"He Lasted Less Than 45 Minutes": People Are Sharing Stories Where Their Coworkers Got Fired Almost Immediately
Sometimes, people don't last very long on the job — and if you're lucky enough to survive the rat race on your own, you might get to witness some very abrupt departures.
Redditor u/mango-chocolate recently asked the people of Reddit, "What's the quickest way you saw a co-worker get fired?" What follows is a collection of stories of what not to do:
1."In my old law office, a firm-wide email was sent out announcing the arrival of a new employee. We will call him Paul. So Paul decided to reply all to let all of us know that he was aware of our recent legal defeats, that many people should be fired for these failures, and that his hiring was the first good thing our firm had done in years. The dude was a legal assistant right out of college with no experience. A minute after the email went out, I heard a crazy shout and then watched one of the senior partners run past my office towards HR. Five minutes later, Paul walked past with the HR manager and a security escort. He lasted less than 45 minutes."
2."They hired a new manager, they were on-boarding her for her first day. Then I never saw her again and nobody had even mentioned her. After a couple of days, I asked what happened to her; I figured she was working a different shift or she had possibly gotten COVID. Nope — they just caught her smoking crack on camera."
—u/amadeus2490
3."I worked at a bank, we were robbed at gunpoint. One of the tellers was quick to tweet out, 'Woooo, got the rest of the day off!! Feel free to visit me at work with a gun and ski mask anytime!' They were fired upon walking in the next morning."
—u/seastrat
4."They got hired and then fell asleep during a meeting their first day and was asked not to come back."
—u/Snowstorm-3
5."A guy got hired in the first firm I ever worked for, turned up for his first morning at work, and within an hour he emailed the entire company (6,000 people) about his band and their availability for birthdays, weddings, etc. He was dismissed by lunchtime."
6."When I was in high school, I used to do seasonal work at haunted houses which I did for four years. A new guy that they hired was supposed to help with parking. Now, in the three years that I worked at this haunted house, they never once charged people for parking (it was a very dark parking lot off of a cliff, so we had to make sure no one drove off of it trying to park). This cheeky son of bitch started charging people $5 to park. It was only found out after someone complained because they didn't have the money to go in with their friends because they had to pay for parking. I think the guy was only there a couple of hours before he got fired."
—u/rpgmomma8404
7."A server I worked with was adding in her credit card tips and adding a quarter to every tip to charge on the card. A couple people every now and then would notice on their bank statement, and it got to a point where management vetted her receipts one night and the tips she would enter in. They sent her packing ASAP."
—u/wbro322
8."My coworker got promoted to team lead. He poached an employee from my team. Once the employee was reporting to him, he started threatening the employee’s immigration work visa status. Employee goes right to HR. He was Indian, but he wasn't on a visa. Dude went from promoted due to excellent performance to fired for being a racist fuck in about two days."
—u/spoink74
9."I worked at a lotteries company. A guy working in testing got access to production data and printed off some test tickets with some unclaimed winning numbers. He only did low amounts, like $500, and claimed three of them in three completely different locations around town. Of course, the company was really really interested in the story of someone who found a 6-month old lottery ticket and claimed it, but they were even more interested to find it was the same person going to three locations. Needless to say, when they realized the guy actually worked in the company, he got pulled into a room with cops awaiting him."
10."Idiot pressed the emergency stop for fun on his second day at work. The emergency stop that he hit switches off all drives on the 100m-long paper machine. That meant a loss of production for 3-4 hours for the entire paper mill. He was immediately escorted from the factory premises by two colleagues."
—u/daHawkGR
11."Evidently robbed a bank on their lunch break. Came back like nothing happened then the cops showed up and took him down, it was crazy."
12."My newly hired coworker was on her second week of training. She got caught by a supervisor going to town with a vibrator in her cubicle. Like, pants unzipped, muffled moans, etc. I'm 90% sure she just got hired there to check something on her fetish bucket list."
13."Interviewed a guy that was replacing someone who was leaving. He was offered the job and was supposed to start the next day. It just so happened that we were having a going away party for the leaving dude that night, so the new guy was invited as a chance to 'get to know the team.' New guy shows up and proceeds to get absolutely shitfaced and asks the head of HR if she wanted to go back to his place because he 'got a vibe' during the interview process. The next day, the new guy was a no-show, so we were thinking it was a bullet dodged. He shows up just before lunch clearly hungover making up some excuse for being late. Big boss came out and told the guy to GTFO."
—u/tizod
14."One day, Tim announced that he wasn’t paid enough and was going to basically sit at his desk doing nothing until he was paid what he wanted. 20 minutes later, the boss walked in and ask Tim if he could have a word with him. Five minutes later, the boss walked back in and announced that Tim no longer worked there and if there were any questions. There were no questions."
15."I fired someone who decided her second day that she was going to go out to lunch and not come back. The next morning she told everyone all about the shopping she did. She seemed confused about the expectations."
—u/dunwerking
16."Early in my career, I was an engineer on a refinery in the UK, and I was in charge of the QC lab. By law we had to have external independent testing on the refinery fuel products to confirm they complied with government regulations. To work for the testing company, you had to be an adult and had a driving license. The lab had a lot of very nasty chemicals either being tested or used in the testing or cleaning of the oil products. A young girl turned up for the testing company and was dipping her finger into a chemical called phenol and stating that, 'it makes your hand and arm go numb.' Phenol is a severe muscle relaxant and can kill you at very low concentrations. One hour into her employment, we had paramedics on scene monitoring her vitals and was released after eight hours. She didn't last the first hour of the first day and the testing company was fined pretty heavily."
17."I was training this teenage guy who came in on his first day super high. On his first customers he said to the lady he was helping, 'Maaaan, these are some huge knockers you’re carrying!' Yeah he was fired immediately!"
—u/Itward_
18."Someone finally lost their shit at the photocopier. They unplugged it at the wall, opened the door to the fire stairs, and pushed the photocopier down the stairs — the noise and the mess (colored toner spread over five floors worth of stairs) caught everyone's attention. They were escorted out by security immediately."
—u/SplatThaCat
19."As a teenager, I worked at a bowling alley. Within an hour, a new employee was fired because she dropped a ball on a complaining patron’s foot."
And finally...
20."He got caught jerking off into the milk carton in the lunch room fridge."
Got your own stories? See you in the comments!
These entries have been edited for length and clarity.
