1. We had someone call off work because his mother had passed away (no problem take time to be with your family). He then told us he felt guilty because he lied about it, he just wanted a few paid days off.
1a.
We hired a guy who did this except it was his mom who outed him.
We knew right off the bat he was lying because the night before his call out he was going around begging everyone to take his shift so he could go party with friends. Managers didn't want to fire him just in case it was a really unfortunate coincidence. Then his mom called in looking for him (which was weird because this guy was in his 20s). I was the one who answered the phone.
"Hi, I'm looking for [name], I'm his mother. Is he there?""Uh, no. He called out today, and, uhh... he said it was because his mother died.""...are you fucking kidding me." -click-
Edit: Jesus Christ people he didn't have two mothers
2. Talking on the shop phone.
I was managing a coffee shop at the time and was in the office doing payroll, and ordering. I got a call from my boss on my cell phone asking why he kept getting a busy signal when he called our location.
I went down to the shop and there’s a line of customers out the door with my one employee completely ignoring them and chatting away on the phone.
I chastise her and get to work making drinks, I ended up comping a good handful of them and giving 50% off the rest. Once it had slowed down one of my favorite regulars came to me and said that my employee had been on the phone the whole time as the line built up, talking explicit details about blowjob techniques.
Her excuse was that “that bitch shouldn’t have been eavesdropping on me”. I fired her that day.
3. Two cooks doing lines of cocaine off the cutting boards on the line. Drugs are rampant in this industry, but goddamn.
4. It was this high school kid's first day of work at Burger King. He was there for about an hour or two when I told him to pick up trash outside by the tables and drive thru. He totally lost his shit. "I'M NOT DOING THAT! I DIDN'T SIGN UP TO PICK UP TRASH. HOW DARE YOU!??" I fired him instantly, and he practically ripped off his work shirt, threw it on the ground, and started stomping on it. Then he ran out while he was still screaming at me. I was in shock the whole time.
5. my sister got fired at her job as a cashier for asking customers if she could "have a small bite" of their food.
6. A coworker at my apprenticeship had only 3 weeks to his degree. He stole a bunch of expensive metal. Just to sell it to a scrap yard a few kilometers away for like 10% of its worth... He got caught selling it + video footage. So he threw away a 3 year apprenticeship for maybe 50€.
7. Back in my retail days I had to constantly remind an employee to take a shower, and comb his hair, and not play Crazy Train by Ozzy over the speakers....everyday...it became too much.
...Sounds like he was going off the rails
...Sounds like he was going off the rails
8. Relaxed retail gig. Worker who was maxed out on unexcused absences called in sick to watch a Sunday basketball game on tv. His team was losing so he came into work to visit with his coworkers. They were all really close. He didn't come to work to work, he came in to hang out and shoot-the-shit with his coworkers while they worked and picked up the slack for him. I had to explain to him that he couldn't just come to work if he was sick and had to go home. He didn't want to leave so he admitted to lying about being sick so he could watch the game. I then asked him why the hell did he come into work still. He figured since he already called in sick, he had a day off to do whatever instead of working so he was bored and thought he'd come see what we were up to.
He was a really sweet guy, but a bit of an attention whore and dumbass. I felt bad for firing him but it wasn't fair to his coworkers who worked really hard to pick up his slack. They still tease him about it to this day.
9. I know a friend who works in the food business. They had a guy who dropped a block of cheese on the floor, didn't tell anyone, and proceeded to grind it up and serve it to customers. No one became sick to the best of my friend's knowledge, but corporate happened to be reviewing the security cameras and caught him. It would have been so much better if he had just discarded the cheese.
10. A guy I knew in IT was told never to press a big red button. He was explicitly told it would shut down all the digital systems in the warehouse- a digital failsafe and reboot that took several hours that shut everything down. Later that month he pressed the button to see how it worked, shutting down the warehouse for several hours’ worth of rebooting.
The red button has a glass case now.
11. One of my shipping supervisors (call him Bill) used to banter back and forth with a female employee (FE, going forward) Nothing outright inappropriate, but friendlier than I would be with an employee. I used to always tell him that he was playing with fire.
One day Bill gives FE a task and she jokingly says, “what if I say no?”. To which he responds “I’ll spank you and make you say ‘who’s your daddy”. She laughs and does the task. (I’m unaware that this had occurred).
Some time later that day I get an email from HR saying this employee needs a write up for attendance. Give it to Bill to administer. Which he does. Five minutes later, FE is in my office telling me about their earlier ‘who’s your daddy’ exchange.
I send Bill out of the department on some made up task, and head up to HR to tell them the story. Long story short Bill’s getting fired for sexual harassment. Convinced he did nothing wrong.
Story gets better - Bill lent his car to his son that day, and had no ride home. We’re miles away from anywhere a cab will p/u (this occurred well before Uber). Bill asks if he can work the rest of the day, so the HR manager asks me if I’ll drive him home; which I do (b/c it’s Friday, and If I do this I’m taking the rest of the day off). On the ride home, Bill hits me with this gem, “ how am I going to explain this to my wife? This is the second time this happened to me”
Edit:
Wow, lots of comments here. Sorry if the story wasn’t completely clear, I was sitting in the airport waiting to get on my plane.
- Employee did not get out of her attendance write up. It was still placed in her file.
- Employee was fine with the banter up to that point and was probably fine with the spanking comment. But this is why as a supervisor you don’t play with your employees. All it takes is for them to get mad at you for some reason, then all of a sudden they are are no longer okay with your comments. She’s not held responsible b/c the power dynamic makes Bill responsible for maintaining a professional relationship.
- Bill was completely in the wrong here. I warned him multiple times that he was playing with fire. He did not know how to maintain a good working relationship w/o becoming friendly with his employees. Again he is the supervisor, he is responsible for keeping it professional. Even if she instigated the flirting, banter or whatever you call it; it’s his responsibility as the supervisor to keep it professional.
12. Stealing. I managed a used game store and this guy was a great worker, showed up on time and everything, but he started stealing, and he decided the best the to steal was gaming consoles...that we keep track of with serial numbers...and then sell the consoles, to the same store chain... surprise surprise I get a call "this console was traded in twice without ever being sold?" He was arrested the next day.
13. Not me but my dad, and quite some time ago. My dad was a metallurgist and his company made control rods for nuclear reactors. The rods are cadmium plated (anodized?) to keep them from corroding in the reactor. Cadmium plating is black. I think it was an electroplating process and if the surface of the rod is not properly degreased, the cadmium will not bond.
13. Not me but my dad, and quite some time ago. My dad was a metallurgist and his company made control rods for nuclear reactors. The rods are cadmium plated (anodized?) to keep them from corroding in the reactor. Cadmium plating is black. I think it was an electroplating process and if the surface of the rod is not properly degreased, the cadmium will not bond.
The line workers on the factory floor are trained but I guess you never can tell how well. Apparently one guy did not degrease the rods well enough and there were shiny spots with no cadmium. He didn't want to get fired so he used black marker to fill in those spots. Luckily QA discovered it. But yeah, he was fired.
14. So this guy was a bit of a slimeball, but the guests seemed to like it. He'd messed up a pay rise he'd been working for a few months prior.
One day he called in sick, we all knew he had a few issues so he was told to take his time and keep us updated. Manager called him a few times in the following weeks to check up on him, still sick.
Until one morning the manager was up to a voicemail from said sick guy. Left at roughly 3am. Turns out his dealer and the manager had the same first name and he'd called the wrong one. Needless to say he was fired immediately.
15. I managed a small cafe and worked 12 hour days, sometimes by myself. I had a coworker that was just...dumb. Sweet girl, but just super dumb. It was sort of an open secret that she would go on dates with men for money; she once told me about going to Bermuda with a guy she didn't really like but he was taking her to Bermuda so she put up with him.
So, I hadn't seen my closest friends in the longest time, so we made plans to meet up for lunch one afternoon and I asked her to cover some of my shift. I worked 630a-630p, I asked her to come in at 11, with her relief coming in at 4. She agreed, I made the arrangements, and we were good.
Come the day, I'm stupid excited to see my friends. 11 rolls around, and she's not there. Okay, whatever, running a little late. 11 becomes 1130 becomes noon and I'm texting her asking where she is and texting my friends that I'm not coming. Girl lives right down the street so she isn't stuck in traffic or anything. We are literally a block away from each other.
I start calling her, but it just rings. I'm texting her, leaving voicemails, calling our boss and telling her what's happening, and just absolutely furious that this is happening. Finally, I leave a voicemail that tells her that if she's not going to bother showing up for her shift, she's better not showing up at all.
FINALLY around 2, she calls me. "Oh I can tell by your texts and voicemail that you're mad." Fuck yeah I'm mad. I ask where she's been, why didn't she come in, and she tells me a friend was willing to pay her a lot of money to fly out to Denver to redecorate his house, and since it was so last minute she didn't have time to tell me.
I explode. I tell her she had at least two hours before she boarded her flight to call me (TSA at LAX is a bitch) and at least an hour before that because of the drive. A three hour window is plenty of time to tell me you're fucking me over. I tell her not to bother coming in for any more shifts, and spend the rest of my shift just fuming. I did manage to meet up with my friends, but the day was just absolutely ruined.
The owner officially fired her a few days later when she came back, citing the same reasons.
16. I worked at a motorcycle dealership that had this dumbass kid that worked in pre delivery inspection and assembly of new vehicles. He got 3 strikes and being high every day wasn't one of them.
Strike 1: We had a small girl in sales that was uncomfortable loading anything into customer's trucks/trailers and so this kid offered to help her with a 4 wheeler. Well wanting to show off in front of the girl, he wheelied up the ramp and slammed into the back glass of the pickup, shattering it. I raced dirtbikes with him a lot so it wan't like he couldn't use a clutch properly.
Strike 2: He was bringing in a newly assembled Yamaha R6 to the floor and was literally running while pushing it and making engine sounds like a little kid/ Well he managed to crash it into a line of bikes damaging 4 of them.
Strike 3: I sold a new GSXR1000 and the kid managed to wreck it in the parking lot(all he had to do was ride it around the building making sure the brakes/transmission/blinkers, etc worked). He then tried to cover it up by switching out plastics with a new bike that hadn't been assembled. I didn't realize anything had happened until I'm going over the bike with the customer and the customer is like "hey, could you please wipe the oil off of the fairing?" I look at it and it's not oil...it's got blood literally dripping off of it. Security cameras saw it all and he was finally fired.
17. I was managing events and drivers for a major auto manufacturer.
This happened during the LA Auto show a few years ago. All the vehicles were provided to us by the manufacturer (these were high end luxury cars). All drivers were explicitly told to learn the cars functions and to use them, outside GPS was not allowed. One driver decided to not follow these policies and was using his own portable GPS.
The driver picks up a German engineer from the airport, and during the drive the Engineer asks why he is using his own GPS and not the vehicle’s.
The driver said “It’s so much easier, the vehicle one is hard to use and it sucks”.
Of course, the Engineer is the guy who designed the car’s navigation and gps system.
Complaint came in, fired the guy immediately.
Another event I gave a driver specific instructions to put only $5 worth of gas into the vehicle and drive it to the location. It was a display car and fire regulations required it have minimal fuel in it while on display.
I gave the guy $5 bill and reiterated what he was supposed to do.
20 minutes later I get a call from the event manager asking me why the car’s gas tank is full. Smh.
Fired the driver.
18. Hired an entry level guy for an IT job. 2nd day into the gig, he walks into my office to complain how noisy and distracting it is to sit in a cube. “I can’t work like this. “I GOTTA have an office”, he tells me.
He seemed pretty ticked off when I told him it wasn’t going to happen. He started wearing headphones at his desk after that - like lots of people did.
I get in one Monday morning a couple of weeks down the road, and all his stuff is gone. Even his name plate. I walk into my office and my phone’s message light is blinking. I play it back while bringing up my email to send a message to our junior level guy’s manager to ask if something happened to “Billy” Friday. I stop typing about part way through sentence 1.
Phone message is from one of the new senior executive officers of the place. And he’s mad as hell. Turn out there were 3 new offices being built on the other side of the floor, and Billy took it on himself to move into the plushest of the 3: A corner office with mahogany furniture and a magnificent view.
The senior exec got in earlier to check out his new digs, and finds Billy sitting in his office with the door closed and music going.
The senior exec confronts Billy, who proceeds to tell the exec that it’s his office now, and if he’s got any problems with that he can call Grixorbatz who’ll gladly explain the entire thing to him.
I immediately phone the senior exec to apologize profusely, and to say that his office will be fully vacated in about 15 minutes. Senior exec seems placated.
I storm over to the other side of the floor with every intention of reaming the living shit out of Billy as professionally as I can.
Thirty seconds later, I’m standing in senior exec’s office chewing the shit out of Billy’s brazen fucking ass. The guy’s like, “So?”
I’m like, “SO. You’re picking up all your stuff. Right now. And you’re taking it back to your cube. Then we’re going to have a serious talk with Human Resources later this morning.”
Billy folds his arms and says, “I TOLD you I couldn’t work in a cube. You knew that. What else was I supposed to do? It’s your problem. Not mine.”
I’m so close to just killing Billy I can’t stand it. “You got ten minutes Billy”, I fume at the guy. “Ten.”
I storm out of the office and call security. I explain that I’ve got a serious problem with an insurbordinate employee who has decided to occupy senior exec’s office and won’t leave. And I need them here pronto to see to it that Billy vacates it.
Security asks me if I think the guy might be prone to violence. I said yes.
Within two minutes, Security’s up on my floor. And they sent the fucking Calvary. And these guys were pumped. I guess security guards are just bored all the time and praying to God every day for an incident like this one. I explain what I want done and they’re like, “Ok. We’ll make sure that happens. Hopefully, we won’t have any trouble.”
We walk over to Senior exec’s office and Billy is just sitting there. Door closed. Music blaring. Like nothing ever happened.
Security throws the door open. Billy swings around and sees these 3 big hungry-for-insurbordinate-ass security guards practically slavering in his face. The look of utter panic on Billy could not have been more total. Security, is like “Sir. It’s come to our attention that you’re sitting in someone else’s office. It’s been explained to you, and you’re refusing to vacate it.”
Billy does a complete 180 - attitude wise. Oh yes! I’m really sorry! I was only sitting here temporarily. He starts gathering his things. Security looks over at me and I just nod that it’s ok. “Please make sure that he vacates the office as quickly as possible.” I leave Billy with the guards, secretly hoping he gives them grief.
I walk back to my office and call HR. I explain what happened, and before I can finish the story, the HR rep says that while the company rarely terminates someone without notice, that situations like this one are the reason we have the language in our contracts. Done.
Billy’s almost finished vacating the office and I take a security guard aside to explain that Billy’s just been terminated, and that I’ll need the security team to confiscate his ID badge and escort him off the premises - after he’s done clearing out of senior exec’s office.
When he’s all done and busily working to reconnect his monitors and laptop back at his cube, I tell Billy that it won’t be necessary to bother getting everything reconnected. “You’ve been terminated.”
Billy freezes and shoots me this look of evil death. Security guy takes notice and steps up to him. Billy totally lets it go and just says, “Whatever. This is the shittiest job I’ve ever had.” Security takes over at this point.
Good. Fucking. Riddance.
