Here is an interesting one. Earlier this week, the mayor of a small town in Oregon was fired after the town learned that there were pictures on the Internet of their esteemed leader posing in front of a fire truck in a black lace bra and panty set. The photographs were taken before she was elected and were posted on MySpace by a family member who wanted to help improve the mayor’s social life. But the mayor left the photographs up after she was elected, and her opponents found this to be inappropriate. So she lost her job.

The ouster raises an interesting point: Can/should an employer check out employees or prospective employees on the Internet? After all, there is wealth of information on the world wide web. On the other hand, there is a lot of information the employer just doesn’t want to know. After all, just what should human resources do after discovering photographs of a job candidate doing keg stands on the employee’s MySpace page? Does it bring forth any issues under the Americans with Disabilities Act? What if a current employee’s page shows her doing bong hits or the page contains racially or sexually offensive content?

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Finally, the strike is officially over. And, according to the New York Times, new episodes of “The Office” will start airing on April 10, 2008. Thank God! In the meantime, there are plenty of real life cases with facts so bizarre that they rival the plots dreamed up by Hollywood writers. To get us started, check out my friend John Phillips’ recent blog entry on the Philadelphia anchorwoman who appeared on Dr. Phil; e-mailed photographs of herself in a bikini to a colleague; and allegedly slugged a cop.

Here’s a shocker: the network terminated her contract. Presumably, she had a “morals clause” in her employment agreement. A “morals clause” is standard in celebrity contracts (or so I’m told in the attached article). Essentially, these clauses provide that an employee can be terminated for engaging in behavior that will cause scandal, public contempt, or disrepute. One can only imagine what type of trouble Michael would get into if he had a contract with a “morals clause.” Certainly food for thought….

The people have spoken.  And, as you might have guessed, the worst HR moment in The Office occurred when Michael handed out the Kama Sutra to all employees during a staff meeting. What a human resources nightmare.

On a related note, I’m encouraged to hear that the writers guild and the studios have reached a tentative agreement.  With any luck, we’ll have a new episode soon.  Keep your fingers crossed.

Continuing in the spirit of the awards season, my next category is “Most Ineffective HR Moment.” And the nominees are:

• When human resources manager Toby told Dwight that his grievances were sent to Dundler Mifflin’s corporate office in New York while they were actually thrown into a box underneath Toby’s desk.

• When Toby elects to disregard the company’s “love contract” policy with Jim and Pam. Or, really, having such a policy at all.

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