32 "Getting Fired" Stories That Are Equal Parts Infuriating And Ridiculous
Jobs are a hot topic lately, from claims that "no one wants to work," disputes over minimum wage, and just a lot of comments from out-of-touch rich people.
Recently, we rounded up all the ridiculous ways people were fired/stupid things they were fired over. Y'all in the BuzzFeed Community had so many more submissions in the comments of that post, so we're back for more.
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Here are 32 more infuriating stories of people getting fired.
1."Many years ago (over 30) I was fired from my job in a nursing home. The residents found my pregnant condition too offensive because I was unmarried."
2."I worked at a pretty popular brunch/lunch chain as a hostess, got along great with all of my coworkers. [I] regularly got told how great I was at multitasking (bussing, managing the weekend waitlist, arranging for big parties, keeping the wait time down), [and] was told I was the best hostess they'd had in a while. [I] got fired after about six months because a guy who regularly came in with his giant party of a family (usually 10–13 people) on Sundays after church during peak wait time thought I didn't smile at him enough."
3."As a late teen, I worked at a tattoo shop as a receptionist one day a week (they only needed someone one day, as the rest of the week the piercer also did reception). One day the guy who owned the shop and I were out back having a break when he pushed me up against the wall and tried to kiss me. I managed to get away, finished my shift, and went home upset and confused. This dude had a wife and kids. He texted me a few days later saying they needed someone who could work more days and fired me."
"I was halfway through a sleeve from that guy. Looking at it reminded me of the situation [and] made me sad and angry. I've been slowly working on a cover-up the past few years so I don't have a constant reminder."
4."I worked as a contractor for a hideous little man who is the Pictionary definition example of a 'toxic boss.' He takes the prize for being the most obnoxious, unprofessional, asinine, contemptible little man that I have known in my life, and I have known quite a few. I put up with his crap for 100 days and asked him to put me on benefits with my company. His answer was to lay me off. Jerk."
"I called back next week to visit with a work friend I had there, and he told me I got laid off to make room for him to hire in as a staff hire his nephew who had just graduated from tech school and needed a job. He had a different last name, so he got away with this shameless nepotism in violation of company policies. What a certifiable JERK!"
5."Worked at a nursing home. I was still a new hire, about a month in, and pretty much everyone I'd started working with had already quit one week in (RED FLAG). I was working double shifts to fill in and had to go to the ER one night because of a sudden illness — I got fired the next day by a temp who had an attitude over my emergency."
"I walked out. I was done covering and dealing with the BS. I had another job three days later."
6."I had to take some time off for a back injury. It was a food service job that was completely on my feet, and I literally couldn't stand up for more than 30 minutes. Had a doctor's note and everything. Was in regular contact with my manager about when I could return and what day I'd be coming back. I was told I was the closing shift, which had always started at 4:30 p.m. When I go there at 4:15, I was told I wasn't needed any longer, and my last check was taped to the back counter. Turns out they had changed the shift time to 4 and not told me. I was terminated for being a no-call/no-show."
7."I’d been estranged from my 'family' since I was 14. Started working at a social service office when I was 19. One of the caseworkers started dating my now-widowed ex-father. I thought nothing of it since my job didn’t involve much contact with this woman. I got fired for coming in ONE MINUTE LATE during a major ice storm. A coworker calked me later that day to tell me she was sorry, and I’d really been fired because my supervisor had been told about the family rift by the caseworker."
"Supervisor said she 'knew' I was lying about my abusive father because she is also an adoptive parent so she knows adoptive parents never abuse their children, and if I lie about that I will lie about other things too!"
8."Learned my lesson the hard way about signing on to a position with a 90-day trial period. Never again, as they use this to screw you over with pants on. We were opening a retail store that required long prep times, stocking, and display work. This is where that 90-day period is worked to their advantage — on the 88th day, I was let go and booted out the door. Came to find out that because I had greater knowledge and experience in the industry, the manager saw me as a threat and got rid of me."
"I had the last laugh, though. Two months after I was let go, that manager was dismissed. Three years after THAT, the company closed all their locations in my state, for exactly the reasons I said they would years before."
9."I worked at an airport terminal fast-food chain making $10 an hour. Once a customer tipped me $8. We weren't supposed to accept tips, but sometimes customers would be like, 'No please, take the change.' Anyway, I was tipped $8, and the manager fired me over the $8 at the end of my shift."
"It ended up being a blessing in disguise because I finally left fast food after this and moved onto waiting/bartending. I still think about those $8 and how much they meant to me owning my worth that day."
10."I worked at a downtown club where Bret Michaels was coming with his reality show Rock of Love. The week before they were supposed to arrive, the manager gathered us all together and gave us thong bikinis (like barely enough fabric to cover a nipple) and said that was our dress code for that night. I refused, and she let me go."
"I was the only person that put up an argument. Sad that people who are good at their jobs that work in that industry get overlooked or let go all the time for shit like that, and the others that can’t afford to lose the job are forced to compromise their dignity."
11."I used to bartend part time to earn extra cash on top of my full-time job. I worked one shift a week: the Wednesday night shift. It was always super busy, but they would always staff me solo (no other bartender or barback) because 'Wednesdays are traditionally slow.' I went on vacation, and the bar owner called me WHILE I WAS IN PARIS to fire me because they 'needed someone who could actually handle a normal crowd.' PS: They ended up giving the Wednesday night shift to another, more experienced bartender. After she worked the first one alone and got slammed, she went to the owner and told him that it was too busy to handle solo. And they ended up staffing a barback on Wednesday nights."
12."My university fired over 100 professors last April in group Zoom calls to make things faster, and because the school had applied for creditor protection due to being almost bankrupt, they were allowed to break contracts to do this, so nobody was prepared, and many were struggling right at the end. And they were still expected to continue working, grading assignments and final exams, through the end of the month."
"Many just gave every single one of their students A's and didn't grade a thing. The uni also refused them references if they applied for another job elsewhere. The group firings were the result of the university also cutting 70 programs and scaling back faculty in remaining programs."
13."I worked at an assisted living [home], and my boss was pregnant and going to be going on maternity leave. I took on half of her responsibilities while she was gone and was promised extra pay. I was never paid for any of it. ... She came back. Down the line we had 'anonymous' job satisfaction surveys, and I mentioned in mine about being promised pay I never received. Then they wanted us to fill out the same survey again (I think it was to figure out who wrote the negative survey). Then suddenly I was called to the administrator's office, being told I was being placed on PIP and they would be meeting with me weekly to discuss it. When I asked what I was doing wrong, they couldn’t give me any examples. My follow-up meeting came, and I was told what a great job I was doing, and every meeting after was canceled. Then a few weeks later I was fired 'because I didn’t seem happy.'"
"Then they said, 'Oh, remember your PIP?' And I said, 'You mean the meeting you said I was doing great and never followed up?' They then had me escorted out of the building like I was a criminal. When residents asked where I was, they told them I quit and walked out. So I started writing to all my residents who I was close with and let them know what really happened. It was the most toxic place ever."
14."I was fired while on sick leave after surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in my uterus. My boss had repeatedly told me that he didn’t believe I had cancer."
15."I was fired without being told I was fired at a skating rink like eight years ago. I worked at the snack bar. One day, the slushy machine needed to be filled. I had never filled it before, so I didn’t know where the mix was, because I was never shown. The owner, a woman in her 60s, went off on me for no reason because I didn’t know. When I came in the next time to pick up my paycheck, I just wasn’t on the next schedule, and she didn’t speak to me. I was a good employee...so I have no idea what that was about."
16."I used to work at a department store as an associate for the holidays, so I knew I was temporary. How I figured out that I was let go was I went in on the day I was scheduled to work, tried putting in my associate numbers in order to clock in, and found that they took my numbers out of their system. Come like five minutes, a shit ton of tears and ugly sobbing, and a phone call to my boss later, I find out that they had made the decision to let me go the previous day, when I had the day off, and no one had the decency to call me in and then forgot that I was scheduled that day."
"Note to all employers: When deciding the fate of a temporary hire, or just anyone in general, call that employee and schedule a meeting. Don’t be a dick and let them find out the hard way."
17."I was hired per diem by a county long-term care facility last year. [I] couldn’t start when they wanted me to because I ended up with a bad case of COVID, and when my orientation started I ended up in the hospital with another upper respiratory infection and found out I had a mild heart attack. They fired me because I called out twice during orientation, even though they had record of me being sick and hospitalized."
18."I worked for a family as a housekeeper for three years. However, they would cancel on me a lot last minute. The one time in three years I had to call out sick, they fired me because they said, 'I lied and called out to teach them a lesson.' I did not; I was legit sick."
"They were the worst. One year for my holiday bonus they gave me a half used bottle of perfume with a tester sticker on it that the mom admitted she stole from Bloomingdale’s."
19."I had been working at an escape room part time for nearly a year, and most of my coworkers were a fair bit younger, and the owners tried to take advantage of that. They loved to call staff meetings but try not to pay people for them (law is they have to pay three hours minimum), but I always advised the others to mark it on their pay sheets. Their other favorite would be to schedule two people for a shift, and call one about a half hour before starting to let them know not to come in (also against the law). Anywho, I would call these things out, and then one evening at like 8 p.m. one of the owners texts me, asking me if he can come over (excuse me...?!?!) and I said no, obviously. Next day I got a text stating that I'm 'not a team player,' and it's not going to work out, and if I didn't bring my keys back immediately, they would not be paying me."
"Surprise, surprise, so many parts of that are against the law! I let him know all of the things that were incredibly wrong about what he was saying, advised him to study up on employment law, and threw the keys in the trash. Legally, they didn't even have a right to garnish my check for those keys, LOL. Got all my money soon after, and the business is currently for sale. Feels petty but good."
20."I found out I was getting fired when I was accidentally cc’d on the email discussing my termination the next day. It took them over two hours to figure out that they had accidentally sent it to me. I wish I was making this up."
21."I worked at a pizza place in college. It was fine for a while, and I was done at a decent hour. Then I requested a weekend off for an eye doctor appointment. Manager approved it and then scheduled a 'team meeting' for that morning. I told him I absolutely couldn’t change the appointment (as it was 1.5 hours away back at home!!), and he never put me on the schedule again. Found out later it was a THREE-MINUTE MEETING."
22."I worked for a company that worked at various hotels in NYC. Three times within three months I had my cash deposits at the end of my shift go missing. The first two I paid back because they were small, and I didn’t want to lose my job. The third time, however, it was $900. My boss called me on Christmas Eve SCREAMING at me about losing the money and told me either I had to pay them back or be fired. I asked him if he could look at the security footage, and he told me no. I told him I wasn’t paying it back, and I was fired. On freaking Christmas. Weeks later, a coworker messaged me and said they figured out my other coworker had figured out how to get into the safe and had been stealing the money."
23."I got hired at a cleaning company, and one day I was in a lot of physical pain, but I still decided to come into work. The pain was debilitating, and I couldn’t do my job fast enough, and I was also having a horrible mental health day. I asked if I could go home early to take a day to rest, and they said it was fine. The following week my boss gave me no work and ignored all of my messages, and one day out of the blue she texted me saying, 'Sorry, but it’s not working out.'"
"The funny thing is they told me in the beginning that it’s totally fine to take a day for mental/physical health reasons. They lied to me. They didn’t give a single shit about my health at all."
24."I worked as a teacher at a small public school in a very rural and poor part of Louisiana that served K–12. It was my first year teaching after switching careers, and I got very little feedback throughout the year. This was the kind of school that had only three Black students in the entire middle school, and said a prayer over the intercom every morning. Saying this school was conservative is an understatement. When I was hired, I jokingly said that my own private school experience cured me of religion and was told by my boss to never say that on campus again. And she was serious. Anyway, fast-forward to the end of the school year, and things have been going well, mostly. There have been a couple of issues because I didn’t require my eighth-grade students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. And I spent a day answering their questions and giving them a safe space to talk after the January 6 riot in DC."
"Anyway, the principal came into my classroom about four weeks before the end of the year, after having previously reassured me that I would be re-hired for the following year, to tell me that I wasn’t a good fit and they wanted to allow me to explore other options. But she graciously gave me the opportunity to re-interview for the position I already had. I was also eight weeks pregnant, and she knew it. I took the weekend to think about it and decided that I didn’t want to continue to work at a school that obviously didn’t value me, so I told her that I was not planning on returning for the next school year. I later found out that my replacement was the daughter of another teacher at the school who was more in line with their values. I’m sure we’re all shocked."
25."I worked at the Happiest Place on Earth when I was 16. I worked in a restaurant where it was more of a cafeteria style. One night while closing up, the cooks in the back kitchen decided to remove the rubber floor mats and hose down the super-slimy floor during closing duties, instead of at the end of the night. I came around the corner holding a full pot of steaming hot spaghetti sauce, slipped on the floor, landed on my wrist and my knee, tweaked my back, and landed covered in hot sauce. My wrist was broken, and my knee was swollen and very bruised (I also had multiple other bruises from the fall). They made me sign paperwork that I would only see THEIR doctor and continued to schedule my very needed doctor appointments and physical therapy appointments during my work shifts so I would have to choose which one to go to. They fired me when I missed 3+ shifts even, though I was scheduled for physical therapy literally on site at THEIR doctors facility and they knew about it."
26."[A Disney park] fired my friend years ago for saying 'shit.' He was in a back area nowhere near visitors, but another employee heard and told on him."
27."My first job out of college was awful. It was a temp job with potential to hire. The job itself was boring and way too easy. I usually got everything done for the day within a few hours and would spend the rest of the day looking for extra tasks to do. But there was a catch. My supervisor had warned me not to let the boss know that I was getting everything done so quickly and looking for more work because she wouldn’t be happy about it. So I was literally told to just shuffle papers on my desk all day so that it looked like I was working. We also were not allowed to talk socially to co-workers during the day or have our phones out. I worked there for about two months before I accidentally left my phone out on my desk one morning. I wasn’t using it or even touching it; I just forgot to put it in my bag. The boss walked by, saw it, and told me phones were not allowed. Got a phone call that night that I was 'no longer needed.'"
28."I worked in a casino. We have a policy that you can't date a co-worker when someone's in a higher role than the other. I slept with a coworker who is in the same role as I am. His ex got mad when she found out and emailed our human resources pretending to be him telling them about it. After an investigation, I was walked out for severe misconduct, and he kept his job. I sued, won the case, got my job back, and coming back they made me feel like a predator. Like this older man who has been there longer was taken advantage of by me. It was the absolute worst feeling in the world."
29."I was a seasonal employee at a retail store. ... The management wouldn’t send out schedules. They printed out the schedule on a piece of paper, and you had two ways of checking it: asking a manager for it in person or calling to ask what your shift was. ... One day...I called the store to ask for my shifts, and the manager who picked up said they were too busy and to call back later. ... I called back about an hour later. Still too busy. (By the way, the schedule would have been right next to him since the store only had one phone.) I asked him if he could call me back when they were less busy. He refused. I called back again hours later — still too busy. Eventually, I had to ask a coworker to get the schedule for me, which she sent on her next shift a few days later. About three weeks later...I texted my coworker (who was NOT a manager) to see when my next shift was, and she told me that I had been let go because I missed shifts at work."
"They didn’t even have the decency to call me to tell me I had been let go; they had my friend, not even a manager, tell me. And they claimed it was because I had missed shifts that they wouldn’t tell me I had."
30."My husband worked at a major electronics store for almost two years before being fired one day without notice. He had been late a few times within a six-month window because we had just moved across town and bought a house, and I had gotten pneumonia and was bedridden for weeks within the same couple of months. They had just gotten new upper management for this store, and every time he was late the sales manager would always tell him it wasn’t a big deal and laugh it off. Well, apparently it was a big deal 'cause he was called in to the back office one day and fired on the spot and told to leave immediately."
"His Team Lead had no idea it was even happening, and he was pissed 'cause my husband was actually a really good employee and a very good salesman. He had some of the best numbers in the store. But the new management needed to show the other employees they were serious, and so my husband was made an example of."
31."I once got fired from an office assistant position for an insurance agency. I was 22 at the time. I had my vacation approved months in advance. The day before I was to return back to work (the day I got back from vacation). I received a letter in the mail stating my position was eliminated on company letter head. I immediately applied for unemployment, which my previous employer tried to block and said I was fired due to misconduct."
"I gave the unemployment office the letter they gave me and was granted unemployment. Honestly that was the best thing that could have happened. I ended up taking a short-term internship that landed me a job in the field I'm in now."
32.And finally..."Back in the mid-'90s, I worked at a Hooters-type establishment. I worked primarily at one location, but would pick up shifts at another location if needed. All was well with that arrangement until I got pregnant. To get rid of me because I was pregnant, my primary location decided to stop scheduling me because they 'didn't know what location I actually wanted to work at.' Then, six weeks into my pregnancy, I got VERY sick. And stayed sick for weeks. They fired me for that. I got an attorney and sued them. Of course I won. Assholes."
Now let's look at the opposite — what's the most massive mistake you've made at work that got you (fairly) fired, or that you should've been fired for? Let us know in the comments below!
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
