15 Times A Co-Worker Got Fired After Doing Something So, So, So Shocking
While the goal of having a job is to keep it, sometimes it doesn't always work that way. So when Reddit user u/eminems_shadow asked: "What's the quickest you've ever seen a new coworker get fired?" over ten thousand people shared their experience. Here's what some of them said below.
1."A guy refusing to wear safety gear/PPE on his first day. He flat-out said no to the supervisor, who then fired him. He didn't even make it to the first coffee break. If he was that adamant about not wearing safety gear, it wasn't a good sign."
"Nope, just nope. I can't tell you how many times I've had some debris thump off my safety glasses or face shield at high velocity. So fast, you're actually blinking/reacting after the actual thump. Not wearing PPE is a great way to lose eyeballs."
2."A kid came in on his first day thinking he could boss everyone around since he just finished culinary school, strike one. They caught him later that day vaping in the prep area of the kitchen, strike two. He asked on his second day if he could leave for 30 minutes to make a drug deal. Needless to say, that was strike three."
3."Back in the mid-1990s, I had hired a guy for a senior Unix systems administration role. It was made quite clear in the posted job description, the interview process, and on his first day that this role would require him to be on call a few nights per month on a rotating basis with the other Unix admins. The salary reflected that as well; this was a six-figure position. He was issued a company laptop and a cellphone for his on-call work, which could be done from home. As part of the onboarding process, our Unix lead admin wanted this guy to shadow him on his on-call evening so that he could see how processes differed in the off-hours. It was his second day on the job."
"That evening, I happened to be working a bit late, and the helpdesk called me saying they had an issue that needed to be escalated to the Unix team and asking if they got the right number for the new guy because it was just ringing and going to a default voicemail mailbox. I told them to call the lead admin to get him working on the issue and that I'd contact the new guy myself.
I call. Same thing, voicemail. Multiple times. I fish out his employment documents, which are all still sitting on my desk, and find his home phone number. I call and get about three words out of my mouth when he responds, 'Why the fuck are you calling me at home?' and hangs up.
A bit in disbelief, I look back at the paperwork and verify, yes, this *is* his phone number, and try it again, thinking maybe he'd mistaken me for someone else. I received a similar bit of vitriol and a hang-up.
I contacted the lead admin and informed him he won't be having the new guy join him that night or any other. We immediately killed all of his system access and his door card, and HR was waiting for him at the reception area first thing in the morning."
4."Within the first two hours of training with me, she asked where she could go and have a smoke; I told her just outside, there's a smoking area. She proceeded to walk outside in front of all the supervisors, light up the biggest blunt, and openly smoke it. She got walked out five minutes later."
5."I worked at a place where you couldn’t be colorblind because you were reading schematics and identifying connectors of varying different colors. There were hundreds of tiny connectors in one array. Somehow, by the grace of God, this guy got hired. Either they forgot to implement the CB test, or he successfully guessed his way through it. He trained for a week and was put onto the line to build $20k cables for fucking missiles. His very first connector, he spent all day soldering and connecting and signing the paperwork and the steps and gave it to QC for inspection. It was one of 'the most fucked up examples' of a connector anyone had seen. The next day, the guy admitted he was color blind and asked whether he could keep the job. He was let go because he cost the company $20k. The connector was put on display in HR to drive home the importance of sticking to hiring procedures."
6."I hired my friend's sister as a hostess at our restaurant. Three hours later, she called off for her first shift, telling me that she was having a tough period. Thirty minutes into her dinner shift, she started posting pics on Instagram of her being at a party in Canada. We live in NY. I fired her via instant message. She never even worked, then tried to claim unemployment. THEN, she had her father call me and try to threaten me into rehiring her. She was 34."
7."This guy shows up; the VP is gloating about how great and brilliant he is, blah blah blah. On the first day, he doesn't come in until 10 a.m. The next day, it's the same deal, like working from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., then leaving. Meanwhile, they flew him on a business trip leaving Wednesday, and he was supposed to come back Friday. At the last second, he rebooked himself on a midnight flight. Meanwhile, on the Friday flight back, at the last second, he was like, 'Oh, I have to take a different flight,' and he just disappeared. What Mr. Mysterious didn't realize is most of us used to work at his previous employer. Someone sent us a text: 'Hey, I thought you hired blah, blah, blah, he's making copies right now!' Turns out, he was working two jobs. These are both science/tech companies with not that strict NDAs, but you can't work at a potential competitor simultaneously! He was fired from both jobs."
"I worked with a guy who had two different jobs in the same building. He would leave floor five for a while, head to floor seven to get some face time, and then back again.
He got away with it for seven months before he got caught."
8."As a teenager, I worked at a bowling alley. Within an hour, a coworker was fired for dropping a ball on the foot of a complaining patron."
9."When I worked in data entry, there was a tricycle on our office floor. It was just added as a relaxed bit of fun by the managers, who were all very chill people. One of the women who got hired around the same time as me would, instead of working, would just ride the tricycle around the office all day, every day. When we all showed up in the morning, she wouldn't even log into her computer; she would just get right on the tricycle and ride around talking to people until she left to take her lunch break. The day she got fired, she had to be escorted out of the building because she was screaming, 'You're targeting me unfairly.' Lol."
10."Orientation second day. He’s to sit in a conference room and read through binders of important information. Our boss walks out and closes the door. It has a window with blinds open to see through. Going about our day, the boss asks us why the conference doors are locked and blinds are closed. Nobody is sure, so they get security to open the door to see this fucking guy kicked back with the lights off asleep. He had closed the blinds and locked the door. Of course, he was out there that day."
11."I once saw a new coworker get fired on their first day during lunch. They loudly bragged about how they lied on their résumé to get the job. Unfortunately, they didn't realize the boss was sitting right behind them. By the time we got back to the office, their desk was already cleared out. They were gone before we even finished our afternoon coffee. It is just wild how stupid some people are."
12."She called the first day and said her grandmother died. She called the next day and said her car wouldn’t start. She called the third day and said her blow dryer broke, so she couldn’t dry her hair. She never made it to work."
13."I worked a mall job in the 1990s at Electronics Boutique. Pokemon had just come out, and we got this new guy for Christmas help who was just the strangest person ever. On his first shift, he just sat behind the counter opening up packs of Pokemon cards, and when confronted, he yelled, 'I am going to pay for them! Duh!' The manager walked him out about 15 seconds later."
14."I used to work as a deckhand for a tugboat company on the Mississippi River. The amount of people who would take jobs like that who were deathly afraid of water was staggering. There was a mandatory two-week training period for all new employees, but about 1/3 of them never made it past their first week. One second you're on a boat heading to your first job, and then the new guy is freaking out, telling the captain to turn the boat around and head back to the dock."
15.And finally, "I work in a kitchen, and literally just yesterday, a new guy started at 5 a.m., claimed to have 20+ years experience, got frustrated that he was struggling with some basic recipes, slammed the oven door and broke it, then walked out at 6:30 a.m. I would be lying if I said I haven’t witnessed this more than once at all the different places I’ve cooked at."
Do you have a memory of a coworker getting fired right after they got hired? Tell us what happened in the comments below.
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