Getting fired on your very first day of work is hard work...but these people actually pulled it off quite nicely.
Wrongful Termination
“His last job, he was driving cars from where they were dropped off to where they were sold at auction. He was driving this really nice BMW sitting at a stop sign at the base of a hill. Semi truck carrying logs loses its brakes and slams him at 50+ mph. He then proceeds to t-bone another car while still getting pushed by the semi. Him t-boning the other guy knocked him out from in front of the semi and into another car which had seen what was happening and slid to a stop. The semi went over the hill and landed in the creek at the base.
He got cut out of the car then airlifted out (along with the driver of the semi and the passenger of the car he t-boned) and when he called his boss (after emergency surgery) the boss fired him. He sued the hell out of the company for wrongful termination and he’s been living off the money for 3 years” Source
A Pocketed Thief
“I worked at a gas station a while back. Helped train this new guy. He was really nice, we all liked him. 1st solo shift he walks away with $150 out of the register. Didn’t even try to cover it up or anything. Everybody was shocked. Wtf did he think was gonna happen” Source
Benefit Of A Doubt
“Worked at a fifties themed restaurant. Kid names joe gets a job As a busyboy. Was told to clean tables and set them. Nothing more. Nothing less. First table he cleans he steals the tip. Server (foolishly) gives him the benefit of the doubt. Joe’s next act of defiance. He approaches a friendly and elderly regular. They get to chatting and the gentleman brings up that he has just had serious dental surgery. Joe is intrigued and begins failed negotiations with the gentleman for painkillers. The negotiations turned to pleading and my manager intervened and promptly fired him. This all happened within the first hour” Source
Don’t Bother
“I fired a guy who showed up four hours late his first day. I was in a moving company at the time. When he showed up he asked if he still gets paid for the job, since the bill includes 4 people and we did the job with 3, I told him to walk home and not to bother showing up the next day” Source
An Unexpected Layoff
“Friend moved halfway across the state for a job. First day the company announced layoffs. She was let go” Source
The Struggle
I work in a college town and we hired a new part-timer to work reception. On her first day she casually mentions to us that her wealthy parents want her to experience what it’s lke to “struggle”. So she has to work a job and use the city busses for two months and then she can quit and her parents will give her allowance back and get her a new car.
Boss: “Wait, so you’re going to leave in two months?”
Her: “Yeah, that’s what my parents said.”
Boss: “Can I talk to you in my office”Source
Off Like A Bandit
“Not personally but one of my favorite stories is of the teenage kid who got fired on his first day of working at the supermarket for eating all the skin off the rotisserie chickens” Source
Low Blow
“I worked with a guy named Darryl for about 7 hours. Darryl was probably in his late 40s-early 50s, and was a pretty intimidating looking guy. He was probably 6’6”, 250lbs+, muscular, bald, and a full beard. He was hired as a produce manager at the grocery store I worked at.
I talked to him for a while, and he seemed to be an extremely nice guy. He said he was in the military most of his life, went to college when he was in his 40s, and ended up getting a Masters in Industrial Engineering. He was telling me how depressed he was that no one would hire him because of his age, and was planning on working here while job hunting.
We were almost off work, and the assistant manager came to talk to us. I forgot to mention that the assistant manager was an ENORMOUS a–hole.
He came over, introduced himself to Darryl, and immediately began criticizing his first day’s work. I don’t know exactly what Darryl did, but me made a minor mistake that made the assistant manager ask him “Do you even know what a Serrano pepper is?”
Darryl defended himself, and apologized saying he would fix whatever mistake he made. The assistant manager then delivered the final blow, and said “Noah, it looks like we’ve hired a produce manager who doesn’t know s— about produce” and laughed.
Darryl then said what every employee there had wanted to say at one point, “You’re not going to talk to me like a f—ing child.” The assistant manager fired him on the spot” Source
Learning To Keep Your Mouth Shut
“I was a pizza delivery guy at a family owned Italian restaurant. They brought a guy in to help make pizzas. Two hours into his training he starts talking about wanting to bang the waitresses. The waitresses were the daughters of the owner. The guy teaching him how to make the pizzas was the older brother. He was physically ejected from the building” Source
Well That Was That
“Got fired on my first week, after training when the schedule came out. I was in high school and during the interview I told the manager interviewing me that I could only work 20 hours a week. I didn’t mind 8 hour days on weekends but during the week I couldn’t do it. As soon as training ends, the schedule comes out and I’m scheduled to work 39.5 hours with several 8 hour shifts on weekdays after school. I went into the managers office and told him that I couldn’t do it and so he said, “this is why we hired you, either do it or your fired”. Well… That was that” Source
Unfair Circumstances
“I was hired at a Chi Chi’s in high school and when you’re under 18, you can’t work past 9 pm in my state (this was like 15 yrs ago). I was a busser and every night my boss made me stay past 10, some nights until 11. I tried to explain every night that it was illegal to keep me this late and I needed to still do homework and then get up at 7 for school. He didn’t care and basically ignored me every night. My mom called and ripped him a new one after 2 weeks and I never went back. I’m confused as to why employers would hire high schoolers when they know they obviously can only work part time hours” Source
An Unpleasant Boss
“While working on an apple orchard in Australia the foreman would fire any German or Asian worker within their first hour simply for speaking. Wasn’t the most pleasant person to work for” Source
Pretty Please
“yup, new kid around 19 or 20 comes in (warehouse job) goes out to buy weed during lunch break, gets busted, turns out he has a warrant out for him, goes to jail, then has the balls to call us to bail him out because he lives with his grandmother and she would get upset” Source
The Shoes Seal The Deal
“Guy applied for a general manager position at the movie theater I worked at. He got the job based off him having prior manager experience at pizza hut or something. First day he showed up high wearing a “Suns out guns out” tank top and swimming trunk. Also, he was wearing two different shoes. Owner told him to leave promptly after showing up for work that same day” Source
A Rookie Mistake
“I applied for a job in the kitchen of restaurant. There was no application, just a walk-in interview. I show up to work a couple days later and the chef starts giving me a tour of the kitchen. “Alright, you ready to make some omelettes?” Uh, sure…. you gonna show me? He looked at me, paused, and started laughing. Nervous laughter from my side.
As it turns out, the manager called the wrong the person. She got me mixed up with the guy who had 5 years experience and called me by mistake” Source
Not Part Of The Job
“At orientation, they told the twelve of us that we were the bestest and the brightest of 900 or so interviews they’d conducted. We got our access badges and our corporate Amex cards.
One of the “best and the brightest” went to a high-end men’s clothing store on his lunch hour and purchased four thousand dollars worth of suits, ties and shoes.
He came back from lunch and bragged of his exploits. Fired on the spot. He actually thought his Amex card was a job perk. “Can I at least keep the clothes” Source
A Hostile Employee
“I had to fire a janitor on day one because someone spilled a cup of coffee and he stared them directly in the eyes and yelled “f— you” at the top of his lungs. He was f—ing crazy. He threatened to kill me after he was fired and stood outside of the workplace with a bouquet of flowers until we called the police on more than one occasion” Source
A Secret Drug Test
“I had just arrived at Great Lakes for Boot Camp (This was in 1991) and we are standing in line for our first introduction to what is known in the military as “Operation Golden Flow” or our first urinalysis test. As I’m standing in a VERY long line and tip tapping around because I have to piss so much, a guy standing behind me taps me on the shoulder and asks what we are waiting for. I look at him and tell him “A Urinalysis”.
He looks at me and asks me what a urinalysis is, so I tell him “To see who has taken any drugs recently”.
He nods, shrugs and says “Well, I guess I shouldn’t have smoked that crack last night”. He was serious.
Now, he officially wasn’t fired that first day, but about 2 weeks later when his results came back he was. So yes, you can say that he was fired that first day but had to suffer for a few weeks until officially let go” Source
A Log-Sized Problem
“I fired someone about 2 hours into the first day. We had a monster pile of branches to send through the wood chipper and two of my better guys were working on it. I hire a new guy to help out. I spend all this time training him how not to get killed by the the wood chipper and send him out with my two guys.
I run out a bit later to check on him and I see me experienced guys getting it done. They are busting their butts and putting in work chipping branches. New guy in the other hand picks up a twig and tosses it in the chipper, grabs a drink of water, grabs another twig, another drink, goes and has a smoke, another few twigs etc. I had to let him go” Source
A Never Ending Break
“I managed a smoothie place for a while and hired this kid for mornings. His first day he was 2 hours late. He apologized for being late because he was tripping on shrooms and got lost on the way to work. He also took 15 smoke breaks in the 4 hours that he worked. When his shift was over I told him not to come back” Source
Luck Of The Draw
“Friend was hired and then the next day the company announced layoffs. Of course he was first to go. He got lucky though because for one reason or another they had to continue paying him for the next 2 months even though he only worked a total of 2 days. Halfway into that two months he found a better job” Source
A Better Option
“I got fired on my first day.
Reason: His best mate just lost his job so he fired me and hired him instead” Source
Chugging Along
“My company hired temps for this big job. We didn’t have a lot of space, so temps had to double up in cubicles. I did feel very bad for them, but some of their actions were hilarious /terrible.
Our laptops require a password to login before doing anything. It’s a gray screen with prompts for the username and password. Pretty simple stuff. One guy had his username and password written on a post-it note. He then spent two hours trying to figure out how to login. He didn’t realize he had to press enter. TWO HOURS!
Another guys was chugging along at his task. His cube mate was sneezing or talking or something. His reaction? Slap her. He got escorted out of the building. The next day, he shows up to work again like nothing happened. He was escorted back out and told to please not return.
Most of the temps were nice and did just fine. Some made you wonder if they would ever get a full time gig’ Source
Fired On The Spot
“Had a buddy get hired as a valet in downtown. On his first day he was asked to park a pretty expensive luxury car and ended up hitting it on of the concrete pillars in the parking garage. Pretty much got fired on the spot” Source
Next Stop On The Bar Hop
“We were training a class for a 3am-12pm shift, so of course the training was at 3am.
One guy came in drunk as a skunk (probably left the bar straight to work). Slurring and falling asleep. We had to keep him there for a couple hours after firing him because we didn’t want to be responsible for him driving home drunk” Source
See Ya Never
“Second day. She was visiting one of our production sites and thought the second day was starting too early, so she called down to the local leadership team to say she’d be in that afternoon, if at all.
She was on the next flight home instead” Source