Random Bosses Share Why They Fired An Employee On The First Day (25 items)

• (#1) A Happy Ending

  Posted by Redditor u/Plumpuddingdog:

  Old guy, kept dozing off during training. Denied it when I addressed him about it and yet it kept happening. Fired him for it on day 2.

  Fast forward maybe 8 months, he emails me to let me know that he really had been falling asleep and I had been justified with the action I took. He realized there was an issue a few weeks after I terminated him because he fell asleep while driving and rear ended another vehicle. Went to a specialist as a result and they found that the Parkinson's medication he'd started shortly before beginning training was making him narcoleptic. Said he had rectified that with new meds and asked for a second chance.

  Gave him the opportunity for a do over... And lo and behold, he's a good employee.
• (#2) Too Good For The Job

  Posted by Redditor u/owlmoose:

  Girl snorted in disgust when I asked her to clear a table in her section. Wouldn't be shown how to set a table, and snapped at another manager.

  "Do you even want to be here?" I asked.

  "Not really."

  "OK, grab your stuff, good luck to you."
• (#3) Employee Lectures Boss On First Day

  Posted by Redditor u/Karaethon22:

  I was assistant manager at Subway. I usually liked to give people time. It's a tougher job than it seems from the outside, everyone sucks at first, and taking someone's livelihood away is not a decision to be made lightly.

  But I had one lady who only lasted 3 hours. She was perfectly fine for the first couple minutes, while the store manager was there. But she had a doctor's appointment, so she introduced us and told the new employee I was in charge when she wasn't there. As soon as my boss left, this lady just flatly ignored me when I asked her to do stuff like food prep or dishes. So I was already pretty pissed but trying to be patient.

  When we got busy, I stationed her putting veggies on sandwiches. She said a few things to customers that annoyed me, but nothing too bad at first. Then one guy asked for extra olives and she told him no. He was a bit offended and asked again, and she practically shouts, "You don't need any more olives, you have plenty!" So I tell her to give him the olives he's asking for. Then she starts shouting at me about Subway standard veggie portions like I wasn't the one who taught her 45 minutes ago. I tried a little to explain that it's a default amount but customers can get extra, no big deal. She wasn't having it, so I stepped away from my station, gave the poor guy his olives, and apologized. That's when she lost it and started screaming that I was undermining her. I told her to go do dishes and I'd cover her station. She went storming off, thank God.

  I was already planning on talking to the store manager about it, because holy s**t. But as luck would have it, the franchise owner dropped in for something or other. As soon as new girl realized who he was, she started ranting about how I didn't control my veggie portions and I should be fired. When the franchise owner took my side, obviously, she shouted at him too. That was that, except that she called the store manager later, in tears, begging to know what she'd done wrong, and made it sound like she didn't realize I was her boss or that shouting at the owner about how he doesn't know how to run a business is inappropriate.
• (#4) Temper Tantrum At Work

  Posted by Redditor u/lulu125:

  I had an “employee” call off on her first scheduled day. On her second scheduled day, she showed up 2 hours late. This was a sub shop. We weren’t open yet but we had been in doing prep, baking bread, and building our sub trays for catering orders. We told her that this wasn’t going to work out and she got pissed. She started yelling that we were all racists assholes and as she stormed out the door, she knocked over stacks of sub trays. We lost 15 trays to her tantrum.

  My boss went running out the door after her and the girl's boyfriend got out of the car and reached behind his back swearing and telling my (female) boss that if she keeps “stepping to them” that he would “stop her good” (We are pretty sure that he had a gun). My boss checked the license plate and came back in. We had all of this girl’s information (address, phone, social security, etc.) from the paperwork so with that and the security footage of her destroying the trays, we were able to press charges for the damage.
• (#5) He Tried To Make A Hot Fudge Sundae...In The Microwave

  Posted by Redditor u/TheGnomishMafia:

  I was a nightshift manager for McDonalds in HS. New guy (17 years old) makes an ice cream sundae for a customer with gloopy cold fudge. When the customer complained he put the whole sundae in the industrial microwave oven we use to melt cheese in like 10 seconds. On like 2 minutes, no less. Enough to start a nuclear reaction.

  Whole thing melted, plastic container included. He opened the door to steam and slop. Took out the melted half full containers, put them on a tray and served them to a customer. Which is when I became aware. She, rightfully, asked to speak to a manager.

  I got the customer set up, apologized and pulled the kid aside to figure out what happened...while staring at the still steaming tray of sundae slop. All he had to say for himself was, "I needed to melt the fudge."

  Told him to please take his shirt off and go home cause I think he's had enough for the day.

  Before anyone asks, he was trained on the ice cream machine by me personally earlier in the shift.

  Told the store manager what happened in our mgr meeting the next day and said I absolutely don't want him on my shift. The other managers laughed but echoed the same. Store mgr let him go.

  I called him and told him, apologized and said it's not going to work out and he can come pick up his check for the hours he worked in two weeks. He said, "OK, thanks" and I thought that was the end of it.

  His mom actually came up to the store about an hour later and asked to speak with me since I was the manager that sent him home. I said sure. We grabbed a booth and sat down. She proceeded to tear me a new one for being an incompetent manager.

  Like a dumbass I sat there for a few minutes to take it until she took a breath to breathe. I said, "Look, I understand this is your sons first job, I'm still in high school myself, but anyone who tries to microwave ice cream and then serve it to a client won't be allowed on my shift."

  She turned bright red and started screaming at me. I got up, politely told her she was causing a scene and to please leave the property.

  It actually escalated to me having to call the police to get her to leave. She didn't think I had actually called them... Stuck around until they showed up and then tried to split. They stopped her in the parking lot, put the magic handcuffs on her and eventually let her go.

  10\10 - would fire again. Highly entertaining.
• (#6) Teacher Taught A Lesson

  Posted by Redditor u/ligamentary:

  I'm a teacher.

  I was on a committee to hire a new 5th grade teacher.

  I was showing her the ropes and monitoring her in class behavior. I watched this bonehead tell a student "I don't like you very much. Figure it out yourself."

  The next thing I showed her was the door.

  In the exit interview (had on the walk to the door) I demanded an explanation and she said of the student she 'didn't like' she said "He was wearing designer jeans. You know his life is all peaches and cream, taking from us little guys." I say "Did he make an inappropriate comment to you about money?" She says "No. But I know their kind."
• (#7) Impersonating A Police Officer

  Posted by Redditor u/Icarus638:

  I didn't fire this guy personally but I did one better, I arrested him.

  I'm a police officer in the UK, I was forced to help on a recruitment event in our headquarters where applicants turned up, listened to a talk and did a few exams. Almost all wore suits or shirts and ties, except one... One was wearing a black polo shirt, black combat trousers and tactical boots, wierd and a bad impression but whatever.

  Whilst they do the exam I went into the yard for a smoke, all the applicants had to park in a certain area, which was just by the smoking shelter. One car stood out, it looked just like our unmarked cars, exactly like our unmarkeds. I was a little confused so I had a closer look at it. It had radiator lights and on the back seat was a police issue stab vest.

  I thought that it must be one of our cars parked in the wrong place, it happens. After the exam they left, I watched them leave and lo and behold polo shirt man gets in the "unmarked car". Immediately I jump in a real unmarked and take off after him. I found him 2 streets away putting blue lights on and driving through a red light. I overtook him, put my lights on and blocked him. He gets out waving a fake warrant card telling me he was en route to an emergency.

  Arrested for impersonating a police officer. He was also suspected of doing the same in about 3 other forces.
• (#8) Free Drinks For All His Friends

  Posted by Redditor u/gibbl011:

  Pub & bar manager here. This happened at my previous pub.

  New guy's first shift and he was constantly on his phone and going for cigarette breaks without permission. 2 hours into his shift his mates came in and he gave them all free drinks, shots and snacks, a few of them were under 18. Fired him on the spot and he had the audacity to appeal, despite overwhelming evidence against him including 5 witness statements and cctv, not to mention the stock count deficit.
• (#9) No Littering

  Posted by Redditor u/DeathAbodo:

  A seaman joined our ship while our vessel was berthed in Mobile, Alabama. He was carrying a plastic water bottle during familiarization rounds on deck with the 3rd Officer, and when it was empty proceeded to throw the bottle overboard. My Russian captain saw this, calmly asked me to call the seaman to his office, gave back all his documents, asked the agent to book him a flight back to where he came from.

  All of this happened in a span of three hours.
• (#10) Made Fun Of Her Boss In Front Of Her

  Posted by Redditor u/Comms:

  I was an internal consultant for a regional healthcare provider. I was integrating a smaller and newly acquired healthcare provider that was mostly residential homes for elderly individuals with moderate mental health issues. Technically I was also the interim director of this new division during the transition period—once they were fully integrated I would step away and return to my consultant role—and during the transition period I was everyone’s boss.

  I was at one of the sites reading charts and coordinating with the site’s program manager about transitioning patient records to our system when I physically witnessed the program manager berate a patient for requesting something completely reasonable—it was something about requesting transport but the exact details escape me. Berating them would have been verboten regardless but the request was simple, reasonable, and easily granted. In our system this would have been a simple “yes” without any fuss. But even if it were a “no” it should have been delivered in a respectful way with an appropriate explanation.

  And then she immediate got on the phone and complained about the patient to a coworker while making fun of them.

  In. Front. Of. Me.

  I was sitting across the table from her.

  I looked at my assistant because I thought I was going crazy and her eyebrows were so high up on her forehead they merged with her hair.

  I fired her on the spot.

  To clarify, it wasn’t the program manger’s first day on the job, it was her first day as an employee of my organization.
• (#11) Thinks Dress Code Is A Suggestion

  Posted by Redditor u/ClericofTheDead:

  The dude who showed up in pants so tight you could see his entire d**k and b**ls. It was a children's bounce play area/fun zone. We told him to go home and change....he came back over an hour later, with Starbucks, in blindingly white skinny jeans...same issue. Parents complained the first time.
• (#12) Little Sister Has A Big Attitude

  Posted by Redditor:

  I got to fire my co-managers sister who called 5 minutes before her first shift and said she'd be there in an hour because she just sat down to dinner with friends.

  "What do you mean you just sat down for dinner? Your first shift is in 5 minutes?"

  "Yeah I know. But we were out and decided to go for dinner. I'll still be there, just a little late."

  "An hour isn't a 'little' late. Be here in 5 minutes or don't bother coming in at all."

  "But is my sister! she gave me the job!"

  "Yes she did. See you in 5, or not at all"

  "But is my sister!"

  My co-manger was actually happy about it. She knew her sister would be a s**tty employee and only agreed to hire her because we were desperately short staffed and she could start immediately.
• (#13) Deceased Father Called Looking For Him

  Posted by Redditor u/Chief-_-Wiggum:

  It is what happened on the first day but he didn't get fired until a bit later when we figured it out.

  Managed a msp team hired a bright guy.. All seems good on the first day.

  At the end of the first day he received a phone call where he announced his father has passed away.

  2 weeks of compassionate leave for funeral out of state later, he was supposed to start work again but called from the car park to say he's too distraught.

  This goes on for three more weeks until one day we got a phone call from someone looking for this worker.

  It was his father.

  As it turned out he's been running this scam where he gets jobs with multiple companies and pulls this same stunt getting paid during the probationary period regardless of what happened for as long as he can. He set ups salary payment to multiple accounts himself and to friends to avoid detection from tax agency.

  This guy was smooth. Lied and cried.. Conned the lot of us.
• (#14) Took Himself On A Shopping Spree

  Posted by Redditor u/neclord84:

  My old manager (matron at a psychiatric secure hospital) told me of a guy who was employed as a healthcare assistant, working with people with a learning disability. Part of his role involved escorting patients into the community to help them with shopping. He took his first charge to a shopping centre and proceeded to spend £250 on their debit card buying electronic goods for himself...which he then brought back to the hospital and asked for them to be stored in the staff room until the end of his shift. He left with the police.
• (#15) Fired Before The Job Even Started

  Posted by Redditor u/BearCavalryCorpral:

  Dude gets hired, starts training. During training, GM instructs him to take out the trash. He refuses, gets into an argument. Apparently, he didn't know that he was arguing with the GMdespite the big, fancy nametag with "General manager* printed in block letters on it. Gets sent home.

  For some reason, he still comes in the next day, smelling of alcohol. He grabs food (this is a restaurant) without paying, right in front of everyone, including a manager. He then proceeds to start coming at a server because they couldn't tell him where the takeout silverware was (it wasn't the server's job). This evolves into a literal fight and the police get called. We never saw him again after that.

  This was all before his first actual day of work.
• (#16) No Deal

  Posted by Redditor u/Graphitetshirt:

  He tried to buy weed off a customer just because the customer looked like someone who might have weed. He didn't.
• (#17) VP Of Unemploment

  Posted to Reddit: 

  The most memorable firing I witnessed was this man who got hired as VP of Marketing. He thought the title gave him the right to be late on his first day for an important meeting with our board members, VP and CEO. Though irritating, he was given a pass since he was new and rewarded with a second chance to impress.

  This proved to be useless as he was later heard propositioning our new interns for sex in exchange to be in this imaginary marketing campaign that supposedly would come with endless perks and cash. The CEO personally escorted him out and kindly told him to go f**k himself. In the most PC way of course.
• (#18) Failed At Greeting Customers

  Posted by Redditor u/StraightouttaDR:

  Worked retail management. On black Friday we had a new guy and his one job was to greet customers. Literally, "Hi welcome to ___."

  Two older ladies walked in and he says, "What the f**k is uuuupppp?"

  I told him "Your time working here is done."

  I clocked him out remotely and told him to enjoy his family, because he wouldn't be shopping with the $4 he made working that half hour.
• (#19) Permanent Coffee Break

  Posted by Redditor u/Xand3rs:

  I manage a coffee shop lunchy place. Young girl came in fresh out of culinary school and had previous coffee shop experience. What could go wrong, right? The first day I had her shadow the other employees just to get a hang of the POS system and general flow of the store. Nope, customers overwhelmed her and she liked to hide in the back leaning on the ice machine. Fine. Whatever. She said she loved baking earlier on so I sent her to the kitchen to make some cookies.

  I'm super chill, I didn't even care what kind, as long as they were f*cking awesome and delicious she had creative control. She comes out some time later admitting she doesn't know how to make cookies and needs help. Now I'm getting bloody frustrated.

  As we move on into lunch rush a wave of customers flood the front of house and I was needed. I had 40 litres of soup in the back needing a titch more roux and asked her to thicken it a tad before serving. Surely she could handle that, soups and sauces being addressed in the first bloody week of the culinary school she aparently attended (I attended the same program, btw). Nope. She found a box of corn starch and dumped the whole box in. Dry. Soup destroyed. Her shift ended shortly afterwards.

  Turns out I forgot to get her contact information at the beginning of the shift so I had to message her on Facebook telling her not to bother ever return
• (#20) Computer Illiterate

  Posted by Redditor u/PaladenConnery:

  IT position, supposedly had a BA in computer science with 2 years experience in relevant technical position. I didn't interview him.

  We very quickly discovered that his computer abilities were non existent, started asking questions until he broke down and said he lied on his resume because he wanted to make more money. His previous job was drywall installation.

  We gave him a list of software he needed, available via a URL. He didn't know what to do with a URL or what a URL was and then it quickly unravelled. It was about 3 hours because the first 2 were paperwork.
• (#21) Stolen Chances

  Posted by Redditor u/l2np:

  I work for a company that takes care of the HR needs of other small companies in my area. New hires often come in to fill out paperwork.

  We had this guy who came in, filled out his name and social security number, gave it to us, then proceeded to steal the front desk guy's wallet and keys. Right in front of the very visible security camera.

  Turns out the police knew the guy as we was a repeat offender. He lived right around the corner.
• (#22) Bird Brain

  Posted by Redditor u/neclord84:

  I have been a fast food manager a long time so I have hired and fired a ton of people. Guy within 90 minutes of starting just started eating food off the cooks line. I walked around the corner he just looks at me and takes a bite out of a chicken strip. I am not a big yeller but I straight up ejected that dude like a baseball umpire. "THAT'S IT YOU'RE OUTTA HERE".
• (#23) Short But Sweet

  Posted by Redditor u/LLCoolJ93:

  Drove a forklift through a wall into a dumpster.
• (#24) Doesn't Understand His NDA

  Posted by Redditor u/Kataklysym69:

  The guy signed a non disclosure as we were working around movie sets and production offices. Throughout the day he continuously asked if he could take photographs. Finally, I realized that his employment was not worth risking my own employment or the production companies information. He was relocated elsewhere but, he did not last long from what I hear.
• (#25) Cord Cutter

  Posted by Redditor u/imar0ckstar:

  We had an intern one semester...he was handed a large bundle of zip tied cables and asked to cut them apart and separate them. He literally cut the entire bundle in half rather then cut the zip ties to separate them. Lost $2000 worth of cables. Fired that day.

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