Starting this off myself, there was one fella at my current job who bought vodka at a liquor store during his lunch break, poured heaps of it into his soda from a fast food joint, and wound up getting fired when they noticed him getting drunk as hell.
That was before I started working here, but coincidentally I met him at my other job!
My wife had a guy start at her company the same day she did, but he got fired that same day because for reasons no one understands he decided it would be wise to make his Teams (or whatever they used. Slack? I can’t remember) profile picture a meme that said “Epstein didn’t kill himself” or something to that effect.
It was a six figure software engineering job, too. I cannot imagine losing a job like that for such a silly, self-inflicted reason.
At my last job some intern burst into Slack calling everyone “mald” for disagreeing with his sexist memes. That whole event was just a couple of hours.
A couple times now at my current job they’ve hired someone, only to have them just not show up on their agreed first day with no communication. I’m guessing they just got a different job they like more or something, but still, I’d imagine one usually at least tells people not to expect you, under that circumstance?
I worked at a pet shop for two glorious days not knowing that I was the backup in case the boss’ nephew was accepted into his preferred college program. He was not accepted so I got the boot to make room for him on the team.
The manager doubled my first/ only paycheque because she felt bad. I’m still bitter 17 years later
An old restaurant I worked at hired a new chef. He came in, completely rearranged the kitchen, changed the menu top to bottom ON HIS FIRST DAY, and introduced a bunch of complicated specials. Dinner service hits, chaos ensues and dude disappears.
I was on expo watching everything fall apart when one of the line cooks is like, “get chef,I don’t know how to make this special because there’s no recipe or notes”
I go into the walk in and he’s haunched over in there and violently turns, around inhaling, all bug eyed. I told him we needed help. He doesn’t hide his annoyance goes on the line, makes the one dish in question and is like, “see, that wasn’t difficult” and disappeared again.
The line cook asked why I had the look on my face that I did and I said it was because chef was doing rails in the walk in. We both laughed, shook our heads and got through service eventually. Drugs are pretty common in the service industry but even that seemed extreme.
Anyhow we didn’t see him for the rest of the night. Next day, I get to work and the owner is there and he pulls me aside and told me what happened after. Owner didn’t even know he’d been snorting shit during the dinner rush
Chef continued his one man party and went into the booze closet and proceeded to help himself. When the prep cook showed up the next morning the kitchen door was wide open so she called the police thinking the place had been robbed. The police went in and found Chef semi conscious and incoherent, giggling in the office. He was fired and since he was a keyholder all the locks and alarm codes had to be changed
I’ve never seen someone self destruct that spectacularly.
To have been a fly on the wall when they called the other guy chef beat out for the gig and told him he could start immediately…
I have a couple from the a warehouse job I worked at when I was 16. That place was wild lmao
- Fired from unplugging security cameras to charge his phone
- 30yo man harassing a 17yo girl
- That man’s wife fighting the 17yo girl for “flirting” with her husband even though she wasn’t
- Got on top of some shelves and took a nap. These shelves are really tall and you need a lift to get on top of them
These weren’t on their first day, but I thought they are worth mentioning
- Racing during lunch in the parking lot
- 10+ person brawl in the parking lot over a guy stealing another guy’s girlfriend
- A guy left his keys in his car so another guy just broke the window. He said he thought it was funny and that he got the bit from a movie, tv, or comedian or something
- A couple people got caught taking lunch on top of the shelves in a corner because the lunchroom was too loud. They also had a bed up there made up bubble wrap and yoga mats
- Going full speed into a door with a forklift while the forks were fully lifted
- Doing BMX tricks off the truck dock. I think people were riding skateboards off it too but I can’t remember 100%
That’s all the entertaining ones I can think of right now lol
There was some TV show in the 2000s that was a workplace drama / comedy set in a warehouse (or like a Costco?) and I remember something about two characters making like a hide-out at the top of some shelves. Does anyone remember the name of that show?
This is a subplot in The Office.
Back in 2007 I worked in an office that required basic MS Excel / Word competency. The office manager led her to her desk and instructed her to turn on her computer (nothing fancy, a basic workstation with a large round button).
She couldn’t figure out how to turn it on. The office manager sent her home and she never came back.
One time someone showed up to work that was clearly different than the person from the interview. They never even got their badge.
It was one of the phlebotomists (person who draws blood) at the hospital I worked at.
It was her first day going off on her own. She accidentally went to the wrong floor/area that morning. She drew many patients’ blood that morning for the morning blood draws. The entire time she was there, she did not double check even a single patient’s name at any point. They were all wrong. All were mislabeled. All patients had to be re-drawn and she was fired for gross negligence.
Things happen and I’ve seen things get mislabeled many tines before. It’s not good obviously. But if you do it once and no one ended up getting hurt, you just get reprimanded and move on. You generally don’t get fired for a one off. But never before or after have I seen that level of mislabeling.
I was a contacted technician at a retail store. They hired a new salesperson, immediately gave me weird vibes. On his lunch break, he came over to show me what I thought was going to be a meme on his phone - it was porn.
He was asked not to return for a second shift.
On the technicians line of an electronics manufacturing facility, had a new hire come in on his first day. He was friendly. So much so that he wanted to use my workstation to log into his Yahoo mail and show me some pictures some female sent him. He calls up the photos and it’s full nudity real big on my computer monitor. I tell him “dude, we can’t have porn at work, close that out.” He panics and turns off the monitor. At some point I have to turn the monitor and close out of the browser, when no one is looking.
He was showing a pretty inattentiveness to his first day on the job training just not seeming to want to have anything to do that’s any kind of actual work.
Before the lunch break, he announced that he’s going to the restroom, then is never seen again. All I could tell the supervisor was that he said he was going to the restroom hours ago then haven’t seen him since.
Ctrl+W closes the current tab in most modern browsers. For the future.
Sometimes I wonder how some people get hired.
