Sometimes the decisions we make may seem like great ideas at the time, but turn out to be the complete opposite. Especially when those decisions are made at work, where they are left to be judged by your employeer. In any case, try not to get fired (unless that was your plan all along).
For more 'you're fired' stories, check out the original source thread at the end of the article.
Points are edited for clarity.
Nice Guys Finish Last
“I had a guy who would work really hard daily inputting data into spreadsheets. He would come in and put in solid hours of actual work rather than not goofing off. He would literally get four times as much stuff done a week as anyone else in the office. After three weeks straight of this, other people started to take notice and occasionally ask him to help them out when they were behind, and he obliges.
This gets worse and worse, and eventually, people were basically just walking all over him while they spent all day Facebooking and whatnot, because he wouldn’t say no if they asked him to help with their work. The dude just kept trucking through and though. About four months into working there, it got to the point where you could hear the extra women talking about leaving early and not getting in trouble because ‘He will just do all the work for us if we ask anyway’. Well, the guy goes into the bosses office, and I work right next to it so I can hear more or less the entire conversation. I am paraphrasing but it went something like this:
‘I would like a raise, I am doing way to much work for how much I am getting paid. Everyone else who works here is so darn lazy, I even have people making jokes about how I will do their work for them and they will get paid for it.’
‘Well (name) I can sympathize with you, but you have to understand, I can’t just GIVE you a raise. If I give you a raise I would have to explain to everyone why you got a raise and they didn’t.’
“You could tell them its because I am doing half of their work for them while they look at memes.’
‘I’m sorry (name), it just wouldn’t work out well.’
‘Well then is there any positions available above mine that I could apply to for a promotion.’
‘I don’t think we can really look into a promotion this early into you working here. We would need time to properly evaluate your work ethic.’
‘Seriously. You seriously just said that to me. I’m not going to break my back doing an entire office’s work for a company that doesn’t give two craps about me. You and this entire office can go screw yourselves.’
He walks out of the office fuming mad and yells, ‘Hey everyone, (boss) just denied my raise, so no more leaving work early for any of you lazy jerks, cause I quit!’
It was like a scene from Office Space only in real life.”
‘I Convinced My Boss To Hire Her Back’
“We hire a lot of people in recovery who are a part of the court programs under the condition that they will be terminated if they go back to jail on the same substance charges.
This coworker was our hardest worker and always picked up shifts and got tons of compliments, so it really sucked when she relapsed and failed her pee test with the court, she got sent to jail for a week and we had to fire her.
I still kept in touch with her, and when I found out she was pregnant, I convinced my boss to hire her back. One last chance.
I’m so happy I wasn’t wrong because she’s about to celebrate her fourth year of sobriety and she’s now management.”
‘He Was Arrested For Murder’
“He was one of my best weekend workers…dependable, always on time, really good at his job. I got a call from my management on a July 4th saying, ‘We are going to need to find a replacement for (name).’
I say, ‘Why? Did he find a better job?’
My management: “No, he was arrested for murder last night,’
So let’s just say I didn’t have the chance to fire him. I was dumbfounded when I got that call.
The story behind: a friend of the victim was worried when the victim wasn’t answering calls or texts. She got in touch with the landlord of the facility expressing her concerns, they enter the apartment and find her face down in the bathroom with her wrists duct taped and duct tape around her mouth and nose, she was already passed by the time they got to her. The place had been rummaged through. Well, my employee lived right above her and just by asking him simple questions about it, the police became suspicious of him and obtained a search warrant for his apartment. They found some of her clothing along with a missing money jar of hers as well as duct tape. He was arrested that night in front of a camera crew, in his work uniform of all things. Now he is sentenced for the crime and is on suicide watch in jail. The shame has he allegedly murdered a woman who had terminal cancer.
It never came out what his motive was behind it but probably the money jar they found in his apartment.”
‘I Might Of Wrecked My Friend’s Life’
“Scott was my riding buddy. We rode together everywhere on our motorcycles. I managed a small restaurant of a small chain, only two shops but it was growing. When a night manager position opened I gave it to him. He worked hard and was enthusiastic.
A couple years passed and there were now five locations. I was general manager and Scott managed the original location. We still rode everywhere, swapped girlfriends, played pool… life was good. Scott began to miss rides we had planned because he was working. He really was a hard worker and had tireless energy.
I soon noticed he was working so hard because he was understaffed. His employee turnover rate was high. I initially thought it was because of the young employees that typically applied at that location but there was more to it. I started spending more time with him and noticed how he was when he thought I wasn’t looking, a tyrant boss to the kids that worked there. Kids left and he covered it up by working more himself. Overworked he became exhausted and an even worse boss.
I gave him some time off, sent inexperienced employees worked with him on training and communication. I thought he was absorbing it but I got reports back that he was worse than ever.
I sat and talked with him, a serious job threatening talk. He argued and said it was under control. I took his keys and handed him a box of his belongings.
This is long ago in the early ’80s. As the recession wound down I was able to find a better gig more suited to my skills and education. I heard from him a couple times, usually looking for something, a fake recent reference, cosign for a loan, etc. I don’t do that for anybody. Last year I got a sad call from him, saying he wished we had stayed in touch. We both still rode. Actually, he didn’t still ride. he was calling from his deathbed as cancer ate the last of him away.
I have always felt that it was my hiring him to a position he wasn’t really ready for that started him down the road from being an enthusiastic bright-eyed kid full of hope and integrity to the sad narcissistic bill collector he became.
I mean, I don’t actually blame myself for the arc of his life. We each are responsible for our own choices. It’s just that I can’t help but feel that I missed something, some opportunity to steer him in a happier direction.”
‘I Was Accused Of Lying’
“I showed up to work at 7:00 as scheduled, and no one else showed up until 8:00. It turns out the manager had texted everyone to come in an hour late, but I had been in the shower at the time and didn’t check my phone until later.
When everyone showed up, I casually mentioned that I’d been sitting there an hour, and everyone had a laugh. Then the manager told me to go fill out a time sheet correction so I could get paid for sitting there an hour.
Two months later I get called into the office, and they accuse me of lying about getting there early. The security camera shows me driving in at 7:55, they say, before anyone else got there.
What had actually happened was that I arrived at 6:45. Since they didn’t start checking the tape until 6:55, they didn’t see me drive in. And because I happened to park in the one space that was in the camera’s blind spot, you could only see me drive in, not where I parked. And then the coworker who showed up at 7:55 happened to be in her husband’s car, which she usually doesn’t drive, and which looks very similar to my car.
So it was just a big misunderstanding. I didn’t blame them for accusing me because the evidence certainly seemed to indicate that I had gotten to work just five minutes before everyone else.
What I did blame them for was being paranoid enough to check the tape in the first place.
Also, I never got an apology.”
The Perfect Crime
“Corporate set a trap and baited him into stealing.
He was a great guy, fun, interesting and easy to get along with. He would volunteer to take the early shifts and open the store. He’d receive the new inventory and stock the shelves himself. His cash was always correct and he never did anything wrong, until he did.
One morning he opened the new stock shipment and loaded the shelves. There was an extra item in the box that wasn’t listed on the manifest. The correct procedure was to add it to inventory and put it on the shelf. He instead opted to claim it wasn’t there and took it home. The perfect crime, right?
I had to fire him the next day. And it sucked.”
For Being Black
“I was working In retail, and one of the customer service guys was being groomed for management. He’d been there for a while, was trusted to count money and with the safe combination, opened if managers couldn’t, etc.
He was a cool black guy (his race is important to the story) but a bit cocky and arrogant. My cousin also worked there. Who was also cocky and arrogant.
Anyway, my cousin put in his two weeks but wasn’t being a bad employee. My cousin didn’t like the soon-to-be-manager (because they were pretty similar in a lot of ways, and they clashed because of it). On my cousins last week, unprovoked, he approaches the guy and says ‘you look like a BIG BLACK intercourse toy.”
The guy walks up to my cousin, puts his finger to his head and says, ‘Do YOU have a problem with me?’
It ended there with my cousin walking away…then reported he was threatened. Because a finger made contact and the guy was fired. My cousin was a jerk and didn’t regret it and laughed about it with my other friends. Who were also all jerks.”
Sales Manipulation, They Say
“I was working at a bank, and my branch had the biggest superstar in the STATE, always crushing sales numbers and he generated more revenue than the rest of the branch COMBINED.
He set up a really big business account presentation, but his mother died literally on the day he was supposed to give the talk. Branch manager stepped in and held the presentation.
The guy had built everything up, it was essentially a done deal, branch manager just had to get a signature on the paperwork. Obviously feeling bad for him, thinking he deserved the credit, they booked the deal under his name the next day (technically to get credit for a deal you HAVE to be there at signing).
And BOTH were fired within a week for sales manipulation.”
A Top Manager ‘Lost Her Keys’
“The top manager for a retail job I worked at ‘lost’ her keys to the store that also had the keys to all the registers on the key ring. The registers started going short or would be empty aside from the change and dollar bills in the drawer. This went on for months. Corporate found out after installing a new set of security cameras overnight without her knowledge. She enlisted a group of sales associates to do most of the dirty work but they found out she was the ringleader when they found out all the sales associates would bring her the stolen money and she would dole it out after taking her cut.”
Dealing Out The Trunk
“I wasn’t the manager, but we had a supervisor who was a rising star in the company. He turned a struggling operation into one that was running well under budget and was generally easy to work with. We also had a mechanic who was a lazy sack of crap and nobody could ever find him.
So one day the operations manager was looking at the security footage trying to figure out what the mechanic was doing some day and caught him selling pills out of his truck in the parking lot, so he called the police. When the police showed up, the mechanic was in his truck, in the middle of selling to the supervisor. They were both fired. The operation went from under budget to being $50,000 to $100,000 over for the next few months.”
‘She Left Her Casual Racism Flow’
“She was a super talkative girl who was really annoying but was great on the phones. She caught on faster than anyone else at the job, the trainers were pretty impressed, and there was a lot of butt-kissing on their end. By the first month she’s been there, she was already in the top five for sales.
The problem was that she was a giant racist. She would’ve been totally fine if she kept her Neo-Nazi lifestyle quiet but she got in the mindset of ‘they won’t fire me, I’m the best they have at sales.’ So she got comfortable and let the casual and not so casual racism flow.
It didn’t help that the guy who sat next to her was a black guy from Spain and the girl behind her was Mexican.”
A Hospital Affair
“My dad had a guy working for him who was great, could work long hours, wouldn’t complain about being on call, etc. Well, he got caught messing around with a nurse in his office. He got divorced and had a nervous breakdown and started threatening to hurt everyone. So they had to fire him and have him banned from the premises.
Oh and after that we caught him hiding in the woods behind our house. He was an odd man and he sued us for wrongful termination – really dedicated guy. These guys were doctors who worked in the emergency room. He did get a settlement and the nurse sued him and the hospital for harassment and got a few cookies too…. funny thing is how common affairs are in hospitals and this dude couldn’t even handle it.”
‘If You Don’t Show Up Tomorrow You Are Fired’
“I managed a coffee shop/fakery (fake bakery). My best employee was this kid named Alexis. He was sharp and was quick to pick up on all the skills required to work in our fast-paced environment, but he was also someone who would stay out really late at night partying, and it would affect his attendance.
One night, in particular, he calls me up and tells me he’s stuck in Baltimore, (we live in DC) and won’t be able to make it in for his shift the following morning. He called me at 7:00 p.m., the last marc commuter train leaves at 9:30 or so, and there’s a free circulator that runs throughout the city. I used to visit Baltimore pretty regularly at the time because there was a girl I was seeing from up there.
Anyway, I only had one day off a week and was working 14 hour days. It was the last straw in a series of no call/no show situations where he had left me hanging for our busiest days.
I called his phone that same night and told him that if he didn’t show up for his shift on time the following morning, he was fired.
He didn’t show up, and I never saw him again.
This was a few years ago, but I sometimes wonder what happened to him. He was a really sharp kid, but he did way too many things and wasn’t as clever as he thought he was, so would often get into trouble with the police.”
For Waiting Tables
“I worked in a restaurant at a hotel chain and management regularly found meaningless reasons to suspend various employees or cut hours. This one guy had been there almost 13 years, clients loved him, staff appreciated his presence and he often came to the rescue of anyone requiring help. Everyone could depend on him and he supported everyone. He had, like everyone in a restaurant, bumped heads with management now and again, like EVERYONE.
On one particular season, they decided they were going to ‘groom him’ in the eventuality to take on more responsibility. His position would eliminate his right to tips but it came with insurance, a retirement plan, and steady pay. He had kids and was in his mid-40s so it all made sense why he would take that job. He would however no longer be in the union.
Fast forward to the day after his training is complete. The guy comes in with his management uniform and all. Some waiter calls in sick, and instead of him calling in another employee he decides he was going to handle a few tables and the management’s responsibilities.
At the end of the shift the hotel manager ‘summons’ the guy into his office (like the boss of his boss). They fired him straight away. He was escorted out of the building and our boss said there were strict rules and management working tables ‘harmed’ the hotel’s image. It was complete b.s. He had maybe taken 2 tables and split the rest amongst the rest of the staff. Everyone basically agreed they promoted him just to get him out of the union to be able to fire him.
A number of employees left shortly after for other various reasons. It was a sort of shaking up the coup and anyone who wouldn’t fall in line would be shown the door.
Today, that restaurant no longer exists, they closed down maybe two years later, rebranded the restaurant from American Steakhouse to Italian/French dining. New cooks, new waiters, new management… It was just sort of the catalyst or the first domino.”
Riding Attraction Rides After Hours
“A story from when I worked at Disneyland a long time ago in Attractions (rides).
The area manager loved this one particular Cast Member (employee). Like, this was the son he never had. This CM was promoted to lead on one of the roller coasters fairly quickly in his regime. One night he was the lead on the closing crew, and the crew decided to ride after hours. The losers that they are, they went without the lap bars down, and on one turn the ride is visible from the walkway. Even though the park was closed to guests, security was still in the park, and a security guard saw the train go by with the CMs standing up through the turn. Security gets a hold of Theme Park One (the manager in charge of the park for the night), who calls Attractions One to find out what’s going on.
Not surprisingly, every CM who was on the closing crew that night was fired. Unfortunately, so was the prodigal son, because he was the one who dispatched the train without the lap bars down.”
‘He Was Not A Citizen’
“I managed a grocery store in the midwest in the early 2000s.
I had a great night stock guy we’ll call Juan because that was his name. I got to know him a little bit since I’d occasionally have to stay and help the night crew stock since they were frequently understaffed. Juan was from Mexico, lived in a tiny apartment with his extended family (parents, siblings, an aunt, uncle, few cousins, and a baby nephew and niece), and he worked two jobs full time. So for eight hours a night, he’d throw stock for me, then go work at a restaurant as a cook for eight hours afterward, then go home and nap for as long as possible before repeating all over again.
I had nothing but respect for Juan, he was my second best worker on night stock, always showed up on time, his output was quick and steady, and the man was scrupulously honest. One night he wanted a soda, but we had already closed the store and registers, so I told him to just get one out of the display case and pay for it later. He kept the receipt for three weeks until I saw him again and made sure he showed it to me because he wanted me to know he did, in fact, pay for it.
Anyway, after a few months on night stock, he asks me if we have any positions available during our open hours because he missed being able to see his family and wanted a more ‘normal’ schedule. We needed an extra person in the meat department, so I asked him if he would be interested in that. He said he would, so I had him sit down with the butcher for an interview. The butcher liked him so we transferred Juan to the Meat Department. He did very well there and the hours allowed him some more freedom so it seemed like a great arrangement.
Here’s where it goes bad: this was about a year after 9/11 so the new Homeland Security and Patriot Act laws were being enacted fast and furious. One side effect of this was background checks and they were being conducted by EVERYONE so there was a backlog of requests. I get a notice from SSA that Juan’s SS number wasn’t valid. No big deal, someone probably put a number in wrong somewhere. I called our HR and read the number he put on his application, no errors. I go and find Juan and double check it. As I thought, one number was off so I send it back to HR. A week later I get a call from the HR director and she conferences in the regional AP guy. Apparently, Juan was not a citizen of our country and we need to terminate him immediately.
I call Juan up to the office and let him know he’s being let go. He’s upset but nods his head and leaves. He comes in a week later to pick up his last check but there’s no check for him. I call HR and find out that since he’s not a legal citizen, we’re withholding his pay until we hear back from INS. I have to tell him this as well.
I don’t know what happened to him after that. We DID eventually pay him for his last week of work, but we ended up not paying out any of his vacation time (of which he had a fair amount) because of reasons I’m not very clear on.”