'My friend got fired... for drinking the sauces': 25+ Baffling reasons workers got fired

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jan 26, 2024 11:00 AM EST

As a manager, you occasionally have to let someone go. A workplace never stays the same forever—people are hired, people quit, and people get fired. 

Most companies obviously don't plan on firing workers when they first join the business. But according to these stories below, bosses can often tell quickly which employees will make it, and which are just totally wrong for the role. Whether people can't manage to show up on time, or keep calling out with bogus excuses, their company catches on pretty quickly. 

Still, a lot of these bosses gave their employees second and third chances. But if you keep getting into altercations with the customers or continually answer the phone incorrectly, you're going to get shown the door. Some of the bosses who answered the prompt are awfully forgiving, though… they shared the "funniest/weirdest reason" they've ever had to let someone go. 

The funniest types of employees in my opinion are the ones who call out of work sick, then come into their own workplace. Like if you're playing hooky from school, you wouldn't stop by your homeroom teachers' classroom to say hi. So why would you stop at your workplace to brag to your coworkers, knowing there's a good chance you'll get caught?

Check out the very funny tales below. Then, this catalog designer let their boss sign off on a faulty magazine print, and then watched the company burn hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix it. 

Add as a preferred
source on Google
Advertisement
  • 01
    Bosses of Reddit, what is the funniest/weirdest reason why you had to fire an employee?
    via u/fisheramike
  • 02
    BosskHogg Fired a guy who would not (could not) stop answering the phone while saying, "Popeyes Chicken." We told him to stop answering the phone, but the guy kept on doing it. This was at an Olympia Sports.
    via u/BosskHogg
  • 03
    gjallard I didn't do the firing, but I watched a co-worker get fired for refusing to sign her annual performance review/goal settings document. I have to say, my boss did just about everything he could, and at the end of almost 2 solid days of discussion and negotiation, on the third day he told me he said this: Him: "Is there anything in either of these documents you think is not correct?"
    via u/gjallard
  • 04
    Her answer: "No." Him: "So will you sign them?" Her answer: "No." Him: "I'll have to dismiss you if you won't sign them." Her answer: "You can't do that." And she found out the hard way that he could.
    via u/gjallard
  • 05
    TripleThreat13 I'm not a boss, but my friend got fired from Subway for drinking the sauces. They have it on camera. He says his boss was trying not to laugh when he explained why he was firing him.
    via u/TripleThreat13
  • 06
    Detroit Pistons a guy at my old job got fired for drawing a on every single rear brake assembly that we made in this 3day period that he was doing it. Apparently a couple hundred of them got onto cars before Honda found out. There is literally a drawn onto a couple hundred brand new Honda CRVS left brake assemblies.
    via u/Detroit Pistons
  • 07
    scientasticday Let me give you some of the reasons off our list of "No rehire".
    via u/scientasticday
  • 08
    "Filed injury claim for day nobody was working." "Emptied kool-aid packets all over jobsite." "Just stands there." "Faked blindness to get out of work early."
    via u/scientasticday
  • 09
    justimpolite I didn't do the firing, but I worked there at the time... Boss's wife has a friend who needs a job, but has pretty much no qualifications. They figured she could do basic reception work. Boy, were they wrong. Examples of her struggles: 1. They gave her binders, a 3-hole punch and the stuff that's supposed to go into the binders. Asked her to 3-hole punch the papers and put them in the binders - simple concept. Except,
    via u/justimpolite
  • 10
    she couldn't work the 3- hole punch. And it's not just that she messed up the first stack - she never figured it out. Some pages had holes right on the edge, so little half- circles were cut off the paper. Some pages had holes along the top. Some pages had one or two holes, because she didn't line up the paper the long way. Some pages had no holes at all and were just tucked into the pockets of the binder. Everything was out of order. Execs from a multi-million dollar
    via u/justimpolite
  • 11
    account enter the conference room, she passes out binders, and the owners are mortified. She couldn't even work a 3-hole punch to put things into binders. 2. The utility room has a large can for recycled paper. There's a paper shredder in the office that spits shreds into a smaller can. When it's full, you take it to the utility room and dump it into the recycling bin. Simple enough...or not. She decided that instead of taking the small can
    via u/justimpolite
  • 12
    through the office and to the utility room, she'd take the giant recycling bin to the room with the shredder. It had wheels and a handle so you could tilt it up - like a standard garbage bin that you'd put by the curb would- but instead she dragged it on its side. At one point it she dropped the edge and it spit paper shreds and paper dust everywhere. 3. One Christmas, one of the bosses ordered sets of popcorn tins to send to various businesses around town that were
    via u/justimpolite
  • 13
    helpful - some real estate agencies they'd worked with, a bank, etc. The popcorn tins are separated into 3 flavors, typically - plain, cheese and caramel. There's a cardboard insert. The receptionist thought this was silly, and went through all the tins and removed the inserts, then mixed the popcorn together. Because everyone wants their caramel popcorn mixed with cheese. 4. We'd get company calendars. Order them in the fall for the following
    via u/justimpolite
  • 14
    calendar year. This year they got all the order details figured out, and the company sent a sample. You look over the sample, confirm everything looks good, call them up and say to move forward with the order. The receptionist was tasked with the phone call. This is like August of whatever year, so the calendar was for the following year. When the print company stated the project title over the phone, the receptionist was concerned about the year - that's next year!
    via u/justimpolite
  • 15
    She said to change it to this year. And successfully ordered us a batch of calendars for the last 4 months of the current year, instead of the following year - when we'd hand them out and want to use them. 5. She told us often about these "things" (hand motions!) that come out of the computer monitor like "this" (hand motions!) and do "things" to your body, and cause all kinds of problems. To remedy this situation, she would put a slab of foam on her
    via u/justimpolite
  • 16
    chair to sit on. Because this repelled the scary computer monitor waves, somehow. Then she started telling clients about the mythical things, too. 6. She mixed the coffee grounds directly into the water instead of using the coffee filter like a normal competent person would do. 7. One of the bosses was out of town when his daughter had an emergency. He asked the secretary to pick his granddaughter up from
    via u/justimpolite
  • 17
    her school and bring her back to the office until he could get back into town - she'd been there a lot and could pretty much take care of herself once she got there. The secretary went to the school and brought back someone else's child. 8. Boss wanted to buy lunch for the office, asked her to call in the order. She requested drinks and extra salad dressing packets. And forgot to order the actual food. The delivery driver, when questioned,
    via u/justimpolite
  • 18
    said they had been confused too - but she insisted that was the whole order.
    via u/justimpolite
  • 19
    MadLintElf Weirdest reason, the guy kept leaving his gym clothes in his desk. First time we smelt a horrible musty mildew odor, tracked it to his desk. When he came in later that day we made him double bag it and promise not to leave dirty clothes in his desk. Fast forward 2 months, 4 more conversations about the same problem. I had no choice but to write him up.
    via u/MadLintElf
  • 20
    3 weeks later he goes on vacation and yet again leaves the nasty smelling clothing in his desk. We had facilities remove them and throw them away, went to HR with the documentation and they said we had the right to terminate him. Thank goodness I've never had that problem again.
    via u/MadLintElf
  • 21
    dedicatedreject I had to fire a girl who kept starting scenes with her ex boyfriend. We all worked in a grocery store. She was a cashier, and he was a box boy. When they broke up, she would start a fight if she thought he was hitting on someone. She would throw food all over.
    via u/dedicatedreject
  • 22
    [deleted] Hired a 22 yr old college kid that would sing Barney or Disney songs while on the phone with customers. Would. Not. Stop.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 23
    Venom77 Not me, but my boss had to fire a woman who fell asleep in her chair that faced a window next to the Vice President's office who caught her snoozing while he walked by. It was her first day on the job.
    via u/Venom77
  • 24
    nimbleandlight I used to bake at a coffee shop and we hired a new baker's assistant. She called out sick on her third day...then came through the drive-through to get a cappuccino. Not a smart move.
    via u/nimbleandlight
  • 25
    2-long-didnt-reddit Not the boss but there was a blind guy working at my company who would take naps while sitting at his computer, took them a while to catch on.
    via u/2-long-didnt-reddit
  • 26
    LostSouls Alliance A co-worker of mine borrowed a company installation van to move some furniture over the weekend. She didn't show up Monday, or Tuesday, and wouldn't return calls. So my boss drives to her house to see what's up, and when he was a few blocks away, he sees her driving the van. He turns to follow her, and she takes off like a bank robber in a getaway car. He chases her, but loses sight of the van in traffic.
    via u/LostSouls Alliance
  • 27
    So he goes back to the office and calls the police. They catch her, we get the van back and she's naturally fired. I never did find out exactly why she decided to steal a company van. Up to that point she had been a pretty good employee.
    via u/LostSouls Alliance
  • 28
    [deleted] The guy was interviewing for his next job very loudly from his cube all day long. He hadn't even been there a full week. He was telling his interviewer how crappy it was at this job and how terrible everyone was. This is literally with him surrounded by 50 other employees. When we fired him he cried and said he had no idea why and begged for his job back. Dude was whacked. Oh, and this was a 50 year old man.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 29
    Kurtvdd I managed a small cafe in Miami. Only a couple of employees nothing huge, one girl comes in noticeably out of it i ask if she wants to go home but she says she's fine, I tell her to drink some water and some coffee and to keep moving. She smiles and goes to work. 2 hours later I walk outside and customers in her section who are looking for their waitress, I help them and ask if any employees had seen
    via u/Kurtvdd
  • 30
    her, no one had. I look around the whole store, nothing. I look around the side ally, nothing. I check the back loading unloading area, she's asleep half curled on a tiny box half on the floor behind a dumpster. I snapped a picture of her then woke her up and fired her.
    via u/Kurtvdd
  • 31
    BlindRapture Girl snuck a puppy into the office, hidden in her jacket on her second day of work. Tried to say she had MS and it was her service dog in training. She had gotten it the night before.
    via u/BlindRapture
  • 32
    The1RGood They were on Reddit. Now get back to work all of you.
    via u/The1RGood
  • 33
    eyupmush Managing a kitchen I had a guy come in for his first shift, the scampi we served came frozen portioned up in plastic packets, one came on order so I ask the new guy to put a portion in, he does, plastic packaging and all, plastic is not that fond of being dunked in 350f oil, he was told to grab his coat (common sense is important in an environment where everything is either hot or sharp) and I took half the
    via u/eyupmush
  • 34
    menu off and got settled in to scraping plastic out of the fryer for the next hour. Not too weird or crazy put one of the stupidest things I've ever watched someone do.
    via u/eyupmush
  • 35
    MTFMuffins A co worker of mine got fired at a yoga studio where she worked reception. After work while cleaning she decided she'd stretch a little and actually wound up falling asleep. At 3 in the morning the owner comes in to do some late night paperwork and my friend wakes up and hides in the mat closet, a little harry potter type of space. The owner walks into the studio
    via u/MTFMuffins
  • 36
    and spots the yoga mat not put away, so she rolls it up and opens the closet - and my friend scared the out of her and got fired on the spot. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall LOL
    via u/MTFMuffins
  • 37
    [deleted] Sorta young girl, around 24 years old, works in a factory(temp), does her job well. Has two kids, asked for a lot of(unpaid) vacation time. A lot of vacation time. Something in the neighborhood of 5 weeks in the first year(not including 2 mandatory weeks in July, 2 at x-mas, plus all major holidays). So one day she no call / no shows, posted on Facebook that she was too to go in, that she'd just get a slap on the wrist.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 38
    Her boss was one of her facebook friends. She got walked out first thing the next day.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 39
    ambatman Fired a woman who spent too much time gossiping with my wife. Should of fired the wife, I wound up divorcing her a year later.
    via u/ambatman
  • 40
    Intentional Misnomer I supervise at a call center. noticed through phone tracking methods that before any supervisors came in, one of our employees would try to kill the phone queue by rapidly answering and hanging up on callers. We caught him because we noticed he had something like 50 calls per hour.
    via u/Intentional Misnomer
  • 41
    sjmanikt A guy we had as an instructor got utterly irate because he was certain someone stole his can of Redbull. I asked him to calm down, because almost certainly someone took it by mistake from a small mini- fridge.
    via u/sjmanikt
  • 42
    Instead, he started composing an angry email to "all" at our small company. I again asked him to calm down and think it over, and don't send that email. Rather than listen, he looked me in the eye, then reached over and hit "send." I fired him on the spot.
    via u/sjmanikt
  • 43
    + [deleted] I'm not a boss, but I had a new co-worker one Monday morning who was escorted out by Tuesday. I found out later that in his interview the standard question came up of "Do you have any criminal record? "Nope." Yeaaaaah. Turns out he stole a few cars just a few years prior.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 44
    random314 I'm not the boss, but a few years ago, we hired this young recent college grad. She had a task that she was supposed to finish before she leave that day because the bossman needed it the following morning. She ended up leaving at 5:30 sharp w/o
    via u/random314
  • 45
    telling anyone and not finishing that task. The boss never even realized that she was gone till 6:30. He had to stay late to finish that task by himself. She was fired the next morning.
    via u/random314
  • 46
    demidion I had to fire this guy for giving out free mozeralla sticks
    via u/demidion
  • 47
    aspbergerinparadise I knew a server that got fired for giving out "queso" dip. They were having a contest for all the servers. Whoever sold the most margaritas would get a $50 bonus. This brilliant individual started offering free queso to anyone who ordered a margarita. Lost her job over $50.
    via u/aspbergerinparadise
  • 48
    TheFlounder Had an employee who was responsible for delivering a deposit bag of cash/checks from our building to our company's main building about 3 blocks away. Significant amounts sometimes. One day we find out this particular account has run dry, assumption is that she was stealing the money.
    via u/TheFlounder
  • 49
    One big investigation later turned up every single cent, still in the deposit bags. There were 20+ sealed deposit bags in her car and home. Most of them were located right away, but the last 4-5 trickled in as she found them. She was just tossing them wherever and forgetting about them. Fired her, and the powers that be opted to not pursue it criminally.
    via u/TheFlounder
  • 50
    roboruss Story 1: I worked as an Conference IT in college. We just hired one of the D&D kids (who play D&D all day and even skip class to play...way into the awkward festering nerd zone). Our job was basically to setup carts with projectors on them and make sure events were going smoothly. Sometimes it was 10 minutes of work and then 50 mins of down time. Anyway, on the first day he is assigned to setup a cart. He just sits and doesn't do anything. Is fired immediately.
    via u/roboruss
  • 51
    It is like someone saying "I will give you $10 to walk over there and plug this in and sit around for 1 hour." and you can't do that. Wow.
    via u/roboruss

Want More? Follow Us and Add Us as a Preferred Source on Google.

Tags

opinion ask reddit funny stories askreddit funny opinions getting fired boss workplace-stories fired retail workplace stories reddit bosses coworkers food service workplace bad bosses
Scroll Down For The Next Article