The Stupid Mistakes That Got People Fired

19. Jerry Springer

It was the 90’s, I still had hair, and was working as an assistant manager at a Natural Wonders store in the mall (the company no longer exists, as with every retail job I’ve held). We hired high school students almost exclusively, it was a typical low-paying after-school retail mall job.

There was one girl who was always late, routinely failed to get the most simple task done, and sulked whenever I called her on the behavior. She switched shifts with another girl and was scheduled to work the Thursday 4 to close shift. The shift comes up and she hasn’t shown up, finally, after she’s 30 minutes late I call her at home.

Me: “Hi Susie, you’re late for your shift. Are you going to make it in?”

Her: “I really want to finish watching this episode of Jerry Springer.”

Me: “Okay, I hope it’s a good episode but we’re going to have to let you go.”

Her: “What? But?”

Me: “Are you comfortable with us sending your check in the mail?”

Her (really quiet): “Okay”

I’ve never actually said the phrase “you’re fired” but I have been the person who has done most of the termination of employment.

20. Handhold Him

I had a kid who worked the front counter of my shop who was perhaps the densest motherf*ck*r I have ever seen. I had to speak to him several times because his default position was to stand behind the register and stare into space. Even when there were customers waiting to order.

One day, while opening, I asked him to go over the opening checklist and make sure everything was done.

I went about my business, but 5 minutes later I look over at him and he’s still staring at the checklist. He looks up at me, nods and says “Looks good to me!”

When I asked if he was sure everything was done, he pointed to the list and showed me where things were checked off.

I sat and explained to him that those check marks had been made weeks before, and didn’t mean those tasks had been completed today. I had to handhold him through the whole list.

Later on that day, I asked him to check on the drink cooler to make sure it was stocked. He literally leaned out from the counter, looked at the cooler, then back at me and nodded. “Looks good!”

21. Let Him Read

An employee of mine drunkenly sent d*ck pics, in the middle of the night, to my boss and multiple other associates.

I had to deliver the termination because she, my boss, was directly affected and I was uninvolved in the incident. When he asked why I just slid the termination document across the desk and let him read the described events as written for his HR file.

Even better, he was a former high school friend of mine. I had helped him interview for a lesser role many years prior.

22. The Mother Refuses

Not the manager, but we had a young girl start at the deli counter of the Supermarket I worked. Her family was Lebanese and on the very first day the girl’s mother is just hanging around the counter watching everything. After a while, the deli manager asks if she’s okay.

She said that she was just there to make sure her daughter is okay. The deli manager politely tells her that she’ll be fine and she can go home, but the mother refuses. After a little while longer, the Deli manager insists that she go home because she doesn’t appreciate being watched as she does her job and interacts with the new girl. The woman still refuses.

The Deli manager then gives her an ultimatum – go home now or you can take your daughter with you. That was the girl’s first and last day at the supermarket.

23. Instant Regret

Hired a kid that was just barely 18 years old, to be a general guest service rep at the bowling center I used to manage. Basically, wipe down tables, and return bowling balls to the settee racks. He was so nervous during the interview but still answered the (very general) questions pretty well. So, I decided to give him a chance. This young man was the definition of instant regret.

Skip all the WEIRD he did, in the two weeks he worked there, to reason he was fired. A rather large woman came in with her family, and he refused to believe that she was “really that big”… this kid straight up walked up to her, in front of her family, and asked her if she was wearing a “fat suit”. I wish I could make it up, but that’s just too far out there – even for me.

iTheAnarchist

24. Points for Creativity

I used to manage a pizza chain that rhymes with Heepsa Shmut. A long day at work was coming to an end when I told a new guy to vacuum the dining area. Came back ten minutes later and heard the vacuum running but couldn’t see it or the new guy. I looked over the bar and saw the new guy vacuuming while laying down. I really wanted to give him points for creativity but he had been horrible all day so I let him go.

25. The New Server

Worked at a pizza place. Had a new male server working on a busy night. The manager runs outside for a cig after being stuck inside for 4 hours, and then the phone rings. The new server answers and the person complains about the pizza that was delivered being cold. The new server says that he doesn’t know what to tell them and that they should just microwave it, then hangs up. The manager wasn’t really happy when they called back.

That guy didn’t get fired, though, and a week later we had to throw out the entire salad bar because he flipped a switch that was clearly labeled DONT TOUCH when taking it down the night before. Openers didn’t realize it the next morning, and the following night we had a salad bar at room temperature.

26. Try and Fail

Many dumb things on the clock, but this happened on the guy’s day off.

I’m the manager of a movie theater. One of my employees came up on his day off to watch Transformers: Age of Extinction. It was premiere night, so right dead center of our lobby we had a giant standee ( those large cardboard advertisements that people take pictures in front of) of Optimus Prime on a T-Rex Dinobot holding a sword. It looked really cool actually. One of my employees must’ve thought so as well, because after he watched his movie he came into the lobby, climbed the T-Rex and tried to steal Optimus Prime’s sword. Since his sold-out theater of 500 was ending, the lobby was packed full of people standing around watching him try and fail to detach a cardboard sword. He was fired right there in under a minute. And I mean he signed his dismissal papers and a form for some of the truly bad ex-employees banning them from the theater indefinitely right there in front of hundreds of strangers and ex-coworkers. The number of people who called him a dumb*ss and mocked him was astounding.

27. Who Denies a High-Five?

Had an employee tell the CEO to f*ck off in an all-hands meeting with the entire company present.

I hired this young a**hole off of Reddit. That was my first mistake. He did well in the interviews, but as soon as he came into the office we knew something was wrong with him. He was just mean. Prickly, condescending, and would just deflate the room. Not to mention he was a sh*tty coder.

After a couple of months, we were all pretty sick of him. Then one day we had this company meeting where the CEO was congratulating everyone on their recent accomplishments. It was a happy occasion. He was calling people out on and they got done and giving them a high five. Then they got to this guy and put up his hand. The dude said “F*ck no!” and left him hanging.

Ugghhhhhhhh… the collective groan was massive. Who denies a high-five? Seriously?

Anyway, he was out on his *ss by Friday.

28. I’ll Miss That Burrito

I had to fire an employee because she refused to shower/wash her clothes. Warned her over and over and over again. Moved her away from other people. She’s trying to cover the stench of bum clothes and dead cats with enough vanilla-scented sh*t to make your eyes water.

I’d just talked to her, but she didn’t report directly to me, the next day walking to my office with my breakfast burritos she walked by me and I just couldn’t eat anymore and threw it out. The burrito was the last straw. It was sausage and red Chile. I’ll miss that burrito it deserved better than to have a life cut short by vanilla-scented roadkill.

30. Calls Openly

A girl in the bar I worked in started taking phone calls openly in the bar on shift so the manager said you can’t do that in front of customers. She disappeared for about an hour so he went looking for her and she had just gone upstairs to the stock rooms and was just sitting on the phone. When he asked her why she said “well you said I couldn’t talk on the phone in front of customers”

grammaticalfailure

31. She Yells

It was within the first five minutes of her first day. We had a meeting to begin the day to introduce the new employees and do an icebreaker activity or two. I introduce her and say how excited we are to have her. She yells, “what’s up, b@tches!” Loud enough the entire floor, three separate departments, are able to hear.

We used temps from then on.

32. Eating The Salad

We normally do 8 training shifts. This guy was on training shift 11. A few of my friends from out of town came in and I pulled him to the side and said to make sure to give them the best treatment and pay attention to their orders etc. Come back by their table later and one says she ordered a buffarella wrap with celery and dip (wild wing menu if anyone is familiar) and ended up getting a salad with a side of celery. That wasn’t the worst part. The girl training him was at the table when I learned all this so I went to find the guy. He was in the wait station eating the salad he had just messed up.

33. She Bursts Into Tears

Worked as a manager in a fast food store, and had a new girl working her first day. This girl has an Indian international student. She had been on the register the whole day, but near the end of her shift it was quiet, so I asked her to mop the floor of the dining room. She burst into tears and said that she was insulted and that back home her servants would do that. I couldn’t keep her on if she refused to do other duties, especially something like mopping floors when there’s just so much worse at fast food than you have to do.

34. Literally Nothing

I’ve seen people let go for lots of reasons that were pretty dumb, ranging from doing cocaine off of a urinal in the men’s room to giving a female employee a surprise backrub while asking her if she’s attracted to men with power, but my personal “I’ve got to let you go” stupidest person ever is this guy:

He was an assistant editor at my company. I was his boss. On his first day on the job, I told him what I told all of my people on their first days, “Your job for the next week is to ask questions. If you have never performed the task requested of you at this company, I want you to ask a question. If you have only performed that task one or two times at this company, I want you to ask a question. If you have performed that task one hundred times before but are not 100% absolutely certain that you are doing it correctly, please ask a question. The only way to give me confidence in your work is to ask lots and lots and lots of questions. We do things in a very particular way here, and it does not always make perfect sense because the explanations are sometimes very complicated. I will try very hard to explain the why and how of everything we do, but I’ve been here too long and I forget some things that seem obvious to me now but really aren’t obvious at all when you come in new. So please, PLEASE ask questions. Constantly and without hesitation.”

After that speech, which I seriously gave to everyone on their first day, I gave the guy a simple task. Look at some footage and sort it into bins (basically folders) according to the content of the footage. Sunsets go in the sunset bin, plants go in the plant’s bin and animals into the animal’s bin. Very. Simple.

So an hour goes by. Then two hours. I check-in. “Hey man, how’s it going?” “Good.” “Any questions?” “No.” This concerns me. “Do you remember the speech I gave this morning? I really need you to ask questions.” “I don’t have any.” Ahh, the c*cksure arrogance of youth. So I sat in with him and watched him work for a while. I caught a few places where he wasn’t watching the full clip and missed some sorting options, but mostly he was okay. As I left, he said, “I have a question: When do I get to do important work?” Great. The first day on the job and he already thinks his job is b*llsh*t. “This is important. We’re making sure the editors can find the footage they need when they need it. You’re saving them hours and hours of time searching through these bins. Is it boring? Yes. Is it tedious? Yes. But it is important. By the way, when you’re done sorting, please come get me before you do anything else. I’d like to double-check the work before we send it on so that it comes out of your hands spotless.”

Four more hours roll by without a single question. I had my own work to do, so I didn’t really note the time until I suddenly realized “holy sh*t, it’s been half the day without any questions.”

So I checked in again and it went almost exactly as it went the first time I’d checked in. So I told him a fact: I know there are clips that aren’t obviously X category or Y category, and I’m surprised he wasn’t asking questions about those. He told me he got it and it was fine. So I reiterated, “Come get me when you’re all done and I’ll check, okay? I want to believe you, but I also am concerned that you haven’t asked a single question when, in fact, your only actual job for the next week is to ask questions.” He shrugged and off I went, sweating a little in fear of the mess I would find at the end of the day.

The end of the day rolls around, and he starts to leave. “Hey man, let’s check that work before you go,” I tell him as he walks past my desk putting his jacket on. “Oh, okay,” he replies. We head back to his desk and – there’s nothing there. Literally nothing.

“What happened to all of your work from today?”

“I finished it.”

“So where is it.”

“Well, I finished it.”

“What does that mean? Where did you put it when you finished it.”

“I deleted it.”

What. The.

Apparently captain no questions over here thought that the act of sorting fundamentally changed the properties of our footage such that you no longer needed the sorted bins. Furthermore, he also deleted not just his destination bins, and not just all of the destination bins my team had made prior to his being hired, but the primary source bins as well, meaning that all of that footage was gone. This was something like 25,000 clips of stock broll that was nearly 40 hours long and had taken over 800 total hours to view, label, prep, and sort. I honestly have no clue how he thought this could possibly have been right.

I did the math at the time and the total cost to the company was nearly $180,000 of lost work time.

“Did someone tell you to do this?”

“No.”

“Why didn’t ask me what to do when you finished?”

“I didn’t want you to think I was stupid.”

Hahahahahahaha. Ha. FML.

35. Bad Back

I was a supervisor in security at an amusement park. We would have employee parties 3 or 4 times a season where we’d close the park to the public and let the employees ride all the rides. Since we still needed to have security and ride operators we’d rotate the shifts but everyone had to work a little. This one girl who was already on thin ice called in the day of the party saying she’d hurt her back too badly to come into work. She said she could barely stand.

She’d managed to get through a security line with a new agent who had no idea she had called in and we caught her coming off of a rollercoaster. Yea… Bad back… I fired her on the spot and escorted her and her guest out of the party.

36. A Pretty Rough Day

I had an employee tell me his bag was stolen from his work area. I asked what was in it so I could file the report, “My weed and my money!” He was then shocked when we had security escort him out. So not only was his weed and money stolen but he was also fired. A pretty rough day for him.

billyb0b70

37. Yelp Review

I work in grocery retail.

He was very open with his opinions with the other team members about our Chinese customers not getting out of his way when he working on the floor.

He impressed one of our customers so much they wrote a scathing yelp review about him and our store.

When we sat down with him to discuss the aforementioned issues, he said, without hesitation, “I hate Chinese people” and “oh the yelp review? I don’t really care what other people think about me”

He was fired, and then he and his friend came back into the store a week later to pick up a fight with another team member.

Maveric315

38. Give Himself Courage

I work in an industry with mandated drug and alcohol testing for all safety-related positions. One day one of my techs – a good, reliable guy – has his name pop up to be tested, so I ask him to shoot down to the drug testing contractor for a sample. He does. A few days later I get a call from the contractor saying that he tested positive for alcohol. I call him into the office, and ask him, “WTF?” and he says he has a hard time peeing in front of people, so he stopped by the bar for a couple of beers on the way to the testing place to give himself courage. That was his last day. Nice guy, but a complete idiot.

Doodlemeyer

39. The First Thing She Did

This is the first and only person I fired in my 5 years as a manager.

One of my student employees had two on-campus jobs. She was fired from her other one before coming in for her shift for me (IT Help Desk), and the first thing she did was change her old boss’ password, delete the emails that said she was fired, and send a couple of emails out basically saying “just kidding she’s not fired.”

All of this stuff is tracked, so I found out immediately. I brought her in for a meeting, told her what I knew, and asked “Am I right in my version of this story?” She nodded and started crying, I felt terrible, but I said “You’ve left me no choice but to fire you. I also have to report this to the university board of ethics.”

She cried in my office for a while, and I asked her if I could call a friend to take her somewhere, or if there was anything she wanted to talk about. She finally looked up at me and asked, “Does this mean I won’t get to decorate the help desk for Christmas?”

I didn’t really feel bad after that.

40. Fight or Flight Response

We had a lifeguard once who failed to save a child drowning right in front of him. So I had to run from across the pool deck, jump in, and grab the kid. We figured since he was new he was probably just scared or whatever so we decided we would start auditing him more (this is when we take a lifelike doll and drop it somewhere in the pool and the guard has to go in and get it within a certain time frame. The guard won’t know this is about to happen and so thus trains your fight or flight response to save the person). So we doll drop him. Instead of going in he calls for a manager and asks if he’s getting audited, to which I said yes. He then asks if I can get the doll for him because he doesn’t want to get his hair wet. I fired him.