You're Fired

Q: What does it take to get an award-winning actor fired from the highest-rated comedy on television?
A: Apparently this.

If I was a betting man, I would have lost money on Charlie Sheen's employment status. Despite all of his antics, Charlie Sheen was simply too valuable to CBS for them to let him go, or so I thought.

This entire saga has been an interesting point of discussion for my classes. Many of my students don't understand why ole Charlie's in trouble, but it's nice to see that someone that valuable to a company can get canned like the rest of us.

Nuclear Meltdown

From: Pierre J.'s Flickr account

I used to think that a Hollywood star that generated insane amounts of money for a studio had a license to do whatever they wanted with their personal life. Charlie Sheen must have thought that, too.

After already putting his hit show "Two and a Half Men" on hiatus, twice, Sheen went on a profane, anti-Semitic rant regarding his boss, Chuck Lorre, on Thursday. I wondered what the reaction of Lorre and CBS would be, thinking they might give him another free pass. Apparently not, though.

It's too bad that Hollywood stars don't face consequences of their actions every time they break the law. Yes, I know there's a lot of money involved, but I would like to see a studio draw the line with their talents' behavior. Who knows, they may behave.

Behaving Off the Clock

From: Microsoft Clip Art

I had the "honor" of teaching Career Management my first year in the business. I made it a theme of my class that what you did outside of work affected your employment status. Back in '07, there were plenty of examples to prove me right, like Michael Vick and Pacman Jones.

One guy who always seemed to escape consequences for being a bad boy has been Charlie Sheen. Despite a long list of offenses, Sheen has always seemed to dodge any punishment. Recently, a senior CBS exec, when asked about Sheen's behavior, stated that it was no big deal as long as he showed up to tape his highly successful show, "Two and a Half Men."

Oops. With Charlie's recent binge and subsequent trip to the hospital, taping of his show has been affected. How long can Sheen keep this up? How long will the show go on?