the other night we had a lightning storm here in san francisco, and since then the outlets on my office circuit don't work. the breaker wasn't thrown, and when i test it using a little plug-in circuit tester, it says hot and ground are reversed. could this have happened from the storm? what the heck?

I can't see any way that a lightning event could reverse the polarity. Are you sure that it was OK prior to the storm?

At any rate, you should call a licensed electrician to check this one out. The polarity error could be anywhere between the outlet and the main breaker panel.

I recently saw an outlet that tested as hot and neutral reversed with one of those $12 plug in testers.

I found a burned off ground wire when I opened the outlet box. I thought that was odd but didn't expect that to be the problem. I fixed the ground and the problem went away.

The only explination I can come up with is that there was some voltage feeding back through a light or some appliance that had enough current to light the wrong neon lamp.

Truth is, I still don't have a clear picture in my head why this solved the problem.

Is there a GFCI receptacle on this circuit? If there is I would check that out first.

Bill