▪ An announcer for London's Tube system was fired in November after recording spoof messages and posting them on her Web site. Some of the alerts told American tourists they were talking too loudly and warned male passengers to stop staring at female riders.

▪ Hip-hop mogul P. Diddy turned to the Internet this summer to find a personal assistant. Applicants had three minutes to showcase their talents and win him over. More than 10,000 Diddy-helper hopefuls applied for the position via video-sharing site YouTube.

▪ An Iowa woman was fired in January for misuse of company time – keeping an electronic diary about how she avoids work. Some of the entries detailed her efforts to fool management into believing she was hard at work, usually by furiously typing. The entire 300-page, single-spaced tome was written on the clock with a company computer.

Non-tech stories involved a South Korean bank that sent its employees on blind dates; a hotel chain's job posting for a Chief Beer Officer position; an architecture firm's moon-based design project; and a Thai law enforcement program involving "Hello Kitty" armbands.