It's pretty easy for one to be fired. However, there are times when I've been saddled with co-workers where the firing seemed to drag on forever. No matter how it happens, I always enjoy an exit with drama. If you gotta go, you might as well leave a lasting impression.
I've been dumbfounded by the ways I've seen people fired. For instance, if you're going to steal, try not to do it directly in front of cameras. And if you're going to show up drunk, take a breath mint first. But if you do get fired, please make it entertaining. Unless of course it's sad and a proper situation. But nobody gets fired in record time for sad reasons.
Redditoru/njaanawanted to hear about the staff members who left an impression on their way out the door, by asking:
What is the fastest you have ever seen a new co-worker get fired?
I remember a bartender I worked with who got fired for a really crappy reason, like one customer complaint. Honestly the higher ups were not thrilled with him. When they told hm, honey... he threw a small table. BRILLIANT!!
Dimes
toys r us 90s GIFGiphy"When I worked at Babies 'R Us many years ago, a fine young lad wrote on the break room white board, "Forget you witches, hire dimes." For some reason it escaped him that there are cameras pretty much everywhere. Done after maybe three days on the job."
3 Hours
"Many years ago we hired a line cook that had a decent amount of experience. He started on steak night. First steak, undercooked. Refire, undercooked. Third try, undercooked, Fourth try, cow was still mooing when it came off the grill. FOH manager goes to head chef, tells him to kick him off the line, so he does. His new job was to replace me on the sauté station."
"First order he gets is for a side of asparagus, so he puts the asparagus into the hot pan, and adds enough oil to deep fry them. Well, he goes to turn them, oil escapes, hits the fire, and started a fire. He went to grab water, and if not for my head chef stealing the cup, we might have had a bigger fire. Just like that, gone. Turns out all his previous jobs were not real places, but his supervisors were just friends who lied. Total time of employment: three hours."
Out by 11...
"I was intern at a startup out of college along with three other interns. One guy was set up at a computer kinda out of the way and apparently that was the greenlight he needed to look up some porn. Anyone who's ever been an intern will tell you that someone is usually coming over to ask you for something or if you need help and sure enough, the dude was caught looking at porn by our boss. He was walked out around 11 AM so he managed a solid two hours of porno before getting caught."
90 Minutes
"New guy, hired as quality control inspector after a lot of vetting. Job site was aluminum extrusions factory - lots of hot, sharp, and heavy things that can crush your hands and slice you up, not to mention all the moving parts. Shows up first day on the job reeking of beer. "I was just celebrating my new job with my friends before work!" Refused the booze blow test at a nearby hospital. Paperwork completed and fired after 90 minutes by the supervisor and HR."
Rude
rude kim kardashian GIF by RealityTVGIFsGiphy"It was a family owned business and she said something insensitive about the owner's recently deceased daughter."
Yeah, you have to be careful who you're talking smack around. That is lesson number one, especially if you're not solid in the lay of the land. And restaurants are always on a rolling employment. Let's continue.
Crazy
Angry Stanley Kubrick GIFGiphy"It was his second week. The guy came to work drunk af, picked the emergency axe and trashed the place with it. He got instantly fired and processed in court shortly after."
- Bonguri
Thief
"I worked in maintenance at a beach resort. One of the housekeepers managed to get her delinquent son a job as a "runner"... someone who would collect the dirty laundry after the housekeepers stripped the beds. She was actually worried when he started working because I guess he had a bad track record with other jobs. About three days after he started working, his mother confronted him about his new expensive-looking athletic shoes and a gold chain around his neck."
"He just shot back something about having a job now which didn't make sense because he hadn't even been paid yet. Anyway, about the same time there were a couple of reports at the front desk by guests who were missing large sums of money. A police report was made and people were questioned. So after only about four days this kid was fired and went to jail for stealing from guest rooms."
Out the Door...
"New person joins company. On her first morning she wrote an email to her manager how grateful she was to be with the company, how she looked forward to working for us, and on and on. She also wrote an email to her friend about how she'd got a cushy gig and would scam them for as much training as possible for the first couple of months and then leave. Apart from the general lack of wisdom of saying this on the company email system, when writing such contradictory emails it is vitally important to put the right addressee on the right email. Walked out the door after 2.5 hrs."
- pmc666
At Baggage Claim
"We had a guy start in London on a Monday as large contingent left for a a conference in Seattle later that week. I met him at Heathrow with his badge and laptop on his first morning and boarded the flight with him. Longish story, but he ended up slapping a member of the flight crew because she wouldn't let him sit in business class. I called HR when we landed and fired him in baggage claim. We paid for him to fly back to the UK next day."
Awkward...
Jesse Pinkman Reaction GIF by Breaking BadGiphySex the bosses daughters - yes daughters - the night he was hired. The real twist is that one of those daughters is now his wife and his former boss, his mother in law. So I guess he got the last laugh, and a lot of awkward family dinners."
"You mean don't do this?"
"I used to train new hires at a warehouse. We have a floor for robots to zoom around on, full of merchandise and cold spite. Only certified technicians may set foot on that floor. The rest of us? Instant termination if we do it. We stress this frequently throughout orientation."
"I'm training a group of new hires at a work station. It's their first night. Not even lunch yet. One of our managers comes over to introduce himself. One guy, who has already been copping an attitude, asks him about stepping on the floor. Manager reiterates what we all told everyone: Do it, and you're fired."
"Guy: "You mean don't do this?" (puts one foot on the floor)"
"And away he goes. I heard the rest of the new trainees laughing over how stupid he was. He was even whining about it the whole time his termination was being processed. I'm just glad I didn't get stuck training that snotty, dimwitted little pain in the @ss for two days."
People Explain Which Expensive Purchases Paid For Itself In The Long Run | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Call Center Crazy
"A number of years back I worked at an inbound call center that also had an upsell side to it. A new guy fresh out of training was bragging about how he did over 10 x the monthly goal in his first week alone. Didn't see him the following week and heard he was laid off because he was upgrading everyone's plans who called in to the highest costing plan without their consent or informing them. About a week or two later I got a text from him asking if I could be his reference for a new call center job he got. He somehow got a hold of a bunch of our numbers and just spammed everyone asking for a reference."
BLIIIITZED!!
"Hired my roommate to work at a gas station I was assistant manager for. Shows up 2 hours late to replace me, and I could have gotten drunk from his breath. He went out after his construction job and got bliiiiitzed. Was mad at me for firing him. 16 hour shift that day and he treated me like trash till we moved. Is zero minutes a duration? LOL"
- crumps2
How Fluid...
True Stories Omg GIFGiphy"I saw this guy in interview with our boss, he was hired for 3 minutes then he peed in his desk for no reason."
Wrong Email
"Our CEO rarely sent all-company messages unless there was great news or some major event/holiday/emergency etc. One day he sends an email reminding everyone something about an extra day off everyone earned hitting a major deadline and how and when to use it."
"New woman in accounting - looked like a nice 50 something Dallas church lady, hits the reply-all and writes "I suppose we all should bow down to Mr. Generosity for the measly day off." Meanwhile she never worked on the project or was affected by long hours."
"When she realized what she did, the other finance people in her area heard a gasp come from her desk and without saying a word to anyone, she picked up her purse, took a box, added her personal items, and walked out the door to her car never to be seen again."
Talk to the Hand
"15 minutes. Working at the wharfs where we had to unload shipping containers with forklifts; new bloke starts work who claims to be a wiz at operating forklifts. First container and he drives in too fast while another worker is opening the container door. I'm not the foreman but I have a go at him about him and tell him to pull his head in. He walks off the job muttering under his breath 'Nobody talks to me like that'."
Like a Zombie
"Call centre worker, new beginner came in hungover as crap on the 1st day of the job. Within 2 hours of their shift, they struggled to look at a computer for more than 10 minutes, couldn't form a coherent sentence, walked away from the desk without a word only to just full on faceplant in the floor of the office. I'm sure the actual termination took longer, but it was obvious they lost their job the moment they walked in like a zombie."
"this job isn't for me"
"I worked at a bill collection firm in the early 90's (don't judge me). A guy started working there, went through the 2 days of training , then started working. After about an hour, he got up and left. Didn't say "I quit." Didn't say "this job isn't for me." Didn't say "forget you." He just got up to go to the bathroom, went through the front door and drove away. It took the managers a few hours to figure out that this guy got the job with a fake name, and erased his own debt on the computer."
- M_Looka
You're Out!
I Got This Credit GIF by HustlersGiphy"Briefly worked as a doorman at a strip club. Had to eject two brand new strippers for lifting wallets from the guys."
Safety First
"Guy drove a forklift into a fire hydrant, in front of a safety rep for the company. His supervisor was called over, and he immediately tells the supervisor that he won't pass a pee test, as he used his only bottle of clean pee earlier that day when he hired in. Everybody standing there immediately burst into laughter, which continued as security (also laughing) escorted him off site. Even the supervisor was all smiles... just gave him a pat on the back and wished him the best of luck. It was wild."
Oh my. People really are something else. This should be a reality show, crazy people getting fired. Now that is a mess I'd watch.
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Reddit user New-Low5765 asked:
"People who work in the airline industry, what are some of the craziest things you have seen?"
Don't Drink And Tow Aircraft
"Worked as ground crew. 2nd day on the job we were issued a notice to gather."
"So when you check in every morning you’re supposed to always take a breathalyzer test to prove you can like you know, ride around the tarmack, use pushbacks on planes, etc..."
"For whatever reason this dude hadn’t taken it/got past without taking it."
"He was not sober."
"He was tasked with pulling a 370 [aircraft] into a hangar."
"He eyeballed it for whatever reason."
"So here we are watching a video of this absolute loon break the whole wing off while damaging the hangar in the process."
"Because he was drunk, insurance doesn’t kick in."
"We were promptly told that Christmas bonuses might be a bit smaller."
~ ProbablyChe
Occupational Hazard
"Someone had the tip of their finger cut off when closing the door to the plane and didn't say anything until the flight landed at the arrival gate and when the door was opened the chunk of finger fell out."
"The staff then said, 'Oh yeah, that's my finger. you can throw it away'."
"I guess he just bandaged and wrapped his own hand."
"It was about 1/4 of his finger including the nail that was cut off. The cutoff portion wasn't particularly bloody and it was really pale."
~ If_I_remember
"A plane I got on once almost left without half of its aircrew on it."
~ BeerisAwesome01
"'Let’s just go, they can meet us there'."
~ InformativePenguin
"Plot twist. That included the pilots."
~ Windyandbreezy
Excess Baggage
"Coffin with dead body inside being left off the flight due to overload without notice either to us or the family and the family realising it by seeing it while the plane was leaving and screaming to us."
~ elenivog
employee of the month ups GIFGiphyNoped Out
"Saw the pilot walk into the passenger area and say 'I'm not flying this piece of sh*t' and get off the plane."
"All the passengers followed him."
~ Jaded-Session8422
"Hell yeah, I'm following the pilot off the plane if something like this happens!"
~ lukaron
Giphy"I had something similar happen, but never got on the plane."
"It was sitting there seemingly ready but they never started boarding."
"Eventually the pilots walk off the plane and a few of us heard them say ‘This junk isn’t going anywhere’."
"Flight ended up getting cancelled a short time later."
~ potatocross
"I was threatened with [pilots walking out] multiple times a week as an aircraft dispatcher."
"Auxiliary power units (APUs) run the air conditioning (AC) in the aircraft and they were always broken down and not fixed quickly, so when the pilots show up it is hot as hell inside and there's no ground crew to connect the external AC."
"So I would get a call from the Captain telling me he is not going to fly this piece of shit because it is too hot."
"Then they'd go on a tirade about how bad the company sucks because they don't do maintenance."
"I would agree with them completely."
Giphy"Then by the end of the call they'd say they will take it but the company sucks and needs to fix the APU."
"Occasionally the captain would refuse it, but then the ground crew would hook up the AC and they would always get back inside and fly it."
"For sure there were issues that popped up where the AC had an unsolvable issue and it would result in a cancelled flight."
~ Winchery
"I’m Dallas-Fort Worth based. No APU/AC in November? Meh, whatever."
"No APU/AC in August in Texas?"
"I’m not going on that airplane. Ground just can’t keep up."
~ poser765
☣️ Bio-Hazard ☣️
"Flight diverted to my airport because a girl in hotpants got uncontrollable diarrhea from the laxatives she took before the flight to help get over her weekend binge in Vegas."
"She sh*t in her seat and down the aisle and all over the bathroom."
"Five other passengers had uncontrollable vomiting because of this and the panic on the plane from the crew and rest of passengers caused the plane to make an emergency landing."
"They ended up having to cancel the remaining leg of the flight to decontaminate the plane."
"Police were sent and interviewed her and her friends and no charges were filed. I don't know if the airline put her on any kind of no-fly list or tried to have her pay for damages."
~ If_I_remember
GiphyHighly Unsuccessful
"There were two suitcases checked in that were full of nothing but weed."
"The police arrested him in the gating area & confiscated the bags."
~ Traditional_Pair4840
"Something similar happened when I was a ramp rat back in the 1960s."
"Law enforcement was going to do the arrest at his destination."
"The weed disappeared before they got there."
~ endadaroad
Stealthiest Catch
"As a baggage handler I once had a shipment of live Alaskan crabs escape their container on the ramp."
"Flights were delayed."
"Turns out those guys scatter when they panic and try to hide under anything and everything."
~ Gregwaaah
"My significant other worked doing maintenance checks on commercial planes."
"This explains why they once found a bunch of dead crabs under the floorboards in the cargo bay. It was a mysterious mystery."
~ Highly_Referential
Avoiding A Strip Search?
"A fully naked woman just walked through the terminal and tried to walk through security like she wasn’t fully naked."
~ Commercial-Chance561
"She was just very considerately trying to make it easier for TSA."
~ TrooperJohn
"They make you take off your shoes but they don't say that's all you can take off."
~ smartguy05
Language Barrier
"I witnessed this in the security screening of a large American airport."
"And to be fair, there was a language barrier as the passenger in question seemed to be speaking mainly French, and struggling to understand the TSA agent's instructions in English."
"Female passenger (tall, attractive, and sophisticated-looking) was wearing a business suit with a pencil skirt and matching jacket, which was buttoned closed, going through security."
"The TSA agent told her she had to remove the jacket. She ignored and tried to go through anyway."
"He stopped her and told her again more loudly (that's when everyone started noticing)."
"She said no. He insisted. She refused again, and tried to walk through."
Giphy"He got angry."
"She tried to explain something but it was unclear because her English was poor."
"It went back and forth."
"They both started getting angry and frustrated. It started holding up the line and other passengers were getting agitated."
"A few people tried to intervene and explain more calmly that she needed to put her jacket through the x-ray machine."
"Finally, near tears, she blurted out 'fine' and removed her jacket, revealing that she was wearing nothing at all underneath, and walked through the screening machine topless."
~ SigmaSeal66
I'm a nervous flyer so it's not something I do often, but I still feel a little cheated that nothing this bizarre has happened while I was traveling.
Has something ever happened during your travels?
Share it in the comments.
A good friend is not always the one with whom you share laughs and fun experiences.
The friendships you want to keep include those who won't abandon you in a time of need or someone who supports you in a variety of complicated situations where not even a family member can be relied upon.
Unfortunately, many of us have experienced a time when a person's true colors revealed to us that the so-called "friend" we've always trusted wasn't one at all.
Curious to hear examples of this, Redditor Aesthetik_1 asked:
"What made you instantly realize This 'friend' is not a real friend?"
These Redditors didn't realized at the time that they were being used.
Recurring Favor
"When he only called me when he needed something. It didn't hit me until much later."
– Queasy-Location-9303
"I have one of those 'friends'. She always gushes about how we're friends but she never initiates contact unless she wants me to do something for her."
– StiffAssedBrit
The Errand Girl
"Several years back, I had a friend who introduced me to this new boy she was seeing. Maybe a year later, their relationship blew up in a fury of bs (whole other story), but by the time they split, I was equally friends with both of them. He and I were both photographers at the time, so the friendship was instantaneous."
"One day we started talking about her, neither positively nor in poor taste, just kind of in general."
"He then asked me 'when she texts to hang out, what does she usually want to do?'"
"I paused. I thought. Holy sh*t, she'd either be asking for a favour or for help with some kind of errand. I was her f'king errand girl."
"She texted me a month or two later, just a 'hey'. I never responded. She never texted again."
"I'm still friends with her ex, though. That dude is genuine as heck."
– ChamomileBrownies
Testing The Friendship
"When you decide to let them be the one to reach out. And you never hear from them again."
– plzdontgetmad
"Yup. Made plans with a friend three times, she cancelled each time. I finally told her to let me know when she was free, we haven’t hung out since."
"She was a good friend for the season, but not a lifetime."
– NoMrBond3
People were shocked to discover the moment they realized they didn't really know who their "friend" was anymore.
The Chaperon
"I had been giving rides to a girl I thought was my friend. To and from school in high school. She wasn’t really suppose to ride with other teens but due to her mothers work hours we could easily pull this off. I thought we were close."
"One day while on the way home my brakes went out. We were about 2 blocks from her gated neighborhood. I managed to roll in safely and parked at her house to call a tow truck."
"She flipped. Told me I couldn’t stay. She knew my brakes were not working as she had also been terrified when we couldn’t stop. She said she wanted to go to a movie that weekend with other friends and her mom would ground her if she saw me at the house. I offered to lie and say I only stopped there as my car malfunctioned on my way home. I had to pass her neighborhood on my way home anyways."
"She refused. Started to scream at me. She didn’t care what happened I had to go. Started to call the guard at the front gate to tell them I had broken in and was threatening her."
"I left her and that friendship that moment. I managed to roll my car slowly to a mechanic not too far away but never forgot the shi* feeling of knowing I could have been seriously hurt and she wouldn’t have cared. She wanted to see a movie. She had the nerve to sheepishly call and ask me a couple days later if I could give her a ride to school. Told her I was too busy and no longer had time… after all I wanted to help her obey her mom's rules. She rode the bus til she graduated."
– Duffarum
Unwilling Companion
"I had this friend in school. Each year there was a funfair in our city, all students received vouchers for a drink and something to eat. This friend complained the whole day that she had no one to accompany her to the funfair. So, stupid me offered to go with her."
"Once we arrived we met another friend of hers. And another, and another... until we were a group of 5 or 6 people. I didn't know anyone and was basically just walking behind them. This friend took me aside and said, 'My friends think you are annoying, and we would like you to leave.'"
"It was a pleasure to see that she failed her exams a year later."
– Auldale
There's the spirit of competition, but when it's taken seriously, we're no longer game for these friendships.
I Can Do It Better
"Constantly 'one ups' me. A real friend is happy for you."
– Complex-Half8338
"That one time I got a fake bag but she doesn’t know and then 2 weeks later messaged me that she also bought a luxury bag… Then when I got a bf, she also went to get a bf within 3 months which is TOTALLY fine but she constantly messages me for us to go on a double date. Anyways, sadly they didn’t last long :( I mentioned that I wanted to go to Cuba, she went ahead and bought herself a ticket to Cuba but I didn’t end up going lol"
– Hot-Coffee-8465
Never Steal The Spotlight
"When they loved the idea of me shining, but behind their shadow, I could never do or achieve anything above them, and when I did, they would get jealous."
– Jasssin23
"Yes! I recently ghosted a friend because of this kind of behavior. She was trying to compete about EVERYTHING. Like she bragged about how her mom’s car accident was more traumatic than my elderly MIL’s - which is not even an appropriate thing to compare. She would also try to 'outshine' celebrations of my milestones and was mean to several of my friends for no apparent reason. She was a loose cannon at best."
– thefifthtrilogy
All About Me
"ALL she talks about it herself and her problems. Granted she has a a lot but never asks about me or my life until she realizes she just bypassed my attempt to want to talk about something in my life bothering me and continued to talk about herself."
– PokemomOnTheGo
People can just be so rude.
"When I got really sick. Very few came to help."
– Tofflus1
"Same here. I got cancer and everyone I knew was over the top supportive for the first six months and then all but three of my friends just vanished. I saw one of them at a Halloween party while I was going through chemo and she told me that my bald head made people uncomfortable. I was dressed as Captain Picard, it was awesome and she ruined it."
– CatGoNoTail
Not Missing High School
"At lunch, she was sitting with her boyfriend, I was sitting with our friend circle. She came up to me, guilted me into sitting with her and her boyfriend, and then proceeded to ignore me for the rest of lunch."
"She didn't care about me, she just didn't want me talking to the friend circle that she had abandoned for her boyfriend. When I pointed this out to her, she called me a jealous b*tch."
"Ah, high school. How I don't miss thee."
– Symnestra
These examples actually served as a good reminder for me to take a moment and assess my friendships.
Not so much about how I've been treated but more about checking myself to see if I'm respecting the people I call my friends.
We've all been guilty of casually mentioning future plans to get together. I embarrassingly wait for people to initiate something, which is terrible.
Show up for your friends. Make them feel important like the individuals they are.