Finding a job is never easy, and finding a person perfect for the job is also never easy. However, there are moments in employers’ lives when they think they finally found the right person for the job. But then realized they were so wrong.
These employers from the Reddit Community shared their craziest employees that they had to fire immediately. Check them out!
1. Worst First Day
I worked at a large housing and counseling center for delinquent teenage boys.
Usually, about half of each new group of people hired didn't last more than a couple of weeks (they hired in 'waves' and give them two weeks of training before they have them do much on-the-job work).
However, the employee who topped them all was arrested during his first day of training. He was a vet with good references, seemed level-headed, etc.
Great hire!
Except....during a training lecture, a bunch of ATF guys showed up and arrested him for selling lots of restricted illegal stuff without a license or documentation.
Mudders_Milk_Man
2. Weird One
I worked at an upscale cocktail lounge as a bartender. One day, my boss hired this new guy to work behind the bar with us. It was rush, and the bar was packed, and we were all running around.
Then this new guy comes up to the sink behind the bar, kneels down, puts his hair under the running faucet, and then flings his head back, leaving a splatter on the wall behind him.
He then proceeds to smooth his hair down... at rush... in front of customers…
He didn't stay long.
demonicsoap
3. Helping Himself
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 center 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.
Log-jammer
4. Easy Job, Easy Mind
Hired a girl to fire watch, which is where you literally sit still and make sure nothing sets fire while someone welds. Easiest job in the world. How do you mess it up?
This girl gets five minutes into her first job, lays down on the ground, and goes to sleep.
Not like she dozed off. She rolled up her jacket as a pillow and everything. On the ground. In the dirt. In the middle of our mill.
the_mighty_moon_worm
5. Obviously Lying
Know someone who works at a warehouse that stores and ships boxes of pharmaceuticals. There are some understandably pretty tight handling rules, so nothing goes missing, and everything is stored properly.
One day, they had a guy start who asked if they should open the oxy to count them to make sure that there were as many in the bottle as it said there were. He asked multiple people this and was gone shortly after.
zoobrix
6. Fake Credentials
IT position supposedly had a BA in computer science with 2 years experience in relevant technical positions.
I didn't interview him.
We very quickly discovered that his computer abilities were nonexistent and 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 unraveled. It was about 3 hours because the first 2 were paperwork.
PaladenConnery
7. Too Much Expectations
Hired an IT guy with apparently six years of experience - it turned out he'd been the receptionist who helped people with Excel problems.
He didn't know what to do, so he just did nothing all day.
One frank discussion later, and he was gone. Expected to be completely trained on the job.
Tried to take the company to a tribunal, our union guy (who is, as we want him to be, very pro-employee rather than pro-company) laughed at him.
MONKEH1142
8. Bad Tactics
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, and 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 he was a repeat offender. He lived right around the corner.
l2np
9. Mission Failed
At the company I used to work at, I was front desk/shipping/receiving. The guy came in for an interview for customer service that apparently went well.
Everything fell apart when he clumsily pretended to tie his shoe beside my desk/in front of the door so he could steal a half-empty can of compressed air that I had on a low shelf.
He tried to sneak out with it, but I confronted him and then told the office manager what happened. Needless to say, he did not get the job.
staceywacey
10. Too Much Pride
I had to fire someone while we were doing their new hire paperwork.
The store manager interviewed him and then sent him to me (ops manager) to do their papers. This kid starts majorly trash-talking the store manager and other employees. He was also asking if any "Fine witches" work at the door...
He then goes on to say the most infuriating statement.
Kid: Man, are you seriously having me fill out all this paperwork? You're about as retarded as the store manager!
Me: Well, let's hold off on the paperwork then! I think we are going to go in a different direction with you, as you obviously are too professional for our business.
It took him a second, but he then started acting like Eminem and crap-talked the whole way out.
See ya!
[deleted]
11. Major Red Flag
I didn't fire this guy personally, but I did one better: arrested him.
I'm a police officer in the UK. I was forced to help at 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, weird and a bad impression, but whatever.
While they were doing the exam, I went into the yard for a smoke, and 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 unmarked.
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, but it happened. After the exam, they left. I watched them leave, and lo and behold, the shirt man got 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.
Icarus638
12. Come Or Lose
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.
Me: What do you mean you just sat down for dinner? Your first shift is in 5 minutes?
Her: Yeah, I know. But we were out and decided to go for dinner. I'll still be there, just a little late.
Me: An hour isn't a 'little' late. Be here in 5 minutes, or don't bother coming in at all.
Her: But <co-manager> is my sister! She gave me the job!
Me: Yes, she did. See you in 5, or not at all.
Her: But <co-manager> is my sister!
[deleted]
13. Got Busted
I hired someone to write about cars for a website I was editing. Saw some of their work, and they seemed eager and well-educated. I thought it would be a good fit.
The very first piece of copy he turned in on his very first day...was a plagiarized copy of something I had written two years prior.
I just sent him a link to my original piece that he plagiarized, and I never heard from him again.
harshcougar
14. Time Strict
The job hours were from 8 am to 4:30 pm, Monday through Friday. Our new hire showed up about 10 minutes late on the first day. Normally 10 minutes late isn't a big deal to me, but it was his first day.
I had pulled 3 other staff members into our 8 am meeting so we could discuss the training schedule with our new hire.
So we were already in our meeting when the new guy walked in. He did not apologize for being late - he just sat down as I was going over the training schedule for the week.
After a few minutes of listening to us discuss what he would be doing for the rest of this week, he raised his hand and said, "Can we reschedule the afternoon sessions planned for today and tomorrow? I have to leave at 11 today and 12:30 tomorrow." This was the first time I was hearing about these plans.
I asked the 3 staff supervisors to give me an opportunity to speak with the new guy alone for a few minutes. They left the room, so I started talking to the guy about how he couldn't just change his schedule without running it by management first.
As I was talking to this guy, he got a text. He looked down at his phone and put his hand up as if he were telling me, "I'll be with you right after I finish reading this text".
As soon as he finished reading the text and looked back at me, I said, "This isn't going to work. Please make sure you take everything you brought with you and do not return. I'll have HR email you your separation papers."
He seemed pretty shocked and asked what he did wrong, so I told him. He tried to explain himself, but I told him that it's best if he finds somewhere else to work.
Atomicspunks
15. Too Talkative
Work at a used record store.
While giving the guy the tour, he mentions how we underbelly our LPS and lets us know he's just going to use his employee discount to re-sell all the good stuff that comes in in our eBay Store.
He lasted about an hour.
FightTheWindmills
16. End of an Era
New firefighter in my city. Had just finished 5 months of academy and graduated the night before. His whole family was there, the mayor, half the city council, and the fire chief pins his badge, and then he was assigned to a station.
The rookie was advised to report to the police department the next morning for tactical driver training (obstacle course and skid pad).
Dude shows up the next morning at the police department an hour late, still drunk from all the celebrating from the night before. Not only fired but arrested for DUI.
That's the end of his firefighting career.
SyCoCyS
17. On The Spot
I was working as a waiter in a fancy restaurant. This classy guy shows up, well dressed, well mannered, looking for a job as a cook. They needed help back in the kitchen, so they hired him on the spot.
The next morning, he showed up drunk as heck. Not in a "had a super night out with the buddies, am still a little hungover" kind of way, but more in a "just downed a bottle of whiskey for breakfast" kind of way.
He had watery eyes and awful breath. He stuttered and struggled to walk straight but somehow managed to keep his head high, so management said fudge it, put him to work.
The very first thing he did was grab a big prawn and managed to stab his own finger with it. Right under the nail. Lots of blood and pain.
Everybody is dumbfounded by this prowess. They immediately sent him home, maybe 10 minutes after he started his new job.
I_am_a_fern
18. The Regular
I worked at a popular teen/college kid clothing store. I wasn't the manager, but I trained new hires. This one girl shopped at the store a lot, and we were excited to hire her.
She was let go because she was late, was caught trying on clothes instead of greeting, and apparently laughed when anyone asked for a size larger than a medium.
Her family showed up at the end of her shift and tried to buy $2k-$3k worth of clothes with her employee discount. Corporate policy sucks, so they got a good portion of it.
Her mom tried to bring it all back years later (completely worn/destroyed) and threw a fit, saying she should get the full price because the girl had died. Guess who we could all see sitting in her mom's car?
LHugs
19. First Employee
I worked as a manager in an upscale seafood restaurant a few years ago.
We had recently hired a few more wait staff (4 staff), to cope with the customer demand as summer started.
Excited to train new staff for the first time, three of them turned up on time and got started with their buddy staff. Guy number 4 turned up over an hour late, stunk of alcohol and BO, and had dark yellow pit stains on his "apparently new" white uniform shirt.
I fired him within 10 minutes. He then proceeded to knock over chairs and pull tablecloths off tables, so security was called.
The first person I ever fired. I felt bad and then went out for a smoke before getting back to work. Another reason why I left the hospitality industry. Staff turnover is too high, and it is too easy to burn out.
angylmus
20. Huge Mess
I manage a coffee shop lunch place. A young girl came in fresh out of culinary school and had previous coffee shop experience. What could go wrong, right? On the first day, I had her shadow the other employees just to get a hang of the POS system and the 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, and I didn't even care what kind. As long as they were freaking awesome and delicious, she had creative control. She comes out sometime later, admitting she doesn't know how to make cookies and needs help.
Now I'm getting bloody frustrated. As we moved into the lunch rush, a wave of customers flooded the front of the house, and I was needed.
I had 40 liters 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 apparently attended (I attended the same program, by the way).
Nope.
She found a box of cornstarch and dumped the whole box in. Dry. Soup destroyed. Her shift ended shortly afterward. 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 returning.
Classy, I know, but she was just one huge bloody mess I couldn't even begin to fix.
Xand3rs
21. Not Another Chance
A guy showed up for retail work, absolutely reeking of Jack Daniels. He had drunk so much that the odor was apparently coming out of his skin despite his showering.
I tried to give him a break and told him to come back the next day, but he just took that as another chance to get messed up again; the following day, nothing changed.
Aiku
22. Zero Care
Fired a 23-year-old intern on day one at our ad agency. Showed up to work in a hoodie and shorts, looking like he'd not even slept. During his IT orientation, he put his head down on the table and fell asleep.
We asked him to go home and never come back.
Turns out his dad was friends with a board member and already was from a well-off background.
He gave zero damn about a $10/ hour intern job in the first place.
okthathurt
23. The Sleepyhead
I managed a bookstore that had an auxiliary calendar kiosk at the other end of the shopping center. Hired a woman to man it, did her morning training, and left her alone for a bit.
I went back to check on her and found half the calendars stolen, and her asleep behind the curtains we used to hide back stock.
I've never been so angry.
BookerDeWittsCarbine
24. Own Space
I worked at a hardware store in Texas, and we hired a new girl to work the sales floor. I noticed she was acting weird at first, but nothing too out of the ordinary. However, she was always working in one part of the store no matter what job I told her to do.
Finally, after a couple of hours, I decided to check the cameras to see what the fudge she was up to, and it turns out she had been huffing cans of duster and putting them back on the shelf when she was done with them.
Needless to say, her first day immediately became her last day.
lonestarpig
25. Baffled Employee
She couldn't figure out what the TAB key was. It was a basic data entry job - literally, see the names and addresses written on this paper? Copy it exactly into our system. That's IT.
We went through an agency, which generally gives a software literacy test; a basic understanding of computers would be just fine - it's only data entry.
She would stop typing after filling in a field, grab the mouse, and move it to the other field to type. We corrected her, "It's a lot faster and easier if you just push TAB to move between the fields..." Several times.
She would stop typing, cover her face with her hands, and say, "Oh, this is too much, this is too hard!" Every time, it was suggested to use TAB to move between fields.
She also got up from her desk - with her trainer/manager sitting right next to her! - and went into the bathroom to answer it every time her phone rang (5 or so times throughout the day). The manager called the agency around noon and told them we'd have her finish the day but to ask her not to return tomorrow.
The agency called her right then and there on her cell phone, and of course, she got up and went into the bathroom to take the call. She came back out and sat down at her desk like she was going to work, but instead just looked at the manager and said, "Can I just leave now then?"
So awkward.
omgitshp
26. Wrong Job
Training my lifeguards for the summer when one girl couldn't swim. The test can be strenuous if you haven't done any physical activity for a while, but this girl couldn't make it halfway across the pool without needing to be saved herself.
Parents tried to sue for wrongful termination until we had then come to watch her daughter start drowning a minute into the test.
People....
Longthirdleg
27. Unprofessional Outfit
So, I am a reporter, and our interns come in and shadow us from time to time. This kid came in for his first shadowing with me, and we were headed to a nicer event, one which required we wear nicer attire.
My editor had asked him not to wear jeans or shorts but to dress business casual: slacks and at least a nice button-up shirt or polo.
Well, he showed up late, and he showed up in jeans and flip-flops. I didn't even ask my editor; I sent him home before he could walk into the event with me. Later, I was honest with my editor about what happened. The intern did not return for a second day.
[deleted]
28. No Excuses
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 making out in exchange for being 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 fudge himself in the most PC way, of course.
[deleted]
29. Took Time
Security supervisor at a hospital. At the end of my first day, the girl relieving me came in 37 minutes late.
She didn't know I would be there, so she took her time getting there.
She promises up and down that the next day, she will be there on time.
The next day, she was no call/no-show. She was gainfully unemployed after that.
Honeycombz1989
30. Wrong Reason
I ran one of those calendar kiosks in my local mall as a second job for holiday money. Hiring was done by a temp agency located across the country, and the people sucked accordingly.
Two days after we opened, I was supposed to have a new guy to train. I got a call from him saying he'd been stabbed on the bus and was in the hospital. I asked him which hospital, and he told me.
I have a buddy who worked for the local police department, and I had him make a call for me. No such person was in the hospital, and there were no stabbings on any bus line. I called the number I had for him, and his dad answered.
I identified myself and explained that I was letting his son go from the job he had blown off. The dad was very polite, but as he hung up, I heard him screaming at his "useless freaking c*nt" son...
tonysnark81
31. Unsolicited Joke Time
Worked for a big bookstore chain. Hired/Fired this guy who thought it would be funny to cancel a five-year-old girl's ship-to-home order of "Paddington" and replace it with an unrelated order.
Luckily, the employee was a big enough idiot to brag about it. We got the order replaced, and the family was never the wiser.
Firing him was actually infuriating as he didn't see how he did anything wrong.
foreputtscore
32. Dangerously Slow
Hired a guy as a mechanic. He owned several of the types of cars our shop specializes in and did well in the interview; however, he quickly proved to have hobbyist-level skills.
His productivity was sloooooow! I always give new hires work on my own/family vehicles or a shop vehicle before allowing them to work on a customer's car. In this case, he was given a front brake job on my stepson's older model.
This is a gravy job, 20-30 minutes on average. This guy took almost 1-1/2 hours, lost a part, started cross-threading a bolt, overtightened a bolt till it broke not once but three times, and asked too many dumb questions.
Finally, it was finished. I took it on an extended road test, including on the freeway. There was a scraping noise that wasn't going away. In fact, it started getting worse.
Got it back to the shop, lifted it on the hoist to inspect the brakes, and found both the bolts holding on one of the brake calipers were TOTALLY LOOSE.
Like, didn't even try to tighten them loose, only 2 turns or so.
If one of them drops out, the caliper rotates out into the wheel and locks it up abruptly without warning, which on the freeway will make the car suddenly swerve to the right and tumble. My stepson was driving 450 miles back to college that night!
I called the guy over to see what happened, and he looked like a guilty dog. With as much composure as possible, I explained the above to him and told him I had to let him go. He understood, packed his tools, and was gone.
The interesting thing was, a week or so later, his sister (who had never been there before) dropped off her [brand of vehicle we specialize in] and hadn't heard the news about her brother's employment demise. Without skipping a beat, she proceeded to leave her car anyway, dismissing the matter of her brother with, "Eh, not surprising..."
TurgidJusticeBoner
33. Too Early
The fastest turnaround I've ever seen was this guy we hired in support at a tech company. Everyone knew that the structure of our network wasn't ideal, but it worked, and we didn't have the resources to fix it. We showed the guy the network diagram and told him this.
He immediately declared it unacceptable, marched down to the Network Manager's office, and started listing off all the reasons why the network was "wrong."
Yeah... you don't lecture the King Neckbeard on the first day, and sure as hell not when you're the lowest-level peon in the company. He was politely told to "get the fudge out" less than 4 hours into his first day.
fubes2000
34. Other Motives
I was a Supervisor at a local bagel/breakfast shop many years ago. We hired a new girl, and she knew one of the other employees there, who happened to be the manager's son.
She spent the whole day flirting with him.
I asked her to do a couple of things. She flat-out told me no. At first, I was 'incredulous. I asked her a couple of more times, but still no. I said, “You are fired - go home.”
I didn't have the authority to fire anyone, but after I told the manager and owner what happened, they upheld it. She was there for less than 6 hours.
holidayiceman
35. Felt Bad
The only one I felt horrible about. I was training the guy and didn't do the firing. On his lunch break, he was caught walking out with two rolls of toilet paper to his car and explained he couldn't afford any right now.
The manager took the tissue rolls and fired him on the spot. It's justifiable. If you steal TP, you'll steal something else, but dude, I would have let you borrow some cash to get by if you asked :/
Kuuzie
36. Too Much Stereotyping
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.'
Her: He was wearing designer jeans. You know his life is all peaches and cream, taken from us little guys.
Me: [confused] Did he make an inappropriate comment to you about money?
Her: No. But I know their kind.
ligamentary
37. For Recreational Purposes
I had an employee who worked for a week. He went to a comedy club and ordered $60 worth of food and booze. When he couldn't pay, he asked if they would charge it to the company he works for, which they declined.
The manager of the comedy club called me the next day to talk it over with me. I told him to go pay it that day (since it was payday).
He didn't pay them. I fired him the next day.
jonsticles
38. Get Out
I used to be a manager at a radioshack. I hired some dude who looked like LL Cool J and was about as old as him, too, to a part-time position. He spent his entire first day hitting on female customers, who, as a whole, had no interest in him.
While hitting on yet another uninterested woman, he turned around and accidentally hit a customer with his drinking cup (which should have never been in his hand), and his Hi-C spilled all over the carpet.
He then proceeded to argue with the customer that it was his fault and tried to make him clean it up. The customer became irate with him m, and they got in a position to start fist fighting.
I fired him right there.
He didn't even make it to his first break.
[deleted]
39. Superman Wannabe
A guy is hired to operate a radio-controlled crane in a 12-meter high industrial warehouse. On his first day during a break, he uses the crane to lift himself up as high as the crane goes and then "drives around."
And no.
He was not wearing any kind of safety harness. I think he had attached himself to the crane hook with his belt. The shift boss saw him dangling from the ceiling, playing Superman.
He was fired super fast.
argon_infiltrator
40. Phone Monitoring
She checked her phone approximately every five minutes. I told her to put it away after two hours of this crap. She did, then when she thought I wasn't looking, pulled out a SECOND phone.
I asked her why she was so obsessed with using her phone at work. She was checking up on her boyfriend in case he cheated while she was at work. :/
So I told her again to put her phone away. She was at work, and using phones was against the rules.
She kept pulling it out and using it, so I eventually told her to go home, and the money for that shift would be in her account at the end of the week, but she was no longer required.
She seemed really shocked!
Jenny-Thalia
41. Plan Busted
A new hire posted to her Facebook page that she was starting a new job, but she was just doing it for the health insurance because she was trying to get pregnant, and then she was going to quit.
Basically, she was going to work there for 9 months, take paid maternity leave for a couple of months, get the medical expenses paid for, then leave.
Boss got wind of this on the first day and fired her.
That's a very tricky legal territory, but essentially, she had lied in her interview, saying that she wanted a long career with the company, then admitted online that she was just scamming them for healthcare.
[deleted]
42. Not Again
The store manager hired a guy contingent on his background/credit check. He had bad credit, and the same manager made me fire him. So I told him his checks came back bad, and he said, "That should have been sealed."
Turned out that he had a forgery conviction, which was, in fact, sealed. He laughed when I told him it was just bad credit.
3 or 4 weeks later, just as I was leaving the company, the company dropped the credit check, and the store manager (despite my warnings) hired the guy again. He passed the check this time.
Two weeks they caught him stealing computers.
eshemuta
43. No Distractions Allowed
Went to retrieve the new hire in the cafeteria and asked them to follow me out to the work area. Starting walking towards the door.
They started to follow, then saw someone they knew sitting on the other side of the room.
They walked away from me and proceeded to have a conversation for 5 minutes. When they were done, they came back to me and said they were ready to go.
I thanked them for coming in and showed them the door.
mississauga145
44. Leaving Station
I work in a tobacco-free workplace, and the use of tobacco on the premises means instant termination. We all had to sign papers acknowledging that when we hired on.
So some people get around it by walking around the back of the building into the parking lot behind us and technically getting around the "no smoking on the premises" clause.
On his first day working there, a new guy would leave his station and walk to the back of the building or get in his car and drive off the lot to go smoke. Each trip would last him about 20 minutes, and he did this every hour.
He was told to leave on his second day.
gotnotimeforthis
45. Wrong Greetings
Worked in retail management. On black Friday, we had a new guy, and his job was greeting customers. Literally, "Hi, welcome to ___."
Two older ladies walked in, and he said, "What the hell is uuuupppp."
I told him, "Your time working here." 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.
StraightouttaDR
46. Brother Troublemaker
We would send our new drivers out of town to a corporate 4-day new hire training. We put them up in a hotel next to the corporate office. It was a Marriott Residence Inn that our corporation used all the time.
I received a call the day he had checked out his room that it had been wiped clean of everything except the TV. Even the pillows and fancy bedding were gone. Blow dryer, clock radio, coffee pot, dishes, etc. Gone. They were sending us a $750 bill to replace it all.
So I called the guy once he got back to town to say there was a problem and explain what I'd been told, and that was unacceptable, and he was being let go. He says hang on a minute, and he sets the phone down.
I heard him start yelling, and other people, including an older woman, started yelling.
He came back on the phone a few minutes later and said his teenage brother accompanied him on the trip and stole everything before he left the room that morning; our employee didn't know he had done it.
I told him I was sorry, but the decision had already been made to let him go. He could bring me all the stuff, and the hotel wouldn't press charges, or he could keep it, and the hotel would press charges. He relayed that in Spanish to the other people in the room with him, and I heard the older woman start yelling again and hitting someone.
He lived with his folks. Mama was pretty pissed at little brother. The whole family met me at our office to give me back everything. The kid looked like Mama had worked him over pretty well. Our employee apologized again and asked if he could keep his job.
Told him no. They left.
capnvontrappswhistle
47. Locked In
I was just another employee, and several years later, it still makes me chuckle.
Working for a delivery company. One guy, on his first day, parks a van blocking two people's driveways, gets into the back of the van to look for the parcel that needs to be delivered, lets the sliding door close, and locks himself in. (Doors could only be opened from the outside with a key)
He left his phone in the front so he couldn't call for help, and it wasn't until 6 pm when the homeowner blocked from their own driveway came home from work and heard someone crying for help inside this van, that they were able to call the depot for someone to come out with a spare key.
He didn't even deliver 1 parcel that day.
He turned up the next morning and was told he wasn't needed anymore.
[deleted]
48. Too Loud
Towards the end of my time at uni, I worked extra for the English department invigilating exams. Basically, setting up the exam hall, handing out exams, checking IDs, collecting the exams.
They usually hired senior students who had already passed those exams, but on one occasion, they decided to use a guy who was studying in a different department.
So he and I set everything up, got the exam started, and settled in for the wait. The guy quietly tells me he might take this very class the next semester, and the exam looks pretty easy, so could he sit it now as well?
Me: What? Hell no!
But he was insistent, so I told him to step outside and call the department secretary and ask her if he could. Not because I thought there was a chance she might say yes, but because I needed her to hear this nonsense from his own mouth, and the no from her might shut him up.
My cunning plan worked perfectly. He came back all forlorn, telling me she said no, and later when I was debriefing with the secretary, she told me they would not be using him again.
She was as stunned as I was by his lack of sense.
Kuddkungen
49. Think Before You Click
Not quite what you were aiming for, but I got someone fired on my first day.
Specifically, I was hired in a temporary position to replace an admin who was off due to long-term health problems. I get in, and I'm set up with access to the admin email account.
The first email I opened was from a throwaway email account with a screenshot of the sick admin's Facebook page, talking about her job working in a pub while she was on sick leave from our company.
I forwarded it to the manager, who thanked me, then went into her office and spent a while shouting into the phone.
NuklearAngel
50. Two Weird Guys
2 of the best I can remember.
Guy one shows up to New Hire Orientation with a full-sized pillow and a large bag of Doritos. Did not hesitate to use either during the middle of orientation. At the first break, he was let go.
The second one was discovered to have dined and dashed on the day of his interview. It wasn't discovered until after he was hired, went through NHO, and began his first day.
When the police officers took him to the property for questioning, he claimed that he paid by credit card.
They asked him to provide proof, and he said that he couldn't because he didn't have the receipt, he didn't have mobile banking, and their phone lines were closed to do a verification. This was at 1 P.M. on a Monday.
When they told him that they did not believe him, he said, "Do what you got to do," so he was arrested and fired.
Meta_Franko
51. Prepared For The Worst
I worked at Chick-Fil-A and was training this dude I knew from school. I already knew he was weird, so I was prepared for a bad day. I just didn't know HOW bad.
This jerkward picks up the ice he spilled on the ground and puts it back into the ice container. After we dump all of the ice out and clean out the entire container, HE DOES IT AGAIN.
For some reason, I didn't fire him on the spot, mostly because I'm a forgiving person. I drew the line when he freaking licked a milkshake off the side of the cup before trying to hand it to a customer.
Thank god I wasn't the idiot who hired him, just the genius who fired him before he could mess up even worse. (I'd be really scared to see what WORSE is.)
minakazes
52. Heard It Clear
I ran a wood shop and had a zero-tolerance policy about eye protection. There was a safety contract stating, "I understand that if I'm caught violating safety procedures, I will be fired."
A good, polite kid was hired, understood and signed the agreement, and went to work. Coming back from my boss's office, I could hear another employee.
Employee: Dude, you gotta get your goggles on,
New Hire: Fudge that guy. I know what I'm doing. If he comes in here, I'll just put em on real quick. He can't fire me.
I paraphrased, but close enough. I fired him. Ha ha.
sightlab
53. Missed Detail
Guy showed up for work and buzzed.
He still handled himself well and didn't exactly reek of alcohol, so we weren't entirely sure he didn't have some kind of mental/medical disorder that just made him act buzzed. He asked for a break to run out to the parking lot and get a beer out of his truck.
After getting him a ride home, we checked with human resources. It turned out he had mentioned working while drunk during the job interview, but they thought he was kidding, so they told him it was okay.
They had only scanned his job application and hadn't even noticed that under "Reason for leaving the position," he had put "They wouldn't let me drink on the job."
There probably would have been a whole can of legal worms opened if we'd actually had to try to fire him, but luckily, he never came back to work, so we fired him for missing three scheduled shifts in a row without notifying us.
troycheek
54. No Warnings Left
This freakin guy named Peter, not on his first day, though, but his third. He kept drinking tallboys at lunch, which actually wouldn't have been a problem if he hadn't been drinking them at his desk.
Warnings after lunch on days one and two, and I warned him again before lunch on the third day. He immediately went and started drinking one at his desk, so I had to let him go.
He slung his manbag over his shoulder, raised his can, and said, "Party, mate," and walked out the door. I watched him ride his bike away with no hands, drinking his beer.
Once he got out to the main road, he immediately strayed too far into traffic, got hit by a car, and broke his collarbone.
HRHill
55. Check The Number First
Had a new starter who was a friend of one of the team members. He was being trained by the only lady in the team who wasn't well that day and not particularly chirpy.
When they were done, he went to send an IM to his friend saying, "Jane** must be on her rags today," but he sent it to Jane, who flicked it to me, and boom, instant dismissal.
Haffattack
56. What A Wrong Move
Worked at a 911 center one time that was attached to a police department.
Dispatch trainee took a bathroom break, took out her compact, and took a bump.
Another employee showed up and told the supervisor, and an officer walked into the center and took her away.
Never saw her again.
HilltoperTA
57. Busted Post
Guy called in sick on his first day. His FB page, however, showed him out on a bender the previous night and posting he was too hungover to go to work.
He forgot he added some senior management while he worked notice with his previous company.
Since he was a contractor, he was sent back to his home country the next day. Unfortunately, I didn't have a say in the matter, and the board instructed me to have the talk with him and HR present.
GrizzlyBear74
58. Find Another Job
Manager of a grocery store here, and I hired an early twenties girl to be a cashier a while back. She came into her first day wearing sweatpants that had the word "juicy" on the lower back (which is REALLY against our dress code.).
Later in the day, she asked another cashier on the clock if they could ride her downtown for a court hearing she couldn't miss that started in about twenty minutes.
It takes about 45 minutes to get downtown from where our store is.
That's not factoring in traffic and construction.
I hope she found a way to get there because I had her turn in her drawer a few minutes later.
jamaltheonion
59. Too Much Fun
On the first day of orientation, all the new hires were taken out to a happy hour to get to know the rest of the staff at the office. The higher-ups bought everyone 3 drink tickets.
This guy found where the tickets were and took at least 3 additional tickets, slammed all of his free drinks in about 45 minutes, and preceded to not only take advantage his immediate supervisor, but also 2 VPs and the wife of another VP.
He was fired at the bar.
ahandabananas
60. Witnessed A Bad Day
When I was working at this Japanese restaurant, we had to fire one of the new cooks on his first day because he showed up drunk.
I actually had to go pick him up at the bus station because I was the delivery driver. When I pulled up there, I saw him finishing a tall boy of Bud Light. I thought, "Oh man, this might not be good." He got in the car and seemed okay. I offered him some gum, and he accepted and thanked me.
When we got to the restaurant, I didn't see much of him because I was back in the front, but I heard a lot.
While the owner, Carol, and the other cooks were training him on what to do, he kept messing up and knocking things over.
Carol was an intense person and liked to berate people at first, but I have never seen her as mad as when this guy accidentally lit a rag on fire.
That was it, she screamed, "You're fired, get the fudge out!" She had me drive him back to the bus station, which was one of the most awkward car rides I have ever had.
-eDgAR-
61. Mister Accountant
I had to hire a cost accountant for a food manufacturing company. We needed to examine our costing as it had been some time since it was done. It was a temp position and should last 2-3 months.
It was not easy to find candidates, but we found one. He was a CPA, had experience as a cost accountant, and, coincidentally, had a passing acquaintance with my brother.
This guy shows up on the first day, all suited up and ready to go. Under his arm, I see this BIG book titled 'The Principles of Cost Accounting.' Uh, ok. Well, we gave him two days. At noon on the second day, I called the agency and told them to get him outta there. I'm not sure how, but I do not want to see him tomorrow.
In his limited time, he had managed to throw it around like a club, and he knew my brother. It was practically family, according to Mr. Cost Accountant.
Then, he tried to take over my plant manager's office, and he became irate with the front desk person because she wouldn't give him any CDs so he could download our financial information to take home and study. Right away. There was more, but that was enough for me.
No, I didn't see his face the next day or ever again.
Steffisews
62. Unrealistically Weird
I work in high-end private residential construction in NYC. We were putting the final touches on a jewel box of an apartment. The owner of the GC firm, my boss, shows up for a walkthrough and thinks he misplaced his iPad while walking around.
This is a common thing for him. He jumps right onto the Find iPhone app and pings his iPad.
Ends up finding the iPad in some backpack. Whose backpack? New hire from the SECURITY subcontractor.
The guy was literally fingerprinted by his company before heading to the job site that morning as a new hire.
Really unreal.
_ALLien_
63. The Delivery Guy
I wasn't the manager, but this happened at a pizza restaurant I worked at in college when a new delivery driver was being shown the ropes...
Him: So where's the car I'll be making deliveries in?
Me: You use your own car.
Him: Well, I don't have a car. You're going to need to provide me with one.
Me: I specifically asked you when you were interviewing if you had your own car.
Him: Well, I thought you meant, like, do I have a way to get to work, and I do. I took the bus.
Then he went around the kitchen, asking everyone if he could borrow their car for the day. Shockingly, nobody was willing to hand him their keys.
SoupKnotSeer
64. Weird Hobby
First day, the guy showed his private part to at least 3 people.
The first complaint that came to me was that he had propositioned one of the female employees by flopping his very sizable cock out and dropping it on her desk.
In the time that it took her to come to my office to file a formal complaint, he had done the same to another woman and then showed it in a "contest" to two of our male employees.
Security escorted him out of the building.
simianpunishment
65. Hands Off
Had a staff member come up to me and say money had gone missing from his locker (he didn't use a padlock for some stupid reason). I checked CCTV, and a new starter that day went through the lockers and took stuff out.
Luckily, he was still on the shop floor working. I had to stop the staff member from going out and punching him.
I called the police and just left the guy working till they arrived, showed them the CCTV, called him into the office, and he admitted it straight away.
Tana1234
66. Worst Hires
I hired a guy for my insulation business. On the first day, I called him after he was a half hour late. His girlfriend answers and says sorry, and she will just wake him up. He's still just a bit drunk from the celebrating they did last night, that he finally got a job. I told them to celebrate getting fired.
Another guy turned up, and I was training him on pipe lagging. He tells me he is completely illiterate and can't count either.
I said no problem, my son has dyslexia and proceeded to show him alternate ways to measure. He looks disappointed for a couple of seconds and then smiles.
He realizes we are 6 meters up on a scissor lift and tells me cheerfully, "I have a fear of heights." 2 freaking minutes, and he got himself fired.
ends_abruptl
67. Just Buttons
Professional Costume Shop. She had lied on her resume, saying she worked at a local theater shop for one season. She had worked one show and only sewed on buttons by hand.
Couldn't even thread a machine.
My boss screwed up when hiring her and never called her references. I got stuck firing her.
Lyonors
68. Guy Full Of Crap
I was a night shift foreman in a shop. A new employee showed up with a gym bag, opened it, and asked if I wanted to buy any pink ladies. He was selling speed at work on his first day.
I told him to get the drugs off the property NOW! He came back and went to work. After a few hour he took his break and came back with an armload of chips and candy bars and offered them to everyone. I asked where he got them, and he said the vending machine in the break room.
I checked the break room. The vending machine was one of those with the spiral wires that kicked out the treats and fell to the bottom. He laid the machine down, shook all the goodies out, and stood it back up so they all fell to the bottom.
He robbed the vending machine. WTF! GTFO jerkward. FIRED!
FluffyBunnyHugs
69. For Personal Purposes
I was the manager of Club Security. Had a new door guy start. Within the hour, he had let a couple of underage girls into the club.
It was simply because they were hot and had him their number......which ended up being fake.
What a douche.
Encryptedmind
70. Unsafe Activity
I had an employee who walked behind an aircraft engine twice while the engine was running. The first time, he was lucky that the engine was just a small regional aircraft.
The second time, he wasn't so lucky.
He walked behind an A330-300 engine and was flung close to 40 ft.
Mind you, this guy was easily over 300 pounds. After he healed up from his injuries, we let him go for his sake.
[deleted]
71. Faking Gone Wrong
When I first started tattooing, I was at a newer shop in the area. One kid came in with an amazing portfolio. Realism and traditional and everything in between. Drawings and tattoos. We were impressed with his portfolio, and he was hired on.
His first day was a training/test day. We asked him to draw a couple of things. Randomness we thought of. He sat at the computer, and we assumed it was just to get some references.
Then he starts printing stuff out.
Then he heads over to our light table and literally starts tracing other peoples work. Of course, we called him on it.
Took the printouts and no computer. He ended up drawing some of the most crappy basic drawings that your average middle schooler could draw.
So, we started asking about his portfolio. It turns out it was his brother’s portfolio. His brother was a new artist in another country. He said, "How hard could it be? It is just tracing with a needle." So I drew up a nice big piece with straight lines and long curves and serious shading and challenged him to "trace it with a needle" on his body.
He tried.
He now has 14 of the most crooked and jacked-up lines and circles that anyone has. Needless to say, he was gone within a few hours on that first day.
catsandnarwahls
72. Not A Drink
Compounding pharmacy manager many years ago. There was a time that our business was so overloaded with work that we hired temporary employees to help out with manual repetitive labor (packaging and such).
One of the products we compounded was an oral numbing gel.
Two hours into his day, one of the temp employees ate the gel and started drooling uncontrollably all over the place.
He even told us that we should add flavoring to it because it tastes like crap.
aposey89
73. Out Of Patience
I waited till their second day, but.
First day of work: showed up late. WAYYY late. I thought to myself, "Well, it can happen to anybody one time. Traffic goes bad. Whatever. No big deal."
The second day of work: I couldn't be in the office, but the job was straightforward enough, so I didn't worry. When I got back a few hours later, others in the office grabbed me to say that the new guy had shown up late and then had been sleeping at his desk for the 2 or 3 hours I had been gone.
I walked by his desk, and the dude smelled like liquor. I saw him take a sip from the thermos he had brought to work.
He interviewed so well. He was the first guy I ever fired. It sucked. He needed the job, but it was obvious his alcoholism was interfering with every other aspect of his life, and the company was small and unstable enough that we couldn't afford to do charity work.
I hated it.
geekgreg
74. Know Nothing But To Wait
I tried to hire a woman to start immediately because she was unemployed, and she told me she'd start in 3 weeks because that was when her unemployment benefits ran out. That should have been my first clue.
On her first day, she just sat there. Didn't try. Didn't do anything.
I fired her, and she ran back to the unemployment office. She said she was let go as part of a layoff. They immediately granted her full benefits for months.’
grewapair
75. Wasted Chances
Obligatory, not me. This was my boss.
He used an oxyacetylene torch to cut steel over a freshly installed metal floor, which caused all kinds of damage. The boss was going to cut him a break (everyone makes mistakes), but then the doofus started arguing. I witnessed a 20-minute rant, and then the guy was fired on the spot.
A few years later, he was rehired.
Me: Hey isn't that the guy?
Boss: Oh yeah! Oh well, maybe he's grown up.
He worked for a few weeks. Seemed to be doing OK. Then they went out for some drinks after work. He hits on the boss’s daughter, gets rejected, and calls her all kinds of names. Then he gets fired. He's lucky he wasn't beaten, too.
zerbey