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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
At my last job some intern burst into Slack calling everyone “mald” for disagreeing with his sexist memes. That whole event was just a couple of hours.
Tf is mald?
I believe it’s supposed to be a portmanteau of “mad” and “bald,” possibly implying that we were discontent merely because of age.
The portmanteau is correct, but “malding” means that the person is balding from sheer anger.
When you are so mad you bald
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
These are great stories, but my only experience has been people mysteriously not showing up for day 2 or 3…
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
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.
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.
One time someone showed up to work that was clearly different than the person from the interview. They never even got their badge.
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.
A week or so in Flipkart, 2 new trainees were caught kissing on the top office floor. Fired at spot.
No one got fired but my favorite story similar to this is from back when I worked in fast food (McDonald’s).
We had someone on their first day scoff when asked to roll breakfast burritos.
Toward the end of their shift she was asked to wash dishes and at that point she took off her apron, threw it on the floor and walked out saying things like “I can’t believe they have me doing stuff like this.”
Really? You can’t imagine preparing food and washing dishes in a fast food restaurant?
When I worked at a movie theater, I was showing a new hire how to prepare pretzels. After I sprayed a little mist on them and was dribbling some salt over them, he said something along the lines of, “Man this is too much,” took his vest off, and went to find a manager to hand it to.
Oh that is hilarious. I always wonder what people like this expected would happen.
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.
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.
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.
