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Employees That've Been Fired On The Spot Reveal What Happened

Losing your job is embarrassing. Being fired is extremely so. Some people make mistakes, but some people face consequences completely disproportionate to whatever it was they did. These are their stories.


u/imnutothis asked Reddit:

People who have been straight up fired on the spot. What happened?

Here were some of those answers.

Dodged A Ribeye

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Chef here. Got fired because I sent a steak out that "had char on it".

The only "char" on it was grill marks.

Ok lady, you probably just saved me a huge mess.

cptcormshark

Played Yourself

I handed my boss my two week notice and she ripped it in half and said "Don't bother, you're done today."

HQ wasn't too thrilled with her decision as they had to pay me a severance because of her hatred towards me.

rahamulous

Haha, I once had the exact opposite happen - I submitted my resignation and my boss refused it. The next day, I received a meeting invite from my VP on my client site - very rare for him to come to me - and when I walked in, the VP, HR, Senior Manager, and Manager were on one side of a long table and there was one chair on the other side for me. They insisted that, despite my moving two states away, we would make it work. It was awkward, as I didn't particularly like working from home (I'm a social creature and if left at home alone, I will play video games all day), but we made it work for another year before we amicably ended my employment.

MostUniqueClone

Revenge!! REEEEVEEEEENGEEEEEE!!!

I came back to my summer job at an amusement park from missing 3 days with strep throat, handed in my doctors excuse, and was fired for missing work. Apparently to call off you couldn't just talk to a manager, you had to talk to the department head, a person I had never met with a phone number that had never been made available to me. Because I missed more than 2 days, it didn't matter that I had a note because I was considered a no call/no show. The assistant manager I gave my excuse to handed me a letter back that said I had 10 minutes to clean out my locker and vacate the premises or they'd call the cops for trespassing.

I was 16, in a state with very liberal employment laws, and my mom retained a lawyer. I didn't win any money but they ended up having to list me as rehire-able in their system and they paid a huge fine for essentially making it impossible for employees to call in sick.

reflectorvest

Happy...Holidays?

I was told Friday out of nowhere "we won't be needing your services anymore" after being told in November I would have a position into next year at the minimum. So that's a fun holiday gift.

Chunderfluff

Same. Let go day before Thanksgiving after 5 years at a company and negotiated my new raise with substantial documentation of my worth to the company.

I was replaced almost immediately and suspect my raise was given to that individual....

LatchedRacer90

Nah, It Was Real

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Me and my friend were two young Irish lads working on rebuilding the Canary Wharf tower in London (which had been blown up by some other Irish lads a year earlier, but that's another story.) It was like the Nakatomi Plaza. There were so many floors, if you didn't feel like working, you could just go to some random floor and hide out for a while.

So me and my friend, both 18 years old, were hungover one morning. We went to the 23rd floor where there was a comfortable couch and we lay there smoking weed. Suddenly the English foreman appears and fires us on the spot. As he was walking away, he says "That was taking the piss, lads."

Unfortunately, there was somewhat of a misunderstanding here. What he meant was that our behavior was so bad we had crossed a line. However, in Ireland at that time, "that was taking the piss" meant I'm only joking. So we continued working for another three or four hours before he came back and said "I fired you this morning, what the hell are you still doing here?"

Eoiny

Too Much Of A Threat

I was working for a small family owned restaurant. All the wait staff, and most of the kitchen staff was family or friends with the owner. I was hired as a waitress, and I did okay, not great, not terrible, it was my first time being a waitress.

One day, one of their regular customers came in, who is a bit of a local celebrity. He apparently came in once or twice a week, and tipped very well. Normally the owners daughter would take the taAble, but she was out sick so I took them. I got an amazing tip from him, and he told the owner that he would like me to wait on them if I am available in the future. The second he left I was fired.

Devornine

I'm Quaking In My Hairnet

I told my manager at a fast food place that I was going to be looking for a new job, and to not schedule me after this pay period. The next week, I see my name on the schedule and ask her what the deal is.

"I told you I was going to get a new job and not to schedule me"

"Well, did you get a new job yet?"

"No. But I'm still not sticking around this one."

"Well you know what, you can just not come back here now with that attitude."

She sure showed me.

hihungryimdadDOTcom

Jerk Bosses Who Played Themselves

I was fresh out of College at an IT contract-to-hire job. I came in on a Tuesday, sat down at my desk, the boss/owner came up behind me and told me I was fired. I sat there, mouth open, and then asked, "Why?" He said that I was not a good fit for the company and that I had to leave. So I gathered my things and he stood there watching me (probably making sure I did not steal anything) and escorted me out of the office. I found out later that because of the size of the company, at the time, they were looking for a tier III worker, but I was a tier I; I told them this in the interview, but apparently they did not have the resources to train me. Well jokes on them, I went through a month of unemployment and I found an even better IT job where I make a lot of money and work only half as hard as that job.

xeskind30

Blessings In Disguise

My first job out of college was for a very small dental insurance claims clearing house. The company had recently split from another company, whose name was on the software that all the Dentist offices used, so that was the name they recognized. The two companies were basically fighting over their client base. So, my job was to call up all of their clients to remove the old software from the former partner and install the new janky-*ss sh*t they'd cobbled together since the split.

My job alternated between:

  • Calling up customers to install the new software and train them on it
  • Troubleshoot the problems with the software and come up with work-arounds, typically during training calls.

Clients typically were finding out from me that the software was changing and I was supposed to insist that it was the same company, just different software.

After almost a year of this, I was getting to a point where it just felt so awful to trudge my way into work because I knew I'd spend the day getting yelled at by clients who were upset that their routines were changing. I spent a lot of my downtime complaining to my friends over my personal email about how awful it was. Probably not the best thing to do, but I was young.

Well, one day I come back from lunch and find the door to my office closed and my boss standing there waiting for me. He showed me the emails he'd printed out from my personal email account with portions of conversations highlighted that he didn't like. I never used any names or revealed company information - just my emotions while working there. He shoved the papers in my hands and said "Explain this to me." I basically said I was just having trouble with the day to day grind, but he just responded with, "I think it's time for you to find something else. Get out of here."

Fine by me. I probably should have left before it got to that point, but hindsight is 20/20 and all that.

argole

What Did You Expect To Happen?

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I was 15 I think. I was a lifeguard at a subdivision pool. Being the "new guy" and the "young kid" I worked every weekend. Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday day. I had already missed going to my grandparents a couple of times, and my parents were taking a vacation. I asked off and was told that I couldn't go. My dad basically said, "you are going, I don't care." I told the boss this and she said, you still have to work. I left with my parents, and when I got back there were a dozen messages on my parents answering machine saying that they couldn't open the pool because I wasn't there. She fired me 3 or 4 times that weekend.

She was a bored housewife hired by the HOA to schedule the lifeguards who were mostly high school kids. She fired another for wearing a bikini. They didn't use her the next year, but by that point in time I was 16 and had a better job.

kloiberin_time

No Dime For A Jerk

Mom, brother and I were at Olive Garden about 20 years ago. We had the worst waiter in the history of the world. He was outrageously rude to the point of being abusive to us. At the end of the dinner my mom left him a dime for a tip and as we were leaving the waiter threw the dime at my mom (I was a little kid otherwise I would have probably at least attempted to defend her). Waiter's boss saw the dime throw and fired the waiter on the spot. Everyone has a bad day, but that guy was just a prick.

RadBadGladCrab

Not Doing Your Work For Ya, Bucko

A colleague (from another department, always borderline hostile) had emailed my boss that I no-showed a call while on the job. Terminated immediately.

This wasn't possible though, as I had documentation that I showed to the call. And it's also not possible to no-show a call. Like, people literally die. If one can't go, you call your partner to go for you. But in my case I had gone there. All my documentation proved I had been there.

Theirs on the other hand, did not. But my manager skipped the investigation on this. No checking call logs, no checking notes (legally binding documents), no even hearing my side. Came in in the morning, asked me if I had gone to a call 5 days ago, I asked what the documentation said and he said we're ending your employment. Good manager!

ghostoutlaw

Don't Ride An Engineer

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I was an engineer at a company. Glorified term for the guy who designs construction projects and orders the material on smaller scale telecom projects. The owner of the company would take a big group of installers to install the projects. He was always riding us engineers to use up smaller pieces of inventory from the warehouse instead of ordering brand new stuff (for example do not order the 10' piece of steel if you can have the warehouse pull a 4' from our stock).

Well I would design the projects and only order the longer pieces if it was part of my design requiring and I would bid the project based on that design. Never failed the owner would go to site with his rag tag group, tear apart my design, build it completely different than my design, and then bitch at me for ordering too much material (he would send me nasty emails copying everyone). Keep in mind that he would install the job with a much different design than we bid for which means our quotes should have been reduced per our contract with our client.

I finally had enough of him berating me and sent a nasty email response to one of his belittling emails he sent and copied the entire world like he always does. I show up to work and my direct line supervisor laid me off. I knew very well that my email would probably get me fired and that I was burning a bridge but I already had another job lined up and it felt so good to tell that guy to f*ck off. My manager was laughing about the email as he was telling me that he had to lay me off.

3 months after all of this the owners wife was calling me and asking if there was anyway in would return. I declined for obvious reasons.

Dad_AF

All That For Nothing

It was my first job, I think I was 16 or 17 at the time. I worked at a local grocery store a couple days a week as a cashier.

One morning my dad had just dropped me off at work and it was a slow Sunday morning. A couple hours into my shift a girl comes in and buys a pack of cigarettes. I forgot to ID her and turns out she was underage and it was one of those sting things. (which when I worked there I did not know that was even a thing that happened.) Well a guy comes in with the same girl and talks to the manager. Tells him what happened. After the two leave he pulls me to the side and tells me that I am fired. I was devastated because I was a really good kid and followed by the rules and hated getting in trouble.

I then go outside call my dad and the minute he answered I burst into tears. I tell him that I need him to pick me up because I was fired. He comes picks me up I tell him what happened and he calms me down. Then my mom comes home from church and tell her what happened. She was fuming. My mom was saying that I should not have been selling cigarettes or alcohol in the first place because it is illegal for a minor to do so. Then my mom and I go back to the store and my mom is talking to the manager how it is wrong. That I was not supposed to be selling them in the first place and etc. After all that the manager says that I can have my job back I just cannot be a cashier anymore, but my mom refused to let me work there anymore.

Miss_mustache

Do I Need A Hall Pass?

I was 3 months in my job and I was getting harassed by my manager constantly for several weeks. Every day they'd follow me to the bathroom and make comments the whole time I needed to be in there.

I felt uncomfortable with this and reported it to HR, the next day the president of the company came to the office, and summoned me and the HR rep.

He brought up my concerns, and asked me what I wanted. I said I just wanted him to be professional and not follow me to the bathroom every time I have to go.

After I finished, he said, "Okay... well. Here's the thing. I've read the reports, and it just doesn't look like you're a good fit here. It's within 90 days, so we're just going to terminate your employment immediately. You'll be escorted out."

And that was it. I hated myself for opening that can of worms, but at the same time f*ck that guy.

The_Sleep_Walker

Sayonara, Bye-bye

Sears used to pay their electronics folks commission on top of base pay for big items. It was a pretty nice rate for commission. Anyways, we would "price match" compared to Frys or Best Buy (this was '05). Sometimes we made up Best Buy prices and would just say it was a promo weekend there.

I wasn't a great salesman and would incentivize customers to buy out of desperation. I'd take off like $400 sometimes.

One time a customer and I really hit it off. Super nice folks, came in around the holidays. I got on first name basis with em by the end. Anyways, lost prevention called me in and showed me on camera making the sale, I slipped up and said oh that's "Ed and his family." They thought I knew them on a real friend or family basis and gave them a $2900 tv for $2400. Fired on the spot.

Pay your workers more than $7/hour base and you won't see shit like that. People will sort out a way to cheat the system on you if you pay pennies. I got away with price matching probably 20 times before I got called on it.

That Sears is dead and gone now, I say good riddance.

captainbruisin

Old Wives' Tales People Still Believe For Some Reason

"Reddit user the_spring_goddess asked: 'What is an old wives tale that people still believe?'"

Close up of an owl tilting their head to side, looking bewildered
Photo by Josh Mills

The old wives' tales.

They are the stories of legend.

I think we all need a big DEEP Google dive though.

Where did they originate?

WHO ARE THE OLD WIVES!

You don't hear about them as much anymore.

It's like science and logic are suddenly a thing.

But they sure are a good way to keep your kids and their behavior in line.

Redditor the_spring_goddess wanted to discuss the tall tales we've all been fed through life, so they asked:

"What is an old wives tale that people still believe?"

"Wait an hour to swim after eating."

What a crock!

So many summer hours wasted.

I want revenge for that one.

Say Nothing

Giphy

"An undercover cop has to tell you he's a cop if you ask him."

LonelyMail5115

"Pretty much most advice when it comes to cops are old wives tales. I’m not even a cop but most of the advice you hear is pretty off."

I_AM_AN_A**HOLE_AMA

Say Something

"That you have to wait 24 hours to report someone missing."

Severe_Airport1426

"I really think this one is important and should be the top regardless. As it’s a piece of advice that needs to be relearned and the only way to do that is through awareness."

crappycurtains

"This used to be true. I think they changed it after some guy named Brandon went missing back in the '80s or '70s. You used to have to wait 24 hours if the missing person was an adult because they had 'a right to be missing' and then everyone realized that was stupid and stopped doing it."

AlbinoShavedGorilla

Body Temps

"That drinking ice cold water after eating oily foods will solidify the oil and permanently remain in your body. I informed my coworker that if your body temperature ever reached that point, you’d have bigger problems than weight gain."

chriseo22

"Oh, I have a cousin who 100% believed this. One of those guys who believed every early 2000s internet rumor and old wives tale. One night I chugged a big glass of ice water after dinner and he started freaking out and saying my guts were gonna harden."

"I sarcastically told him to drive me to the hospital if that happened. Obviously, nothing happened and the next morning I said something like 'Thanks for being on standby in case my guts filled with hardened oil.' He just walked off muttering under his breath."

apocalypticradish

Arms Down

"When I was pregnant, I was told by young and old alike that I should NOT raise my arms above my head or exert myself in such a manner because it could cause cord strangulation to my unborn sons and daughters."

Fatmouse84

10 Years Actually

Unimpressed Uh Huh GIF by Brooklyn Nine-Nine Giphy

"Chewing gum stays in your stomach for 7 years."

REDDIT

"I remember accidentally swallowing a piece of gum when I was a kid in like 1995 and just accepting my fate like welp, gonna have this in my stomach til high school I guess."

Gecko-911

I was so afraid to sallow my gum when I was young.

This tale is haunting.

High/Low

Hungry Debra Messing GIF by Will & Grace Giphy

"You can tell the sex of the baby by how you carry."

LeastFormal9366

"Pregnancy certainly wins awards for the most old wives tales. So much absolute BS was repeated to us by everyone we talked to."

IllIIIlIllIlIIlIllI

The Cursed

"If you’re a woman and you wear opal jewelry but opal is not your birthstone (October), you’ll never be able to have children, or will be widowed, or just generally have bad luck or something. You can counteract this by having a diamond in the same piece of jewelry as the opal, though."

"I have a nice opal ring that my parents gave me years ago, and I’ve had other women give me this 'advice' unprompted more than once when I’ve worn it. I have absolutely no idea where it started, but I’m pretty sure this little chunk of silicate rock has no concept of what month I was born in, let alone of how my reproductive organs work."

SmoreOfBabylon

Stay In

"Going outside with wet hair will make you get pneumonia. Or an earache. Or maybe arthritis. Depends on which old wife you listen to."

"Jokes on them - I haven't blow-dried my hair in decades and usually leave the house with wet hair in the morning. On winter mornings, the tips of my hair get frozen. No ear infections or pneumonia or arthritis yet."

worldbound0514

Dreams and Facts

"You never make anyone up in your dreams you've seen everyone in your dreams somewhere else before and never make anyone up entirely."

"How would you possibly prove that to be true? My partner adamantly believes this and tells me this 'fact' whenever I have a dream about someone I've never met before."

mattshonestreddit

"My late wife used to tell me that before she met me she would have dreams of standing at an alter on her wedding day but could never see the guy's face, no matter how hard she tried. After meeting me the face was filled in with mine. Don't know if it's true but one of those things I like thinking of every now and then when I miss her."

Darthdemented

Cracked

Getting Ready Episode 2 GIF by The Office Giphy

"Some people still believe cracking knuckles causes arthritis."

Choice-Grapefruit-44

"There's a doctor (Donald Unger) that cracked his knuckles a couple of times a day for 60 years, but only on one hand, just to prove it. Both hands remained exactly the same."

MacyTmcterry

I love my knuckles.

Do you have any tall tales to add to the list? Let us know in the comments below.

lottery tickets
Erik Mclean on Unsplash

A lot of workers daydream about some day winning the lottery and being able to say goodbye to their job.

Far too many workers are unhappy with their job duties, workplace dynamics or company culture.

But with a taste for luxuries like housing and food, they keep plugging away, year after year.

However not everyone feels that way about their job.

So what are these compelling careers?

Keep reading... Show less
Therapist talking during session
Photo by Mark Williams on Unsplash

Some people stand firmly stand behind their beliefs that everyone would benefit from therapy and that therapy is life-changing.

It's because of the totally life-changing truth bombs their therapist had dropped during their sessions.

Curious, Redditor anonymiss0018 asked:

"What is a little bombshell your therapist dropped in one of your sessions that completely changed your outlook?"

Communication Issues

"'If you don’t have these problems with any other person in your life, why do you think you’re the problematic person in this one?'"

- maggiebear

"I love this. I have a 'friend' who I always seem to run into misunderstandings with. Every time we had a conversation, it somehow turned into a debate even if it was me talking about my day. The conversations were never easy."

"I always evaluate myself first and take into consideration his critiques. He was very good at convincing me that I was contradicting myself or wasn't good at communicating my thoughts."

"I NEVER had this issue with ANYONE else in my life. I kept trying to figure out where the miscommunication was coming from. In the end, I just minimized contact and now I don't run into this issue."

- chobani_yo

"I read this quote somewhere once (and probably have it a bit wrong): 'It's a waste of time arguing with someone who is determined to misunderstand you.'"

- Reddit

Emotional Regulation

"'You can’t control your emotions, but you can control what you do with them.'"

"At the time, I was a young adult who had learned zero healthy emotional regulation skills (only suppression and shaming) growing up, so this blew my mind."

- lil_mermaid

Tough Relationships

"'It sounds to me like you are trying to convince yourself to stay with your girlfriend. I'm not so sure it should be so difficult.'"

"At the time he said this, I remember it was like he said, 'The earth is flat.' I thought he was crazy when he suggested relationships don't need to be difficult. But eventually, I started to realize I was trying to change myself to stay with this person rather than just being who I am."

"It took me three more months to finally break up with her but from that day on, I vowed to never again abandon myself just to be with someone I had convinced myself was better than me."

- metric88

High-Stress Situation

"I was at a high-stress time, and I asked her how people live like this."

"She replied, 'Oftentimes they have cardiac events.' She said it as an urging to care for myself as much as possible."

- KittenGr8r

The End of Alcohol

"I was struggling with my alcoholism, and we were discussing how I had been cutting back."

"She asked what I would consider success, with regard to my drinking."

"I said I wanted to get to a point where it wasn't interfering with my daily life. I wanted to just be able to have a glass of wine at holiday dinners or family gatherings."

"She simply asked me why. Why was it important for me to drink at those times?"

"It was as if she'd turned on a light. Alcohol had always been a key ingredient in every family function, for my entire life. When I smell bourbon, I think of my uncle. When I smell vermouth, I think of my dad. Alcohol ran through almost every happy childhood memory."

"But, even more than that, I was very afraid of the explanation I'd have to give when family and friends asked why I wasn't having a drink. I had tried to quit before but failed. What if I admitted my problem, only to fall off the wagon?"

"When she asked why I didn't want to completely quit, it was the first time I saw that last part of the big picture. I'd be willing to drink myself to death in order to avoid being scrutinized, or judged for possible future failures."

"That was the day I quit. I've been sober since May 6th, 2017. 2,407 days."

- sophies_wish

Acceptance vs. Enjoyment

"'Accepting something doesn’t mean you have to like it.'"

"That took away a lot of my inner conflicts about situations because I could accept a situation without expending energy internally fighting against the injustice of it."

- alibelloc

Emotionally Immature Parents

"You are not responsible for your parents' emotional wellbeing. They are independent adults who have been on this earth for many more years than you."

- SmokedPears

Not So Lazy

"'Why do you think you're lazy?' Then she listed off all the things she knows I'm doing for my family, my job, and my life."

"It kind of blew my mind when I struggled to come up with an example."

"She also described family dysfunction as water. Some families are messed up in a way that everyone can see the huge waves across the surface. Others are better at hiding it, but there's still a riptide that you can't see unless you're also in the water."

"It made me realize that trying to keep the surface from ever rippling doesn't erase what is happening underneath."

- flybyknight665

The Harm in People-Pleasing

"'Why do you make people more comfortable when you are uncomfortable?' when talking about people pleasing and fawning."

- ERsandwich

Agree to Disagree

"'Stop trying to get everyone to agree. When you need everyone to agree, the least agreeable person has all the power.'"

This really changed my outlook on planning family events."

- freef

Grieve and Start Anew

"For context, I had a major TBI (traumatic brain injury), seizures, strokes, and all around not a fun brain time when I was 28."

"They said, 'You have to grieve the loss of yourself.'"

"Most people wanted me to go back to how I was. The f**ked up truth is that part of my brain is dead. The person everyone (including myself) knew died. I needed to grieve the loss of myself."

- squeaktoy_la

Multifaceted Identity

"They told me that my job and career is just a way to make money; it's not my life or identity. That took a lot of pressure off me."

- unfairpegasus

Breaking the Cycle

"They validated me."

"'You always talk about not wanting to do to your daughters what your mom did to you. You worry about it so much in every interaction you have ever had with them."

"But your children are 19 and 21 now. They are happy and healthy and they trust you because you’ve never abused them in any way. So I just want to validate for you that you really have broken that cycle of violence."

"You did that. And you should be proud of it. I’m proud of you for it.'"

- puppsmcgee74

The Grieving Process

"I was constantly bringing up how I felt like a completely different person after my mom died... like there was a marked difference between before and after her death."

"But once, she was asking about my hobbies, I got really into describing all the things I loved to do or at least used to do before I got into a deep depression."

"She was like, 'Wow, you seem very passionate.'"

"And I just sat there like, 'Well, I mean, I can't change what I like to do, they're still fun to do.'"

"And it's like she knew when to take a step back, because it was like, wow, I may be super depressed about my mom passing, but I'm still me. I'm still my passions and those don't go away."

"I don't know, maybe it only makes sense to be, but it really started getting me back on track."

- Hannibal680

Sharing the Load

"I've never really had friends. I've had colleagues and classmates and housemates and people who have hung out with me, but I never really felt close to any of them."

"And I did that thing you see on here sometimes; I stopped reaching out to see if I would be reached out to, and I wasn't, which I took as confirmation that they didn't really want me around, or at the very least, that they wouldn't mind my absence."

"I was talking to my therapist about people I'd been close to in college, and she told me to pick one and talk about him. So I did. After I shared some basic stuff like his name and his major etc., and a couple of anecdotes, she asked me what else I knew about him."

"And I couldn't answer. It wasn't really a broadly applicable bombshell, but she said, 'What else?' and I started crying because I realized that for as simple as the question was, my inability to answer spoke volumes."

"I've never had good friends because I've never been a good friend. I'm withdrawn and reserved and I always made others do the work to drag me out, without ever extending my own friendship in a meaningful way in return. If I wanted to have meaningful relationships with other people, I would have to build them."

"I'm still working on this, but I'm trying to make more offers and extend more friendliness to others in my daily life."

- Backupusername

The discoveries in this thread were incredibly touching and profound; it's no wonder these were lasting concepts for these Redditors.

It's important to keep ourselves open to inspiration and insights from others, as we have no idea how their experiences could help us, or how we could help them.

Aerial view of a church in a small town
Sander Weeteling/Unsplash

There's something comforting about living in a small town.

It's characterized by close communities where neighbors know each other by name and there is an abundance of kindness extended to others.

Gift-giving is a commonality, as is the sharing of recipes, and people going out of their way to help each other in a time of need.

The pace of living in small towns is also a striking contradiction to city life, where crowds of people go about their busy lives without much interaction.

Curious to hear more examples of what small town living is like, Redditor official_biz asked:

"What's the most 'small town' thing you've witnessed?"

These are positive examples of a tight-knit community.

Live Updates

"We have a village Facebook page. Every time the ice cream man drives into the village, the entire page goes ballistic. People send live updates of where the van is and which direction he's heading. The ice cream man has started accepting DMs so he knows which streets to go down."

– PyrrhuraMolinae

Brush With The Law

"I’m from a town of less than 2,000 people. When I worked at the grocery store there people would often drop off stuff for my family members because they didn’t want to drive all the way down to our house. I no longer live there but recently got a call from my daughter. She had been stopped for speeding and handed over her license and insurance which happens to be in my mother’s name. The officer goes 'Hey, you’re Donnie’s granddaughter! I ain’t gonna write you a ticket but I’m telling Donnie when I see him tomorrow cause we’re going fishing.' She replied 'I think I’d rather have the ticket.'”

- Reddit

Roadside Catchup

"The traffic on the 'main street' of my town is so sparse, two drivers going opposite directions can stop and talk to each other for a few minutes without causing any problem."

– anon

When things go wrong, people take notice without incident.

Bank Robbery

"A guy robbed a bank and everyone knew immediately who he was and the teller got mad at him."

– AlexRyang

"A local bank was robbed and one of the tellers told the police to bring her a yearbook from about ten years earlier and she would be able to point the robber out. He had been in the grade before hers in school."

– Strict_Condition_632

Wise Woman

"When I worked at the bank in town there was an older lady that had worked there through 5 mergers."

"She knew everyone, there was a young guy yelling at me one day. She walked out of the back and he immediately quieted. She went off about telling his grandmother that he was treating young women like sh*t. She also said that if he didn’t straighten up not one girl in town would ever marry him she would make sure of it."

– ilurvekittens

Intoxicated Local

"Town drunk was paralyzed and used a motorized wheelchair to get around. I was driving home one Saturday night and said town drunk was passed out in his wheelchair doing circles almost directly in the town square. Had to call his brother who came and picked him up on a rollback truck. Strapped him down and drove off into the cold dark night."

– DoodooExplosion

Grazing Over To The Bar

"In my former small town, there was an older guy who'd lost his license after getting a few DUIs. Every day, he would ride his John Deere lawnmower to the corner bar around 3PM and sit around watching TV and sipping his beer well into the night. Then he'd head the couple miles back home on his mower. He even had a little canvass shell he put on when it rained or got too cold."

– brown_pleated_slacks

It's not surprising how small town people behave differently than those who are from metropolitan areas.

Welcoming Committee

"I lived in a small town. When I moved there, people would ask, 'Whose house did you buy?'"

–MoonieNine

"Move to a small town. 30 years later, you are still the new guy."

– impiousdrifter

"I lived in a small town for most of my childhood but I wasn't "from there" because my grandparents weren't from there."

– raisinghellwithtrees

"Worked with an older guy, relative of the owner of the business, he was 73. I asked him if he was a local, he said 'no his parents moved here when he was two.'"

– realneil

A Busy Day

"Lived in a town of about 5,000: A woman walked into the DMV on a Friday, saw that there were 3 people ahead of her and left to come back another time when they weren't so busy."

– KenmoreToast

Who Let The Dogs Out?

"My dogs got out while i was working. the police called my niece's elementary school (she was a 5th grader) to get her to round them up and take them back home."

– mediocrelpn

"There was a small kennel behind the police station for runaways. They called us saying they had our dog, and moments later our dog showed up home. He broke out of jail."

– Worried_Place_917

While life in a small town sounds appealing, I don't know if I can ever live in one.

I'm so used to life in big cities, I think it would be quite unnerving to adjust in a neighborhood where everyone literally knows your business.

I would be paranoid.

And I'm sure the same could be said of life in the big city.

Would you consider making the switch to life in a different setting?