'He was putting little notes in the DVD cases at Blockbuster': 25+ Employees who got fired on the spot

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Nov 29, 2023 3:00 PM EST

There was a time when being fired was something to be ashamed of, but these days, companies love to hire and fire expeditiously. It's almost a rite of passage for those who work in retail or fast food. And if it doesn't happen to you, it'll certainly happen to one of your coworkers. 

The thing about customer service jobs is that you unfortunately have to serve customers, a lot of whom have no intentions of ever treating employees with respect. You're supposed to brush off their repeated insults, but it's hard to let someone disrespect you. You really want to talk back to them, but you need to keep that job… If you've ever seen a retail or customer service rep snap, it's usually because they've been pushed to their limits over and over. 

These people below shared the funny and infuriating reasons they got canned from their workplaces. Some quietly left, while others made a scene, but it seems like almost no one regrets their decision. Next up, this dude tried to save a few dollars at the pool store, only to end up turning his wife's hair green. 

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    Cheezburger Image 9843816704
    via Louis Hansel on Unsplash
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    Hey Reddit, what's your best "I got fired on the spot" story?
    via u/hjelpme
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    dgillz Not me but a friend was working in downtown Indy on the 45th floor. He was in IT. Out of the clear blue, on a Friday, they fire him for some made up . He cleaned out his cubicle of personal items and left, determined to go to his neighborhood pub and tie one on. They have a cafeteria on the 40th floor, and having worked there for 8 years, he had gotten to know the people, so he stopped in to say bye. He saw some other people taking an early lunch at the cafeteria that he knew from the 38t
    via u/dgillz
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    and figured out he had been fired. A quick discussion and improptu job interview was set up. He was hired on the spot to start Monday - didn't even have to take his personal stuff home. The best was Monday morning, when he got on the elevator with his old boss, who asked "Where are you going?"
    via u/dgillz
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    "To work", he replied. "Like you are,", the old boss retorted, "I fired you Friday, don't you get that?" "Hey, I didn't say I was going to work for you !" was my friends response. Priceless.
    via u/dgillz
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    MegaWolf A buddy and I worked at a movie theater. He was working one day as a floor supervisor, which meant he was in charge of cleaning up. So this really old woman trips in the hallway and breaks her hip. It's a big ordeal and the ambulance has to come. This woman starts claiming that she stepped on a raisinet and that it was the theaters fault. WHO TRIPS ON A MOTHER CHOCOLATE COVERED RAISIN? So the manager, who was new to the theater, gets worried and decides to suspend my buddy to hopefully
    via u/MegaWolf
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    off about the whole situation and was already getting sick of our new boss so he decides to take a box of raisinets and pourmthem all over the floor in the managers office. He then starts stomping around yelling "Do you see this?! Do you see how they smash when I step on them? It's impossible to trip on a J RAISIN!" Fired on the spot. Worth it.
    via u/MegaWolf
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    Hep ZombieChu My worst job to date. I was working as a game tech for an arcade. My job was supposed to be simple things like fixing ticket jams and token counters, but since I had a basic knowledge of computers and electronics I was usually asked to do the more elaborate things that we normally left for my supervisor who was responsible for actual repairs. It was our busy season and unfortunately we were understaffed. I was asked to work a lock in after having work an open and close shift, but I
    via u/ZombieChu
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    free play for the people who paid to stay over night. By 3 am the owner of the arcade could see that I was physically and mentally exhausted and sent me home early knowing I had the next few days off. I reminded him about the games on free play and he assured me my supervisor would fix them in the morning. Fast forward to 2 days later I come in for my opening shift to find 4 games still set to free play. I ask the owner what other game techs worked while I was off (since I had trained several on
    via u/ZombieChu
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    and I showed him the games still set to free play. Irate the owner then confronted my supervisor reprimanding him for the obvious oversight. Jump forward 5 minutes to the owner went back to his business my supervisor calls me to his office and tells me that since I can't be a team player he's going to fire me. He continues that I should have taken the blame since I was the one who changed them in the first place. Fast forward a few months later I find out that the owner immediately fired my supe
    via u/ZombieChu
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    emilycrossing this happened to a friend. He was putting little notes in the dvd cases at the blockbuster he worked at. just little like things like "hello!" "enjoy the movie!" fired the moment they found out.
    via u/emilycrossing
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    TheTimeLordsWife. I worked at a fast food joint when I was 17. In the middle of my shift I got called into the back office by two managers. They told me (not accused, they presented it as fact) that $300 was missing from a till and that I had stolen it. Being young, and very afraid I bawled my eyes out and just went home. When my mother heard what had happened she was having none of this . Enter super mom.
    via u/TheTimeLordsWife
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    My mother pulled together a bunch of facts and took the fast food chain to the Labour Board and eventually to court for unjust firing. When they fired me they had absolutely no evidence I had committed any crime; no video (there was two cameras in the store and neither of them covered the register in question), any employee on staff had access to the register at any given time, and also I had just gotten paid $700+ for two weeks where I had worked overtime. My mother caused an investigation whic
    via u/TheTimeLordsWife
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    money -- one of the managers who had been present at my firing. I won over $7,000 in settlement, and promptly put it into my university fund. TLDR; Fast Food chain fired me for stealing $300 with zero proof (spoiler: I didn't do it). Super-mom came to my rescue and built me a labour board / court case against the fast food store. Found the real thief, won $7,000 in the process.
    via u/TheTimeLordsWife
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    5 apresmoiledeluge. Not me but a friend. He worked in the same GameStop I did. It was the weekend the Xbox 360 Slim came out. He was scheduled to work that night and the next morning completely alone. He ended up having something in the neighborhood of 160 people requesting trade- ins (obviously we didn't have the inventory) plus people just streaming in the door. He finally snapped, told everyone to get out, locked the doors and left the keys on the counter. We had a good laugh about that one.
    via u/apresmoiledeluge
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    [deleted] Worked for a video game store in 2004. I made a whopping $6 an hour. Someone stole a $50 game during my shift. The next day the manager tried to make me and another coworker reimburse him for the full $50, even though the manager paid way less to stock it. I told my boss, "Just because someone stole from you doesn't give you the right to steal from me." A few minutes later my job was stolen from me.
    via u/[deleted]
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    [deleted] I worked at an asian buffet for a week. I was in charge of desserts and salads; writing recipes, ordering food, etc. On my 7th day of work I went to clean the fridge out and noticed a box of broccoli had fallen on the floor and the broccoli was all over the place, so I picked it up and threw it out. When the owner saw the broccoli in the garbage, he flew into a rage. He then picked all the broccoli out of the garbage, rinsed it quickly, and placed it back in the fridge. I couldn't beli
    via u/[deleted]
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    [deleted] I worked at a crappy job binding books for four hours a day, every day. Not too bad considering I could listen to my iPod and just go about it mechanically. I worked with a guy who was way into weird conspiracy theories -- I listened to him and humored him, because it was fun. Then we got a new guy. When we hired him, I had been there about four months. On his second day, while my other co-worker was away, he told me straight to my face that I don't have the authority to tell him how t
    via u/[deleted]
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    Mind you -- I was showing him how to bind a book properly because he was it up royally, to the point where the book was falling apart. I wasn't mad at him, I was simply trying to correct him. He came to me a few days later and complained that I wasn't stocking the soda in the refrigerator properly. Being the person I am who has three jobs as it is -- I stopped caring what he had to say. Until one particular day, in which it was just me and him working. --
    via u/[deleted]
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    I had had a pretty rough morning at my other job, and we were left that afternoon to bind a lot of books by ourselves, which meant that, as the senior employee, I would be supervising. At the end of the day, right before we left -- I discovered that he had been binding the books completely wrong, again, and they'd all been sealed in envelopes. If they had gone out that way, we'd have been royally screwed. So I said, "We need to open each of these and fix them." To which he replied, "You don't ha
    via u/[deleted]
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    I'm a relatively calm guy - I get angry, sure, but never really explode. I exploded on this guy in a series of profanities and verbal assaults that, by the end of it, he was cowered into his turtle shell and kept repeating, "Okay, I'm sorry, okay, I'm sorry." Unfortunately, the manager happened to overhear this and I wasn't allowed to come in the next day. But honestly, it was completely worth it. Guy was a total tool.
    via u/[deleted]
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    [deleted] Worked at a gas station on a corner of a busy street in Vancouver, cars often drove through when turning right in order to get past the light and one day a car drove in and stopped for a minute looking like it was waiting to merge back into the other street when traffic let up. Apparently it was waiting for me to wave it to the pump and finally it drove to the pump on it's own (imagine that, they didn't need a wave!) and my boss came over upset, I was already at him because he had just
    via u/[deleted]
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    female coworker cry for a really small issue, he flipped out and yelled at me in front of the customer for not waving them in and I explained calmly that I thought he was driving through and he said "I think you should learn to use your brain a little better." and I said "I think you should stop being an : to your employees in front of customers." Fired on the spot.
    via u/[deleted]
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    [deleted] I took a new position at an IT shop that seemed pretty legit during the interview. All is well but after a few days I get asked to do something rather sketchy. Install pirated Windows on business machines. That's quite illegal and could cost me my Microsoft cert's so I pushed back. The owner says "If you don't install that software consider yourself fired." I politely said "Works for me, you can take this job and shove it up your "1
    via u/[deleted]
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    Called the business and told them what was going on and they immediately fired him as their IT contractor and word slowly spread around town. Last time I checked he had to close up shop. The company I left to go work for this other company immediately hired me back and I was able to bring a good portion of the sketchy company's clients with.
    via u/[deleted]
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    Dengar I had a friend who worked at Dunkin Donuts and was accused of stealing, he never stole a dime and flipped the out and threw a coffee pot against the wall and said, "THERE'S YOUR TWO WEEKS NOTICE." Turns out they accused the wrong guy of stealing and they apologized, but he quit anyway.
    via u/Dengar
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    [deleted] My 1st IT job 24 years ago. I worked at a mom & pop shop. Had started full time 3 months ago. My "manager" goes to lunch and the boss comes in. Tells me he want to work every Saturday now (was working every other). I tell him I can't. He says I better look for another job then. I say are you firing me? he says yes. I say thank you, leave and drive right to the unemployment office. Meanwhile my manager comes back from lunch and sees signs in the window: Help Wanted: Computer tech. He sa
    via u/[deleted]
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    Flash forward 20+ years I'm senior level security guy, still good friends with former manager and owner long since ran his business in the ground.
    via u/[deleted]
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    panire they give me my schedule a week ahead of time and i wrote that down. no work on thursday. so i didnt go into work. i show up for my shift friday morning to see a new the register. my boss is like why are you here. i tell him to work of course. he then tells me i missed my shift yesterday and he thought i wouldnt show up today. i was like what.. why didnt anyone call me? i had just started this job and he told me i should know my schedule by now and i was fired.
    via u/panire
  • 30
    hipsterlibrarian Not me but a friend. He worked at Target which we all probably know has a khaki pants and red shirt dress code. His manager got on his case about his "salmon" or not-red-enough shirt and told him to wear red and khaki the next day. The next day, he shows up in red pants and a khaki shirt, fired on the spot.
    via u/hipsterlibrarian
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    [deleted] More of a " you, I quit." than anything else. Working for ATT, first week out of training. Guy calls in to make payment arrangements for his bill that is over $1k. I am looking at his bill and comment that he might want to get a data plan if he intends to use that much data and he says "what? I have data blocked."
    via u/[deleted]
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    Sure as he had data blocked until he called in a month before to change his messaging plan. I look at his history and he had called in previously to block data. When you changed certain features(such as the messaging plan) you had to add a data plan. So, whoever made tha changes for him never put the block back on for his data. I go to my supervisor who tells me to help him set up payment arrangements, I reiterate that the error is on my end. He asks if I told him that we made an error and I sai
    via u/[deleted]
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    I went back to my desk, informed the guy that we had made a mistake and what had happened. I then told him I would transfer him my supervisor to correct it. I got my , gave my supervisor a big smile and walked the ...... out.
    via u/[deleted]
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    sukitrebek I was working at a telemarketing Horrible job. The company sold those paper rolls you put in debit machines at 5 times the normal price. The pitch was essentially designed to trick the caller into thinking we were the usual supplier and we were just calling to confirm an order. It was selling by lying. Obviously, I decided it was unethical and I refused to do it. But I didn't tell them that, of course. Instead, I would go into work every day, put on my headset, and pretend to call peo
    via u/sukitrebek
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    caller would fall for it, and I would have to tell them not to buy anything from us. It was great fun. On the fourth or fifth day of work, the head office of this company was raided by the cops. We didn't have work that day. We came back the next week, and our company had "a new owner" and a "new company name." It was back to business as usual. I think they were a bit distracted with hiding from the authorities, and it took them two weeks to notice that I hadn't done anything the whole time I wa
    via u/sukitrebek
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    fired. I apologized and said I would try harder. The next day, I did what I normally did: pretended to call people and drew epic pictures on the back of the calling lists. The boss called me into his office again. He was furious. So angry that I would DARE to lie to him about trying harder. I have to admit I was a little confused. Did he not realize what kind of company he was running? Anyway, I just smiled at him and walked out. I had successfully acquired enough money to get home for Christmas
    via u/sukitrebek
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    was quite pleased with myself. TL;DR Worked in unethical telemarketing, only pretended people. The company was distracted by police investigation and didn't notice that I didn't do work for two whole weeks. Finally got fired and went home for Christmas with my stolen money! and I to call
    via u/sukitrebek
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    Ravenhaft My cousin did this. He was working at a grocery store as a bagger while working on his undergrad (he's on his PHD in a top uni now). He complained about something or was annoyed at the manager, and she said "you know you're just a bagger, right?" to which he replied "and you're just a manager at this grocery store, the difference between us is I won't be here the rest of my life."
    via u/Ravenhaft
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    [deleted] *tl;dr got fired for calling the speaking clock on speakerphone I was working in an architect's office, times were tough and I had to have three interviews for the job (but that's another story), eventually got hired. A few weeks into the job my boss called me over and told me I had to be more punctual as I was supposed to be at my drawing board at 9am on the dot. He told me I was always between 5- 10 minutes late. I was confused by this as I pride myself on being on time. I then disco
    via u/[deleted]
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    10 minutes fast for some reason. That evening I called the speaking clock from my appt and verified that my watch was set to the correct time. Next morning, I arrive in ten minutes before 9am. At 8:58 I ask my boss and the office manager what time it was. They both said it was 9:10am. I dial the speaking clock and put it on speaker phone as loud as possible. "At the signal it will be 9am. Beeeep" is heard by everyone in the office. All the other office staff try to hide their grins behind their
    via u/[deleted]
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    Boss and office manager go into the conference room, 5 minutes later I'm called in. "We don't appreciate your attitude, it's best that you leave the office now and don't come back." I packed up my stuff and walked out out into the bright morning sunshine with a smile on my face. Found myself an early pub and got drunk. Glory days!
    via u/[deleted]
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    seanconnery84 It wasn't exactly on the spot, but he overheard my calling him a shaved Wookiee while on lunch. I said some other things, really venting. He was two booths behind me at the restaurant... Next day I had all kinds of free time.
    via u/seanconnery84
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    montrealchris A year ago I was working as a tour guide at Madison Square Garden (the world's most famous arena!) My entire department was called in for an emergency meeting where they proceeded to tell all of us that we would be out out of a job in two days. Apparently someone high up in the company decided that with all the renovations going on that having tours was not acceptable. We asked if we were going to get any kind of severance or anything for being laid off with two days' notice. The H
    via u/montrealchris
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    Two days later, on my last day, I told my boss that I felt the company was one of the worst companies I've ever worked for, then called my bosses boss and told her the same thing. I then got in contact with a big wig friend of a friend at a major media corporation in NYC and told them what happened. About a week later, I got a call from my bosses boss (the one who I bitched out on the phone) telling me, "So, because we didn't give you any notice, we're going to give you two weeks of pay". I figu
    via u/montrealchris
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    wasn't much anyway) than deal with the bad publicity. tl;dr: Madison Square Garden laid off our whole department with two days' notice and no severance, then paid us when the media started calling.
    via u/montrealchris
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    rinnip Me: A busboy, standing at restaurant window, staring out moodily at a rainy day, no customers. Boss' wife: Rinnip, go clean the stoves, we aren't paying you just to stand around. Me:At $1.65 an hour, you aren't paying me to do much of anything. Fired on the spot, and yes, minimum wage in California was $1.65 when I was 17.
    via u/rinnip
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    [deleted] Wasn't me, but of friend of mine got fired from an A&W for writing I AM MAKING A MESS in ketchup on the counter. He then went through the drive through and tried to order his job back.
    via u/[deleted]

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