Firing someone is a terrible thing to have to do, most of the time, even when people deserve it. What makes it hard is usually the reaction, which can go from stunned silence to angry, chaotic craziness. These stories are most like that second one, crazy, chaotic and even sometimes violent.
(Content has been edited for clarity.)
A Break From Reality
“My boss and I were sitting in his office talking about something. The office was in this portable with glass windows all around with a view of the shop and a couple of other desks for two supervisors of different departments. While I was in there, the used equipment manager was quietly talking to one of his techs. I don’t know what was said, but out of nowhere, this guy just starts going ballistic and yelling at him. He didn’t say anything to hint at what was happening, just swearing and screaming at his boss.
Finally, his boss just tells him to leave, that he no longer works there anymore. The tech just pushes his computer off the desk and starts throwing stuff all over the place. My boss, the other supervisor and I had to grab him and haul him out in front of most of the staff.
The next day, he comes into the shop and just starts talking to me like nothing happened. I get to work early, so we were the only people there. I asked him what he was doing here, and he just gave me this confused look. He said he couldn’t remember anything, that he thought he just took a sick day the day before. I told him what happened and he was like ‘Oh. Right. Nice talking to you.’ Then he just left. It was the weirdest thing.”
A Real Mama’s Boy
“This was back in 2001, a friend of mine wasn’t showing up to work for no reason at all. So one day my manager calls up his phone only to be told by my friend’s mother. She says, and I quote, ‘Timmy, can’t work this week because he is grounded, he came home late and…’ From that moment my manager looks at me, holds the phone away from his ear a bit to silently tell me ‘What the heck?’ After Timmy’s mom was done explaining why he wasn’t going to come to work that week, my boss said, ‘Well, please know that Timmy won’t need to come back to work anymore.’ His mother then tries to ask my boss to put him back on the schedule after next week once Timmy was ungrounded.
My boss and I couldn’t even fathom the situation presented to us. A 20-year-old was grounded from going to work by his mother. We discussed the need for the mother to cut the umbilical cord.
Weeks later, Timmy calls me to see if he could go back to work, and we get into the details of what is wrong with him.
I can’t say Timmy ever grew up. I found out this last week that Timmy’s parents are moving out of Texas, and now Timmy is moving his family out of Texas too. No planning, just suddenly going to move where his parents are moving. No job plans, housing, etc. It’s just nuts how some people are just so attached to their parents.”
Permanent Scarring
“I’ve fired someone and had them freak out. If by freak out you mean ‘pull out a weapon and commit suicide.’
His branch manager loathed him with the intensity of one thousand suns, and when she got word that I was coming down to terminate his employment the next day, she couldn’t help herself and told everyone in the office. Naturally, word got back to him about three seconds later.
I showed up late the next morning, and as soon as I hit the door, he stood up from his desk and said ‘You’re not going to fire me!’ and pulled a weapon out of his briefcase. He chambered a round, turned it around tried to pull the trigger, but the palm grip safety was blocking him.
Like a nitwit, I jumped on him and tried to get the weapon away from him, but he was so slick with sweat I slid off him. He finally figured out where he went wrong, put the weapon up to his chest and blew a small hole in the front and a big hole in his back.
Total pandemonium.”
A Terrible Worker
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“I fired one girl, and her father came into my store and freaked out on me. I let him stand there and scream at me for a couple of minutes, told him if he wanted to know why I canned his (adult) daughter he could ask her and told him to get out of my store before I escorted him out. He threatened to beat me up and I got in his face and asked if he really thought he could beat up someone half his age, who also happened to be a bouncer. He left.
Another kid I fired because he was a terrible worker. He had asked for a day off that he was typically scheduled to work; I told him to find someone to cover the shift. He never even asked any of his coworkers, or even me, to cover it. The day he wanted off rolls around, and he doesn’t show. I call his cell, and he tells me he’s eight hours away, and he had told me he wanted it off. I told him not to bother coming back in, and he immediately accused me of firing him because he was black. I replied that he was being fired because he was a terrible worker who would spend more time arguing why he shouldn’t have to do something I asked him to do than it would have taken to do said thing. He claimed that his mom’s friend was a lawyer and the guy had been telling him that he had the basis for an excellent case against me for being racist. I told him good luck; I’d see him in court with my six black siblings, and hung up on him. He called my boss and gave him the same stupid story, so my boss caved and gave him a job at another one of our stores. He got fired after two months for being repeatedly late then finally not showing up for a shift.”
Mean Brenda Losses Her Mind (And Her Job)
“When I was a lead lifeguard at a large water park, this whole thing happened.
Anyhow, we had this girl I’ll call Mean Brenda. Mean Brenda always gave customers trouble and was a jerk to anyone who, god forbid, asked her a question, and more jerkiness if your question was one she perceived as dumb. The managers/lead guards (myself included among this group) knew she was like this, and the other guards knew she was bad. They hated dealing with her. At the very least, she was rude. At her worst, she would take 25 minutes to rotate from one spot to the next, when it would take around five minutes to have one person on break rotate and have the cycle continue until the guy going on break was sitting on break.
At least once a day, someone, somewhere, somehow, would get a report from a customer that she had been rude or condescending to a guest. She had been reprimanded once for calling a customer fat, illiterate, and moronic for not knowing how to sit in a tube, and having trouble. We were nervous to fire her, because our park required at least 100 guards to staff the park on any given day, and this year we had only 196 guards hired. We were, sadly, short and we had to keep her because there were so few others.
Well, one day, she arrived about 45 minutes late, and since she was scheduled on that area, we had to compensate by adjusting the positions of the guards and removing people from ‘non-necessary positions’ until we found a replacement. When she finally arrived, we found out it was because she wanted to get breakfast AND coffee. During that last hour, I was trying to find a replacement to no avail. Well, she took a position, and the rotation began at its normal pace. At around 11:45, she was at the top of one of the rides, and this black family came to the top of the ride and prepared to ready themselves. The ride, by its nature, required a sort of mini-lecture to learn how to ride. And the guards were trained to give this, to give a demonstration, and such. She apparently gave her spiel, and the family didn’t understand because she had as the family later told me ‘did a crap-tastic job at it.’ When they asked her politely to repeat it, she did. Before she was about to push the release button, she said, ‘Moronic (n-bomb) can’t pay attention to a word I say.’ Then she, according to the guests, ‘mocked my race by saying what I said earlier in this ghetto accent.’ So this woman and her husband were livid. They exchanged pleasantries, and the woman told her that she’s going to find the manager. Mean Brenda replied ‘Good. Do it. If you can find him. I don’t give a hoot. It’s one less group of morons I have to deal with.’
While this was going down, I was eating lunch with some of the lifeguards who are on the break rotation. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed one of the deep-guards pointing me out to a large group of people. I got this gut feeling something has passed. I expect a signal, but the group approaches me. It’s the family.
‘Excuse me, are you the manager?’
‘I’m the lead guard, so yes. Can I help–‘
‘What the heck is the matter with that lifeguard up there. DO you know how racist she is?’
‘I’m sorry?’ I say. My mind was beginning top extrapolate what could have possibly happened up there.
‘Your lifeguard, Brenda, she called us moronic and the n-word.’
‘Yea man, that lifeguard is crazy,’ the father said.
I face-palm. But now, I am done with this nonsense, and Mean Brenda has crossed the line. It was one thing to be late, but this? This could have gotten us sued for discrimination, and slander, and ruin or reputation. I called Joseph, our Park Manager, to get down there, over the radio. She was getting canned, so god help me. I had no real intention of asking any questions to this family. Joseph could do that if he wants. I trusted these guests. This was exactly the crap I expected her to do. ‘Listen, ma’am. This is frankly unacceptable.’
‘Darn right it is.’
‘I’ve called our Park manager and he, and I, are going to deal with this personally. We do not allow this kind of crap. I know you are mad, but you can rest assured that I am livid right now. Please stay here until we can get this settled.’
Joseph arrived with two security guards. He knew about Mean Brenda and had more than his fair share of talks with her. He did not smile, but his demeanor was hidden, and I could sense he has secretly been waiting for a good excuse to fire her. So we all walked up to the top of the hill to the ride.
‘Brenda?’ Joseph asked. ‘You wanna tell us what happened.’
‘Oh look, you brought the manager,’ she replied.
‘Brenda.’ Joseph said.
‘What?’ Brenda said snidely ‘Nothing happened. These stupid people didn’t listen.’
‘What you said was racist and unprofessional We do not tolerate this kind of behavior.’
‘What are going to do, punish me?’
‘No. We’re past that stage. You’ve been terminated. Get out of the park.’
‘Screw you; this is the stupidest joke I’ve ever heard. You don’t have the balls to fire me!’
‘No, Brenda, this is for real.’ I said. ‘You are one of the worst people I’ve had the pleasure of having to work with. You showed up late, have been rude to customers, have screwed up the rotations more times than I can count, and have refused to help guests with basic customer service. This park is done with you, and we no longer want you on the team.’
‘Right. I am the best lifeguard you have.’
‘I think I can safely speak for the other guards that you are not as loved as you think you are. Get out now. Robert is going to be taking your place, on his break shift I might add.’
‘Make me.’
‘Okay.’ one of the security guards said.
‘Brenda, just get out before you make this worse for yourself.’ Robert said.
‘You babies don’t have the balls,’ she said.
We had these big rental tubes that were essentially giant donuts, but about five-feet across because we purposely overinflated them to ensure that they could handle the stresses of fat people and what not. But they weighed about 20 pounds and carried a lot of energy if they are tossed or thrown. Their bulk ensures that it could easily knock a person over, at the very least making them stumble. In the wave pools, they knock people over. Brenda grabbed a rental tube that was lying nearby, where a family had set up a blanket and a picnic, and she twirled around and threw it and knocked Joseph over. Robert and I caught him before he fell onto the concrete, and the two guards stumbled after her while scrambling to call the Park Police. She was caught five minutes later after she tried to get to her car in the employee lot.
She was arrested for assault, battery, and resisting arrest.
She never once came back, despite telling everyone while being arrested that she was going to find us and ‘Beat us up so bad that we’d be in the hospital forever!'”
The Promotion Is Not All It’s Cracked Up To Be
“I used to work at an adult video store. I had only started working there like two weeks earlier, but the manager told me I was now his assistant manager, and I needed to fire the night shift guy. I got a (slight) raise, so I figured I pretty much had to do it. I was only 21 and had little work (or life) experience. I didn’t know how to fire someone.
But, I did it. I came in to work the next morning to fire this guy. I didn’t know what to say, so I was like, ‘look, dude, I know this sucks, but as you know I’ve been made ASM, and my first order of business was to let you go.’ I barely got the words out before he was screaming at me, calling me names, telling me I didn’t have the authority, and that he’d been there over a year and he refused to get out from behind the counter. So, I called my manager, but since he was a raging drinker, he was still passed out cold at 9 a.m. Meanwhile, the night shift dude called the owner of the business, who sent his son (one of the supervisors). I had the owner and the supervisor screaming at me (one in person, the other on the phone). The supervisor said that I needed to get the manager on the phone, and I better hope he answers, because if he can’t fire him, he’d fire me instead.
I called, and the manager finally answered. He had a conversation with the supervisor that lasted about five minutes or so, while I was sitting there freaking out about the likely event of getting fired myself. After five minutes, the supervisor looked at the night shift guy and said, ‘You’re fired, get out.’ Then he turned to me and said, ‘Sorry about that. The idiot manager never promoted you; he was just too much of a coward to do his job.’
Two weeks later, I was the manager.”
Suspended Adolescence
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“I have had the parents of fired employees call me to yell at me and/or try and get there child’s job back, and these ‘kids’ were over the age of 20. I have had this happen several times when firing an employee and I’ve even had parents come into the office to chew me out. They failed to realize that being a helicopter parent has resulted in their child having a terrible work ethic.”
Almost Violent
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“My boyfriend had a guy fired at his job a few months ago. He doesn’t technically have the ability to fire anyone, but he makes the recommendation to his boss, and then the person is gone. His boss would always default on his judgment as he’s the person in direct supervision of them.
The guy apparently kept coming to work wasted off his behind. My boyfriend tried to let it slide, and the first few times made comments like ‘starting the weekend a little early?’ But then it got to the point where it was happening more regularly and he flat out told him that he had to stop drinking on the job, or he was going to get fired. The guy was wasted AGAIN a few weeks later, so he was fired.
This guy, trashed off his butt, started screaming about how it wasn’t fair that he was being fired for being trashed, because my boyfriend does blow all the time and is always stoned and that he should be the one getting fired and a whole bunch of stuff. My boyfriend did none of that and offered right away to take a substance test, to which his boss responded that it wasn’t necessary because the guy getting fired was obviously just pissed off.
Then he started to threaten my boyfriend’s life.
He did know where we live. My boyfriend walks to work most days, and they had been friendly before he started coming in wasted all the time, so it had come up in conversation. He told my boyfriend that he’d be waiting outside for him one day and that he would regret having him fired. He also knew which car was my boyfriend’s (it’s parked right outside our window) and threatened to damage that. The guy was an ex-con who had gone to jail on assault and substance charges and had mentioned having previous connections to shady people in a town nearby that is known for its gang activity.
They sent my boyfriend home that day, and his boss gave him a ride, so he didn’t have to walk the half mile alone. They sent the guy home, but he came back a few hours later and took a microwave and a blanket from the warehouse. My boyfriend speculated later that he was living there part of the time.”
A Sick, Sick Man
“My father worked at HP for 30 years, knew Bill and Dave, was a head manager and well known around the company.
One day he was working in a cubicle and was approached by a female coworker distraught about how one of the men would look at adult material while at his desk and at one point she caught him pleasuring himself. In his cubicle.
Keep in mind my father had no privilege of firing anyone in his building.
So he walked up calmly to this guy’s cubicle and stands there unnoticed while this sick jerk is watching the kinky stuff. Finally, he smiled and said, ‘Hey Dave, whatcha lookin at?’ The guy immediately closed the browser and became nervous and responded, ‘Oh, nothing Jim just going over some documents.’
‘It’d be a shame if this got out, wouldn’t it?’
So the guy apologizes and promises it’ll never happen again. Of course, it happens again, as my father catches him in another act of watching some chicks with a dog. My dad reports him, and the guy went crazy, threatened him, cursed, the usual.
Jim, my father, being a high blood pressured Italian, called him out on it, and the masturbater walks off. As my dad was out smoking, he was approached by this pissed off lunatic in the parking lot. He put out his smoke, thunder clapped this dude and then punched him in the stomach. The guy walks off (barely) back to his car and drives away.
Later they found out he had a bunch of kiddie smut and other vile stuff stored away on his hard drive.”
Not A Good Fit
“I work for a military contractor, leading combat missions. I technically had no firing power, but I was the most immediate supervisor, and my site manager backed me up. If I said a person had to go, he would get gone. I used this power sparingly and usually would end up trying to find something for the useless people to do, but this was rarely possible.
The nature of the job I had at the time was such that if you didn’t show up with more or less all the skills and experience necessary for the task, you were almost certainly going to get yourself or someone else killed. This is frowned upon in the military.
Unfortunately, that didn’t prevent nepotism from rearing its ugly head, even in a field like this. I don’t believe in protecting the stupid from their own bad decisions, so we’ll call this new employee Martin because that was his name. His mother was a US Army full bird Colonel, and he apparently had aspirations of being a super high-speed mercenary warrior or something. She had enough pull with some higher up in my company, and poof, he shows up and fills a recently emptied slot on my team. Great.
Martin was prior military. US Marines. Good right? No, not good. He was an aircraft mechanic who hadn’t served his full four years because he came up with some ailment in October or November of 2001. Yeah. Martin was also fat. Not a little bit of middle-gut, but full on obese.
I was skeptical as soon as I saw him, but whatever, I can’t control who comes to my team, so I settled him into his bunk, and had him send me his resume. People of different military/police backgrounds each have their habits, so it’s good to know who’s on your team. Before you get to know someone, you can predict their probable reactions to situations depending on whether they were Army or Marine, Brit vs. Aussie, Special Forces or Ranger, etc., etc. Martin’s resume was a cluster. The ‘warriorest’ thing he had ever done was work as a rent-a-cop or something for a few months (working as a rent-a-cop is no joke, but it’s not relevant job experience). I was not pleased.
The problems began immediately. I had him sit out the first few missions and just used a replacement for another team, to give him a chance to get acclimated and do some training with us. For his first convoy op, he showed up with two magazines on his vest, and one in the weapon. When I informed him the minimum loadout required by the client (US Army) was six magazines plus a side weapon, he grudgingly went back to the bay and got four more magazines. He had the decency to put one in his side weapon and bring that too. For some comparison, the rest of us, being experienced in-country, carried anywhere from 10-15 on our persons and kept a ‘go-bag’ that contained several extra loaded magazines.
Great. Fine. Except it wasn’t. He kept falling asleep. I didn’t trust the fat jerk at all by now, so I put my best Iraqis in the truck with him, and told the driver to use his best judgment if Martin did something stupid. Instead of doing something stupid, he just napped. He didn’t see the problem with this.
Luckily for him (and me, really) his mother worked on a nearby base that we’d make runs to occasionally. Obviously, I let him see her; I’m not a total prick. Equally predictably, the first time I let him loose, he was late to return. By an hour. This may not seem like a big deal, but we operated on a fairly tight schedule, and trying to find your way through blasted out Iraqi cities in the middle of the night is not fun, or safe. I chewed his behind out, and we moved on.
The final straw was a few days later, at the range. We were practicing some REALLY basic shooting stances. I called for a drill whereby all the shooters would take a knee, fire a few rounds into the target, then stand up, run forward to ‘cover’ and shoot some more. Martin actually could shoot, but unfortunately, he couldn’t stand back up. Now, to be fair, the armor IS heavy, and so is ammo, and it was hot. But that’s no excuse. This stuff happens ALL THE TIME and is not meant to be strenuous at all. It’s just something you have to be able to do, no question about it.
So, that was that. I wrote up a detailed report of all the times I’d counseled him, had records, etc. Walked into my boss’ office, and told him to fire Mr. Martin. Obviously, this was not ideal, since Martin’s mom had some pull within the company. But after explaining the situation, he agreed to my request, as ever. He was the best boss I’ve ever had, and I kind of love Kiwis more than I should because he was just so excellent (also had some GREAT stories. The man was truly awesome).
Martin is called into the room. My boss reads my write up on this guy’s uselessness. Silence for a few moments, then pointless arguing. Then Martin asks me to leave the room for a minute. I oblige. He was a decent enough guy, I had no hate for him, so I wasn’t enjoying this. I was happy to go.
I waited in the hallway, and after only a few seconds, the door burst open and Martin stormed out red-faced and furious. My boss was laughing.
I go inside, shut the door, and asked what happened. Apparently, this is what transpired.
Martin: ‘BossMan, I think Opie [me] has a personal problem with me.’
Boss: ‘And why do you think that? What’s the problem?’
Martin: ‘He doesn’t like me because I’m big.’
Boss: ‘Mate, you’re not big. Arnold Schwarzenegger is big. You’re just a fat jerk.'”