At the end of the day, our jobs lie within our bosses' hands; the choice to terminate us is theirs to make. And while things like our performance definitely play a role, they are not always the defining factor in the final decision.To learn more about what shapes these decisions, Reddit userImnutothisasked people who have been fired on the spot to share their side of the story. Just don’t be surprised if, while scrolling through them, you find yourself shouting at the economy, “Where’s HR!?“This post may includeaffiliate links.
At the end of the day, our jobs lie within our bosses' hands; the choice to terminate us is theirs to make. And while things like our performance definitely play a role, they are not always the defining factor in the final decision.
To learn more about what shapes these decisions, Reddit userImnutothisasked people who have been fired on the spot to share their side of the story. Just don’t be surprised if, while scrolling through them, you find yourself shouting at the economy, “Where’s HR!?”
This post may includeaffiliate links.
I handed my boss my two week notice and she ripped it in half and said “Don’t bother, you’re done today.“HR wasn’t too thrilled with her decision as they had to pay me a severance because of her hatred towards me.
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I was 16 and working as a dishwasher at a summer tennis camp at an exclusive tennis club. The owner of the club was upset that I hadn’t taken all the trash out. I explained to him that the dumpster was full and overflowing. He told me that I needed to climb into the dumpster and jump up and down on the trash to create more room in it. I said that I wouldn’t do it. He told me that he wouldn’t ask me to do anything that he wouldn’t do himself so I said “Fine, I want to see you climb into the dumpster and start jumping up and down”.He fired me on the spot.Edit: For those of you that agreed with the owner you should really check up on how OSHA and the health department would feel about this.
Worked at a call center.(Telemarketing)It was my grandmothers birthday.We didn’t hit sales quota for the day the boss told me I had to stay until we hit.I told him family was more important.Got fired immediately. Best decision ever.
I came back to my summer job at an amusement park from missing 3 days with strep throat, handed in my doctors excuse, and was fired for missing work. Apparently to call off you couldn’t just talk to a manager, you had to talk to the department head, a person I had never met with a phone number that had never been made available to me. Because I missed more than 2 days, it didn’t matter that I had a note because I was considered a no call/no show. The assistant manager I gave my excuse to handed me a letter back that said I had 10 minutes to clean out my locker and vacate the premises or they’d call the cops for trespassing.I was 16, in a state with very liberal employment laws, and my mom retained a lawyer. I didn’t win any money but they ended up having to list me as rehire-able in their system and they paid a huge fine for essentially making it impossible for employees to call in sick.
The summer between undergrad and graduate school, I was working in the customer service department of a Canadian department store. I got minimum wage + $1 extra an hour because I was the only person capable of answering the phones in English and French.I asked for a Saturday off to attend my sister’s high school graduation. They said “what’s more important to you– this job or the graduation?” I said, well, the graduation actually (particularly in light of the fact that I was starting my second degree in another city about 10 weeks later.) Axed immediately.Well, good luck finding a bilingual Albertan willing to work for minimum wage plus one, you stupid c**ksuckers.
I was working for a small family owned restaurant. All the wait staff, and most of the kitchen staff was family or friends with the owner. I was hired as a waitress, and I did okay, not great, not terrible, it was my first time being a waitress.One day, one of their regular customers came in, who is a bit of a local celebrity. He apparently came in once or twice a week, and tipped very well. Normally the owners daughter would take the table, but she was out sick so I took them. I got an amazing tip from him, and he told the owner that he would like me to wait on them if I am available in the future. The second he left I was fired.
I told my manager at a fast food place that I was going to be looking for a new job, and to not schedule me after this pay period. The next week, I see my name on the schedule and ask her what the deal is.“I told you I was going to get a new job and not to schedule me"“Well, did you get a new job yet?““No. But I’m still not sticking around this one.““Well you know what, you can just not come back here now with that attitude.“She sure showed me.
Mom, brother and I were at Olive Garden about 20 years ago. We had the worst waiter in the history of the world. He was outrageously rude to the point of being abusive to us. At the end of the dinner my mom left him a dime for a tip and as we were leaving the waiter threw the dime at my mom (I was a little kid otherwise I would have probably at least attempted to defend her). Waiter’s boss saw the dime throw and fired the waiter on the spot. Everyone has a bad day, but that guy was just a prick.
Fired a person for disappearing on their first day of work for a couple of hours. We worked in a manufacturing plant and he took off to try to find some cute girl he knew that worked there, the guy was married and he asked “what am I supposed to tell my wife?” I said, " probably not the truth”.
My boss found out that i (a man) was dating another man. not another man in the company. not on company time. it had nothing to do with the business or my work. he just couldn’t stand that i was in a homosexual relationship. (btw, a coworker that i trusted was the one who told him. turned out that while i thought i could trust her, she was out to get me fired.) this was early 2000’s and no, there was no protection for being gay where i worked.
Boss wanted me to work extra hours, travel in traffic and congestion and do 14 hr long days for no extra pay or benefits. and i said not sure i am willing to do it, i need to think about it. next day pulls me in to his private office and fires me saying my skills were not on par with what they expected.BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE f**kerrrrrrrrrrr i now work in a place closer to home so i dont have to travel as much or as long, earning more for doing less hours and less work! xD.
Chef here. Got fired because I sent a steak out that “had char on it”.The only “char” on it was grill marks.Ok lady, you probably just saved me a huge mess.
I got fired from my first job at Panera. I was being trained on barista, and when told how many pumps of caramel to put in a caramel latte, I (very obviously) jokingly said, “Nah, let’s do 8 pumps”, then proceeded to make the drink correctly.Next time I came in, manager called me into the office, and fired me for “going against specs” even though I didn’t, I just joked about it, once.
Was working in the deli counter of a supermarket. Asked from my closest manager that if I could come next week on thu 2 hrs later because I had a final exam that morning.Got fired on the spot. " Don’t bother coming to work tomorrow, you’re fired"O.o.
This just happened - was working for a small start-up with an absolute c**t of a boss. He would yell, demand 110% from his employees while he could barely afford to pay us (paychecks were NEVER on time) and would constantly demean me. He was an all around misogynist.I talked back one time - (He asked me, “how often are you on time to work?“I responded, “How often do we get paid on time?") And the next day he texted me to bring my keycard and keys to work and fired me.Good riddance, I’ve never felt better. It seriously felt like I was released from prison.
I was told Friday out of nowhere “we won’t be needing your services anymore” after being told in November I would have a position into next year at the minimum. So that’s a fun holiday gift.
My boss set me up to be fired with an email he knew I would react badly to. When I reacted badly he fired me on the spot. Joke was on him, I took the other two guys in my department with me and our company suddenly had no tech support.I was supposed to be going on an international trip the following week, and since we were all gone it had to be delayed indefinitely, which ended up costing the company the order. About $3 million because he didn’t like that I didn’t want to travel 150 days a year on a 5% travel contract. Karma’s a b***h.
This wasn’t me, but I witnessed the following: I worked at a camera store many years ago and we received a life-size cutout of Andre Agassi (the tennis player) who was promoting Canon cameras. We set up the cutout in the store but our crotchety owner came in, didn’t like it and told us to throw it out.So we put it away, but when the owner went out for lunch, we took it back out and proceeded to take a few goofy pictures in front of it. Then we put it back away. When the owner came back from lunch, he returned to his office and then 5 minutes later came rushing down the stairs red-faced and screaming.We had forgotten about the security camera and his secretary had snitched on us. “I told you to throw that thing out!”, he screamed. He then went into the back room, dragged Andre out, and started trying to tear the thing apart, bending the head back and forth. That cardboard is pretty tough though, and he was not strong guy, so he just stood there for 30 seconds furiously struggling with it.We were all trying to hold it in, but one of my co-workers couldn’t help it and started laughing at the absurdity. Our owner heard it, whipped around and screamed, “You’re fired! Get out of my store immediately”. We were all shocked, but the guy picked up his jacket, walked out, never to be seen again.
Started work at a daycare once. We’re told if littles have a hard time going down for nap, sit next to them and pat their backs. I was doing this, and my back was [hurting], so I stretched out next to the kid’s cot. Was laying there patting when the boss stormed in and said, WAKE UP, YOU’RE FIRED! Bh I wasn’t f**g sleeping but these nursery rhymes damn sure got me ready to so toodles!
I was fresh out of College at an IT contract-to-hire job. I came in on a Tuesday, sat down at my desk, the boss/owner came up behind me and told me I was fired. I sat there, mouth open, and then asked, “Why?” He said that I was not a good fit for the company and that I had to leave. So I gathered my things and he stood there watching me (probably making sure I did not steal anything) and escorted me out of the office. I found out later that because of the size of the company, at the time, they were looking for a tier III worker, but I was a tier I; I told them this in the interview, but apparently they did not have the resources to train me. Well jokes on them, I went through a month of unemployment and I found an even better IT job where I make a lot of money and work only half as hard as that job.
I forgot to pay for a hotdog I ate the previous day of work. I had the money to pay and I would have if they asked me to. It genuinely slipped my mind but the manager was treating me as a serious thief. Kinda sucked but the job was pretty terrible too. Retail usually is.Edit: I should probably clarify that some of my coworkers had this happen to them before I was fired but the difference being was that they got warnings. It doesn’t bother me much because that manager was actually pretty scummy in the long run and she lost the majority of her employees about a week after I was fired.
Not me, but my coworker at Subway got fired after giving her friend free food and paying for it IMMEDIATELY afterwards.
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Not me, but my brothers. He was valeting at a fancy beach club over the summer, and they hired a new kid from the area.The first car this new hire gets into, he backs into another car. My brother takes him to the side, tells him to calm down, the beach has insurance for this very reason, it’s no big deal.Second car, he runs right into a parked car, which causes that car to smash into the one parked in front of it.My brother gives him 50$ cash for the “day” of work, and tells him not to come back.
Not me, but I witnessed it.Guy not only fired, but they had cops on site to escort him out. He was let go for a multitude of reasons.1. Clocked in via phone, proceeds to show up 1 hour after his shift starts. Then leaves hour early and clocks out via phone.2. Knew access codes to vending machines so he was stealing change out of them. Not all of it, but enough for discrepancies to be noticed.3. Put paper towels on lightbulbs in the bathroom. Stuffed paper towels down sink in breakroom. So he could be the hero who noticed this stuff prior to it causing a disaster.4. General disrespect of fellow employees.5. Taking advantage of lax OT policies and not actually working the OT.
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I worked in a medical office (trying to be vague about specialty) and the doctor was doing horrifically illegal things that were putting patients at risk for damages and disease. Things like having unlicensed employees performing duties that they shouldn’t and not practicing proper handwashing/ instrument sterilization ect. Not to mention the doctor was rude and would frequently yell at staff.During my employment I brought attention to things that were being done and confronted the doctor in front of the rest of the staff. She fired me on the spot. I had been keeping record of infractions as they were revealed, a lot of the more awful things were hush-hush and turned the office in to the attorney general in my state.Just a few weeks ago I found out that the doctor has been telling people that i was fired for trying to recruit people into a cult… I’m an atheist.
Everyone was fired in one fell swoop. They decided to stop having our work from home department.It explained why I’d spent the last 2 weeks training people who they’d originally said were not eligible to work my job.
I got fired from Borders because the person that was covering for me while I was on vacation got fired.What’s even more messed up, I didn’t even find out directly from them, Jose’s girlfriend (she also worked there) texted me saying, “Hey Jose got fired and you should probably call them because they have been expecting you.” I called and store manager was like, “Yes, you’re terminated. You can come and pick up your last check.” I didn’t even bother arguing because I was gonna give my two weeks notice when I got back anyway because I was sick of their b******t.
One year I was working at a summer camp it was my first year but a bunch of people had been going for years. This year it was a brand new director and she was useless. Regularly telling us she was to busy to do her job. Often told us that if she did the hiring she would have gotten good employees.Told people that we can’t get mad at kids and needed to use positive reinforcement then when they got in trouble just took them away and did nothing. Completely useless woman.There was an incident the day before this where one kid got three fingers like claws and scratched another while transitioning to the afternoon care (when the day staff were supposed to go to the office and plan activities for the next day) we were all inside when this happens and so was the director who was actually supposed to be helping outside.Our director and regional manager come out the next day and give written warnings to a bunch of people for being inside during out planning time. One of the four guys working at our camp (37 employees 4 were male including me) stands up and says it’s c**p that we get written warnings for doing what we were told during training but they didn’t care they wanted a scape goat. He got angry and fired in the spot for speaking up against our director who was fired 3 weeks later for sucking at her job.
I was working in a USPS Priority Shipping Center during Christmas Break from College back in 02'. It’s fairly brutal work, tossing packages non-stop for the entire 8 hour shift from 10pm to 6am. I know, I know, it’s not a gulag or anything but to a spoiled 20 year old at the time, I recall hating it.So there’s this massive conveyor belt structure that basically runs the entire length of this titanic warehouse. It’s huge, kid. And they would store a tone of carts and other misc. junk under there for storage. So, naturally, I took to hiding out underneath it whenever the opportunity arrived. Pretty s****y thing to do but alas, was young and foolish. This went on for a good week when I decided to get bold and took to laying down inside a pushcart and covered myself up for what I had hoped would be a brief nap. It’s loud and a little cold, so I thought I’d be good. But nope. Slept for a good 4 hours only to awaken to a search party send out to see if I had died under the belt.The Boss applauded my bold action but showed me the door all the same.
I hated my last job. My coworkers were alright but the guy over my department was an ae.Well, the time finally comes after many years. I get an offer and of course I say yes. I had been plotting this moment. From my backpack, I pull a sympathy card that I’d been holding onto for a while. On the front, “In memories, we find comfort… in time, we find peace.” On the inside, “So sorry for your loss.” Sign my name, add a date for $now + 14 days. Hand it to the bossman.Now I know for a fact that bossman would find it hilarious if this had happened to literally any other bossperson in the company. But he had several sticks in his as so he fired me, told me “hands off the computer,” yelled a bit, insulted me several times, then walked me out the door.The company lawyer called in short order. “We’ve accepted your two weeks notice. We don’t require you to serve those two weeks but you will get paid for it.” Guess the whole “you need to learn that your actions have consequences” bt that bossman tried to pull when I submitted my notice kind of backfired on him.Bossman in question has a habit of yelling at people in exit interviews. I like to think they didn’t schedule one for me because he knew I wouldn’t put up with it.
As a backpacker in Australia around 2005/06 got a job working for a motivational speaker/life coach/predatory fraudster.Basically people would come to his free session on a Saturday and then, if they were interested, would leave their number for people like me to call them back and try to sell the paid weekend to them.Our script included things like how to advice people who said they couldn’t afford it on how they could use their social welfare payments to pay for it. Really scummy.Anyway, on one call a guy straight up asked me if this fella was a fraud. I said “Between you and me, I think he is”, just as the supervisor walked past. She tapped me on the shoulder and whispered “Make that your last call”. Hung up and left.Really wish I could remember his name. Michael something…Scumbag.Weirdest thing about the whole experience was that the ‘workshop’ was held in a massive arena and we were in the main dressing room all week, but had to leave on the weekend because Alice Cooper was playing and needed the dressing room. We were moved to a hospitality suite near the stage so were trying to sell this b******t course with Alice Cooper blasting out in the background.
I’ve never been fired for anything (laid off since they were closing a department though), but I got someone fired on the spot. As a kid I went to the library on my bike and it got stolen. Months later I see it in the back of a Friendly’s near the employee parking. I called the police since I had already filed a report with them, easy to identify since it had some pretty unique features like a custom valve cap I found once and the handbrake on the left side didn’t work. Police asked the manager if he knew who came in on the bike and he said it was one of his cooks. They informed him it was stolen from me so the manager called him over and berated him pretty badly while they put cuffs on him and promised to call all the other local restaurants so they don’t hire him. Pretty sure he said “I knew you were a f*****g loser but stealing a kids bike?? really?? You’re like 25 you prick”. I think he ended up getting community service.
I was a waiter at a nice restaurant when I overdosed on adderall because it was finals week and I had been studying night and day.I got light headed and couldn’t think straight and started f*****g up people’s orders.The boss told me that I was a liability and fired me.I told my parents that I was taking a break to study for school…
I worked in a warehouse on a forklift finding products stacked so high I couldn’t see them. I missed one order and stupidly put the paperwork back in as ‘not there’ instead of just burying it and bang, sacked with the words ‘pure f***g laziness’ As an agency worker that was it. Fk those people.
Operations manager here, on the day of the chrismas dinner for the company, i texted one of the new employees who didn’t show up at the restaurant we were having dinner at. This new employee was with us for 2 months and was hired even after having bad reviews from previous employees, but still thought I will give him a chance because we were in a pinch. His previous employer said he has issues getting to work or getting to work on time. He had no driver license, so i asked one of the other employees with company vehicle to pick him up in the morning, and sometime he literally had to wake him up.Coming back to the day of the chrismas dinner, he replied back saying that he will need roughly 38% percent raise from his current salary, otherwise he is quitting, because this other company offered him a job. I thanked him for his time with us and enjoyed rest of my evening. Couple of months later he called begging for his job back, and you all know what my answer was.
This teacher was up-skirting girls and he would intentionally knock off pencils then bend down to pick them up and look up a girls skirt and obviously he had tons of complaints so one time the headteacher stood outside the room and looked through the window until he saw the teacher look up girls skirts and when he looked up my friends skit the head teacher burst shouting that he was firedEdit: I say up-skirting but that’s taking a picture of a girls underwear without consent, what I actually meant was he looked underneath their skirts but it’s basically the same thing so whatever.
Perfect.This just happened to me in September.I was a marketing manager at a fairly large digital advertising agency.I showed up to work on Wednesday at the same time I always did. Nothing out of the ordinary. My direct manager from the office up North was in for a strategy meeting.He and I sat down with my team and did some Q2 number reviews, goal setting, strategy for the remainder of 2018 - talked about the pros and cons and how hopeful and optimistic he was. Then it was back to work as usual.About 2 hours later, he calls me into the conference room. I bring my laptop to take notes and figure we are going to go over more numbers or something.I look to my right at the end of the long conference room table and the SVP of operations is sitting there (albeit with an uncomfortable, scared look on his face).They tell me to close the door.My Manager:“We decided today is your last day”.Didn’t really give me any good reason why - but I found out it was a few days before earnings call and they had missed their projected quarter numbers and I was the most expensive employee on the team.F.
I was once working for this company out of my dad’s office (I worked for a different company he was just letting me use his extra office). I would get assignments over email. A lot of the time I would finish an assignment and then ask what my next would be and not hear from anyone, sometimes for multiple days and I would email multiple people each day. At one point my boss refused to pay me because he felt I wasn’t doing a good enough job, so I reported him to the division of labor. I immediately recieved an email saying I was fired because I reported him.
I was in high school in NJ looking for a summer job. Got a job selling knives, one of these MLM deals I realized later on. The Italian Guido in the shiny suit was telling a group of us what the job entailed. Don’t know why but I poked fun at him in a well timed moment - he asked me to the front of the classroom and fired me. Glad I didn’t have to sell knives to all my family members!
One of my first jobs was working for this bucket telesales operation. We were selling long distance plans, they would change the fee structure and resell the same plan under a diffrent name to the same customers. I went one week top of the sales chart weekly bonus, next week I was at the bottom. #’s. This was the second or third week out of the “training” program as well. Ranking came out they pulled me into the office and canned me for poor performance. I always thought it was cause I walked in on them pulling names and numbers from diffrent state phone books. They didn’t have my final check ready that day. Next Monday when I called in to make sure they had it, someone I didn’t recognize answered but told me to come down for my check, turns out they got raided for that whole scammy plan bit. I had a brief interview with an FBI agent, they handed me my final check and that place got closed down. Apparently I missed out on a who crazy entry scene when the came in the front and the back to grab the management team.
After graduating from grad school, I was having trouble finding jobs in my chosen career. I ended up applying to retail jobs just to get an income. I got hired at Old Navy. Went through training, and even had 1 to 2 shifts. Then I got hired in my chosen career. Great! I went and told one of my managers, who was totally cool with it, understood, and even said I might be able to stay on part time and help out during the holidays. Cool. Next shift, I have to tell the other manager that I got a new job. I just clocked in to start work, told this manager, and she tells me I can leave. I clock back out. Wasn’t even allowed to work that shift. I barely knew her, but just from the short interactions I had with her, she seemed like a b***h.
Not me but a person who worked with me.My job had people come and go like it was a drive-thru. We had one guy who was down that same path. He came in and started cutting the pizza’s. I’m helping him and and he’s a nice guy. Skip a couple of weeks and this guy is a master. Even during rush he still has time to pick up orders.Manager comes in. Ask him how he’s liking his job. He says that he’s glad that he works here.Manger fires him on the spot.Next guy comes and it’s continues in the cycle.
I was 16, it was my first job. I had landed a nice IT Help Desk job, answering phones, logging jobs, fixing internet, s**t like that. 6 weeks of unpaid training, and 6 months of working hard landed me with my own office and a weird medley of every job there was to have (Only the CEO and I had our own offices). I wasn’t paid more, I wasn’t given any more recognition and they actually had the balls to ask if I could work tue-fri on a lower pay (I got mondays off from school). They wanted me to work monday to friday, 8-8 on a $8/hr pay so I said no and was fired instantly in front of 12 other coworkers.Awkward.
I saw someone get fired on the spot because he said he wanted to “rage f*ck” a coworker of ours…he was an idiot.
I started a new job 3 weeks ago. When I received my first pay, I noticed that I was missing 10 hours pay over a 2 week period. I Asked to speak with the boss and he said “Who pays me when I have to wait for you to finish your run.” I said that I thought that he was taking advantage of me. He replied “you think i’m cheating you! Don’t come back on Monday.
I was driving a plow truck borrowed from the company owners friend and crashed it 3 hours into plowing I was told to leave the keys in it and go home. Never plowed snow again.
I worked at a grocery store and brought a newspaper to the break room for lunch. My break was so short that waiting in line to buy the paper would have taken up my whole lunch. They interpreted this as me stealing the newspaper and fired me. Apparently one of the managers had been following me around during my whole shift waiting to see if I did something wrong.
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Gabija Saveiskyte
Justinas Keturka
Indrė Lukošiūtė
Work & Money
