People Describe The Fastest They've Ever Seen A Coworker Get Fired
They say it's hard for workers to get fired from their jobs. That is unless, of course, the employee is self-sabotaging and has nothing at stake.
While there are many unemployed people desperately looking for work, there are apparently just as many of those who want nothing more than to leave a situation that makes them miserable, despite having a steady paycheck.
Curious to hear about terminated employees, Redditor bartertownbeer asked:
"What is the fastest you have ever seen a new co-worker get fired?"
Fired? How about arrested?
Busted
"During their onboarding training, they stole my bosses wallet on camera.... 1 hour in.."
– 123abdce
Right Place, Wrong Time
"This is the opposite route here but I found it amusing. My boss was out of town and I managed a tea shop near a Starbucks years ago. This kid came in (foreign) and said he was supposed to start today. We were hiring and I trained him etc. My boss came back two days later and had no idea. The kid was in the wrong place but he stayed with us. Hired on the spot without even applying."
– ninetiesluddite
Idiotic
"We had a recent college grad that would use his corporate card for personal purchases. He figured that the company would just keep deducting from his payroll until it was paid off. He was fired after three months of constant reminders to stop doing it. I don’t think it qualifies as the fastest, because he lasted three months, but it was so idiotic."
– CBus-Eagle
The Longest Errand
"I work construction. We had 2 new hires that were friends starting the same day. Boss told one take a coffee order and come back. Took everyone's money and said he needed his friend to go with him cause it was a big order. They never came back."
– Dendad1218
Legs Exposed
"A 19 year old kid got hired to work the seafood counter. See him twice and then never again. Asked a coworker what happened."
"He had closed seafood one night and was walking out of the store and the 5 pounds of crab legs he'd stuffed down the back of his pants fell out in front of the closing manager."
– wanderin_fool
Security Risk
"Coworker quit his job, great job, great pay, great benefits to work in a radio repair place. I mean, gotta do what you love and he was also a big radio enthusiast. Got fired the first day on the job for stealing parts for his own radios at home. Took him over a year to get back with us. Surprised they rehired him. He then got fired for being a security risk about a year or so later."
– PresidentStone
Being under the influence at work never ends well.
Amusing Exit
"New 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 piss test, as he used his only bottle of clean piss 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."
– fast_hand84
Cocktail Shower
"A week."
"I worked in a bar and a new girl started. At work, she seemed a little rough but was fine."
"One day she finished a shift, sat at the bar and ordered a red wine with lemonade and ice in it (not really relevant to the story; just shows she is clearly insane). Her boyfriend came in, they had a huge domestic in front of my manager and several customers and she threw her drink over her bf and dramatically stormed out."
– lejolipamplemousse
And That's Why We Don't Hire Off The Street
"Worked at a steel processing plant (polishing, cut to length, etc) Everyone started off as temps, some for years, before getting hired in. Management decided they were short-staffed and the solution was to start hiring people full-time off the street."
"So this dude starts, full-time on day one, full benefits, more money, getting trained by temps who've been there for months, if not years. Everyone is mad resentful of this dude, obviously."
"Halfway through his second day he gets escorted out for testing positive on his drug test."
"They didn't hire any more dudes full-time off the street."
– HoboJesus
Bathroom Break
"corporate chain restaurant"
"new server, aged mid 30s."
"third day he was working we had to fire him mid shift. why? dude went in to the public rest rooms, with other guests clearly in there using the urinal, and started doing drugs on the edge of the sink."
– terenn_nash
Second Chances
"I can tell you about a time I fired someone within 5 minutes."
"Guy was a rehire in the restaurant. Had a baaaaad drinking problem. As in, got put into a hospice because he was dying. Of course he had to stop drinking so he got better. Went to detox and rehab and I heard he cleaned up. Second chances, right?"
"I hired him back and on his first day within the first 5 minutes I could tell this guy was obliterated drunk. Fired him again."
– porkchop2022
Competence is of utmost importance. Having brains is a good place to start as well.
Fast Food, Faster Firing
"Heard this from a manager I worked with when I worked in fast food. There was this one kid who didn’t show up for work. He ditched work often, so the manager called around, couldn’t get anyone to fill in his shift, so she had to fill it for him."
"A few hours into his shift, the dude ditching SHOWS UP, with his friends, and orders food from that manager. She fired him on the spot."
– [deleted]
Careful Who You Denigrate
"First day of work, he walks in, says 'what the f'k is up dumba**' to the guy that parked next to (didn't touch) his new Camaro he bought since he got hired."
"The guy was the CEO of the company I used to work for, on visit to our branch."
"Literally ten minutes into his shift he was signing release papers."
– NinthReever
The Accomplice
"Worked in a grocery store for awhile: new guy took a lobster out of the tank and removed the elastic bands on its claws, then proceeded to put it back in the tank. The thing murdered all the other lobsters in the tank."
– professorglock
Up In Flames
"Guy had been working a few days at a barn. Decided to smoke right by bales of hay. Manager saw him and fired him right on the spot. At farms, you don’t f'k around with fire."
– The_Tell_Tale_Heart
Anger Management
"Couldn’t pass the simple tests given at the end of new hire orientation. Yelled at test facilitator when she wouldn’t just take the test for him."
– pdxchris
Wife Behind The Curtain
"Sounds like an engineer my company hired. He was a PhD and really hit it off with the guys in management. Had some female colleagues working under his direction, and he was an absolute d*ck, demeaned their work, blamed them for things not working. Now my colleagues were excellent formulation chemists. He was brought on to lead a new formulation project and it wasn’t working. He would tell them how to do it and it never worked, he kept blaming them for doing it wrong. My coworker got fed up and called him on his bullsh*t during a big meeting with a prepared presentation describing what they tried, how thoroughly they tried it, why what he proposed would never work, and an alternative solution."
"He was pissed, but the management guys were extremely knowledgeable and started asking him questions, and it was clear he couldn’t answer. Turns out, his wife has a PhD too, and she pretty much did all of his degree work for him (both from a culture where women are not treated equally). He knew absolutely nothing. Not only that, but once everyone got to talking, it was clear just how massive an a**hole this guy was. Sadly, my colleagues had to deal with this for months before everything was said and done."
– cobrafountain
Remember when I mentioned how it's difficult for people to get fired?
Yeah, let's scratch that.
Apparently, it's super easy.
People Divulge The Exact Moment They Realized Their Workplace Was Toxic
Leaving a stable job is a weighty choice. Good salary, benefits, friendships with co-workers, and room for upward growth are all factors that may entice someone to stay put.
But sometimes those positive elements can cloud a person's vision.
In fact, there may be a slew of factors that make the job absolutely miserable, and they're all being silenced by a person's focus on the positives.
But then, in a single instant, the cons outshine the pros: a manager does something stupid or unfair, "legal" begins to seem like an optional concept to the higher ups, or somebody in the office is just plain inappropriate.
Suddenly, there is clarity. The only drawback? Realizing that maybe the person should've listened to their gut a little sooner.
Expwar asked, "When was the moment you realized your workplace was toxic?"
A Constellation of Toxic Variables
"I had a job where my girlfriend's Mother was my boss, so I guess the moment I realized my workplace was toxic was when my girlfriend cheated on me and then my girlfriend's Mom hired the guy she cheated on me with."
"In hindsight, probably more than just the workplace was toxic."
-- the-cschnepf
Mafia Ethics
"When someone was called into the manager's office, then returned to box up their desk and leave. When I asked the manager if she was okay, I was told, 'We don't talk about people after they leave.'"
"If someone quit or was fired, they were just never mentioned again. It was creepy AF."
-- solar-shock
Power HungerÂ
"They fired a new father the day before Christmas eve because he missed a month of work due to his wife getting very sick after giving birth, he didn't try to get medical leave or anything because he was worried about his wife and taking care of his newborn."
"Second one was when I sat in on a leadership meeting, I worked at the time as almost a bridge between two sides of the company and all the leaders did was gossip about their employees and talk about who they wished they could get rid of, and who annoyed them."
"One of them was a new leader and they were friends with these people a month ago."
"The meeting was about how to improve morale on the floor and the end result was a competition for a 25 gift card to the company store that is nothing but company apparel that no one wants anyway... it didn't work."
-- Earthwick
Look at Your Shoes, Look at Your Shoes
"When our boss got into a screaming match with one of the managers (his daughter) in the middle of the office."
"I'd just started there 3 weeks ago and it was absolutely mind boggling to watch. I looked around at my coworkers and everyone was just looking away, doing their best to stay quiet and not look at either of them."
"Person at the desk next to mine saw my shocked face and whispered 'they do this a lot. Just ignore it.'"
Incentives All Out of WhackÂ
"One of my job's metrics for how our performance is graded by is 'on time departure.' We get so many points if we're within -10, -5, 0, 5 or 10 min from scheduled."
"People try to cheat by tampering with the clocks and that's a punishable offense."
"I was good at leaving early or on time most of the times. Got a call one day to warn me that I was under investigation because I had the most points in the company."
"They assumed that I was cheating, that's when I knew I had to go. I wasn't going to start being late to avoid repercussions."
Skipping TownÂ
"We reached a point where we regularly had to wait to cash our paychecks. We basically were told we had to get orders completed and paid for, in order for the account to have enough money to pay us."
"During this time, the boss went on a vacation which was just great for morale."
"My manager had to take a day off, effectively putting me in charge for the day. I texted my manager, 'What should I do if the IRS shows up? lol.' 2 hours later an IRS agent did stop in looking for my boss."
"I found a new job not long after."
-- ghost-0427
Left Out in the WildÂ
"I once got asked if a wanted a different position, away from coding, into project management. I said, okay, if you help me set it up and give some guidance."
"The next week I got a project, through a binder being placed on my desk and the words, this is your project, good luck. Before I could react, they were out the door."
"I had a hard time getting projects started, worked on common sense and some help from coworkers taking pity on me. I made a checklist for software deployments, for instance, but when I told in a rare department meeting that I made such a checklist, I was told sternly not to waste time on stuff I couldn't charge customers with."
"After the confusing meeting, several coworkers asked me for a copy of the useful list... It still took me some 2 years of working 60+ hours a week, to make my way out the door. (And got a 65% raise starting the next job.)"
-- gozba
"Hurtful For This Man to Hear..."
"A couple of female coworkers went to the HR manager to file a complaint about sexism in the workplace, related to the same guy."
"They got told by the HR manager and their boss that the company wasn't gonna do anything about it, because it would be very hurtful for this man to hear that his behaviour was wrong..."
"Later when some anonymous survey showed that employees were really not as happy as they(company) were claiming on social media, and people even felt discriminated against in the workplace..."
"...they brushed it under the carpet saying people were just too stressed when they filled in the survey, like that is not a problem on its own."
"Many more of these kinds of things, but that's defo when I realised I had to get out."
Terminally Mixed Messages
"In college I had a part time job at a big retailer selling appliances. They would generally have a promo of either 0% financing or free delivery, one or the other but not both."
"That being said, there was a workaround where we could still give people both, and multiple members of our management team told us that if that was the only way to get the sale to do it."
"2 months later they fired half the department for doing what we were told to do. I quit right after that."
NOT Your Fixer
"When a boss told me to go to the port to bribe the officials there to release several containers of materials for the hotel we were building."
"I did not (and neither did that chickensh**)."
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Managers Explain Why The Had To Fire An Employee On Their First Day
Some people just aren't meant for certain types of jobs. Maybe food service isn't their thing, maybe office jobs aren't their thing, but either way, it's worth sticking it out for just a little bit. Some people don't make it that far. In fact, there are instances where some get fired on their first day. Here are some of the craziest stories, told by the employers themselves.
u/Lo-Fi_Kuzco asked: Managers of Reddit, what made you fire an employee on their first day?
Definitely a rodeo clown.
Customer service desk at an insurance company. Basically just rerouting incoming calls to the relevant claims handler. 18(ish)yo lad comes from a temp agency. Seemed a bit dippy but should have been able to manage this easy job.
After a couple of hours he'd secured his headset to his head by wrapping scotch taped around his head and face several times. Weird but...ok. Checked on him again 15 minutes later and he'd also scotch taped his telephone handset (each workstation had both) to his head in the same manner. Not only that but he'd scotch taped his whole head to his monitor and was just sitting there going "I don't quite know what to do about this" while the call queue stacked up.
I know no one can be quite that inept and it's most likely he was either trying to be funny or he just decided he didn't like the job and wanted out, but I prefer to think he was absolutely mental, and imagine that he's now a stuntman or a rodeo clown or something.
How did she not know what she did wrong?
GiphyI was assistant manager at Subway. I usually liked to give people time. It's a tougher job than it seems from the outside, everyone sucks at first, and taking someone's livelihood away is not a decision to be made lightly.
But I had one lady who only lasted 3 hours. She was perfectly fine for the first couple minutes, while the store manager was there. But she had a doctor's appointment, so she introduced us and told the new employee I was in charge when she wasn't there. As soon as my boss left, this lady just flatly ignored me when I asked her to do stuff like food prep or dishes. So I was already pretty pissed but trying to be patient. When we got busy, I stationed her putting veggies on sandwiches. She said a few things to customers that annoyed me, but nothing too bad at first. Then one guy asked for extra olives and she told him no. He was a bit offended and asked again, and she practically shouts, "you don't need any more olives, you have plenty!" So I tell her to give him the olives he's asking for.
Then she starts shouting at me about Subway standard veggie portions like I wasn't the one who taught her 45 minutes ago. I tried a little to explain that it's a default amount but customers can get extra, no big deal. She wasn't having it, so I stepped away from my station, gave the poor guy his olives, and apologized. That's when she lost it and started screaming that I was undermining her. I told her to go do dishes and I'd cover her station. She went storming off, thank God.
I was already planning on talking to the store manager about it, because holy sh*t. But as luck would have it, the franchise owner dropped in for something or other. As soon as new girl realized who he was, she started ranting about how I didn't control my veggie portions or some sh*t and I should be fired. When the franchise owner took my side, obviously, she shouted at him too. That was that, except that she called the store manager later, in tears, begging to know what she'd done wrong, and made it sound like she didn't realize I was her boss or that shouting at the owner about how he doesn't know how to run a business is inappropriate.
A big no-no.
The guy signed a non disclosure as we were working around movie sets and production offices. Throughout the day he continuously asked if he could take photographs. Finally, I realized that his employment was not worth risking my own employment or the production companies information. He was relocated elsewhere but, he did not last long from what I hear.
'Cause that makes sense....
She just left, I couldn't find her anywhere. Called her later at her parent's home and fired her. Mom was pissed... at me.
"I'm sorry ma'am but I'm not in the business of employing people that don't work for me."
"Just a child".
Giphy"I know my application said I can work any time but really I can't work nights and weekends." She was hired for nights and weekends.
Used to work in IT support at an airline, which meant shifts and being on call 24/7.
We once had a guy whose mom would call and complain about her boy being forced to do the graveyard shift, because "He's just a child, he shouldn't be treated like this."
Our shift supervisor just told her that we all take turns to do the graveyard shift, and that your boy is a grown man in his 20s, so he should learn to act like one.
That sounds very dangerous.
Guy lied about knowing how to drive forklift. Drove into support beam.
To Europeans: there's no such thing as a forklift license in the US. When you go to a new job you have to redo the exam again. There's also no official exam so every place does it their own way.
How misleading.
He interviewed really well, seemed excited to be a part of, kept mentioning his mom (in a "what a nice boy" way). He even brought his mom in after we hired him, she seemed really nice too. It's not so weird when you consider how small town is.
His first day? He showed up like a space cadet. Seemed to barely understand English, wasn't making eye contact with anyone but staring off into the distance like crazy, asking if he could take an early lunch 45 min into his shift. Dude was high off his gourd and we politely told him it wasn't gonna work out two hours into the day.
That's rude.
GiphyGirl snorted in disgust when I asked her to clear a table in her section. Wouldn't be shown how to set a table, and snapped at another manager.
"Do you even want to be here?" I asked.
"Not really."
"OK, grab your stuff, good luck to you."
Good luck with that.
Hired a guy on the recommendation of another employee. He no-call no-showed the first day. Second day he no-call no-showed, but halfway through the day called to tell me that his kid was sick (which I'm sympathetic for because I have kids too), but I had to tell him we couldn't use him.
Then waves of abusive texts and phone messages from him and his wife. His final text was super-long and explained how I'd just made it an enemy for life and that he was going to get even by starting up a rival business and putting me out of business. If only he'd put that much energy into showing up.
Crazy sh*t goes down in pubs.
Pub & bar manager here. This happened at my previous pub.
New guy's first shift and he was constantly on his phone and going for cigarette breaks without permission. 2 hours into his shift his mates came in and he gave them all free drinks, shots and snacks, a few of them were under 18. Fired him on the spot and he had the audacity to appeal, despite overwhelming evidence against him including 5 witness statements and cctv, not to mention the stock count deficit.
Edit: just to clarify I'm from the UK, England.Let's be real, we've all broken rules at our place of employment at one point or another. Whether or not we've gotten caught, that's another story. Toeing the line with your job is not the smartest idea, but there are the rare occasions that we do, in fact, get away with it.
Sammy-J23 asked: What was a situation where you thought, "I'm going to be fired for sure" but it turned out completely fine?
Minimum Wage Employees Reveal Their Worst 'I Don't Get Paid Enough For This Sh*t' Moments
The minimum wage in America is insultingly low, yet employees working for a pittance are still expected to go above and beyond the call of duty. Some of these stories are pretty frustrating, and only makes it clearer that all work deserves decent pay.
justme112358 asked minimum wage workers of Reddit: What's you re "I don't get paid enough for this shIt" story?
Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.