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Deciding which person to hire to work for you can be difficult, because employees are acting their best in the interview, so you can’t really know what kind of a person they truly are. Sometimes it turns out that their behavior in the workplace is unacceptable and employers have to lay them off.
Reddit user GravyxNips was curious what were the craziest reasons bosses had to fire their employees. They received over 9k responses and all of those reasons for firing people seemed quite justified. Among other things, these employees were fired because of stealing, being irresponsible, or making people around them feel uncomfortable.
Don’t forget to upvote the stories that you thought were the craziest and comment if you've had any similar experiences!
More info: Reddit
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#1
Had to fire my own brother from our distribution "company". Really was not easy and defintely caused family fights. He had been using our product so much so that we lost half our stock.
To be fair he got over it in about half an hour, we were 7 and 5 selling candy to fundraise.
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#2
Hoo boy...
I'd have to go with the guy who in the span of 24 hours...
Started a fist fight with another employee (on camera, with witnesses) then called the police and said the other guy did it, trying to press charges. I just sent the video.
Trespassed on the property the following day and slurred at my boss (on camera, with witnesses), then called the police and said my boss did it. I just sent the video.
Hurt himself somehow and went to the hospital, where he told the doctor he'd been attacked at work. Doc found no injury consistent with his story and well yeah, camera...
#3
One of my ER nurses was chasing another down the hall with a scalpel in her hand screaming at the top of her lungs “I’m going to cut you b****!”
#4
Once a had a guy call in sick to his restaurant/bar shift right before his shift and then proceeded to show up s*** faced drunk for happy hour during the time he was supposed to be working.
He was not a bright man.
#5
Dumba** stole a $100 bill out of the register at the end of his FIRST shift alone on register.
Mr. Derpy Dino 3 years ago
and if he didn't, he would have been able to keep the job and make more money, but since thats on his record, hes screwed for life(most likely)
#6
I'm training a new girl. We're sitting at a computer together. The whole time I'm training her, she's scanning the perimeter around her. She's asking about this guy. Is he single? What about that guy? She's paying very little to no attention to what I'm telling her about, you know, the JOB. She's not even looking at what I'm doing as I'm demonstrating the work to her. She's rubbernecking every male who walks past.
At first I was nice. Ok did you see what I just did there? Now when this happens, we do that.
Etc etc. Her eyes were glazed over, she wasn't absorbing anything, I could tell.
Nice wasn't working. After a time, I said to her very sharply, "Are you here to work, or are you here looking for a boyfriend? Because if you're not here to work, I'm going to need to find someone else for this job (I had hiring authority)".
That snapped her into reality for about 15 minutes. I finally said it's break time. She smiled and said, "I'm going to go up to the 4th floor and see if there's any fresh meat up there."
After break time, I sent her into the fax room to collect some faxes I needed. The mail guy was in there changing rolls of fax paper. He came out of the mail room and said I think there's something wrong with your new girl. He was very nervous. I said what happened.
Apparently she was in the fax room which tended to get hot because of all the machines in there. She had perched her a** up on the edge of the table, hiked her dress up to where her underwear was showing, arched her back, unbuttoned the front of her dress, and fanned herself with the sheaf of fax pages and said, "Oh, it's just so...HOT...in here." Yeah. Like that. Like the opening of a p****.
I totally believed him. I believed she did that. 100%, she totally did that.
I called her temp agency and said she's not working out. I think this was under 2 hours.
I have stories about temps for days lol.
#7
I had to fire a pizza delivery driver because he threatened another driver with the giant rocker knife we used to cut pizzas. His reason was the other driver was gay and he didn't like his "decadent" life style.
Just a person eating a potato 3 years ago
That guy needs help. Thank god his homophobic ass was fired
#8
Years ago, at a lumber company. Had a guy, less than two hours after he started on his first day, pick up his car with a forklift and stand underneath it to see what was rattling when he drove.
#9
Not too crazy. More stupid than crazy. One of the programmers on my team was sitting at his desk looking at p***. And this is cubicle land. No offices. My Director walked into the area to talk to me and saw it. Then it was the first thing he told me about, so I got up and walked over for a look myself and there it was. Me and the Director looked at each and I said I gotta take care of this. So we walked back to HR, I told them what was going on and what we saw and they told me to fire him. So I did. He lost a $110K job for looking at p*** on his computer at work.
#10
Harassment. He harassed virtually every person in the department on sexual, racial and religious grounds. Human Resources put up a fight while I had people crying and quitting because of him.
cookie panda 3 years ago (edited)
holy frick what do ya wanna bet he never lasts more than a week in any given job
#11
Not my personal experience, but one fellow contractor had a safety guy for 6 months. One weekend he took a trip out of town for non work related reasons. But used the company truck, and charged it all on the company credit card. On his way up there he ran a random person off the road, who just so happened to be one of the owners of another contractor who works closely with the one who employed this guy. Shortly after he was fired and I'm sure criminal charges were being brought against him.
A couple weeks later his wife calls his former employer saying he had called her randomly and killed himself in his truck on the side of the highway. Me and another colleague went searching for records of this guy, couldnt find anything no claims of a suicide in the local paper where he supposedly killed himself at. Thought it was wierd but whatever. It turns out this guy falsified all his qualifications and job experience.
Fast forward a month later, and I heard through the grapevine that the original contractor who had employed this guy recieved a call from some contractor across country because he applied for work there and put them down as his previous employer.
He faked his own death to get out of trouble with the company then proceeded to put them down on his resume not expecting anyone to check his references lol.
#12
We had someone fall asleep at his desk with a lit cigarette in his hand. In a office full of cubicles like maybe... 6-7 years ago? Smoking wasn't legal anywhere indoors let alone in an office building lmao
And the first time he wasn't even fired. He was fired when it happened again!
#13
Fired a guy for looking to pay someone to cast black magic on the owner and the owner’s family to bewitch them into giving him a raise and, ironically, never firing him. Only reason I found out was because he asked someone else in the office for help in finding a witch doctor to cast the spells and word got round. No one wanted to be in the same room as him after that.
When I confronted him he said the devil made him do it so it wasn’t his fault. I live in the Middle East. I definitely did not wake up expecting to fire someone for black magic that day. Side note: practicing black magic is literally a death sentence here.
#14
I worked at a pet store, and was the lead cashier so I had to train this girl who didn’t think she had to abide by the uniform because it’s just(store name) and doesn’t count as a real job. That was a warning that despite her thinking she did need to follow the uniform rules. Then when ringing up customers she actually told customers they couldn’t buy certain items because we were running low and she planned on getting a pet soon and wanted these items. I apologized and rung them up. Second warning with me explaining how that’s not how it works and she could shop when she’s off the clock. Finally my manager fired her when she tried to steal one of the cats that were up for adoption after being told she needed to wait for approval after they do a home visit and make sure she can care for the cat. Her excuse for trying to steal the cat? Her landlord doesn’t allow pets so she wouldn’t be approved and she’d be a much better pet parent then anyone who else who wanted the cat and much better than any of the customers we got. The girl didn’t even last a week.
#15
When I was working at Burger King, our restaurant manager was away on maternity leave, so we had someone from another store come in over that time to fill the role.
He ended up hiring someone who had worked there 5-6 years previously (high turnover, so a lot of hiring/leaving), the few staff that had known her before she’d left hated her, but had no idea why she left. She even passed all the checks from head office before she was hired.
Restaurant manager comes back about a month after she’s been hired, takes one look at her, and RAGES. Like my RM is yelling at this girl, she’s yelling at the manager that hired her, and all the crew that had known her when she was here last. Obviously none of us knew what was going on, but it turns out this girl hadn’t left, she’d been fired, and management at the time hadn’t told anyone that, just that she’d quit.
This girl had scammed BK by pretending to be pregnant (fake ultrasounds, plans, baby shower, the whole lot) and then took paid maternity leave so she could go work somewhere else, because it was seasonal work with better pay, with the idea of having a job for the off-season to come back to.
I have no idea how she got through the head office checks, but she was fired that day. (Super impressive when you consider that I’m in New Zealand, so getting fired is usually a month+ long process here)
#16
plumber
my helper and I went to do a punch list at a new home.
when the very attractive 20 something year old answered the door
I ask what the problem was, and she said,
"when I take a shower, the shower head makes a whistling noise."
my helper said,
"Hell if I saw you naked, I'd whistle too"
she complained to the super.I had no choice but to fire him.
#17
He worked at the company for 2 weeks, came to the Christmas party on friday, got s*** faced, told the HR manager that she was a s*** and would die alone (they had some previous vaguely romantic history, went on a couple of dates or something) tried to fight 2 of the customer service managers who asked him to calm down, and while being escorted out he turned to the CEO and COO and told them to go f*** themselves.
He showed up to work on the Monday talking about how fun the party was and how he had seen some people who would probably be called into HR that morning.. he was the first and only employee to be called and was sacked on the spot.
#18
I work at an art studio where we teach classes and sell pottery that our artists make for others to paint. I'm one of the artists and the manager. I started getting a funny feeling about one of my employees.. she wasn't doing anything blatently wrong, just seemed to work really slowly sometimes, request insignificant but kinda odd schedule changes, and have different break habits from the other staff. I started feeling like she was stealing but this is a really small business so I didn't have her on camera or any way to really prove it... Until she accidentally sent me a video of herself painting pieces that I MADE from her home!
Theoretical Empiricist 3 years ago
OK, class - today's lesson is about not videoing yourself while engaged in criminal activity.
#19
Some dude wasn’t making calls (his job) and I did a remote session to see what he was doing. Sent the screenshot to the boss and he came over like it was a black friday TV sale. He had been warned by me before.
Boss: Why are you job searching on my time.
Guy: I am trying to apply for my career.
Boss: I am not paying you to shop for jobs.
Guy: I want to be a flight attendant. (guy is 300lbs and not in touch with reality)
Boss: Gets red faced and walks away.
Email from boss: Get that s*** out here before I lose my temper.
Me: Hey Neil, yah, you can’t apply for jobs while you are on the clock. You need to clock out and go home.
Neil: For the day?
Me: No, good luck on your flight attendant career.
#20
My coworker at a coffee shop.
Told a customer she didn't feel like making x drink and she should go elsewhere.
Wore cookie monster PJ pants while we had a very strict "black or khaki pants, no jeans, no leggings" policy at the time.
couldn't figure out the concept of milk?? This still baffles me to this day. Like I was trying to show her how to steam milk properly, she was off in la la land and when she snapped back into the conversation asking, "What are we doing again" followed by me reminding her and she quite literally asked what was in the gallon jug that I poured into the metal pitcher. I told her it was milk and she just looked at me, her eyes saying, '???!??!!?"
She was there for 2 days.
#21
At a retail job, we had a kid come in and punch in for the day then go home. Would come back at quittin' time and punch out.
Demongrrrrl 3 years ago
Worked in IT with a guy who would clock in at 8 am and then leave for the day, not returning until 7 pm when everyone else had left, making it look like he had been working the entire time. I only discovered this because I was doing a major project and working late a lot. My boss wondered why the guy was putting in so many hours yet getting very little done and I had to tell the truth.
#22
I am a chef at an upscale restaurant, the sauté cook has a lobster dish on his station that involves a technique called deglazing that involves alcohol so in turn the pan catches on fire briefly and flames up. When you do it correctly (hard to do it incorrect) the alcohol is cooked off and the flame goes out. Every time he made this dish he would deglaze the pan, catch it on fire and then blow it out, blowing his own germs and nastiness all over someone’s food and everything in the blast radius. That was a week ago. Fired him after he did it multiple times after being asked not to. Maybe it’s because of the current state of affairs, but I couldn’t believe a trained cook would do that.
#23
A guy told a female co-worker he wanted to take her newborn baby home with him to “inspire” his wife to have one. Dude was creepy as f*** before that, but the complaint she made to management was what got him cut loose. He denied ever having said it, despite corroborating statements from other employees and a couple customers.
#24
I worked at a retail store and found one of my coworkers was using the company iPad (that we used to play music and order lunches) to go on Craigslist and search for hookups. She didn’t even bother to delete the search history.
#25
CEO ordered me to fire one of my interns because he was trying to hit on one of the other interns the CEO had the hots for.
#26
I was a bartender/bar manager. This guy came in one night and said he was an aspiring DJ and asked if we would consider hiring him to come in just on Sunday nights to DJ for us. He said we wouldn’t have to pay him at first, he would just take tips and we could renegotiate after he helped to build up our Sunday night crowd.
He lasted less than 3 months. He drove away so much business and I got SO many complaints. He played the same songs every week and when people made requests (for commonly known songs), he had no idea who they (the musicians) were.
I had to fire someone who was working for free. He was a nice guy, which is the only reason he lasted as long as he did.
#27
I work construction, and one of the subs gave me an invoice with no receipts. Turns out he wanted 30k for 4 weeks of work without paying the companies he rented equipment/dumpsters from. I paid off the companies he owed money to and told him to f*** off
#28
My assistant manager announced to a female coworker that he had officially named both of her b****, after working with her for three years. This was the second time he had said something sexual to her within a week and had to be let go. He was a 47 year old virgin who still lived with his ailing parents. I didn’t know who to be sorry for the most.
#29
Profanity filled road rage rant through and Ambulance PA system at a crowded intersection.
I had complaints coming in for well over a month.
#30
The guy had somehow hung on by the skin of his teeth when caught making plastic model funny cars at his desk (pro tip: throwing a newspaper over the model doesn’t hide the smell of the glue), but when a client called complaining about our hero trying to sell him golf clubs out of the trunk of his car, he was gone.
What do you think ?
Carol Emory 3 years ago (edited)
Worked for Nintendo of America and got to go to my first company Christmas Party. Food was great, first 3 alcohol drinks were free. In the ball room, two of the executives (husband and wife) were dressed as Mr and Mrs Claus for pictures. One guy had collected drink tickets from his friends and was smashed drunk. He goes and sits down on Mrs. Claus's lap, then tried to grab her boobs...at which time Mr.Claus stood up and said "I don't care who I work for, you get your God D*** hand off my wife!" The employee was escorted out by security. On Monday he found a pink slip where his badge used to be at the security station.
JCRocks 3 years ago
I got a job at a private college and found out I was replacing a guy who was fired for serious sexual harassment claims. I was tasked with helping in the investigation. He had a pregnant fiancee, but slept with a student and when she became pregnant and their relationship discovered, he was fired. The full truth was much worse. When I put new rules into place one of his former employees (now under me) started screaming at me that I shouldn't even be there because the guy and Student A were "in love," my supervisor came in and went off! "Really? X and Student A are in love? What about Students B, C, D and E who also came forward with allegations? What about the fact that he hired peer "tutors" who were failing their classes because he was buying drugs from them and was using school money to pay them? What about the fact that he went to student parties on campus and bought underage kids alcohol... and then tried to sleep with them?" No one complained about the new rules after that.
JCRocks 3 years ago
When they fired him, they didn't give him time to clean out his office, and I found boxes of bad poems and songs written to students, printed out with different names on each copy. A bunch of students dropped out because of him. It was so sad.
Load More Replies...
Zophra 3 years ago
I was at my yearly gyn. appt. The initial nurse who was taking my blood pressure,etc. then pulls out a catalog and tells me she sells sex toys and would I be interested? She also does ladies' "tool" parties. I didn't report her to the practice, but she couldn't have lasted long...
Lori Reese 3 years ago
I worked on a golf course. Laboring, hard work. One day a heavy set dude rolls up and says he got hired and whoop, whoop wasn't it a good day to get to work!!! So he was put to some light duty, raking or cleaning sand traps. By lunchtime he was a sweating pig and very red. He came in the shop, said nothing except F You guys and F this place! and he was gone.
Paradise 3 years ago
I had a staff who passed her working intveriew with me. She had to be in my supervision until her background check went through, about a month. In that time I compiled 3 pages of front/back documentation of her shitty behavior. Nobody liked her so it was not just me. Discovered she went to my supervisors to have a meeting becsuse she had a problem w/me. I made aware during a complaint I made (as I couldn't fire) and I told the employee I would be there. On one hand I shouldn't and it would have been great to see a reaction when she saw me. She decided not to show to her own meeting she set up, but it may have been because shortly after she called to tell me her background check did not go through because of an assault. Months later I left the company and she texted me saying she was now clear to return. I told her I was not there but to my knowledge she was not welcomed back anyway. Then I messaged HR and told them she was trying again. I don't think they would have rehired her.
Robin DJW 3 years ago
This big angry colleague cornered me in my office and ranted about some issue he was having and that every one was out to get him. He lunged at me several times, backing off before the touched me. So no battery, but definitely assault. This came right out of nowhere -- I had no idea he was having issues. When I could finally get around him and escape, I reported to my boss. I guess there had been other complaints, because a week later he was gone.
danielw 3 years ago
it took that long?? wow. This sounds like a perfect set up in the workplace violence training videos our vendors try to sell us. the only thing missing is that the guy is 'quiet' and a 'loaner'.
Load More Replies...
Thomas 3 years ago
We had one guy that showed up to the interview with his dad as a coach. Despite the red flag, we decided to do a trial anyways. On his first day, he decided he liked another project better in the company and went to sit with that other team which assumed they'd just been assigned a new guy. That was his only day there.
Seabeast 3 years ago
I had a nutty coworker who decided the washrooms in the building weren't good enough. He lived a few blocks away and walked home every time he needed to go to the bathroom. This was on top of ranting nonstop all day long about his grievances and sneering at the rest of us for being inferior to him. I think he quit just before he got canned.
Jeffrey Crawley 3 months ago
From the UK. Young woman in our engineering admin section went home to Irelland for a holiday and got ill - really bad bronchitis - and call in to tell the office. Rule was that if you were ill you were ill and could have the holiday dates you were sick on returned to you. She then sent a postcard to her bestie in the office from . . . . Disneyland! "Having a great time, wish you were here . . . " Bye bye, missy, bye bye.
Random Anon 3 years ago
Every time I read lists like these I wonder how on earth some of these people live long enough to get a job. The utter lack of common sense is too uncanny.
Darcey Me 3 years ago
Owner of the company points to a guy across the warehouse and tells me to fire. He'd been told to pull his pants up too many times. Got it all straight in my head, walked, delivered the news, thank him for his time as I walk him out. Owner is laughing his a** off. I fire the wrong guy. They were standing together when owner was pointing. Turns out he quit as soon as I fired his buddy.
Bender Bending Rodríguez 3 years ago
What happened to wrongfully fired guy? Did he lost his job for your incompetence? Did you guy tried to get him back? Your boss is an asshole for laughing at someone losing job for no reason. So are you if you didn't tried to correct your mistake.
Load More Replies... Carol Emory 3 years ago (edited)
Worked for Nintendo of America and got to go to my first company Christmas Party. Food was great, first 3 alcohol drinks were free. In the ball room, two of the executives (husband and wife) were dressed as Mr and Mrs Claus for pictures. One guy had collected drink tickets from his friends and was smashed drunk. He goes and sits down on Mrs. Claus's lap, then tried to grab her boobs...at which time Mr.Claus stood up and said "I don't care who I work for, you get your God D*** hand off my wife!" The employee was escorted out by security. On Monday he found a pink slip where his badge used to be at the security station.
JCRocks 3 years ago
I got a job at a private college and found out I was replacing a guy who was fired for serious sexual harassment claims. I was tasked with helping in the investigation. He had a pregnant fiancee, but slept with a student and when she became pregnant and their relationship discovered, he was fired. The full truth was much worse. When I put new rules into place one of his former employees (now under me) started screaming at me that I shouldn't even be there because the guy and Student A were "in love," my supervisor came in and went off! "Really? X and Student A are in love? What about Students B, C, D and E who also came forward with allegations? What about the fact that he hired peer "tutors" who were failing their classes because he was buying drugs from them and was using school money to pay them? What about the fact that he went to student parties on campus and bought underage kids alcohol... and then tried to sleep with them?" No one complained about the new rules after that.
JCRocks 3 years ago
When they fired him, they didn't give him time to clean out his office, and I found boxes of bad poems and songs written to students, printed out with different names on each copy. A bunch of students dropped out because of him. It was so sad.
Load More Replies... Zophra 3 years ago
I was at my yearly gyn. appt. The initial nurse who was taking my blood pressure,etc. then pulls out a catalog and tells me she sells sex toys and would I be interested? She also does ladies' "tool" parties. I didn't report her to the practice, but she couldn't have lasted long...
Lori Reese 3 years ago
I worked on a golf course. Laboring, hard work. One day a heavy set dude rolls up and says he got hired and whoop, whoop wasn't it a good day to get to work!!! So he was put to some light duty, raking or cleaning sand traps. By lunchtime he was a sweating pig and very red. He came in the shop, said nothing except F You guys and F this place! and he was gone.
Paradise 3 years ago
I had a staff who passed her working intveriew with me. She had to be in my supervision until her background check went through, about a month. In that time I compiled 3 pages of front/back documentation of her shitty behavior. Nobody liked her so it was not just me. Discovered she went to my supervisors to have a meeting becsuse she had a problem w/me. I made aware during a complaint I made (as I couldn't fire) and I told the employee I would be there. On one hand I shouldn't and it would have been great to see a reaction when she saw me. She decided not to show to her own meeting she set up, but it may have been because shortly after she called to tell me her background check did not go through because of an assault. Months later I left the company and she texted me saying she was now clear to return. I told her I was not there but to my knowledge she was not welcomed back anyway. Then I messaged HR and told them she was trying again. I don't think they would have rehired her.
Robin DJW 3 years ago
This big angry colleague cornered me in my office and ranted about some issue he was having and that every one was out to get him. He lunged at me several times, backing off before the touched me. So no battery, but definitely assault. This came right out of nowhere -- I had no idea he was having issues. When I could finally get around him and escape, I reported to my boss. I guess there had been other complaints, because a week later he was gone.
danielw 3 years ago
it took that long?? wow. This sounds like a perfect set up in the workplace violence training videos our vendors try to sell us. the only thing missing is that the guy is 'quiet' and a 'loaner'.
Load More Replies... Thomas 3 years ago
We had one guy that showed up to the interview with his dad as a coach. Despite the red flag, we decided to do a trial anyways. On his first day, he decided he liked another project better in the company and went to sit with that other team which assumed they'd just been assigned a new guy. That was his only day there.
Seabeast 3 years ago
I had a nutty coworker who decided the washrooms in the building weren't good enough. He lived a few blocks away and walked home every time he needed to go to the bathroom. This was on top of ranting nonstop all day long about his grievances and sneering at the rest of us for being inferior to him. I think he quit just before he got canned.
Jeffrey Crawley 3 months ago
From the UK. Young woman in our engineering admin section went home to Irelland for a holiday and got ill - really bad bronchitis - and call in to tell the office. Rule was that if you were ill you were ill and could have the holiday dates you were sick on returned to you. She then sent a postcard to her bestie in the office from . . . . Disneyland! "Having a great time, wish you were here . . . " Bye bye, missy, bye bye.
Random Anon 3 years ago
Every time I read lists like these I wonder how on earth some of these people live long enough to get a job. The utter lack of common sense is too uncanny.
Darcey Me 3 years ago
Owner of the company points to a guy across the warehouse and tells me to fire. He'd been told to pull his pants up too many times. Got it all straight in my head, walked, delivered the news, thank him for his time as I walk him out. Owner is laughing his a** off. I fire the wrong guy. They were standing together when owner was pointing. Turns out he quit as soon as I fired his buddy.
Bender Bending Rodríguez 3 years ago
What happened to wrongfully fired guy? Did he lost his job for your incompetence? Did you guy tried to get him back? Your boss is an asshole for laughing at someone losing job for no reason. So are you if you didn't tried to correct your mistake.
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