Whether it be a betrayal of mutual trust or just bad timing, managers and supervisors are sometimes forced to fire their most precious and valuable workers.
Below, managers share the reason they had to get rid of their best employee, as told on AskReddit. Check them out!
Content has been edited for clarity.
Things Can Turn Around
“We hire a lot of people in recovery who are a part of the substance abuse court program under the condition that they will be terminated if they go back to jail for substance abuse 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 4th year of sobriety and she’s now management.”
A Career-Ending Move
“I had joined the company a few months prior, was still getting to know the various details of my job and this guy was the star of the company. I spent as much time working with him as I could honestly.
I mean, he was a star. He was a solid programmer, great project manager, awesome account and customer management skills and he had a knack for thinking outside the box on creative solutions.
He loved working there and he had rejected offers from Google, Facebook, and Pinterest.
…and then he hooked up with the director’s teenage daughter. He was 31.”
Good Intentions, Horrible Outcome
“I was working at a bank, my branch had the biggest superstar in the state, always crushing sales numbers. 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. The branch manager stepped in, held the presentation.
The guy had built everything up, it was essentially a done deal, the 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, but technically to get credit for a deal you have to be there at signing.
Both of them were fired within a week for sales manipulation.”
The Risk/Reward Was Not Worth It
“We had a great waiter, Robert. The guy could run circles around the entire staff. He knew the kitchen as well, could jump in at prep and assist if we got backed up AND STILL tend to his tables.
He put a $3 bottle of White Zinfandel in his backpack, right in front of a security camera AND while the owner was sitting at the bar eating. He was a student and working part time he had to be bringing in $300-500 in cash a week.”
The Game Is Rigged
“Basically, 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.”
The Worst Possible Outcome
“I wasn’t the manager, but we had a supervisor who was a rising star in the company, 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 bum 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 all 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 pills to the supervisor. They were both fired. The operation went from under budget to $50,000 – $100,000 over for the next few months.”
Like A Scene From ‘Office Space’
“I had a guy who would work his butt off daily inputting data into spreadsheets. He would come in, put in solid hours of actual work, 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 start to take notice and occasionally ask him to help them out when they are behind, and he obliges.
This gets worse and worse, and eventually, people are basically just walking all over him while they spend all day Facebooking and whatnot, because he won’t say no if they ask him to help with their work. The dude just keeps trucking through it. About four months into working there, it’s gotten to the point where you can hear the extra awful girls 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.
Guy: ‘I would like a raise, I am doing way too much work for how much I am getting paid. Everyone else who works here is so lazy, I even have people making jokes about how I will do their work for them and they will get paid for it.’
Boss: ‘Well, 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.’
Guy: ‘You could tell them its because I am doing half of their work for them while they look at stupid memes.’
Boss: ‘I’m sorry, it just wouldn’t work out well.’
Guy: ‘Well then is there any positions available above mine that I could apply for a promotion too.’
Boss: ‘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.’
Guy: ‘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 elsewhere!’
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 folks cause I quit!’
Cut The Attitude
“He was our fastest forklift operator. The guy could get a truck loaded in 7-15 minutes. But he started developing a bad attitude and we just couldn’t work with him. The new operators we have takes 30-45 minutes to get a truck loaded and they’re legitimately a little dumb and have a hard time reading.
I don’t know if it was worth it.”
The Pen Is Mightier Than Your Job
“I work in retail. One of the staff from checkouts was amazing and would come up and help in our cafe constantly. She was fast, friendly with customers and we would get so many compliments, we asked if we could have her up here permanently.
She stole a pen. Security had her on camera, fired immediately. The pen was a fancy pen, packaged on the shelf to be sold. She was right under the security camera stealing it, security saw it, told higher management, and I don’t really think stealing, regardless what of, can just be ignored. I believe they did it to scare employees like ‘this is what happens if you steal'”
Couple Of Bandits
“The top manager for the 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 realized 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.”
Racism Never Wins
“There was this super talkative girl, 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 kissing-up 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 guy from Spain and the girl behind her was Mexican.”
A Downward Spiral
“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, now five locations. I was general manager and Scott managed the original location. We still rode everywhere, played pool… life was good. Scott began to miss rides we had planned because he was working. He really was a hard worker, 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 he was 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 to work 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, said it was under control. I took his keys and handed him a box of his belongings.
This is long ago, 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. I don’t do that for anybody. Last year I got a sad call from him, saying he wished we had stayed in touch. 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.”
Slow But Steady Stealing
“So part of my job is to process expense reports from the sales department. I noticed one month that the top salesman had claimed a plane ticket expense twice, once when he booked it and then again when he took the flight months later. I reviewed his past expenses and noticed he was doing this regularly. When he booked the flight originally he would claim the full amount of the ticket. Then when he used the flight he would claim each leg of the trip as a separate daily expense so that the receipt amounts wouldn’t match so as to avoid detection.
This is how I figured out he was doing it intentionally. I showed the evidence to the CFO and he was gone the next week. I only went back three years but he stole about $10,000 over those three years.”
Corrupt Way Of Handling Things
“I worked in a restaurant at hotel chain; management regularly found meaningless reasons too 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. On one particular season, they decided they were going to ‘groom him’ 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, was in his mid 40’s, it all made sense why someone would take that job. He would, however, no longer be allowed 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 responsibilities.
At the end of the shift, the hotel manager ‘summons’ the guy into his office. They fired him straight away. He was escorted out of the building and our boss said there was strict rules and management working tables ‘harmed’ the hotel’s image. 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. New cooks, new waiters, new management… It was just sort of the catalyst or the first domino.”
It Had To Be Done
“I managed a grocery store in the midwest in the early 2000’s.
We had a great night stock guy, Juan. 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, 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/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.
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: Background checks and the like were being conducted by EVERYONE so there was a backlog of requests. I get a notice from SSA that Juan’s social security number wasn’t valid. No big deal, someone probably put a number in wrong somewhere. I call 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. I send it back to HR. A week later I get a call from the HR director, she conferences in the regional AP guy. Apparently, Juan is not a citizen of our country, 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.”
You’re Not As Smart As You Think
“I managed a coffee shop/bakery. My best employee was this kid named Alexis. He was sharp and 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 and won’t be able to make it in for his shift the following morning. He called me at 7 pm, the last commuter train leaves at 9:30 pm or so, and there’s a free circulator that runs throughout the city. I used to visit Baltimore pretty regularly at the time.
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 illegal substances and wasn’t as clever as he thought he was, so would often get into trouble with the police.”
Where Is Tom Cruise When You Need Him?
“As the employee, with a manager who clearly didn’t want to fire me, it was because I was not going to join the owner’s Scientology activities.
At the firing interview, the owner’s stooge, fellow Scientologist, and son-in-law tried for 20 minutes to come up with reasons I was personally responsible for getting ‘fired’. Every reason he floated for my ‘bad performance’ was shot down by my own direct manager, whom I’d invited to the meeting as I suspected what it was. And get that – they WEREN’T going to invite him to a meeting where his own direct manager was being dismissed. It was all very shady.
Stooge ‘CEO’: ‘well, I see here that you have a lot of unfinished tasks.’
Direct manager: ‘No, actually, everything on his to-do list is complete.’
It went on like that until Stooge ran out of ideas.
After all that, the stooge then said, ‘well, the industry is in a downturn, so we’re downsizing and laying you off.’
Upside: I left in excellent financial condition, took a year off to complete a major goal in the martial art I’d been studying, went to Japan and achieved the goal, and now am being courted by terrific companies with interesting and challenging work. None of which are owned by Scientologists.
See, when you complain that a tiny company gives the entirety of its operational and expansion budget (about $1 million at the time) to Scientology, and thus suddenly can’t pay people, it appears that that is called an ‘industry downturn.'”