(
)
Steve Carell (
)
* The YouTube for Fun and Profit Award
This one goes to the professors at the National University of Singapore who demonstrated in a study that occasional Web browsing can aid workers’ productivity, offering ready justification to malingering office jocks the world over. In the study, titled “Impact of Cyberloafing on Psychological Engagement,” Don J.Q. Chen and Vivien K.G Lim found that a Web break not only refreshed tired workers, it did so more than other activities, such as e-mailing. Their conclusion: “Browsing the Internet serves an important restorative function.”
* The Going on Strike Award
You know those times when you’re sitting at your desk trying to solve a problem, and suddenly you’re hit with a bolt of lightning? Robert Jones of Northport, Ala., knows the feeling — though in his case, the lightning bolt was literal. Jones, an elementary school physical education teacher, was sitting in his office in the school’s activity center early one morning when lightning hit the school and somehow traveled through the building and struck Jones at his desk. No lasting harm was done to Jones, who was treated at the hospital and released. No word on whether his teams’ records have improved since the jolt.
* The As the Stomach Turns Award
So maybe your boss makes you want to throw up. There’s a city worker who can go you one better: He charged in a lawsuit that his boss actually did make him vomit. As The Post reported in February, Housing Authority superintendent Anthony Dingle said constant berating by his boss caused him to suffer stomach and intestinal trouble and other maladies. He claimed the boss’ verbal abuse began after he complained about her to higher-ups.
* The Working Stiff Award
We’ve all had slow days at work, but this was something else entirely. A worker at the Los Angeles County Deparment of Internal Services died at her desk in February — and it was a day before anyone noticed. The 51-year-old woman, a longtime compliance auditor for the agency, was found by a security guard on a Saturday afternoon in her cubicle, where she was presumed to have died the day before.
* The Winning Attitude Award
Michael Kosko, a six-year employee of the state Homes and Community Renewal agency in Albany, was a regular member of the office Lotto pool, but when it came time to pony up $2 one week last April, he passed. The reason: He didn’t have two singles handy. The result: Seven of his colleagues went on to win a staggering $319 million Mega Millions jackpot, while Kosko collected nothing.
It’s an all-too-common scenario that’s spawned enough lawsuits to keep a platoon of litigators in Armani — just ask the workers at an Ohio cabinet company who got mired in such a suit in September. But when he spoke to The Post in April, Kosko was having none of it. He refused to second-guess what he’d done, accepting the cruel irony of the situation in good humor. He said his co-workers “deserve it, they are the hardest working people I’ve ever met.” He said after growing up poor, he felt like a winner because he had a job he loved. In short, he displayed heart-warming decency and a sense of perspective in a situation that’s gotten the worst of many others, and we commend him for it.
* The Paper Tiger Award
He’s the only clueless, egotistical, incompetent nightmare of a boss we’re actually sorry to see quit. But we bid a fond @work farewell to Michael Scott, the bumbling buffoon played by Steve Carell for seven seasons on the workplace classic “The Office,” who finally left Dunder-Mifflin behind in April for a new life with his fiancée in Colorado. Carell’s indelible portrayal of a hapless middle manager lives on in reruns, though.
* The Cape of Good Grief Award
When it came to dealing with the jobless, the employment agency Workforce Central Florida really delivered. OK, it didn’t deliver jobs, exactly, but it supplied something that, as anyone who’s ever been unemployed can tell you, is nearly as important: superhero costuming.
More specifically, the federally funded agency spent more than $14,000 to buy red capes to hand out to job seekers as part of a public relations campaign they dubbed the “CapeaBility Challenge,” which also featured a cartoon character called “Dr. Evil Unemployment.”
Condemnation came hard and fast after the Orlando Sentinel ran a story about the program, which was deemed to be insensitive and a questionable use of public money.
* The Out With a Bang Award
When it came time to quit, Providence, RI, hotel worker Joey DeFrancesco wasn’t one to quietly hand over a letter of resignation. Well, he did hand over a letter of resignation — he just didn’t do it quietly.
On the contrary, DeFrancesco snuck a 19-piece brass band into the hotel where he’d spent three and a half years working in room service, and had them launch into a stomping Serbian folk tune as he announced that he was quitting and dropped a resignation letter in front of his unamused boss.
A YouTube video of the August incident went viral, with many a commenter expressing admiration for DeFrancesco’s Johnny Paycheck moment. Which, the 23-year-old told the Huffington Post, was the final salvo in on ongoing war between him and his bosses.
“I hated them, and they hated me,” he said.
* The Guess Michael Scott’s Not So Bad After All Award
Plenty of workers might believe they have the country’s worst boss, but those who toil for Hollywood film producer Jon Peters can point to actual empirical backup for that claim. The 66-year-old former hairdresser — whose credits include “Caddyshack,” “Rain Man” and “Batman” — earned the top spot on eBossWatch’s list of the worst bosses of 2011.
In August, Peters was ordered to pay more than $3 million to a former assistant who’d accused him of sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment. The assistant, Shelly Morita, testified that Peters had exposed himself to her, abused drugs, made suggestive comments, tried to rub her thigh as she made business calls and otherwise behaved inappropriately.
She’s not the first to level such charges at Peters, who’s previously been hit with harassment suits by a male co-worker and a live-in maid.
* The Maybe We Should Have Passed Notes Award
They swapped gossipy e-mails taking aim at co-workers’ appearances and mannerisms. They gave colleagues mocking nicknames, dubbing one boss “Teen Wolf” and another worker “Psycho.” They made vulgar jokes and traded offensive pictures. And they did it all during work hours.
In other words, they did something routinely done by office workers everywhere. The difference, though, is that most workers’ catty missives aren’t revealed for public reading. But in August, that nightmarish scenario came true for three former investigators at the Iowa Civil Rights Commission, who’d been fired from their jobs after a supervisor noted how much of their work time was spent sending “profane, obscene, vulgar, inappropriate e-mails.”
When the workers sued for unemployment benefits, records of their e-correspondence were submitted in court — and then obtained by the Associated Press. The volume of on-the-clock gossip demonstrated a poor work ethic, argued commission director Beth Townsend (aka “Night Ranger”). But, as the AP reported, deposed worker Michele Howard testified that everyone used e-mail for non-work purposes, and called the messages “just the girls being silly.”
* The Give This Man a Job Award
Plenty of hardworking, capable, honorable people have been laid off in recent years and struggled to find work. In October we told the story of one of them, former financial analyst Richard Moore, who despite a stellar employment record and a dogged work ethic had been out of work over three years after an unexpected layoff.
The story drew a flood of e-mails from those who sympathized, those who related, those who were unsettled by the tale — even from former colleagues who testified to Moore’s abilities. It also prompted missives from those who wanted to help, including some who asked for Moore’s resume. But as of last week, Moore was facing his fourth Christmas without a job, and wondering what to do next. We wish the best of luck to him and all our job-seeking readers in 2012.