It doesn’t matter what job it was, fast food, babysitter, or one of those corporate jobs, getting fired sucks. Especially when the reason for it makes absolutely no sense. These former employees share the crazy reason that ended them getting fired. Content has been edited for clarity purposes.
“Sucked To Be Him”
“I was in college, waitressing at a restaurant that was open all night. The manager refused to make the schedule so that those of us in college would only work the all-nighters on days we didn’t have class the next morning. He didn’t give a hoot if you had class or not, he would still give you an all-nighter. On one such schedule, he gave me a few all-nighters in a row on the days I had eight am classes. My shift was eleven to six am so I would get home just in time to shower and go to class.
So, I worked that eleven to six am shift, went to classes from eight to one pm, and then home to study, eat, and try to catch a nap. That night I went back for another eleven to six am shift. Then again home to shower and go to class at eight. I had a couple of breaks in between classes from eight to one to eat and study. Then had a three-hour lab from one to four pm. Once I finished, I went home, studied, ate, and fell asleep about seven-ish. I didn’t wake up until 11:30 pm because I’d slept through my alarm.
I called and said I was on my way. Also that I was sorry I was late but I had not slept more than six hours in the last 48 hours and overslept. The manager fired me over the phone for ‘using lack of sleep as a reason to miss a shift’ and ‘he was tired of listening to us college kids whine about all-nighters.’
I had never complained once about my overnight shifts and had never been late. Not once in my six months of working there. I’d started in May and was fired right near Christmas.
Turned out he found an excuse to fire every single college kid that worked there and that left him with only four waitresses and a scramble to find new ones. However, a huge portion of the workforce was college kids and word had gotten around so he had to settle for really old ladies who refused to work over-nights and only four waitresses that would.
Sucked to be him.”
Chef Vs Manager
“I worked at a restaurant with this guy who was one of the top chefs, basically second or third in charge in the kitchen. So he had been around for a while and had a good amount of respect, especially in the back of the house. The restaurant had a deal for employees that if they had worked at all that day, they got thirty percent off any food they ordered. It was near the end of the dude’s shift so he put a pizza order in for himself to take home with him.
Well like most good chefs I know, he couldn’t drive for legal reasons so his girlfriend would come to take him to work every day and pick him up. About half an hour before his shift ended, she showed up to get him. She was also previously a chef at this restaurant and well respected so she’d normally show up early and have a couple of drinks at the bar while catching up with her old coworkers/friends. Well while she was waiting at the bar, the pizza that her boyfriend had ordered got finished, so the boyfriend had one of the food runners bring the pizza out to his girlfriend. Just in case, he forgot in the back.
She opened it and ate a slice or two while it was still fresh. Well, the manager on duty (everyone hated this dude. He was super emotional and made rash decisions all the time) saw her sitting at the bar eating and practically ran over to her and started demanding to see the receipt for her pizza. Confused, she handed the receipt over, thinking maybe she got the wrong pizza or something. He took the receipt, glanced at it, and proceeded to slam it back onto the bar, demanding to know why she was ringing food under her boyfriend’s name.
She realized what he was accusing her of and said, ‘Oh no, he ordered it to take home. It’s his pizzas.’
But like I said, that manager was super emotional and was having none of it. He started going at it with her about lying and theft. Basically stood behind the bar, yelling at her in a quiet restaurant. He pulled her boyfriend, who had no idea what was going on, out of the kitchen and immediately started yelling at him about why he was stealing. The dude stayed calm and tried to explain what was going on but the manager wanted none of it. He told him to clock out now on the spot and to call in the morning to see if he had a job or not.
Everyone loved that guy and he was an amazing cook, even the head chef fought hard for him. But that particular manager was the brother of the owner, so there really wasn’t any chance. The dude lost his job. But several years later now, those two are still happily together and working at higher-end restaurants where they are both very happy.”
Made Up Reasons
“I was a Project Manager for a residential home builder, that was new to the area because the company was from a different state. I was the first Project Manager to build the first houses for the division. Naturally, they made a lot of changes from the original plan sets, but it was pretty common that either the plans didn’t shake out in the field as they did on paper, or that the design team wanted to change things anyway. It happens.
But all those changes impacted the schedule for re-work, rip/replace things, and material changes with a back-order. My direct boss had been giving me positive feedback throughout last year. I managed more projects and square footage than the other two Project Managers combined, yet we all got paid nearly the same.
In my annual performance review, the Vice President of Operations gave me my review instead of my direct boss, which he didn’t do for the other two project managers. He told me that I was slower than the other two and that now I was under the heat. Basically, because I was the one to discover the issues with the houses, then I told the other two managers how to avoid those issues and setbacks. Many of the reasons he listed were literally made up, not real, or so immaterial that I questioned his competence. I told him I was shocked and I had no idea what he was talking about and that I could prove it to him with emails and text messages. He disagreed.
Three weeks later, I showed up at the site and was working, when he had my new boss fire me. Pretty much everyone was shocked and confused as to what happened.
But I got another offer a couple of days ago from a better company with the same pay and better projects.”
Schedule Issue
“I was fired, I mean ‘politely let go’ because my manager decided I was lying about having surgery without ever actually talking to me. I let her know two weeks in advance and reminded her five different times three different ways, but the schedule never changed to reflect the time off I needed.
I took my three days off, and she had another manager call me to ask me where I was on the second day. The manager who called me was horrified to learn that, yes, I had surgery, yes, I was hopped up on pain medication, and, yes, the main manager knew about this. The main manager was also mad that I had ‘poor performance’ the week following, which was something I had noted when I told her about the surgery. I needed a week of low-impact work as I recovered.
One week, I noticed I wasn’t on the schedule at all. I ended up talking to the manager who’d called me about it. I jokingly wondered if it was because of my surgery. She basically told me, she couldn’t legally say yes, but I wasn’t wrong. The main manager notified me a couple of days later. Part of me was mad, but part of me was relieved that I was not in such a toxic place anymore.
I could have sued, but the cost, effort, and emotional toll weren’t worth it to me. I had no hard evidence, so it’d most likely turn into ‘she said/they said’ situation in my former manager’s favor. I knew I technically should’ve, just to protect future people, but I also have to protect myself.”
McFired
“During my senior year in high school, I was working at McDonald’s. It was right after Christmas and we were really busy. I’d been there four hours and only had two more hours to go. I was supposed to get a 30-minute break, so since we’d slowed down I asked if I could have a break. The shift manager said no one was getting breaks.
I said, ‘Thanks a lot.’
She told the assistant manager (pretty sure they were sleeping together) that I told her to ‘get lost.’
He fired me on the spot. He wouldn’t even let me give my side of the story.
A week later I was working at Jack in the Box. I was a shift manager for six months through a couple of years of college. Eventually, I dropped out of college, moved up to assistant manager, and then a couple of years later, general manager. I remembered how terrible I was treated at McDonald’s and made sure I treated my employees well. I had the third-lowest turnover rate in a 95 restaurant region, had the second-highest average hourly pay, and was number two in profit improvement.
Take care of your people and they’ll do the same for you.”
Not Sitting Allowed
“I worked at this hotel doing afternoon/evening shift and two overnight shifts a week. They listed the following reasons for letting me go:
Claimed I was leaving the property without clocking out because I wasn’t on camera the entire time. The date they said specifically was an evening that I spent cleaning up the meeting space because it was slow. I was also not the only front desk person on shift.
When working overnight, I would sit on a chair to do the audit from midnight to three am. Sitting on a chair at the front desk was not allowed, even at midnight/early morning.
Also when working overnight I had to fold linens so I would listen to the radio/music through a Bluetooth headset while folding and cleaning up the back. That was also not allowed even at midnight/early morning.
They honestly probably just didn’t like me but after they fired me I went and got a new job at the hotel next door. I started making a lot more money and was able to do all the things I was let go for.”
Save A Life Or Get Fired
“This happened over 20 years ago, at a medical insurance company. I didn’t sue them, mostly because I was young and just didn’t know that could be a thing. And I’d do it again. I wasn’t looking for kudos; someone needed help so I did what was needed. I didn’t have any idea that it was ‘against Company Policy.’ We certainly didn’t cover it in my training class.
I worked in a customer service call center for an insurance company. I was trying to solve an issue with one of the customer’s claims. Then she had a medical emergency (probably a heart attack, but I’m not sure) while I was on the phone with her. I used the phone in the empty cubicle next to me to call 911 and stayed on both lines to be sure the ambulance got to her.
I was fired because A) I took too long on calls already and this was exceptionally long, B) I made an unauthorized outgoing call, and C) I gave the customer’s personal information (name and address) out to the 911 operator.”
His Mom Did Not Approve
“I got fired from my first ever job as a CIT (counselor in training) at the summer day camp I went to every year as a kid. I was given the six and seven-year-olds. One of them asked me if I had a girlfriend in a ‘girls are gross’ tone of voice.
I said, ‘Yes.’
He asked me if I ever kissed her.
I said in a fun, horror movie voice manner, ‘Yes.’
He was like, ‘Ewwww! Gross!’
We all had a laugh. I thought it was a fun exchange. Well, I guess the kid went home and told his mom that night and she freaked out. She demanded I be fired for teaching her child about intimacy and giving details of my private life to her child. I was only 13. All I said was that I kissed a girl. The camp fired me right there. I had no idea what I said was out of line.”
Karma?
“When I was 14, I worked at a chip shop in my hometown. I only had the Friday night shift, but I covered pretty much every other shift people couldn’t do, so ended up doing three or four extras a week too. I was also never once late.
This one day I was asked to cover someone’s shift later that day, which I agreed to. However, my dad actually had a pretty bad stroke not long after. I tried phoning the owner all day and got no answer. I finally managed to get hold of him 20 minutes before my shift, explaining that I couldn’t come in as my dad was in the hospital and may die. He fired me on the spot, as apparently, I wasn’t reliable.
My dad didn’t die (although was left permanently disabled), but the chip shop actually went out of business not long after, so silver linings and all that.”
Car Dealership Problems
“I worked at a car dealership, where basically I typed up all of the paperwork, verified drivers license information, and ensured everything about a vehicle purchase was accurate whenever someone wanted to buy a car.
There was one salesperson who constantly had missing or just straight up wrong documentation, and they almost always waited until the customer was at their desk to bring me the papers to do my thing, which made everything take longer for everyone. If we didn’t have copies or verified things correctly, the dealership could get crazy fines or even get shut down by the state.
So naturally, I almost always went back and asked questions, like ‘Can you send me the picture you pulled this information from?’ or ‘This document is expired/doesn’t have the correct information on it/is missing, do you have an updated version?’
Well, one day they had a deal that needed to be retyped for the third time for reasons that were completely outside of my control, and later wanted to give a temporary license plate to a customer, even though the state system was shut down (which they had announced weeks in advance) and due to state regulation there was literally no way to produce a temporary plate without this online system that was shut down.
Less than a week later I get told that I will be getting fired because ‘we need someone who has a good rapport with the salespeople.’So not only did I get fired for actually doing my job and making the salespeople do theirs, but I had to keep going back to a job that had basically already fired me because my end date was open-ended whenever they found a replacement for me. So if I left any earlier, I would have technically been quitting and would have been ineligible for unemployment.”
His Boss Had A Tantrum
“I got fired from Sonic when I told them I was no longer going to be available for last-minute call-ins because I’d gotten a second job. My boss was not happy, because I lived the closest.
So he stormed off and started screaming, ‘Guess this is your last day! I hope you’re happy!’
I tried to clarify that I’d still be available for set shifts, I just wouldn’t be On-Call anymore. He screamed at me to shut up. I hadn’t clocked in yet, and I could sense a tantrum so I asked if I should even bother clocking in. He threw a burger at me and told me to get the heck out. So I did. They had a Drive-Thru line wrapped around the building, and I was the only non-family employee on until three in the afternoon.”
“He Has Eight Kids”
“My pest control guy told me a story about how he lost a customer. She was asking him about his family, and he said that he has eight kids.
She replied in a disdainful tone, ‘You know how that happens, right?’
He said, ‘Yeah, my wife is beautiful.’
She flipped out. She fired him as her pest guy, complained to the woman who’d recommended him, and went on Facebook/Google to say he’d been talking to her about his ‘love’ life and was extremely inappropriate. Like, there was no way he could have won. She wanted to insult him for the size of his family and didn’t like that he had a comeback.
He’s actually a really cool dude and his company does well so he can absolutely support his big family, so more power to him.”
Sixteen-Year-Old Thief?
“I worked at Best Buy in the mid-90s when I was 16. I worked selling computers and was pretty good at it. We also sold things like memory cards and hard drives that were in the back, locked, and keyed. Part of our job was to take the tagged inventory from the trucks and put it on the shelves. This included the said memory cards.
So I closed one night, putting away all the new inventory, locking it up, and handing the keys to the manager. They did their checks of our department and we left for the night. The next day I was scheduled, I went in and the loss prevention manager said he had me on video stealing memory cards.
I laughed and said, ‘Show me the video.’
Well, I’m somewhat tall, with red hair, and white. The video he showed me had an older, very short, white guy with a shaved head. He told me that it was me and that I was fired. He only showed me the video once, and immediately turned off the monitor. Being 16, I didn’t know any better, so I said some things on my way out, like ‘Up yours. This place sucks,’ and then I left.
Turns out the loss prevention guy, and his son was stealing for years to the tune of over $250,000. The guy on the video he showed me was his son. Anytime problems popped up of missing inventory, they just fired a random person to keep the attention away from themselves. When police arrested them, their house was loaded with televisions, computers, everything from the store.”
Only One Customer Complaint
“I worked in a convenience store, so of course I handled cash all day long. Cash also dries the heck out of my hands for some reason, so instead of wearing latex gloves, I wore batting gloves. I did this for months until some customer said something, and I was told to take them off. I explained that they helped me do my job better, but the manager wouldn’t listen. I went a day without them and it was maddening. I went back to wearing them and was fired a couple of days later for ‘insubordination.’
I ended up working at another store in the same chain with a former assistant store manager/now manager, and I never had a single complaint about my gloves the two years I was there.”
All Over A Furby
“Basically I got fired for ‘stealing’ an original Furby back in the day by putting it into layaway. The end of my shift came, there was a special edition, Furby, at my register so I put it in layaway before they closed up.
Three days later which was my next day at work, I was called into the office halfway through my shift and was accused of theft and fired.
I asked them point-blank, ‘How on Earth can you fire me for theft when the item is sitting in the store?’
They claimed I back stocked the item for myself by telling people it was on hold, which I never happened. They demanded that I get it out of layaway and return it. I told them to get lost, went to pay it off since it was payday, and walked out of the store.
There was a cop outside that they flagged down and told him I stole the item. The cop asked for my receipt which I gave to him with a huge smile on my face. The manager was still out in the parking lot talking to the cop as I drove by and flipped him off.”
Sore Loser
“I got a middle-level position at the company where they boasted at how family orientated they are. They are the kind of company that has a small arcade, putt-putt, and ping-pong table and encouraged people to relax and play them. After a month of being there, I decided to play some co-workers in ping pong since I’m pretty decent at it. The owner and his son ended up walking through the doors and saw me playing and challenged me. I played the son and absolutely demolished him. He got extremely upset and walked away after throwing the paddle at me. Later that week, I was fired for not fitting the culture.”
