhere. Page 2 had a lot of energy. Ralph and Hunter passed, Simmons got his own page, the editor who kicked me ideas (Jay Lovinger) got promoted and suddenly I was batting in a very different lineup, and the new manager had me hitting a lot lower in the order.

Then JW took himself off Scoop's holiday greeting card list...

We didn’t work together. But, yeah, there’s a big dropoff from being associated with Ralph, Hunter and Bill than being linked to someone doing a bad Nat X impersonation....Scoop Jackson is no Ralph Wiley. Ralph was a grown-ass man who didn’t bojangle for anybody. Scoop is a clown.

And then right off Mike's list too...

Lupica is an insecure, mean-spirited busybody. He’s upset because I put a clown suit on him on [The Sports Reporters] and in a follow-up column I wrote for ESPN. His little disingenuous overreaction to an opinion I’d stated previously on the show was staged to try to put me in a bad light. I guess no one had ever informed Mike that the E in ESPN stood for Entertainment. The Little Fella probably won’t let the producer (Joe Valerio) have me back on the show again.

Jason, if you're going to smack Mike around, don't do it over ESPN. Do it because he followed up "Bump And Run" with "Red Zone," a book so bad I wouldn't wipe with it if I was out of Charmin.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Jason Whitlock, ESPN, Mike Lupica, Scoop Jackson

The Donald deserves to hear Those Two Words Unlike H-P inquisitor Pattie Dunn, it's not likely Herr Trump will fulfill the deepest desires of the Freddie Award by firing himself. I'm still giving it to him for this reason – the guy is losing money on casinos. How does anyone own a casino and lose money on it?

The Combover found a way, bless his heart...

Under Trump's watch, the company borrowed way too much money -- upwards of $2 billion. Worse, it used the money to create unnecessary layers of management instead of spending to keep casinos and hotel rooms from becoming outdated.

Just like for bettors scrounging for change on Fremont Street, eventually the markers come due. Even though the Trumpster isn't hands on running his casinos these days, he's the one who strapped them with so much debt that even Tony Soprano couldn't drive down to South Jersey and turn them into money makers.

Technorati Tags: Fired, The Donald, Gambling money ain't got no home

Valleywag desperately seeking Intel about firings Valleywag desperately seeking Intel about firings

"I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?"

The Hedda Hopper of the Silicon Valley set wants some serious intel on Intel.

Valleywag has put out the call for news about who's going to get the axe-wielding woodsman treatment from Paul Otellini. A reader asked Nick Douglas's cheerful gossip site about it, and the Man of Mockery posted his perplexity about the situation...

Well we're as clueless as he is -- if you know who's getting laid off at Intel next week, give yourself a username and password and leave a comment, or e-mail tips@valleywag.com. Pseudonyms are accepted.

Since I deal in the already-fired (except for the NFL 'cause it's fun to speculate about coaches getting canned; oh yeah, the Freddie stuff too) I'll trail along behind and watch the fun develop at the Wag.

Technorati Tags: Fired, Intel, Valleywag, Nick Douglas is like unto a god

Kawasaki on revving up the firing engine Even though Guy Kawasaki wrote about The Art of Firing roughly a century ago in Internet time (that equates to two months ago), his loquacious work should be mandatory reading for all the manager types who might have to fire someone in order to scapegoat an employee at a later date.

Guy