Yahoo Lifestyle People Who Were Fired On Day One Of A New Job Are Sharing How Badly They Messed Up, And It’s So Messy
Getting fired on your first day on the job seems absolutely unimaginable to me.
So when Reddit user u/Silent-Zebra asked the r/AskReddit community, "People who saw someone get fired on day one of a new job, what did that person do to get fired?" I knew it would include some wildly interesting stories:
1."A school bus driver. It was her first day on the job after a month of training, and she was seen talking on her cellphone while driving a bus full of kids."
2."Trained a guy at a large liquor store, I was a department manager. Nice guy, worked hard, seemed engaged. Sent him home a little early since he was training. Tried to sneak out a handle of vodka on his way out the door, got stopped by security. My only reaction was, 'Really, dude?'"
3."My boss hired a temp, and in the first 20 minutes, he emptied her candy jar; like took every single piece. He then asked to take lunch at 10 a.m., and she told him not to come back."
4."He kind of fired himself. He was hired as the president of a live entertainment company. The owner threw a big welcome meeting in the enormous lobby. Breakfast served, and the whole nine yards. Literally a million-dollar salary — easy. Dude never showed. Was a running joke for years."
5."The company hired a new CFO to lead the finance function. Day 1, the FBI raided the building. Apparently the guy was a fraud who was going across the country and sweet-talking businesses into his services and swindling them out of all their money. No idea if he used a fake name or how it happened in the background check, but that was a wild day. Yes, he was fired."
6."She was asked to do a spot sweep of the drive-in parking lot. Went outside with a broom and dustpan for two minutes, she then came back inside and walked up to the general manager and held out the broom and dustpan, and proclaimed, 'I don’t sweep.' He reached into his wallet, handed her $5, and proceeded to tell her to go home and threw her paperwork in the trash."
7."I was working in production at a local TV station, and a new guy told the morning show meteorologist that his wife thought about him when they had sex. The guy was only there like two hours before that happened, and he was immediately shown the door."
8."Guy was hired contingent on a background/credit check. On day three, I got a call from HR saying he wasn’t eligible. The store manager who hired him made me fire him. Took him into the office and said, 'Your checks came back negative, and you can’t work here.'"
"He started going on about how his record had been sealed and the forgery and theft convictions were supposed to be expunged. And then I said, 'No man, you got bad credit.' Fast forward three months; the company dropped the credit check requirement, so the store manager hired him again. Three weeks later, they caught him stealing computers."
9."I worked at a takeout counter and was training the new guy. He constantly spilled food on his hands and fingers when filling up containers. Decided the best way to clean it off was with his mouth and tongue… in front of customers."
10."He asked the manager if he could take a longer lunch break on day one so that he could go to another job interview he had lined up. She told him, 'Sure, but don’t come back.'"
11."This was prepandemic and technically the day before their start date. We hired a new product manager who would be relocating from San Francisco to Seattle. I had a call with her in the morning before she jumped on her flight. While in the air, I Googled her to find out more about a project she worked on."
"What turned up was a news report about her being wanted in California for fraud and active warrants. HR had lied about doing a background check. We called the cops, and last I heard, she was arrested when she landed."
12."The new guy brought a turtle to work and hid it in a filing cabinet. While he was at lunch, we kept hearing a scratching noise and finally found it. He got let go that afternoon."
13."First day on the job of lifeguarding at an outdoor hotel pool. The pool was a little low on water, so I decided to add some water. I opened the valve, and water started flowing out of the fill pipe. Not too long after starting the flow of water, a summer thunderstorm came in."
"I got on my bike and hightailed it out of there with no intentions of returning since it was only a few minutes until closing. Got home and never thought about the pool again until 8 a.m. when my boss called, letting me know that I flooded the pool and the area around the pool. Obviously, he let me go."
And finally, here's a worker who just gave us a plot for the next great scary movie:
14."This was a guy I started with during an overnight, locked-in stocking position at Toys 'R' Us who went absolutely fucking mental. He worked about one-quarter of the shift, then started talking complete madness, then disappeared entirely. As in, we couldn't find him anywhere. We'd see evidence he was still in the store, but we didn't see or hear him at all."
"After a couple of hours of this, he would suddenly leap into whatever aisle we were in and just start SHRIEKING. Or laughing maniacally. Or literally throwing merchandise at us. Bizarrely, he tried to show up the next day, as if he were unaware of what went down. The lead guy said that happened A LOT — dudes just couldn't handle being locked in a silent, empty store all night. 'Why'd you think we were hiring three guys at once for a 6-man crew?'"
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
Do you have your own story to tell about you or someone you know getting fired on their first day of the job? Let me know in the comments!
