Trending Now
It may be hard to find a good job these days, but BOY is it easy to lose one.
In fact, some people seem to be going for some kind of record in that regard.
What is the fastest you have ever seen a new co-worker get fired?
byu/njaana inAskReddit
Here are just a few surprising tales from Reddit about employees who apparently couldn’t wait to get out.
1. 15 Minutes of Shame
15 minutes.
Working at the wharfs where we had to unload shipping containers with forklifts; new bloke starts work who claims to be a wiz at operating forklifts.
First container and he drives in too fast while another worker is opening the container door. I’m not the foreman but I have a go at him about him and tell him to pull his head in.
He walks off the job muttering under his breath ‘Nobody talks to me like that’.
– Captain_Coco_Koala
2. The Short Con
I worked at a bill collection firm in the early 90’s (don’t judge me). A guy started working there, went through the 2 days of training, then started working.
After about an hour, he got up and left. Didn’t say “I quit.” Didn’t say “this job isn’t for me.” Didn’t say “f**k you.” He just got up to go to the bathroom, went through the front door and drove away.
It took the managers a few hours to figure out that this guy got the job with a fake name, and erased his own debt on the computer.
– M_Looka
3. The Cam
Happened last week:
New IT hire. 34 year old. First full time job. Good qualifications. Seemed OK.
First night, staff calls me. He is spamming ladies with messages on their private phones. One lady’s husband calls me. Her camera is on non stop.
He also installed software to switch on their cams remotely. On day one.
He wasn’t allowed back on the premises.
– maxil_za
4. That’s R**ist
3 1/2 hours.
She started the same day as me
Part way through the morning I told a couple of jokes to break the ice. She said she had a couple of good ones and started off with “What do you call a n****r who….” She went for lunch and never returned.
– UnfinishedThings
5. The Alcoholic
I was a recruiter for an investment bank about 15 years ago. I recruited a Business systems analyst for a long-term contract position. On her first day she showed up to work a half an hour late. Her new boss showed her around a bit, got her to her cube, gave her some first day stuff to review and left her to it.
About an hour later I got the call. she had passed out in her chair and p**sed herself. They had a hard time arousing her but when they did it was clear she was wasted and got belligerent when they asked her to leave. Security got involved. It’s unclear whether she was drunk from the night before or chugged booze in the office. Either way, she was fired by about 10:30am on Monday morning!
– ThinMint31
6. How the Sausage Gets Made
Worked at a sausage plant and other meats. Guy got fired on the first day before even working.
We had to pass thru a machine that cleaned our shoes as we washed our hands. It had timed sensors.
He couldn’t get thru so he went back into the lunch room for an hour till the boss sent him home.
– jthegamer
7. Don’t Look Now
Not fired but quit.
New admin joins the team, gets escorted around to meet everyone. Next day she’s gone. I asked someone and they said “She was told there was a background check and just left”
You accept a job at a gov facility and don’t think they are going to look into your past?
i still wonder what she had that she figured it wasn’t worth waiting to get fired for.
– BlueFalconPunch
8. The Welfare Scammer
Guy at a fish factory lasted half a shift before he was fired for refusing to adhere to any health and safety rules.
Later got told it wasn’t uncommon for people like that, they had to be seen to be applying for jobs to keep their benefits, would lose them if they quit, but could get them back immediately if fired.
– Jonny2284
9. Animal Instincts
Boss hired a vegan to work in the cafe were we do coffee and mainly breakfast food. So lots of eggs, cheese and meats and you know, milk. She refused to touch anything with animal products and lasted about 15 minutes.
Not sure how she survived the interview process and didn’t pick up on the use of milk in coffee drinks or what breakfast food had in it.
– spytez
10. Surveying the Landscape
My boss hired this guy to work with the landscape team. His first day on the job was spent sleeping in the dump truck and hiding from the crew.
The next day he was sent to our main office to pull weeds and other general easy stuff. He spent the day eating Doritos and talking on his phone. He was gone the following day.
– starkpaella
11. Hot, Sharp, and Heavy Things
New guy, hired as quality control inspector after a lot of vetting. Job site was aluminum extrusions factory – lots of hot, sharp, and heavy things that can crush your hands and slice you up, not to mention all the moving parts. Shows up first day on the job reeking of beer.
“I was just celebrating my new job with my friends before work!” Refused the booze blow test at a nearby hospital. Paperwork completed and fired after 90 minutes by the supervisor and HR.
– atomicsnarl
12. The Robot Floor
I used to train new hires at a warehouse. We have a floor for robots to zoom around on, full of merchandise and cold spite. Only certified technicians may set foot on that floor. The rest of us? Instant termination if we do it. We stress this frequently throughout orientation.
I’m training a group of new hires at a workstation. It’s their first night. Not even lunch yet. One of our managers comes over to introduce himself. One guy, who has already been copping an attitude, asks him about stepping on the floor. Manager reiterates what we all told everyone: Do it, and you’re fired.
Guy: “You mean don’t do this?” puts one foot on the floor
And away he goes. I heard the rest of the new trainees laughing over how stupid he was. He was even whining about it the whole time his termination was being processed.
I’m just glad I didn’t get stuck training that snotty, dimwitted little pain in the a** for two days.
– TigerInMyVENUS
13. Take Flight
We had a guy start in London on a Monday as large contingent left for a a conference in Seattle later that week. I met him at Heathrow with his badge and laptop on his first morning and boarded the flight with him.
Longish story, but he ended up slapping a member of the flight crew because she wouldn’t let him sit in business class. I called HR when we landed and fired him in baggage claim. We paid for him to fly back to the UK next day.
– Ok-Zookeepergame-698
14. Big Babies
When I worked at Babies ‘R Us many years ago, a fine young lad wrote on the break room white board, “F**k b**ches, hire dimes.” For some reason it escaped him that there are cameras pretty much everywhere.
Done after maybe three days on the job.
– westcoastpizzarat
15. The Tale of Austin
I worked in construction for eight years. Guys would quit all the time but the fastest was this kid named Austin.
Austin was rail thin and wouldn’t stop looking at his phone. Our boss told him to run a wheelbarrow full of dirt to a pile and he sighed before trudging over to it. The kid moved that wheelbarrow maybe fifteen feet, set it down and started looking at his phone again.
Boss asked him what he was doing and he said it was “too hard” and he was calling his girlfriend to pick him up. Austin lasted a grand total of five minutes.
– apocalypticradish
16. TWO SOLID HOURS?
I was intern at a startup out of college along with three other interns. One guy was set up at a computer kinda out of the way and apparently that was the green light he needed to look up some p**n.
Anyone who’s ever been an intern will tell you that someone is usually coming over to ask you for something or if you need help and sure enough, the dude was caught looking at p**n by our boss. He was walked out around 11 AM so he managed a solid two hours of p**no before getting caught.
– apocalypticradish
17. The Thief
I worked in maintenance at a beach resort. One of the housekeepers managed to get her delinquent son a job as a “runner”…someone who would collect the dirty laundry after the housekeepers stripped the beds.
She was actually worried when he started working because I guess he had a bad track record with other jobs. About three days after he started working, his mother confronted him about his new expensive-looking athletic shoes and a gold chain around his neck.
He just shot back something about having a job now which didn’t make sense because he hadn’t even been paid yet.
Anyway, about the same time there were a couple of reports at the front desk by guests who were missing large sums of money. A police report was made and people were questioned. So after only about four days this kid was fired and went to jail for stealing from guest rooms.
– BaconReceptacle
18. The Big Scam
New person joins company.
On her first morning she wrote an email to her manager how grateful she was to be with the company, how she looked forward to working for us, and on and on.
She also wrote an email to her friend about how she’d got a cushy gig and would scam them for as much training as possible for the first couple of months and then leave.
Apart from the general lack of wisdom of saying this on the company email system, when writing such contradictory emails it is vitally important to put the right addressee on the right email.
Walked out the door after 2.5 hrs.
– pmc666
19. Sell Me Something Good
A number of years back I worked at an inbound call center that also had an upsell side to it. A new guy fresh out of training was bragging about how he did over 10 x the monthly goal in his first week alone.
Didn’t see him the following week and heard he was laid off because he was upgrading everyone’s plans who called in to the highest costing plan without their consent or informing them.
About a week or two later I got a text from him asking if I could be his reference for a new call center job he got. He somehow got a hold of a bunch of our numbers and just spammed everyone asking for a reference.
– MrCoolizade
20. Wasted
Hired my roommate to work at a gas station I was assistant manager for.
Shows up 2 hours late to replace me, and I could have gotten drunk from his breath. He went out after his construction job and got bliiiiitzed.
Was mad at me for firing him. 16 hour shift that day and he treated me like trash till we moved.
Is zero minutes a duration? LOL
– realcrumps2
21. Mr. Generosity
Our ceo rarely sent all-company messages unless there was great news or some major event/holiday/emergency etc. One day he sends an email reminding everyone something about an extra day off everyone earned hitting a major d**dline and how and when to use it.
New woman in accounting – looked like a nice 50 something Dallas church lady, hits the reply-all and writes “I suppose we all should bow down to Mr. Generosity for the measly day off.” Meanwhile she never worked on the project or was affected by long hours.
When she realized what she did, the other finance people in her area heard a gasp come from her desk and without saying a word to anyone, she picked up her purse, took a box, added her personal items, and walked out the door to her car never to be seen again.
– Makerbot2000
22. Zombie Movies
Call centre worker, new beginner came in hungover as s**t on the 1st day of the job.
Within 2 hours of their shift, they struggled to look at a computer for more than 10 minutes, couldn’t form a coherent sentence, walked away from the desk without a word only to just full on face plant in the floor of the office.
I’m sure the actual termination took longer, but it was obvious they lost their job the moment they walked in like a zombie.
– Umbran_scale
23. Best of Luck
guy drove a forklift into a fire hydrant, in front of a safety rep for the company. His supervisor was called over, and he immediately tells the supervisor that he won’t pass a p**s test, as he used his only bottle of clean p**s earlier that day when he hired in.
Everybody standing there immediately burst into laughter, which continued as security (also laughing) escorted him off site. Even the supervisor was all smiles…just gave him a pat on the back and wished him the best of luck. It was wild.
– Hollywood899
24. All in the Family
F**ked the bosses daughters – yes daughters – the night he was hired.
The real twist is that one of those daughters is now his wife and his former boss his mother in law.
So I guess he got the last laugh, and a lot of awkward family dinners.
– ZombifiedVegan
25. Do the Creep
First day at a CPA firm, guy gets a talking to from management because he followed a group of female coworkers to a restaurant at lunch, sat at a nearby table, and stared creepily at them for the entire meal.
He got fired a couple of days later for logging into and using a coworker’s computer without permission. Never heard what he was doing on that computer, but I think it’s pretty safe to say it was something that he didn’t want to use his own computer for.
– cleo_wafflesmack
26. The Sandwich Artist
Showed up early to work on her first day to eat. We worked at Firehouse subs, and she came in with Subway and started eating in the lobby while in uniform.
The boss asked her nicely to eat in the back so customers wouldn’t see. She started screaming and throwing a fit so boss told her to leave and not come back.
Idk if you can really even say she got fired. She never clocked in once.
– eatMYcookieCRUMBS
27. Get the Hookup
Worked at Wendy’s.
New guy comes in for his first shift. Evening shift in the drive-thru.
He literally posted on his Snapchat where he was and what he was doing and told all his buddies to come through for free food.
He started f**king up orders on purpose and handing his friends free stuff.
Manager called the police and he got arrested.
– october_rust_
28. Spinning Your Tires
My brothers friend “chuck” got a job at the Subaru dealership in our town, within a couple days of working there, he somehow was allowed to “test drive” one of the brand new models.
My brother and I lived a few miles out of town on 40 acres. chuck drove that brand new car out to our property to test the 4 wheel drive. Well it being a wet Pacific Northwest winter it was that year, he swiftly managed to get the car stuck in almost a foot of mud halfway up a good size hill.
It took a tow truck 3 hours to get there and an hour plus to pull him out. All the while the dealership is calling him asking wtf? The thing was DRENCHED in mud from him spinning the tires. He was fired that night…
– yeehawk85
29. The Farm Hand
Worked on a logging crew 15 years ago. They hired a guy that “grew up on the farm working hard”… fired by noon day 1 because he literally looked like he was going to pass out and d** after a few hours of “light duty” labor.
– Independent_Ad_9373
30. Where the Bodies Are Buried
The place I worked at had a required two weeks of training they they were very upfront about. You were given a schedule ahead of time and had to agree you could make it before being hired. Day one saw one person fired for leaving part way through the day. Day 4 saw another person leaving because she didn’t like it.
Day 8 was a testing day to see what areas, if any, the class needed to spend more time on before moving to the in-person stuff with a trainer on the floor. A question was worded poorly and it caused a lot of confusion. The trainer said he would not count the question as many of us got it wrong due to its ambiguity.
One of the girls in the training class told him “good, you should remove it or else no one would have found your body tomorrow”. HR manager was literally standing in the doorway while that was being said and freaked out because threatening to murder a co-worker over a test question is the opposite of professional. Needless to say, that girl was told she wasn’t the right fit for the company.
– sandstorm320
I feel like jokingly threatening the life of your boss isn’t the best move, but that’s just me.
Do you have a story like this?
Share it with us in the comments.
