Although most employees are honest and trustworthy, occasionally there will be one whose behaviour just blows your mind.
The site
Reddit posted a call-out to bosses, asking them to share stories of the stupidest thing they’d ever had to fire someone for. The answers were astounding.
Here are some of our favourites:
- “This guy always tried to hide at work to avoid working. One day I was looking for him and I stepped into the bathroom. I notice a shoe print on the back of the toilet, and I look up and one of the ceiling tiles is pushed a little to the side. I climb up there, and this f***** is hiding in the ceiling.”
- “One of my maintenance guys tried to stab a guy over a bag of dirt. Company dirt. DIRT.”
- “Manager at a delivery joint here, we had to let someone go because they decided to deliver pizzas in a stolen car.
- “I was managing a restaurant and did morning cash out (I checked all slips against the information in the computer). I noticed a new hire had really good tip averages the day before when I had been paying her out. The next day I was going through her slips and noticed a discrepancy. Mainly that she had added a one in front of each tip and changed the total. How could I tell, you ask? SHE USED DIFFERENT COLOUR INK! She was fired and we refunded the money... seriously, at least use the same colour ink.”
- “Couple [of] years ago the place I worked announced that they were going to go through everyone's browser history and anyone who had visited a porn site would be fired. They did the review, and announced that everyone who had visited a porn site would be warned. Apparently, losing that many people all at once would have left us badly understaffed in some areas.”
- “Receptionist who forgot to wear pants. I was at a satellite office and had four employees call me separately to let me know. There were some previous issues, plus they were pretty sure she was on something.”
- “A couple of coworkers decided to start dealing cocaine at the hospital we worked at, and thought using the internal email system was a good way to keep in touch with customers.”
- “I worked in a fast food kiosk in an amusement park. We had a machine that cooked our burgers and toasted our buns – one of those ones where the food goes through on a conveyor belt. One day, it was raining. While walking to the kiosk, a girl got wet. So, logically, she took her clothes off and put them through the machine so the heat could dry them. Her shirt caught on fire and set the kitchen sprinklers off. Her shoe forced the two toasting plates in the bun section far apart, creating a large repair bill.”
- “I had to fire a guy because he refused to have any interaction with alcohol. He wanted it removed from the premises completely. I offered to switch him to the office which I thought was reasonable but he refused, saying being in the presence of alcohol insulted his religious sensibilities to put it cleanly. We're a brewery so interaction with alcohol is a given.”
What’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever had to fire an employee for?
