People who were fired on their first day at work/saw somebody get fired their first day at work: What happened that led to the firing?
People who were fired on their first day at work/saw somebody get fired their first day at work: What happened that led to the firing?
Worked security at a factory that made kitchen appliances. It wasn't his first day, but it was his first shift by himself.
There's a gate at the front that you lock when you go on rounds.
Dude chooses to go on a round 5 minutes before shift change for the factory workers. He gets a call on company cell that folks are at the gate. Instead of coming back, he tells them to wait 20 minutes so he can finish his round.
20 minutes where they won't be getting paid.
Second in command big boss of the factory is out there checking IDs and directing traffic when dude gets back from his round. Now this dude is nice. Genuinely one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. Old union rep, shirt off his back type. Tells guard not to worry about it, all's good. Just time his rounds better next time.
Guard starts screaming at him about how he had no right to undo the lock, to get out of here, he'll handle them, and if he wants to make them wait that's his right. Boss man tells him to chill out, he won't get in trouble, just go do his log and then he can take over checking IDs.
Guard pulls out, in one hand, a mag light flashlight he was told not to have, and in the other chemical spray that's illegal for a guard to carry without certs (which he didn't have), and this is an unarmed site. Threatens to ""arrest"" him. When boss pulls out his cell to call the guard company, the guard sprayed him and knocked his cell onto the ground, and kicked it across the parking lot, breaking it.
Needless to say, he was fired. Boss didn't press assault charges, but we nearly lost the contract.
Should definitely have filed charges. I would be shocked if that was the first or last time this dude assaulted someone.
Shame there were no charges filed. This dude should've gone to jail.
Was hired at a company as a designer. Went to the production meeting and sat down beside another designer (introduced myself and we started chatting). In comes everyone else and sits down. We all start chatting and do introductions.
Five minutes into the meeting the company owner comes in, chatting with a salesman. He glances around the room, then his face freezes on me - he then looks at the guy beside me and keeps looking back and forth. He finally motions for me to come outside the conference room. I walk out and he asks me what I was doing there. I tell him ‘remember, you hired me and my start day was today??’
He turned pale and just said ‘oh yeah I forgot’. He let me go back in the room but then I heard him call the guy beside me out.
The guy never came back. Apparently he had intended on firing him and forgot.
Needless to say I didn’t stay long before I found another job. The place was complete chaos.
Omg he had hired the replacement already and forgot to fire the guy... what a mess, and what an idiot
Yeah, I was young and it was my first job out of college (technically I worked thru college but this was my first after graduation) so I was very inexperienced still and also didn’t know what to look for when it came to red flags.
The owner’s wife worked there in a ‘higher up’ position and was the major cause of a lot of conflict at the company. Basically he would give people orders then she would come along and contradict them.
If anyone disagreed with her then she would go to hubby and complain about said person(s) making it impossible to please either because you couldn’t prove her wrong. That designer in particular was just the latest of ‘trophy wife’s wrath’. The place had an insane turnover rate I quickly found out.
At least it was a good learning experience and taught me to ask questions and meet people during the interview process.
I hired a woman once to work in the retail store I was managing at the time. After lunch, I noticed one of my long time employees crying in the break room. She had lost her wallet and whoever took it had wiped out her bank account at the Walmart next door. I called the manager over there and he pulled up the video and low and behold it was the new lady over there buying up gift cards. We called the police and after verifying what happened, they asked me if I wanted them to handle it quietly or to make a scene. I chose make a scene and they went into the backroom handcuffed her, told her why she was being arrested in front of everyone and marched her out. Needless to say HR agreed it should be an immediate termination.
Why were you fired?
- I stole a coworker's wallet
- I defrauded Walmart buying gift cards
- I am very stupid
That's an impressive trifecta.
Lo* and behold.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lo
I got your back. 👍 Please take the emoji as a sign of this not being condescending.
👌
I love that they asked you if you wanted a scene. I would have chose it too!
If the "handle quietly" option was chosen in a movie, they would have taken the thief out the back, laid down some bubble wrap, put the silencers on their glock service pistols...
One time someone showed up to work that was clearly different than the person from the interview. They never even got their badge.
So they hired a professional interviewee to be interviewed for them? Amazing. I wonder how you'd get that job, and what the recruitment process would be like?
This is not uncommon in IT type jobs with individuals from a certain country. I was at lunch with a coworker when he was approached to do an interview for a cousin of one of his friends. I must have looked puzzled because he explained it to me and I was flabbergasted. He said that it was more common during phone interviews, but since "they all look the same" to white hiring managers, it still happens over video interviews.
It's more they have a friend that speaks better English do the interview and hope that big companies don't notice a difference when they start the job.
Had that happen to me once. Guy we phone screened did not match the guy on the video interview. Immediately bounced, you could tell their accent and talking style was different.
My wife had a guy start at her company the same day she did, but he got fired that same day because for reasons no one understands he decided it would be wise to make his Teams (or whatever they used. Slack? I can't remember) profile picture a meme that said "Epstein didn't kill himself" or something to that effect.
It was a six figure software engineering job, too. I cannot imagine losing a job like that for such a silly, self-inflicted reason.
But did he kill himself?
I know you're joking, but the department of justice finished their investigation and found a whole lot of ineptitude and negligence, but no conspiracy
I was a contacted technician at a retail store. They hired a new salesperson, immediately gave me weird vibes. On his lunch break, he came over to show me what I thought was going to be a meme on his phone - it was porn.
He was asked not to return for a second shift.
Lmao. This dude is sharing porn on this first day of work, like that is a totally acceptable thing to do.
On the technicians line of an electronics manufacturing facility, had a new hire come in on his first day. He was friendly. So much so that he wanted to use my workstation to log into his Yahoo mail and show me some pictures some female sent him. He calls up the photos and it's full nudity real big on my computer monitor. I tell him "dude, we can't have porn at work, close that out." He panics and turns off the monitor. At some point I have to turn the monitor and close out of the browser, when no one is looking.
He was showing a pretty inattentiveness to his first day on the job training just not seeming to want to have anything to do that's any kind of actual work.
Before the lunch break, he announced that he's going to the restroom, then is never seen again. All I could tell the supervisor was that he said he was going to the restroom hours ago then haven't seen him since.
Ctrl+W closes the current tab in most modern browsers. For the future.
There's so many lazy as fuck people like that. It's incredible. I wonder how they survive?
Over the years I've seen about a dozen people who just walk out while claiming they're going to the bathroom.
Starting this off myself, there was one fella at my current job who bought vodka at a liquor store during his lunch break, poured heaps of it into his soda from a fast food joint, and wound up getting fired when they noticed him getting drunk as hell.
That was before I started working here, but coincidentally I met him at my other job!
Mine is similar. Arrived, day one in a new team; this one was more high-intensity than the usual - a fast-paced and very hands-on work environment. Noticed the team leader was working in a dysfunctional and unsafe manner; seemed unsteady. As the most junior member and a newbie at that I hesitated to confront directly; thankfully I managed to find a more experienced colleague. Scene was made safe; turned out the guy was drunk as a skunk. Canned within the hour.
I’ve since learned to be stronger and more willing to confront suboptimal or dangerous performance in team members, regardless of their seniority.
That was pretty scary.
I knew a guy who would get absolutely wrecked on his lunch break in his car, and show up early thinking he was late because he was high as a kite on hard drugs.
You couldn't tell unless he told you. He was a top performer. Probably the only person I've ever met that was a well functioning drug abuser, and that's an understatement, the guy was fucked out of his mind all the time and to everyone around him he was perfectly coherent and capable.
One guy during the probation period called IT saying his laptop was broke, they told him to bring it into the office. It turned out he was on another continent and didn't bother to tell anyone. As expected he lost his job.
We had this once with a guy working remotely who decided to move to Poland without telling anyone, which was not allowed in the terms of his contract nor did he have a visa to live in Poland. Only person I've ever heard of getting deported from Poland to the UK
It was one of the phlebotomists (person who draws blood) at the hospital I worked at.
It was her first day going off on her own. She accidentally went to the wrong floor/area that morning. She drew many patients' blood that morning for the morning blood draws. The entire time she was there, she did not double check even a single patient's name at any point. They were all wrong. All were mislabeled. All patients had to be re-drawn and she was fired for gross negligence.
Things happen and I've seen things get mislabeled many tines before. It's not good obviously. But if you do it once and no one ended up getting hurt, you just get reprimanded and move on. You generally don't get fired for a one off. But never before or after have I seen that level of mislabeling.
An old restaurant I worked at hired a new chef. He came in, completely rearranged the kitchen, changed the menu top to bottom ON HIS FIRST DAY, and introduced a bunch of complicated specials. Dinner service hits, chaos ensues and dude disappears.
I was on expo watching everything fall apart when one of the line cooks is like, "get chef,I don't know how to make this special because there's no recipe or notes"
I go into the walk in and he's haunched over in there and violently turns, around inhaling, all bug eyed. I told him we needed help. He doesn't hide his annoyance goes on the line, makes the one dish in question and is like, "see, that wasn't difficult" and disappeared again.
The line cook asked why I had the look on my face that I did and I said it was because chef was doing rails in the walk in. We both laughed, shook our heads and got through service eventually. Drugs are pretty common in the service industry but even that seemed extreme.
Anyhow we didn't see him for the rest of the night. Next day, I get to work and the owner is there and he pulls me aside and told me what happened after. Owner didn't even know he'd been snorting shit during the dinner rush
Chef continued his one man party and went into the booze closet and proceeded to help himself. When the prep cook showed up the next morning the kitchen door was wide open so she called the police thinking the place had been robbed. The police went in and found Chef semi conscious and incoherent, giggling in the office. He was fired and since he was a keyholder all the locks and alarm codes had to be changed
I've never seen someone self destruct that spectacularly.
To have been a fly on the wall when they called the other guy chef beat out for the gig and told him he could start immediately...
A couple times now at my current job they've hired someone, only to have them just not show up on their agreed first day with no communication. I'm guessing they just got a different job they like more or something, but still, I'd imagine one usually at least tells people not to expect you, under that circumstance?
Companies can't be arsed to let you know you didn't get hired, I can see how someone would just ghost if they got a better job. Not commenting on whether it's right it wrong, just making an observation.
It's so weird. I've seen a lot of people do that over the years.
One guy even responded to bring called, claiming he had spoken to the another manager about the start day, making it seem like a miscommunication. Next day rolls by and he's still not showing up. Didn't bother calling him at that point.
About a month or two ago my workplace was hiring for an open position. My task was to go down to the lobby of our building and greet the interviewees and escort them up to the office. Out of 6 that they interviewed, two didn't bother to show up nor did they call or anything. It was awkward waiting in the lobby for someone who never arrives.
I have a couple from the a warehouse job I worked at when I was 16. That place was wild lmao
- Fired from unplugging security cameras to charge his phone
- 30yo man harassing a 17yo girl
- That man's wife fighting the 17yo girl for "flirting" with her husband even though she wasn't
- Got on top of some shelves and took a nap. These shelves are really tall and you need a lift to get on top of them
These weren't on their first day, but I thought they are worth mentioning
- Racing during lunch in the parking lot
- 10+ person brawl in the parking lot over a guy stealing another guy's girlfriend
- A guy left his keys in his car so another guy just broke the window. He said he thought it was funny and that he got the bit from a movie, tv, or comedian or something
- A couple people got caught taking lunch on top of the shelves in a corner because the lunchroom was too loud. They also had a bed up there made up bubble wrap and yoga mats
- Going full speed into a door with a forklift while the forks were fully lifted
- Doing BMX tricks off the truck dock. I think people were riding skateboards off it too but I can't remember 100%
That's all the entertaining ones I can think of right now lol
There was some TV show in the 2000s that was a workplace drama / comedy set in a warehouse (or like a Costco?) and I remember something about two characters making like a hide-out at the top of some shelves. Does anyone remember the name of that show?
Was a contractor for Walmart.
Got hired on as a lead dev, getting compensated 150k/yr.
2nd day, they told me I needed to switch contracts in order to stay on. New contract paid 50k salary.. with lots of required OT.
But, it's OK they said, you get benefits and PTO.
Fuck that.
What the hell? That should be illegal if it isn't already.
If an employer or prospective employer rescinds their job offer, or makes significant changes to the employment contract, through no fault of your own then you may have reason to engage an attorney and discuss Promissory Estoppel.
I am not a lawyer but it's worth knowing the laws :)
On the plus side, I negotiated to work remotely for a few weeks, due to needing to relocate.
So- I was actually able to work both my current job, and the "new" job without losing time for either job.
So, on the plus side, I didn't lose anything, and got an extra paycheck for a few days. But, man, that would have been really shitty if I had relocated, and THEN got that notification.
As another interesting note, I discovered the other head-dev was only getting compensated 30-40k a year..... for literally managing a world-wide system. He doesn't work there either now.
Back in 2007 I worked in an office that required basic MS Excel / Word competency. The office manager led her to her desk and instructed her to turn on her computer (nothing fancy, a basic workstation with a large round button).
She couldn't figure out how to turn it on. The office manager sent her home and she never came back.
there was a joung guy like 4 years ago in the job orientation (it area)
he could not turn it on either
He called the pointy finger of the teacher "magic finger"
he never got into the it apprenticeships but likely he got into another job orientation
I don’t know if this is what you’re looking for, but at my last company, they were so intense on the “we are family” indoctrination for new-hires that I saw many leave for lunch on their onboarding day and then just never return. Including mid-level managers.
I worked at a pet shop for two glorious days not knowing that I was the backup in case the boss' nephew was accepted into his preferred college program. He was not accepted so I got the boot to make room for him on the team.
The manager doubled my first/ only paycheque because she felt bad. I'm still bitter 17 years later
Ah nepotism.
Not sure where you live, but I find it pretty wild you can fire someone without notice with no egregious misconduct.
Not on the first day but after a few weeks. He missed work every Wednesday, always claiming to have eaten something bad the evening before (it was always the same food). He wasn't all that bright.
"I know I'm allergic, but Tuesday is peanut butter night."
You can't just end the story without telling us what he did on Wednesdays
I have no clue. He got fired and asked not to return.
When I was in highschool me and a couple of my friends got hired as waiters. We were required to attend these training sessions before we could start. It was your typical fake upbeat corp BS and we were a bunch of edgy teens, so you can imagine how it went. About halfway through the first session they tell my buddy he can change his attitude or leave, so he left.
I worked at a tiny hospital in a rural area as the sole IT admin. They hired a new Director of Nursing, a very long process because we were so rural it was very difficult to convince people to move out there to work. They had helped her find and buy a house, helped her husband get a job in the area, enrolled their kids in the local school system. They had me buy a new computer specifically for her and asked me to come in early and be available to help with any computer problems on her first day.
She didn't show up at all that day. People were pretty panicked about it. Next day she did show up, although about an hour late (not that anyone complained about it) and they rolled out the red carpet and everything. I spent most of the morning helping her get access to things and then she was off to more important things.
Next day she didn't show up at all again.
That one orientation meeting was the only time I ever saw her, a few days later they asked me to terminate her accounts, preserve emails and pull security camera footage. I still don't know what was going on. Drugs? If she had another job opportunity it seems pretty crazy to buy a house and move your whole family. She almost certainly would have been the highest paid employee, probably within the top 5 for the whole town.
But yeah, I guess if you don't show up and don't have a good excuse things end pretty quickly.
I used to be a kitchen trainer at McDs in high school, one of my trainees got fired on her first day without me because she couldn't remember what the different types of meat were. This was not only after spending my last 4 hours with her running through it repeatedly, but even directly after someone told her what they were she wouldn't be able to point any of them out. I felt kinda bad because she was otherwise really nice, but it really was impossible to get her to retain any information.
Ok like... hamburger, bacon, chicken, sausage? Like those kinds of meat? Omg...
These are great stories, but my only experience has been people mysteriously not showing up for day 2 or 3...
Semi-proud to say that after an intro day showing him the scope of the software, my replacement quit. We tried to tell him in the interview but maybe he just didn’t believe us.
The first full-time job I had was stuffing circuit boards. We got a new person in one day, she was clearly struggling but it seemed like she was trying... She never came back after lunch. I mean, say something or ask questions, any of us would have helped her out.
They ded
It was 30 minutes into day 2.
I was accused of cheating on their personality quiz (honestly why?) and then was told I wasn’t to have labeled the boxes I was expressly told to label the day before…
She then had me tear out the 2 pages of notes in front of the office before she marched me out.
This was for an accounting position at a small HOA. So I feel like that was enough of an explanation. Everyone else was terrified of that woman.
I still do not understand how HOAs are a thing. I know why they are a thing (Karens gotta Karen) but its insane to me that people allow these weird racist and fascist little hamlets to exist governing their private property.
First morning at the job he comes in wanting to impress, so he copies some company data to his personal laptop to do extra work at home. He got fired at noon. The official reason was that he had copied that stuff without authorization, but a more likely reason was that someone had accidentally written an extra zero on the offer they made him, because it was several times above average in the area.
Not exactly on topic but in the spirit of this post have a funny story. Hired a young lady recently entering the work force. She had been working about a week when we did our payroll run. This entailed printing out all the checks with pay details etc. Is done in an administrative office that is obviously kind of private. Not some place you would wake in without permission. Anyhow we started the payroll print and my manager stepped out briefly to get a coffee. When she came back this new employee was flipping thru everyone's pay check. Of course my manager immediately asks what she is doing to which she responds 'oh I'm just wondering what everyone is being paid'.
She honestly thought it was just fine to not only start flipping thru paperwork in the managers office but to also look over employee payroll checks. She simply had no idea and just stated what she was doing like it was just fine. Actually that was her saving grace. While we made it quite clear how inappropriate it was, being it was her first job, we chalked that down to immaturity and didn't let her go on the spot. Had she been older that likely would have been her last day.
Mind you she only last a week longer for a myriad of other reasons. Little common sense.
Not sure if it counts as a first day, but a third interview had me gone. I was quite late and they told me I was out of the running. Reasonable enough, but the company was in the middle of a move, so this interview was in a different location across town from the first two, and the only indication of where it was taking place was a tiny sign stuck in the ground. I must have circled the parking lot 10 times.
It was for the best because I later learned the work conditions there were rotten.
Not at any workplace of mine but at school. We had a substitute teacher for a day in I think in our sophomore year. Teachers save the easy teaching sessions for when they can’t show up, which means all a substitute teacher has to do is occupy the class with a documentary or something from the handy dandy wheeled video projector and make sure everyone behaves. However, she got a substitute who didn’t understand a word in English. And again, doesn’t really seem like a problem if you’re just there to hit a few buttons. But she got us a documentary with, well, let’s just say wildly inaccurate closed captions that looked ripped from a 50 Shades of Grey AI crossover fanfiction.
Why would you apply to a job having to manage children without knowing any English? That sounds like a nightmare to me
Sounds kind of like my experience when I ended up in Spain teaching English to a class of fifteen 7 and 8 year old Spanish girls. My Spanish was terrible, their English wasn't great, it was carnage. Eventually I more work teaching adults and learned Spanish but it was a messy time.
I work in it company that support small business. a customer of ours has an employee demographic of about 90% women they had hired a marketing guy and I was setting up his work laptop around noon after talking with him about 10 minutes and getting his desk set up I knew this guy wasn't going to last long with him mansplaining how it was done back before Windows 95. The paperwork for his termination had already been started by 4:00 p.m.
That's one hell of a long running sentence right there.
I'm so glad they used a period at the end
We hired a receptionist who didn’t know how to use a computer. Couldn’t type or even use a mouse. This was at a small tech company maybe 20 years ago and she was 20 something at the time. She interviewed normally and I guess someone else wrote her resume. I don’t know if she thought she would just figure it out on the job? We did skills and typing tests after that.
These days young people have such bad computer skills I know I'm going to put them through an excel course before they do anything else.
In the finals of my programmer apprenticeship was a multi table excel section (on paper of course) that had a 25% weight.
What was very confusing for like everyone.
Excel makes no sense, we can make a database and use SQL or something but not excel
On his first day, he came on to one of the women I worked with very aggressively and shortly after told another to "bring me a cup of tea, quickly" while on the way to a meeting.
He was escorted off the premises by several other members of staff a few hours into the day once all of his system access had been revoked.
I'm sad to say this, because I know what a bad rap this field gets already and I know so many lovely people who are part of it.... But, they worked in InfoSec.
We hired a person who lived hours away from our office. To save on hotel, he had the bright idea to spend his first work-week nights at a non-stop bar (open 24h/7). He showed up still drunk on his second day. We let him go on day 2.
new receptionist was shopping on ebay for Nazi stuff on work computer on day one. she didn't make it to lunchtime.
I got fired before my first day. Well kind of.
So I was in college at this time and I had applied for and got hired at McDonald's. I had previous experience working at McDonald's in a different town. Not sure exactly what position it was anymore but something something lead I think. Anywho at the end of the 'your hired' talk the manager that did the hiring told me that the Christmas party was like that weekend and I should really show up to meet everybody. So despite not working a single day I show up for the Christmas party.
Well, her boss (the boss of the person who hired me) saw me and determined my hair was too long for a guy and fired me. He basically said that boys were to have essentially a 1950s men's haircuts if they were going to work for him... At McDonald's. I don't remember the specific words but I remember getting the vibe that he was very homophobic and that he thought long hair was somehow gay. So I was given the ultimatum of getting a proper men's haircut or I could be done. And despite not being gay myself I didn't want to work for some dude who just oozed homophobia, so I peaced out and told everyone I could at the manager of that McDonald's was a homophobic piece of shit.
For those wondering how long was my hair... It just barely touched the collar of my shirt, if it even touched. You know the 'broke college student who can't afford or remember when the last haircut was' look.
Well, I passed out at a warehouse because my supervisor wouldn't let me go for a water break in 100+ degree weather, and I got fired for "loafing."
Does that count?
Found the Amazon employee?
Lol no, but I can see why you'd think so.
A week or so in Flipkart, 2 new trainees were caught kissing on the top office floor. Fired at spot.
I once quit on the first day of a job.
I had previously worked with industrial robots and automation. Fixing them, calibrating them, making hardware and software adjustments as needed.
I was between jobs and found a small business that seemed like it was looking to do some automation expansion. The interview was a little weird because they were kind of vague with specifics. That’s not entirely abnormal with companies that have proprietary processes or automation, though I felt they were being a little bit overly cagey.
They wouldn’t take me into the clean room, which again isn’t unheard of, if in my opinion a little overly protective.
My previous job had been partially titled “Maintenance” (as in I maintained the robots) and the small company asked quite a lot about my versatility in maintaining things. I think that makes sense for a small company to want one person do all things for a robot.
I get a call that I’m hired. On paper the job looks good. Pay is a little low but this was an in-between job.
I show up for the first day of work and one of the first things I have to sign is a 15 page front and back Non Disclosure Agreement. That’s an insane length. My previous job with a huge, established tech company was a two page NDA and they actually had a lot of different processes.
So, I sign their crazy NDA and I’m taken into the airquotes “clean room”. First thing I notice is that I’m not suiting up or even putting on a white room style jacket. I see a cup of coffee on a “clean room” work bench. This is not a clean room.
I’m walked through and out of the “clean room” and to the outside back of the building and shown some air conditioner units. Told I need to work on those to fix them, and then later in the week I’ll be cutting the grass.
Lol.
No.
I left at lunch.
Imagine having to sign an NDA to fix someone's air conditioner.
I knew a guy who worked at a bank for 2 weeks before he was fired for failing his drug test. Not sure why the bank didn't do the drug test before offering the job, but what do I know?
The forst job i had was advertised as a customer service role. My thinking was itd be taking calls in the customer service department. With it being my first ever job/interview I missed all the red flags, sales were mentioned berifly but i figured it wasnt the main part of the job so itd be fine, and they even asked me about being on a phone.
Cut to my forst day and im brought into a room with roughly a dozen other new people, we are split into teams, assigned a team leader and told tp follow that person to the train staion. Turns put it was a door to door sales job. I quit before we got to the train station.
i was once fired on my last day of work. imagine that