On the internet, there are a few stories here and there of people who were let go because of poor performance, conflicts with their managers or a failure to stick to corporate policy. But are you familiar with the expression "you had one job"? Well, it might be very appropriate for this particular post. Sometimes people act in such a strange way that it might be difficult to comprehend how they could possibly have managed to do this. It's one thing to make a wrong career choice and struggle to do your job right, but getting fired because of stupid acts is (hopefully) rare.
In this online group, one user asked the audience - to be more specific, bosses - what were the most insanely brainless things their employees did that left no other choice but to fire them. Here you can check out 29 of them and decide whether to cry or laugh looking at these incidents.
More info: Reddit
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This guy always tried to hide at work to avoid working.
One day I was looking for him and I stepped into the bathroom. I notice a shoe print on the back of the toilet, and I look up and one of the ceiling tiles is pushed a little to the side.
I climb up there, and this mother f****r is hiding in the ceiling.
This actually just happened, our supplier came out onto my construction site and cooked everyone a free barbie. This one bloke had a meltdown and almost had a fight with the chef. Their conversation started off like this:
Guy: Where's the butter?
Chef: Ain't got no butter mate.
Guy: What kind of barbie is this without any butter?
Chef: A free one, if you don't like it, don't have it.
Then the guy blew up yelling at the chef for making smartarse comments and swearing his head off, while the chef thought nothing of it and remained really calm and telling the guy to "take it easy". Our site does not tolerate this kind of behavior, needless to say we kicked the guy off site ASAP. Lost a job over a free barbie and butter lol.
EDIT: turns out there was butter in the fridge.
I had to fire this kid from a gas station I worked at, after he asked me if I ever poked holes in the condoms with a push pin (as he proceeded to punch holes in condoms) I have no idea how long he was doing it for he worked there for over a year.
Worked at a fairly large used bookstore in NYC. We often listed and sold rare books online, and sometimes had really unusual items that were truly one of a kind - signed and numbered, or personally inscribed from one famous person to another, or whatever.
One day, we get a phone call from one of the managers from the huge bookstore up the street (which also happens to be our biggest competitor.) He explains that he has a large stack of merchandise that he is sure was stolen from our store. Apparently, earlier that day, a fellow had come to his store with some books and art prints he was hoping to sell. The manager looked a few of them up and quickly deduced that they were stolen. Two of the items in particular were really exceptionally rare & obviously identifiable as belonging to us.
This would have all been bad enough, but the manager had one last piece of information to share. "Thing is," he says, "I'm pretty sure that the guy who brought them in works for you. I've seen him over there a bunch of times. He usually works Sundays and Mondays, tall guy, blond hair, wears cowboy shirts, blah blah blah" and proceeds to absolutely and without a shadow of a doubt identify our sales associate "Dan."
Dan had apparently gone into our rare book room, stolen the books (which were already listed for sale on the internet), walked an entire four blocks to one of the most famous bookstores in the city, and tried to sell his stolen loot to one of the booksellers he saw at least twice a week in our store. Unbelievable. If we hadn't fired him for theft, we would have had to fire him for the epic stupidity.
In specialized fields like rare books, it is small community and people look out for each other, even their competitors. Or in one famous case, when some Coke employees stole the formula and tried to sell it to Pepsi, Pepsi called the FBI and Coke, and helped set up a sting to protect Coke's trade secrets. There is many times a mutual interest for parties to be like this
Worked at a nightclub. One if the workers called in sick, but he was actually going to some party instead. Could you guess where they went after the party? Yes, to our nightclub.
Manager at a delivery joint here, we had to let someone go because they decided to deliver pizzas in a stolen car.
NEW JOB APPLICATION FOR PIZZA DELIVERY DRIVER. #1 Do You Have A Car? #2 Is It YOUR Car?
I was managing a restaurant and did morning cash out (I checked all slips against the information in the computer). I noticed a new hire had really good tip averages the day before when I had been paying her out. The next day I was going through her slips and noticed a... discrepancy. Mainly that she had added a 1 in front of each tip and changed the total. How could I tell you ask? SHE USED DIFFERENT COLOR INK!
She was fired and we refunded the money... seriously, at least use the same color ink.
If she added zeros at the other end, she would be The Binary System Thief.
In high school a guy I knew stole a giant Ronald McDonald made of legos from the McDonalds he worked at. It was one of those guess the number of pieces contests. He got away with it, but later on he was busted for stealing boxes of hash brown wrappers with monopoly game pieces on them. Cops show up at his place to arrest him over the hash browns, lo and behold there sits Ronald in the middle of his room.
I had a manager steal a bag that a customer had left on the counter. He completely denied it too, and I believed him. But the customer was sure he left it there, and asked to see the video. I hadn't seen anything odd, so I showed it to him... he pointed out the bag, which we watched until the manager of 10+ years took the bag and left.
Idiot.
There was one time I had to fire someone because I sent him out on a job that would only take 2-3 hours to complete. Before he left, he mentioned to the receptionist that he was going to make it last all day. She mentioned it to me, and sure enough, he returned over 8 hours later.
Being dishonest with a client's money is not something I was going to tolerate.
I was the manager of a Papa John's and a lady called and complained about a driver going to fast near her kids. Driver comes back, and I say, "Pat, a lady called, try and slow it down a bit."
He goes postal in front of a packed audience of pick up customèrs:
"F**k you, man. Who's side you on?"
"Not mad, Pat. Just be careful."
"Na. F**k u- shes lying!"
"Pat- dude. Not mad. Just be careful."
"Ah, no. F**k that. You and I need to go outside!"
"Calm down, dude. Not mad at ya. Dont worry"
"F**k, you! Flpppbbt babble mibble babble!"
"You're done, man. Go home"
Most awkward pizza firing aside from when this dude tried to kill me when I worked on the coast. Pat 's a nurse now.
I got a great one. My friend and I were both district managers for a vendor company that worked in Home Depots building displays and merchandising. One day one of the workers was on the store phone talking with one of the owners of the company. Owner hears in the background an in-store page for a manager he knows had been fired a month before.
Turns out this guy had made an hour long recording of the inside sounds of a Home Depot, and would play it on his stereo anytime someone would call him! Fooled everyone for months! My buddy and me drove to his house and parked outside and called him.
My friend asked him where he was, and he goes "I'm at the store." We tell him, you might want to look out your window. We see his curtain part a little bit and close fast. We told him don't bother coming out, you're fired. Got to give him credit for the balls and ingenuity though.
Had an employee call in sick a few busy retail Saturdays in a row. The pattern got my a bit suspicious, but I had no proof until..... a coworker, who wasn't all too happy working upfront short handed again, came into my office cell phone in hand to show me selfie photos that the "sick" employee had just posted to facebook of her sunbathing!
Putting a customers info in the system as: first name: don't care. Last name: smells like s**t.
Receptionist who forgot to wear pants. I was at a satelite office and had 4 employees call me seperately to let me know. There were some previous issues, plus they were pretty sure she was on something.
Employee wrote "a*****e" on the bottom of a customers oil filter. Customer decided to change his oil one day....
something something something
Fired.
Edit: At the time employees were required to sign their initials for upper bay and lower bay with the date. The upper bay tech signed JJ, and the lower bay tech was AS. JJ was pissed at AS that day and finished the lower bays initials with SHOLE beside it and handed it to him to install.
Customer found it a month later doing his own oil change and brought the filter. Employee admitted it and was terminated from above. Still friends to this day and he is now a teacher.
I was an editor on my college's student daily newspaper.
We had a photography staff that would photograph events, sports games, etc. -- but they'd also sometimes have to do stupid stock photo type things for feature or trend articles. (Think like, a photo of someone filling out a college application for a story on college admissions, or something.)
Anyway, we had two photogs who were apparently in a group of friends that had formed some kind of... snake... cult? (probably had another name that they used, but we called it the snake cult when we found out about it.)
The way we found out about it was that we started noticing this weird symbol in the background of some of our feature article photographs -- on a post-it-note in the background of a shot of some library books, or in the shape of the food in a photo of some dining hall food for an article about meal plans. Once we discovered it, we looked back and saw it had been going on for months.
So yeah, we had to fire some photogs for slipping cult symbols into our student paper on a regular basis.
Not a boss, but HR. Had a guy on a temporary work comp transitional assignment at a retail store. His regular job had very good pay, a lot of benefits, etc. The moron stole a used scuba suit from his temporary job site, on camera. Bonus: we're well over 1,000 miles from any ocean.
I once worked in a retail store where we all had our own access codes that allowed us to do stuff, and if our code didn't allow us to do it, we weren't supposed to be doing it. On his first day during training he managed to catch the General Manager's code as he was typing it in and used it for about a week. Pretty much gave away thousands of dollars of equipment in the manager's name.
It was particularly stupid because he did it because he still had his trainee position which required somebody to look over most of what he did if he wanted to give discounts, etc. If he had waited another couple of days he would have been moved up to full staff member and could have given out most of those discounts anyway without anybody noticing or caring. He just couldn't wait to give his friends all the free swag.
Personal hygiene. You'd think people would have the common courtesy to shower before working with others. That person smelled like pure BO with s**t sprinkled on top.
a PC technician was being pestered with questions from a customer about sales stuff. he lost it and while looking the customer square in the face (the employee had his eyes closed however) said: "GET AWAY FROM ME OR ILL EAT YOUR FACE". it took half the day to get over the laughter and WTF of the situation before we could even begin on paperwork.
We worked at a place that bought in used cell phones. She bought a cell phone from a guy and his Facebook was still open. She posted as the guy on his Facebook something like "I'm a big f*****g idiot". Guy came back to complain. She was fired.
The guy sold a phone without removing credentials or personal data... the employee was rightly fired, but she told no lies.
I used to manage a hotel. You would not believe the amount of female employees I had to constantly remind it was against company policy to have [make love] with the guests. One woman (she was about 20 years old), who I had to remind this of several times, was caught mid act [making love] with a guy that was about 65 and looked like Santa Claus. After she was fired one of her coworkers told me that this woman had a "Santa Claus fetish" and thought she'd never get the opportunity to act on it so it was worth possibly getting caught and fired. Girl was pretty decent looking too.
backstory: employee 'Ed' works a union job, works 40 hours per week, makes about $60k per year, full benefits, full pension, tons of paid vacation, and is in his early to mid 30s. Ed has absolutely no education, did not even finish high school, is socially awkward, pretty much sucks at his job, is physically weak, often 'injured' (never enough for a doctor to find a problem, just enough to get alternate duty). Basically, the picture I'm painting is that Ed would be homeless if it wasn't for this job for life he somehow lucked into, he is completely unemployable otherwise.
M***********g Ed takes funeral leave for a Thursday and a Friday for his mother's funeral. Some other manager who seems to remember his mom dying a few years ago does some snooping, and eventually asks for some proof. Ed turns in a FAKED obituary, gets found out, and fired.
I still think about that guy some times. He turned down the best gig of his life for a stupid 4 day weekend, when he had like 20 paid days off available for use anyway.
EDIT: To all the people saying "20 days, that's nothing, here in England we get two years paid off every year..."
1. I get it, different countries are different.
2. I never said this happened on January 1st, maybe he only had 20 days left after using 20 more.
3. I was actually referring to individual paid days off in addition to paid vacation whcih comes in 5 day increments anyway.
Still the WORST excuse ever. NEVER use the death, injury, suffering, etc. of another human being to get out of something that you signed up for in the first place. Quit if you have to. To me those excuses (WHEN FAKE) SHOULD be a fire-able offense just on principle.
In the interview, he was told he would have to take a [illegal substances] test if he was hired. He was hired. He failed the drug test. When I brought him in and told him that he failed he said 'yeah, I knew I would'. Then, why? I'm sure it's not unusual but still, why bother? He quit another job to take one that he knew he would lose immediately. Why? The other job, by the way, was janitor in a high school, which I assume he went back to.
Not showing up and not calling in. Everyone has a phone and can make up a s**ty excuse. Call and let me know you are not going to show up so i can get someone else. F**K
My work had a policy that if you did not show up, and didn't call, they'd send law enforcement for a welfare check. We worked in the judicial system. You were expected to be mature and responsible, and they said they would assume then that something bad happened to you. They weren't kidding. Sent Sheriff's to a coworker who forgot to call. Very embarrassing for her, but we were all worried.
I'm not a boss but a guy at a former job got fired because he broke a light fixture when he was f*****g around with a mop. The manager on duty (who admittedly was a little insane) whipped his head around and in the most terrifying voice said, "sweep that up, then get the f**k out."
Uhhhh, how about I just get out? Not cleaning up this c**p to just get fired
This a*****e would spend all day on this website talkin' to random people, and embellishing his life. He would talk about these weird jokes that no one in the office got and spend a massive amount of time looking at pictures with text on it. The pictures weren't even different. It was all to collect these fake internet points, no idea why it was so appealing.
"Pictures with text". Does this person know what memes are?
"I don't need anyone looking over my shoulder while I work to keep me on task! MY JOB IS SO TOXIC they fired me for no reason!" LOL!!!!!!!
My friend sent her awful boss two emails with read receipts. One is apologizing for a mistake she made on expenses but has already fixed. The other said my friend’s cancer was back and it was very serious. The boss didn’t respond to the cancer email but did respond to the expense error. Yes, she actually viciously berated someone who that day was diagnosed with cancer about a $40 error that was a,ready fixed. My friend showed me these emails in tears. I told her that “you’ve finally got her in writing”. My friend went to her grand boss and HR. Her boss was escorted out of the building that day.
Reminds me of a guy at my last job. I was finishing up the dishes at the end of the night and I was reaching for the plug in the dish sink and I grab something I pull out a KNIFE. NEVER EVER throw a knife into a dish sink. After it drained there was a second knife in there too. Guy didn't get fired for that but he tried to blame my manager. Then he just stopped showing up to work. How do people like remember to breath?
"I don't need anyone looking over my shoulder while I work to keep me on task! MY JOB IS SO TOXIC they fired me for no reason!" LOL!!!!!!!
My friend sent her awful boss two emails with read receipts. One is apologizing for a mistake she made on expenses but has already fixed. The other said my friend’s cancer was back and it was very serious. The boss didn’t respond to the cancer email but did respond to the expense error. Yes, she actually viciously berated someone who that day was diagnosed with cancer about a $40 error that was a,ready fixed. My friend showed me these emails in tears. I told her that “you’ve finally got her in writing”. My friend went to her grand boss and HR. Her boss was escorted out of the building that day.
Reminds me of a guy at my last job. I was finishing up the dishes at the end of the night and I was reaching for the plug in the dish sink and I grab something I pull out a KNIFE. NEVER EVER throw a knife into a dish sink. After it drained there was a second knife in there too. Guy didn't get fired for that but he tried to blame my manager. Then he just stopped showing up to work. How do people like remember to breath?
