The Quickest Ways Someone's Coworker Ever Got Fired
Reddit user mango-chocolate asked: 'What's the quickest way you saw a co-worker get fired?'
We've all made our fair share of mistakes; it's in our nature, honestly.
Sometimes we mess up so badly, it can ruin other things in our lives, like important relationships or our jobs.
But some people have messed up so badly at work that they lost their jobs in record time.
Ready to hear the tea, Redditor mango-chocolate asked:
"What's the quickest way you saw a coworker get fired?"
Check Your Pride
"In my old law office, a firm-wide email was sent out announcing the arrival of a new employee. We will call him Paul."
"So Paul decided to reply-all to let all of us know that he was aware of our recent legal defeats, that many people should be fired for these failures, and that his hiring was the first good thing our firm had done in years."
"The dude was a legal assistant right out of college with no experience."
"A minute after the email went out, I heard a crazy shout and then watched one of the senior partners run past my office towards HR (Human Resources)."
"And five minutes later Paul walked past with the HR manager and a security escort. He lasted less than 45 minutes."
- Left_Apparently
Lotto Fraud
"I worked at a lotteries company. A guy working in testing got access to production data and printed off some test tickets with some unclaimed winning numbers."
"He only did low amounts, like 500 dollars, and claimed three of them in three completely different locations around town."
"Of course, the company was interested in the story of someone who found a six-month-old lottery ticket and claimed it, but they were even more interested to find it was the same person going to three locations."
"Needless to say, when they realized the guy actually worked in the company, he got pulled into a room with cops a-waiting him."
- ThroughTheHoops
Weird Brag
"I worked at a bank, we were robbed at gunpoint. One of the tellers was quick to tweet out, 'Woooo, got the rest of the day off!! Feel free to visit me at work with a gun and ski mask anytime!'"
"They were fired upon walking in the next morning."
- seastrat
Totally Stopped Production
"An id**t pressed the emergency stop for fun on his second day at work."
"The emergency stop that he hit switches off all drives on the 100-meter-long paper machine. This means there is a loss of production for three to four hours for the entire paper mill."
"He was immediately escorted from the factory premises by two colleagues."
- daHawkGR
No Point Taking That Test
"I had a coworker get picked for a random drug test. She went back to her desk to grab her purse, and just left the building, never to return."
- brytewolf
Yes, That's What We Meant
"The boss sat her down to talk about her recent behavior at work."
"She whipped out her phone and started taking a video, saying that it was her right to record for 'when it goes to court.'"
"The boss said, 'Okay, this is the kind of stuff I’m talking about, you’re fired.'"
"This was at a Domino’s Pizza."
- kenb99
New Definition for "Side Hustle"
"Evidently, they robbed a bank on their lunch break."
"They came back like nothing happened, and then the cops showed up and took him down. It was crazy."
- Bob_the_Brewer
Quite the First Impression
"Pulling into the parking lot on the first day, she ran into a light pole that took out electricity to the whole site."
"She wasn't wearing a seat belt and was thrown into the front window."
"When we went out to see what had happened, she reeked of booze and there were empty liquor bottles in the back of the car."
"She never even made it to the front door, got a guest badge, or started her orientation training."
- LowBudgetViking
Haunting Upcharges
"When I was in high school, I used to do seasonal work at haunted houses which I did for four years."
"A new guy that they hired was supposed to help with parking. Now, in the three years that I worked at this haunted house, they never once charged people for parking (it was a very dark parking lot off of a cliff so had to make sure no one drove off of it trying to park)."
"This cheeky son of b***h started charging people five dollars to park."
"It was only found out after someone complained because they didn't have the money to go in with their friends because they had to pay for parking. I think the guy was only there a couple of hours before he got fired."
- rpgmomma8404
Missed the Training
"They got hired and then fell asleep during a meeting their first day and were asked not to come back."
- Snowstorm-3
"Same here. At a tech company, they hired a new developer, and the owner caught him napping at a desk on day one when he was supposed to be reviewing training materials."
"The owner had a chat with him, and told him whatever the reason, it was really bad form to fall asleep on the job on the first day."
"The new hire apologized, understood, and went back to the training materials. Not 20 minutes later, the owner walks by again and the guy is passed out once again, so he walked over, woke him up, and told him he was fired and to get out."
"I don't even think he made it to his fourth hour of employment."
- badtz-maru
Highly Questionable Explorations
"Early in my career I was an engineer at a refinery in the UK, and I was in charge of the QC lab. By law, we had to have external independent testing on the refinery fuel products to confirm they complied with government regulations."
"It seemed getting a job for the testing company was that you had to be an adult and had a driving license. The lab had a lot of very nasty chemicals either being tested or used in the testing or cleaning of the oil products."
"A new young girl turned up for the testing company and was dipping her finger into a chemical called phenol and stating that 'it makes your hand and arm go numb.' Phenol is a severe muscle relaxant (including your heart) and can kill you at very low concentrations."
"One hour into her employment we had paramedics on the scene monitoring her vitals and was released after eight hours. She didn't last the first hour of the first day and the testing company was fined pretty heavily."
- Nerdymcbutthead
AKA: Paid to Advertise
"A guy got hired in the first firm I ever worked for. He turned up for his first morning at work, and within an hour he had emailed the entire company (6,000 people) about his band and their availability for birthdays, weddings, etc."
"He was dismissed by lunchtime."
- BDATriangle001
"So he got paid half a day's wage to advertise his band to 6,000 people?"
"Man's a freaking genius."
- Oakcamp
Not-So-Quiet Quitting
"One day, Tim announced that he wasn’t paid enough and was going to basically sit at his desk doing nothing until he was paid what he wanted."
"20 minutes later, the boss walked in and asked Tim if he could have a word with him."
"Five minutes later, the boss walked back in and announced that Tim no longer worked there and if there were any questions."
"There were no questions."
- Few_Horse4000
Don't Be That Guy
"Interviewed a guy that was replacing someone who was leaving. Offered the job and was supposed to start the next day."
"Just so happened that we were having a going away party for the leaving dude that night so new guy was invited as a chance to 'get to know the team.'"
"The new guy shows up and proceeds to get absolutely s**t-faced and asked the head of HR if she wanted to go back to his place because he 'got a vibe' during the interview process."
"Next day, the new guy was a no-show so we were thinking bullet dodged. He showed up just before lunch clearly hung over making up some excuse for being late."
"The big boss came out and told the guy to get the f**k out."
- tizod
Optional Hours? Optional Employment.
"I fired someone who decided her second day that she was going to go out to lunch and not come back. The next morning she told everyone all about the shopping she did. She seemed confused about the expectations."
- dunwerking
Some of these stories are absolutely worth shaking our heads over, while others are truly shocking.
It's crazy the lengths people will go to in the workplace, despite the expectations that had already been clearly set.
If you view the rules as optional, your boss might view your employment as optional, too.
The Fastest Ways People Have Seen A Coworker Get Fired
Reddit user Business_Reporter420 asked: 'What’s the fastest way you’ve ever seen a new coworker get fired?'
Getting a job may be difficult, but believe it or not, it's allegedly harder to get fired from jobs.
Employees have to seriously be incapable of doing the job they were hired for, or they must be so miserable after realizing the job description was not what they signed up for that they deliberately jeopardize their position just to be shown the door.
Strangers online were happy to provide examples of terminated coworkers when Redditor Business_Reporter420 asked:
"What’s the fastest way you’ve ever seen a new coworker get fired?"
The couple times deserve the benefit of a doubt.
And then there are the other times after that...
Losing Track Of Time
"6 hours. Call center job. She showed up to orientation on day 1 about an hour late. Hey stuff happens. Then we go on a 15 min break. She goes out to take a phone call, comes back in after about 45 min. We go to lunch, it's 30 minutes. She comes back over an hour later. We go on afternoon break, when the 15 min break is up, one of the trainers gets up and steps out in the hall and closes the door behind him. We hear her arrive and argue with him about 20 minutes after that. He comes back in and gets the stuff she left at her desk and we never see her again."
– misoranomegami
A String Of Unfortunate Events
"First day, her grandmother died. Understandable. Second day, her car broke down. Bad luck. Third day she had no electricity and couldn’t blow dry her hair. She was told not to bother coming in at all."
– exitzero
The Employee On Her Own Schedule
"There are a lot of these people. What do they think is going to happen, like they'll come in to work eventually, everyone will understand, and they'll be a great employee... tomorrow though. Today they're hungover."
"I fired a girl like this... she acted gobsmacked 'wow, gosh, really? This is kinda crazy, i've never been fired before.'"
"She showed up for about 50% of her scheduled days for like 2 straight weeks. Did she really think that was how jobs work?"
– Steinmetal4
Downfall Of Mass Hiring
"Worked for startups the past couple of years before I recently took a new gig but we had to hire about 100 people in the span of 2 weeks which I told my boss was a bad idea but the CEO insisted"
"Hired a young lady, she had a spotty resume but was very cheerful and friendly in the interview and my boss's instructions were if they are nice and friendly 'pass them on to me.'"
"we oversaw the customer service relations for this company."
"On her first day she came in 15 minutes late, got into an argument with a customer on her first training call and took the mic and farted into it as loud as I've ever heard a human being fart"
"We paid her for the full day."
"Best hire ever."
– _Nolofinwe_
Some people were never a fit for the job.
Fear Gets In The Way
"I was working as a stable boy, and I was showing the new girl around the stables. As I introduced her to the horses, she was very apprehensive to come near them, refusing to even step into the stall (she signed on to help care for the horses.)"
"Later that day, she admitted that the horses terrified her, so the boss let her go."
– AlternativeFilm8886
The Sibling Discount
"In high school I worked at a clothing store as a cashier. Guy next to me has his sister come through with a huge pile of merchandise."
"He scans one item that was on clearance for like $2 over and over again for everything she had, which was likely hundreds of dollars."
"Didn’t realize the manager was standing right behind him."
“Go clock out and give me your name tag, you’re gone.”
"He didn’t argue or anything, just put his head down and walked off."
"The manager jumps on the register to clear the transaction out and the sister takes out her card, 'This is gonna be a credit.'”
"Manager says 'Not for $2 it’s not, get out of here.'”
"The sister actually tried to complete the purchase like nothing had happened lol"
– Plantayne
Gamer On The Clock
"A guy at my work was caught playing World of Warcraft for hours each day. Boss called him in and told him that was wholly unacceptable and he had to stop immediately or he'd be canned."
"Less than an hour later, IT calls the same boss and says the guy is back in his office playing again. He was let go that day."
– jpiro
Rule Breaker
"Worked in a sales call center about 10 years ago, real braindead work. New guy starts on a Monday morning, after he gets trained up on the basics (which takes about an hour), he gets assigned a desk and sets off to work."
"30 minutes later, it looks like little puffs of steam are rising up from his computer monitor. Turns out he was vaping on one of those disposable ecigarettes, the kind that sort of tried to look like real cigarettes. He gets told by the boss that we can't vape indoors, and if he wants to, he'll have to go outside to do it on a break."
"About 30 minutes later again, the same thing happens. He gets caught again, and is told in no uncertain terms that if he wants to keep his job, he'll stop vaping at his desk."
"An hour later, he gets caught hiding under his desk vaping, and is promptly fired, all before lunch time. Dude could have just gone outside."
– Mr_Itch
First And Final Delivery
"Day 1, delivering pizzas. I was the trainer."
"Dude wasn't familiar with the town at all (this was before GPS was a thing)."
"Second delivery, he gets in the car, and proceeds to floor it in the parking lot, showing off all 80 horsepower for the 30 feet before slamming on the brakes to turn onto the main street, nearly hitting a customer and her young child."
"I say whoah, slow down in the Parking lot, you almost hit that kid."
"'F'k em' was his response."
"That was his last delivery, lasted all of about 90 minutes."
– talontd92tsi
The easiest way for a worker to get off the payroll is for them to actually quit.
Misunderstanding Of A Job Position
"I used to work night audit/front desk at a motel adjacent to major highways. It was a super chill job, I loved my boss, and it was cool by me."
"But God, trying to hire and train someone to take over my hours - once for maternity leave, and then when I was moving away - was a nightmare. One lady claimed to be computer literate, and then tried to use the mouse to physically touch the correct spot on the monitor when I asked her to click on a field. Another got extremely confused when I mentioned that sleeping with a guest was completely out of bounds. A guy got arrested (and fired of course) for selling drugs to someone out the night window. It was just an absolute sh*t show."
"Before I moved, I gave my boss a 2-month notice, because I knew hiring and training was gonna be a nightmare. About a week before my final shift, we finally got someone in place. She was more than a bit strange and could certainly have used a spot of mental health care, but hey, I can't throw stones. She showed up, grasped the basics of the job, etc. About a week after I left, I learned that she had quit because she didn't realize that night audit was a purely overnight job."
"Idk."
– 50EffingCabbages
The Newbie's Assigned Task
"He didn’t get fired, he quit. But this dude was a first day hire as a bagger at a grocery store. Some dude blew up the entire bathroom with diarrhea. Walls, doors, sink, mirror, everywhere. They asked new dude to go clean it. He clocked out and never came back. He’s a hero."
– mrmastomas
I briefly worked for an entertainment company as a dancer with a friend of mine who was unfortunately let go during the rehearsal process.
He was unable to keep up with the demanding rehearsal schedule and couldn't retain the mass amount of choreography we were being taught in a short amount of time.
Poor guy wasn't even a slacker. As a matter of fact, he far exceeded my dancing capabilities and was hard-working, but he let himself get in the way and couldn't handle the pressure.
But by letting him go, the production company took a hit because teaching a new-hire everything from the beginning slowed us down more than the time it would've taken to help my friend memorize the choreography.
Sigh...
One must really hate their job in order for them to get fired.
Depending on the actual job, it's not that difficult to follow established rules and work protocols. Deviating from them just to get terminated can take more effort.
That is, of course, the employees are completely inept or severely disgruntled and have no problem going on a self-sabotaging mission to be let go.
Why can't they just quit, you ask? Well, that'll be less dramatic.
Strangers online shared what they've witnessed at the workplace when Redditor ImaginaryBank9587 asked:
"How did that one coworker get fired?"
These former employees would do anything for a meal deal.
Egg Thief
"We had an employee cafeteria at a Fortune 500 company. You'd get your food at a counter and bring it, in one of those white foam clamshell containers, to the register where you'd just tell the cashier what you got. This one fellow regularly ordered 3-egg scrambles and told the cashier he had just one egg. He got caught once and told never to do it again. He did it again, and lost a $100k+ job for stealing eggs."
– Yossarian147
Costly Stand-Off
"Similar thing happened at my work, Fortune 500 company, VP of some department, company cafeteria but it was a salad. Would order a salad in line, the kind that they charge by weight and would loiter around until the cashier line got busy and then slip out the exit."
"Cafe worker noticed, told her boss …her boss told corporate security, they start watching for him and due to the guy’s position they watch for a few weeks. 2-3x’s a week he does this for close to a month. Finally they decide ok now it’s ironclad and we can fire him so they walk him out."
"Turns out he thought charging for salad was a ripoff and decided he wasn’t playing the game with the cafe. Well over 300k a year and lost it over a 5.00 salad."
– Due-Pineapple6831
The camera sees all.
Clumsy Ninja
"He was stealing Klondie Bars from the company freezer."
"One of the managers brought in a hidden camera to catch the thief. We all knew the camera was there so he crawled over to the freezer all ninja style to stay under the camera's field of vision."
"It would have worked, except, when he stood back up he tried to do it all fancy, and fell backward back into the camera's view."
– pirateteaparty
He May Have Fooled The GPS Tracker
"Dude would drive to the site, park his work van, then have his GF pick him up and take off for 8 hours, come back and pick up the van, thereby cleverly fooling the GPS tracker in the vehicle..."
"But not the camera pointing directly at the spot where he parked, got picked up, and dropped off. Cost the company a substantial contract. And himself a job."
– Dylsnick
Keep an eye on your baby wherever you go.
Free Baby
"She picked up a customer's baby without permission and walked off with her, the customer was beside herself thinking she'd been kidnapped. Co-worker didn't think she had done anything wrong because she's also a mother...."
– miss_demean0r
Up For Grabs
"My girlfriend had a coworker who did something similar, customer came in with a baby and she just grabbed the baby out of mum's arms and starts rocking it as this was a normal thing in her culture and her fellow co-workers freaked out about it but the mum was actually totally fine with it for some reason. She did not get fired though, they actually gave her a full time contract soon after which was a rare thing where she worked."
– Bubblez4
The Cart Pusher
"We had a cart pusher at target who did the same thing. He def have some mental disabilities, but I wasn’t privy to that info. I just know there were very few tasks he could do and he wasn’t very verbal."
"He was instructed to return carts, so he picked the child up from the child seat in the cart and held it out for the mom to grab after she finished loading the trunk. Mom was mortified, came in to raise hell at guest services. He wasn’t fired, but he also wasn’t allowed to push carts anymore."
– thisisntmyOGaccount
Alcohol and work don't mix.
Workplace Blackout
"Showed up drunk on the job, passed out on a chair in the lobby, then pissed his pants."
– SheZowRaisedByWolves
Sad Story
"At a prior company, we had a programmer who was brilliant. He actually built their computer systems from scratch and was able to update and maintain them. Only problem was, he was a total alcoholic. He was married and his wife did a damn good job getting him to work each day and keeping him reasonably coherent during business hours, probably because he was earning over $300K/year and it was worth her effort."
"Well, I guess she finally had enough of conducting his life and divorced him. He went OFF THE RAILS, like the company sent cops to his house for a wellness check. He was fine, just really drunk. The company paid for him to go to go rehab about three times, they were that invested in him. Each time, he'd stay sober for a bit, but then would be back to his old tricks in a couple of months."
"Eventually, the company hit its breaking point. I think the final straw was when he was in the parking lot, drunk, passed out in his car."
"He was fired and ended up passing from a massive heart attack about six months later, no doubt due to his addiction."
"Very sad story all around as he actually was great guy and an incredible programmer."
– Bleuet73
When I was a young performer in shows at a certain theme park, me and my coworkers got away with a lot of harmless but unprofessional behavior backstage that involved roughhousing and stupid antics out of view of visiting guests.
But when it came to showtime, we were always professional and helped create magical memories for our audiences.
The only time someone was fired was when a coworker tried to sneak a prop–in this case, a wig of a very popular princess–out of the park. Whenever we would "clock out" the security gate, they would always check our belongings for this very reason.
I guess my friend forgot about that part.
The next day, he didn't show up to work and none of us had a clue as to why. The company is so secretive when it comes to stuff like this.
We all eventually found out, and none of this played out dramatically. But one thing was made very clear.
You don't steal a mermaid's wig from this company and think you can get away with it.
When I started high school, I was a naive teenager who thought all teachers knew they were supposed to be kind and encouraging to students.
Yes, I had teachers that couldn’t teach. Yes, I had teachers in middle school who got fired for being creeps. However, none of them could be accused of being cruel.
Then I attended my first high school art class, and my entire worldview shattered. The teacher would make fun of students who made a mistake in their sketches, tell students they couldn’t draw, and destroy paintings she didn’t like by drawing a big ‘X’ over them.
She told all students that they would never be artists because she couldn’t make it as an artist herself, even though she was more talented than any student she ever taught.
Needless to say, it didn’t take long for students to complain to the principal. When he realized all the students were complaining about the same teacher and were making the same complaints, he fired her.
Teachers get fired for all sorts of reasons, and some of them are really crazy.
Redditors agree with that statement and stepped up to explain the most scandalous reasons their teachers were fired.
It all started when Redditor Surtion asked:
“How did “that teacher” get fired for at your school?”
Prank Gone Wrong
"An hour before the State championship football game the head football coach/PE teacher got a student who wasn't on the team to come up to him and pretend to shoot him. He used fake blood and everything. No one knew it was going to happen and his own son was on the team."
"We lost the game too."
– hanginonwith2fingers
Completely Ick
"Male substitute teacher that taught regularly at my Catholic high school who wasn't fired, but banned from teaching in our female P.E. class after we reported him for repeatedly instructing us to "stretch" in positions that were sexual/inappropriate. For example, he asked us to bend over with both hands against the wall and "shake our hips back and forth.""
"Bonus: he subbed for my geography class the following year and during one of his classes I asked to go to the bathroom to "take care of [my] feminine issue". He asked me "what kind of feminine issue specifically?". I was too embarrassed to say it was my period so I said "well, you know..." to which he replied, "yes, but I want to hear you say it out loud." Creepy."
– wheremydisstrackat
The Food And The Bling
"She wanted the kids to cheat on the reading test so she can win a pizza party and a trophy"
– Constant-Tiger-1748
"Dude, if she was secretive enough and made sure the scores weren't too high she could have easily pulled off, and honestly if it was me I would bat a frickin' eyelash about it"
– Ok-Garlic4162
From Their Hands To My Pockets
"Had a teacher charging parents extra money for a field trip. Was pocketing the extra money."
– oreoballer187
"My high school swim coach got caught pocketing the meal money after me and a couple others missed the post-state championship team dinner to go home early to beat a blizzard. I think she was told to either step down and return the money or face charges."
– SporkFanClub
Tales Of The School Bus
"(Not a teacher, but...) My (middle school / high school) bus driver was fired for driving drunk."
"Driving the bus drunk."
"Often."
– draggar
"My middle school bus driver ran into a house while driving us and stayed employed at least until I was in college. She also raced a train and hit curbs often"
– Rob1Inch
"The bus driver I had in fifth grade was a total nightmare. He'd get us to school on time, but we'd often get home very late because he'd stop the bus to have screaming meltdowns. This was a bus of K-5 kids, and while sometimes we could get chatty or rambunctious, no one was doing dangerous or delinquent stuff. Most days, we'd just get on the bus, sit down and chat with friends, and wait to be dropped off. But that was too much for this lunatic, and if he felt that kids were talking too much, or somehow "being disrespectful," he'd pull the bus over and scream at us. At length. He'd scare the really little kids, and if you tried to apologize or to stand up to him, he's just get louder and angrier."
"He never touched any of us, but he'd get so mad, we'd worry he was going to shake or spank us. He'd insist that everyone be perfectly still and silent- real easy for a terrified kindergarten kid, right?- and every little thing he perceived as going against that order would start the screaming again, and restart the clock on the wait for him to start driving again. We got home late often; a few times I remember getting home around the same time as my dad, who had a pretty long commute to and from his 9-5 job."
"I have no earthly idea why none of the parents ever said anything about this, but us kids were too terrified to tell on him. Toward the end of the year, I think a few of us did (I turned him in to save my own hide; my mom started yelling at me for getting home late like I had any autonomy as a 12 year-old who rode the damn bus home from the next town over, and I just told her he liked to stop and scream at us) and he wasn't brought back the following year. As an adult, I have a lot of questions for the adults in this situation, and I sincerely doubt that any of their answers will impress me. The dude clearly hated his life, but that's no excuse to take it out on a bunch of helpless, trapped kids."
– unsaferaisin
It Made Class More Fun
"It was well-known that Mr Geometry teacher had Vodka in his Mountain Dew cans. It was just like... openly discussed. Everybody knew."
"Math class 6th period of the day was interesting"
– LoveDietCokeMore
Huh...
"She used to come to school drunk and try to get us to convert to Scientology. I still don’t know a single thing about Scientology because no one could comprehend wtf she was talking about"
– BioluminescentNewt
This Seems More Like The Student's Fault...
"Super cool guy. Vietnam vet. Some idiot pretended to throw a “grenade” and the teacher hit the floor. Then apparently punched the kid in the face. Fired. Had a sub the rest of the year who kept bragging about how many planes he has and how he’s just counting the time to go flying. But won’t take any of us with."
– FatboyChuggins
"That's f*cking horrible, that kid should've gotten expelled, PTSD is no f*ckin' joke"
– Ok-Garlic4162
Hail Mary
"Not just that teacher, but the principal. He'd gotten wind that he might be fired because of less than ideal job performance, so he decided to drum up sympathy by belly stabbing himself in the men's room and blaming a student. Said student was arrested but the police were immediately suspicious of his story when they noticed his shirt was unharmed. In other words, whoever stabbed him courteously lifted up his shirt beforehand so as not to tear a hole in it. He wound up being forced to resign, in addition to getting probation and a heavy fine."
– 2ndOfficerCHL
“That man shouldn’t be an educator” doesn’t even begin to describe that last one!
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.