Bosses Share The Most Shocking Reasons They’ve Had To Fire Someone
There's more than one way to lose a job - and while this often happens because of downsizing or corporate layoffs, there are occasional firings so explosive that they're hard to forget.
Redditors discussed some of the absolute weirdest and most unhinged reasons they've had to fire an employee - and the answers are equal parts hilarious, disturbing, and bizarre.
Downright Diabolical
Nurse here, first job was in a nursing home. One resident told me there was a devil in the window and it kept scaring her. I thought dementia. Walked in the room just as a person in a devil mask slammed themselves against the window."
"I ran outside and tackled them and pulled off the mask a la Scooby Doo. It was one of the CNAs. He thought that giving her a heart attack would be fair retribution for her being a little cranky when he took vital signs."
Who Needs the Whole Bird?
"We had a kid that worked at the deli in the supermarket from my home town who was fired after he ate all the skin off of every rotisserie chicken they had."
"Like the episode of South Park where Cartman eats all the skin off the KFC chicken and Kenny just puts his head down and cries."
Didn't Think that Through...
"Sister had to fire my aunt. She got her a job at a call center for a cable provider. Aunt decided she didn't want to work for a few days, called in and said her husband died."
"Sister found out when co workers were pooling money to send flowers...It did not end well. Uncle never knew he died!"
He Was Curious
"My wife had to fire a Guitar Center employee, because he came to work late. His excuse? He was wired all night from smoking catnip. He wanted to feel what cats feel."
"Most common use of catnip in humans is tea form for relaxation but dear god does it taste like hell."
Too Fast, Too Furious
"I wasn't a boss at the time but I had a co-worker that decided to leave work on the clock to pick up his friend."
"About an hour goes by and the store gets a call; it was my co-worker, he had to explain to management that he was in the back of a cop car for drag-racing. The funny part is management had no idea he had left."
Built Wendy's Tough
"When I was 17 I worked at Wendy's and one night one of my coworkers had a really bad asthma attack in the back room... the manager insisted that no one call for an ambulance because the company would be liable, after about 10 minutes of this girl gasping for breath on the floor I picked her up and took her to the ER where they gave her a shot of something to fix it."
"When I got back to work they fired me for leaving during my shift... I didn't even fight it that was the worst job I've ever had."
Casual Workplace
"A coworker of mine got fired for greeting another coworker with "what up blood". A customer overheard him and got him reported."
"I got suspended once for not telling a guest with a peanut allergy that a peanut-butter cookie has peanuts."
Did They Even Want the Job?
"For posting "I hate my new job" on his first day, on facebook, using an office computer, while he was supposed to be working."
"Pro Tip: Do not add you boss on facebook on your first day."
Living on the Edge
"Guy was skimming ATM cash backs (selecting cash back on debit and pocketing it, people in that area were rich, they never noticed.) eventually he did it to two mall employees and refused to give them receipts and got canned."
"He got caught over $20. He said on his way out the door that he had made $6k."
So Many Questions
"Had to fire a guy less than a week after he started. This was back in the late 90s and he was supposed to be writing some HTML."
"Instead, he took apart the desktop we gave him, laid out all the parts and started airblowing them ... day after day."
True to Himself
"I was a manger at a McDonald's once...we had to fire someone for carving 'SLAYER' on the bathroom wall. When confronted, the kid apparently responded: 'Of course I did it, Slayer rules.'"
"That guy has upper management written all over him."
The Ol' Soda/Grief Trick
"Had a friend who worked at a fine grocery store deli, new employee starts, and on that guys shift, goes up to said friend at the deli, orders food for lunch, tells my friend how his wife died, he lost his job back in another city, etc etc, very sad stuff, my friend feels so bad, gives him a soda for free."
"The new employee was really the new manager, who for two weeks spied on everyone and pretty much entrapped people and then fired them after those few weeks."
Don't Hire a Blacksmith if You Can't Take the Heat
"I volunteered at a museum as a blacksmith. I was 'fired' (was never paid, but they said never come back) for starting a fire in the blacksmith pit. I guess I was just supposed to hit room temperature iron?"
"'We want you to be our blacksmith, but you can't actually heat the metal.' Sounds like a challenge to me."
Living His Dream
"Guy at my job got fired for clocking in, going into the attic, slept for a couple of hours then starting work. At first we thought someone was punching in for him, but nope, he just didn't like being awake in the morning."
"We found a full size mattress, candles and some snacks up in the attic.... Lol... Till this day that stuff is still up in the attic..."
Who Can Resist DQ?
"Fired a girl for hiding in a walking cooler and eating candy right out of the box with bare hands.(managed a DQ)."
"I walked in, caught her with her hands literally in the cookie jar...and she still tried to deny it. Ahhh...gotta love fast food."
A Bold Gambit
"Let's just say that if you're at a company party, and you feel like you just have to lick someone's face without their permission, then don't make it the chief of HR."
"'Lick face' is not euphemism here. Mid conversation start licking her face like a lollipop. In front of people."
The Worst Crime of All
"Fired a girl not because she consistently showed up 15 minutes lates w/o notice, or falsified her hours worked, or threatened other employees to cover for her tardiness, laziness, and general incompetence."
"No, she was fired because she would not stop singing. She was a theater major and felt the need to sing ALL THE TIME. Show tunes, mostly. When asked to not sing as it annoyed others she said us telling her she can't sing is us telling her to shut up, and that's harassment."
Too Much Evidence
"I worked for a shipping company and on of the van loaders got fired for stealing jelly beans. When he was brought into the office they found jelly beans in his pants, pockets, shirt pocket, and even in his boots!"
"I missed that episode of Hoarders: The Jellybean Edition."
Can Really Go Either Way
"My buddy got fired for pretending a cardboard box was a car instead of cooking... I miss him."
"When I was a dish washer I once used the boxes to build a robot suit and spent my shift only saying 'Beep beep boop.'"
A Great Game Either Way
"Couple years ago some coworkers of mine brought an Xbox and hooked it up to the security camera monitor. They played for a full shift and decided to leave it there overnight, the same night there was a robbery and $40,000 worth of band instruments were stolen."
"Anyways the store owner came, and he and the cops turned on the security monitor to find the GTA4 pause screen, and no footage of the robbery recorded."
A Big Risk
"Worked at an indoor sports complex, doing camps, birthday parties, and running the concession stand."
"We had to fire one of our workers because he was taking soda cups and filling them with beer from the kegs in the back while working so he could drink on the job...he was 15."
A Tad Witchy
"Ended up firing a 52 year old woman I had working nights. I would come in and there would be a strange smell and i never could figure out what it was."
"So i put a camera in the back room. Turns out she was Wiccan and was drawing pentagrams (?) in bath salts and herbs with 3 of her fellows and lighting small fires with herbs."
At Least Eat the Evidence
"A girl at a gas station got fired for stealing a sausage biscuit. She went to the bathroom to eat it, and tried flushing the evidence. Ended up stopping the toilet up with the biscuit and plastic wrapper."
"Manager comes in to find the employee freaking out with an overflowing toilet with biscuit pieces all over the floor."
Stooping Low
"When I managed a pool, we had a person who was taking money from the till, but it didn't make any sense, because it was a neighborhood pool and we made like 5.00-20.00 a day as it was, because kids could get in free under a lot of circumstances."
"Having the money low was just ridiculous. I thought maybe she was drinking on the job."
Full Rampage
"Well, my boss got fired for showing up to a company thrown party at a local bar and grill completely drunk. He ruined a small child's cake, yelled at the bartender, attempted to get in his car to drive home."
"So after all of this, he gets back to his house because his girlfriend, who is our store personal director's sister, came to pick him up. He punched her in the jaw and she subsequently smashed a lamp over his head and called the cops."
That Should Clear Things Up
"20-year-old doesn't show or call in on Monday or Tuesday."
"Wednesday, he shows up 2 hours late with a note from his mother that reads: 'Dear Mr. _____, Please excuse Kyle's absence on Monday and Tuesday as he was ill. Sincerely, Mrs. ________.'"
Different Grandmas?
"My mom had a coworker who called in to say she had to miss work because her grandmother had died. Literally three days later, she called in to say that her grandmother had taken a turn for the worse."
"I mean, it could have been her other grandma, but she was fired nonetheless."
Fired For Her Beliefs
"A former coworker got themselves fired by cutting a pizza into a pentagram shape and writing 'Satan is lord' on the inside of the pizza box."
"Manager was waiting in the parking lot to fire them when that person returned from the delivery."
At Least They Explained Things
"Two employees at one restaurant in my area, back in the day, had to be let go because they threw pizza dough over a fence and pegged a young professional at the coffee shop next door."
"When I asked what they were doing, they told me they were having a 'dough fight.'"
Try a Different Store Next Time
"It was a couple of months ago, but a co-worker of mine (we worked at a local supermarket) called in sick one day, only to show up at work the very same day to buy some groceries."
"Turns out the manager saw him in person, and fired him on the spot."
