Police in Kingston, Ontario, were called to the scene by a man who claimed two thugs assaulted him on his way to work and tried to steal his wallet.

The man had a swollen lip and a possible broken nose, the Whig Standard reports.

After questioning him, the police began noticing holes in his story. Eventually, he broke down and told the truth: He’d punched himself in the face several times and concocted the mugging story to use as an excuse to skip work.

Police didn’t release the name of the man’s employer, but the officer who questioned him said, “I can only assume that they didn’t have a great sick plan where he works.”

In the end, the cops were kind enough to give the “victim” what he wanted. He got the day off — but he had to spend the day in jail for filing a false police report.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen an employee do for a day off? Let us know in the comments section below.

Due to a payroll processing error, a bus monitor in Nashville, TN, quit her job yet still received a paycheck for an additional eight weeks.

When asked how it could happen, a spokeswoman for the school district simply said, “It didn’t get communicated to the person in payroll.”

Eventually, someone noticed the error, MSNBC reports. No word on how much money was paid, or if the district will try to recover it.

The worst part: School officials say the district may need to cut up to $15 million from next year’s budget. So, like at most employers these days, every penny counts.

This news comes less than a week after it was a reported a bus driver in the district was caught stealing more than $9,000 worth of gas for her personal car.

Can an employer require its employees to be clean shaven if workers wear facial hair for religious reasons? The situation gets even more complicated when workplace safety is involved.

A federal court has ruled the District of Columbia can’t force its firefighters to be clean shaven.

The court ruled firefighters who wear beards for religious reasons are exempt from the District’s no-beards policy under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The court said the District failed to prove its argument that beards stand in the way of good respirator fits. Firefighters use respirators to breathe when fires create a lack of oxygen.

The issue surrounds the firefighters’ use of self-contained breathing apparatuses (SCBAs).

There are two types: Those with positive pressure have been shown to protect against any leakage that might be caused by facial hair.

However, questions remain about leakage with negative-pressure SCBAs.

The court ruled the District didn’t show why firefighters with beards could not be redeployed elsewhere when negative-pressure respirators were required.

As it stands now, the ruling is the opposite of what’s required by OSHA: “The [respirator fit] test shall not be conducted if there is any hair growth between the skin and the facepiece sealing surface, such as stubble beard growth, beard, mustache or sideburns which cross the respirator sealing surface.”

However, OSHA regulations don’t cover public employees.

Cite: Potter v. District of Columbia, U.S. Court of Appeals, DC Circuit, No. 07-7163, 3/6/09.

New hires at SuccessFactors, a software firm based in San Mateo, CA, are required to sign off on a list of 15 corporate principles.

Number 15: “I will not be an a–hole.”

CEO Lars Dalgaard implemented that policy after years of corporate experience taught him that jerks (as we’ll call them) “stifle performance,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle.

As for the harsh language, he said the rule would be easier to ignore without it.

What also makes the rule tough to ignore is that Dalgaard isn’t afraid to enforce it. One time, he took a group of job candidates out to lunch at a local restaurant. Those who weren’t friendly to the waitstaff weren’t brought back to continue the interview process.

Ever worked at a company that needed a policy on jerks? Do you think a rule like Dalgaard’s is good for a company or just an impractical gimmick? Let us know your opinion in the comments section.

First it was the caretaker job for a tropical Australian island.

Now, AirAsia is asking for entries from people who want to be a pilot — no experience required.

The Malaysian airline’s Web site makes it seem easy: “So YOU wanna be a pilot? Simple. What do you have to do? Blog. What? That’s it? Yes, you’re reading it right. Blog.”

The airline will select 10 finalists who will take part in the first round of new pilot intake.

The contest starts April 1. Hm. Has anyone noticed that’s April Fools’ Day?

Five months ago, Jason Fruen of Manchester, England, lost his job as a mechanical maintenance engineer.

After sending his resume to companies and having no luck, he adopted a different strategy: He started wearing the resume.

Fruen donned a sandwich board that read, in big bold letters, “Mechanical maintenance engineer, seeking employment,” along with his telephone number, the Daily Mail reports.

His plan: Stand by an industrial complex and hope someone pays attention. He didn’t have to wait very long.

On his first day of self-advertising, a car pulled over. The owner of a local company offered him a job.

Unfortunately, it was only for a two-and-a-half month temporary assignment. So now, Freun is hitting the streets again, starting every day at 5:30 a.m.

What extreme job-seeker tactics have you seen or heard about? Would anything like Freun’s gimmick grab your attention enough to consider someone for a job? Let us know in the comments section below.

Henry Velez suffered from a rare medical condition that made him unable to sweat. Despite that problem, he worked in manual labor for most of his life. He had one work restriction: He needed to take breaks to cool down.

While working for Agro Distribution, he spent about two years without any problems — his manager allowed him to take breaks as needed.

Then every employee in Velez’s position was assigned a new duty — the unpleasant task of unloading dirty, empty barrels that had been used to feed cattle. Velez told his boss his condition prevented him from helping.

The manager wouldn’t hear of it — after all, he’d been performing similar work for two years. What was different now?

Velez filed a complaint with the EEOC, alleging the company violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The agency thought he had a case.

However, the EEOC handled the matter in a way that was less than objective, according to the company. When an investigator came to the facility, she insulted managers, scoffed at their answers to questions and attempted to rephrase their statements to favor Velez.

Afterward, the company claimed it tried to contact the EEOC to offer a settlement, but the agency never responded.

Eventually, the issue ended up in court. The judge agreed with the company that Velez wasn’t protected by the ADA. And, the court ruled, the EEOC “failed to conciliate in good faith.”

The final decision: The case was tossed, and the EEOC was forced to pay Agro’s legal fees.

Cite: EEOC v. Agro Distribution LLC.

We can all probably agree on this: Criticizing your employer on the Web is a stupid thing to do. But what should the punishment be?

Dan Leone was the west gate chief on game days at the Philadelphia Eagles’ Lincoln Financial Field. He worked on game days for the Eagles for six years.

Recently, he became upset at the Eagles’ decision to let longtime Safety Brian Dawkins sign with the Denver Broncos.

Leone expressed his frustration with Dawkins’ departure by posting this on his Facebook page: “Dan is [expletive] devastated about Dawkins signing with Denver … Dam Eagles R Retarted!!” (We haven’t corrected any spelling in the post.)

Leone regretted his post soon after making it and took it down.

Less than two days after posting his remarks, Leone says he was contacted by the team’s director of event operations, Leonard Bonacci, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Leone says Bonacci told him they had to talk about the Facebook post.

Two days later, Leone says, he received a call from the team’s guest services manager, Rachel Vitagliano, who fired him over the phone in a call that lasted less than 10 minutes. Leone says he never heard back from Bonacci.

Leone says he was ready to apologize, and did so when he got the call that he was fired. He says Vitagliano didn’t want to hear it and told him he couldn’t be trusted, the post made the team look bad and the only option was to fire him.

As you might imagine, Leone’s story has become a célèbre. The article in the Inquirer notes that he grew up in the shadow of the Eagles’ old Veterans Stadium and that he has a neurological disorder called transverse myelitis. The disorder requires him to do his job at the stadium sometimes in a wheelchair.

The title of the article is a rallying cry: Cold Eagles sure are thin-skinned. It suggests the Eagles could have handled the situation with a warning, a suspension and that Leone deserved a face-to-face meeting even though he was a part-time employee.

Leone says, “If they called me right now and told me to come back to work, I would. I’m not holding any grudges. I just want to do my job.”

So, what do you think? Was the firing too harsh? What about the way it was allegedly handled? (The Eagles won’t comment.) Is a suspension with a warning a better way to handle this situation? Does it depend on exactly what’s said in an employee’s Web post? How would you handle an employee’s Web post critical of your company?

Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below.

The man who inspired the character Sam Malone on TV’s Cheers has been laid off from his bar tending job in Boston.

Eddie Doyle tended bar for 35 years at the pub known as the Bull & Finch.

The bar’s owner says the economy is to blame.

After Cheers debuted on NBC in 1982, he started serving 5,000 customers a day.

Doyle tells The Boston Globe that he’s not bitter and he might write a book about his experiences.

While working at the North Carolina Department of Transportation, Elsie Hinton was warned by her boss four times about napping during work hours.

The fifth time she was caught, she got fired.

Now she’s filing a complaint demanding the DOT reinstate her, the Charlotte Observer reports.

Hinton says she suffers from sleep apnea, which prevents her from getting continual rest at night. She uses medical equipment to help her sleep, but claims it had been malfunctioning.

The DOT maintains it shouldn’t have to use taxpayer money to pay an employee to sleep.

Does Hinton have a case?

Maybe. Some courts have agreed that sleep apnea is a disability as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act, and that allowing periodic rest breaks could be a reasonable accommodation for employees in some positions.

What do you think about the outcome of this case? Let us know in the comments section below.