And the winner for this year's award for biting the hand that feeds is... workers at Leicestershire County Council who were offered a fully paid afternoon off to do their Christmas shopping.
Instead, staff were angered by cabinet member, Kevin Feltham's, suggestions that it would 'prevent staff from skiving off' to do their festive season shopping anyway.
The result was an apology from the council and day time television for Mr Feltham, who got the sack for his trouble.
Leicestershire County Council said it did not allow staff extra time off for Christmas shopping and had no plans to do so.
Council leader David Parsons said: "I want to make sure that staff realise that we value them very highly and recent comments in the press do not reflect what we think about them.
"With the co-operation of our staff and trade unions, we have reduced absence rates year on year. We want to continue with our positive approach to supporting staff at work in every way we can."
I have a feeling that Mr Feltham must have thought he was going to get a special mention at the Christmas party for his efforts to please his colleagues.
