And you thought you were having a bad day
Before he ascended into the White House, one of Donald Trump’s many claims to fame was firing wannabe executives on TV.
Even the memory of watching The Apprentice sends chills down employees’ spines – sweating palms, nervous glances, rambling, desperate monologues.
Losing your job can be a harrowing, humiliating, experience. But it doesn’t necessarily signal the end of a career. In fact, a report from HBR found that 78% of fired executives eventually make it to the CEO position. Loosing your job can signal a period of change – a time to upskill, try a new career or simply find your passions in life – it’s never as final, or as gloomy, as it first seems.
That being said – it doesn’t make it any easier for the employee on the other side of the desk. HRD scoured the web to find some of the worst examples of termination (and you thought you were having a bad day…).
Divide and conquer
“Once when I worked in an office, they told us that we had to visit "corporate" for a presentation about sexual harassment in the office. We were broken into groups to go on different days. Monday - Thursday, the groups got a video on harassment. The Friday group got fired en masse. The whole thing was a set up.”
Surgery
“One capable IT employee was in the hospital due to an unexpected health emergency. They went to the hospital and fired him before his heart surgery.”
Bye-bye bagels
“It was my GM's birthday, and we all had to pick names out of a hat, and we had to buy them a cake etc. for their birthday. Well I had the GM, who wanted to do his birthday in the morning with bagels. So, I picked up 30+ bagels, cream cheese, giant thing of coffee, and we had this stupid bagel birthday thing or whatever. Half hour later I get back to my desk, I'm called to HR and I was fired. Oh, and thanks for the bagels.”
Labour pains
“Was fired three days after my kid was born for missing time because I requested the weekend that my ex was in labour off. Got the go ahead from my supervisor, but I guess that never made it upstairs to the top boss because they got rid of me.”
Passing the buck
“My mom worked for a small medical practice that was fast on its way to bankruptcy. Her boss gave her a promotion without raise and over the course of the next year, made her fire her coworkers one by one. She came to realize the reason she was "promoted" was so her boss could make her do the firing while he avoided everyone.
“Her co-workers saw what was happening, but still drifted away from their friendships with my mom as they saw her as an accomplice with the boss. The stress of firing her peers and feeling completely isolated at work was really eating away at my mom right up until the day her boss fired her, too.”
