'He was fired for sleeping at his desk repeatedly': Managers share the most memorable ways employees got fired

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Jul 24, 2024 4:00 PM EDT

Every manager has had a tricky situation with someone on their team. Sometimes, it's not the employee's fault, and we tend to side with employees here at FAIL Blog. However, every so often, an employee does something so out-of-line, so unprofessional, and so ridiculous that an immediate dismissal is pretty much non-negotiable.

This compilation of bizarre firing stories ranges from harmless to shocking. We've got an employee who kept having to leave work early for bathroom drama, a new hire who could not stop falling asleep on the job, and an unwise dude who attempted to steal $1,000 from the cash register despite three security cameras pointing right in his direction. 

Firing someone is no easy feat, which is why there's a whole movie about how George Clooney would travel around the country doing that job for the cowardly. However, when someone has so obviously violated their contract, it definitely makes the process a lot easier.

Keep scrolling below for the full list of stories. When you're done, check out this story about an office romance gone wrong.

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  • 01
    "He [was] terminated on the spot"
    via Nastuh Abootalebi
  • 02
    Managers of Reddit, what's the worst thing an employee has done to get themselves fired?
    via u/TeddyBabyyy
  • 03
    OmegaChadAlphaMale ⚫ Guy was just hired, he asked to go home on his second day because he his pants. Alright, happens, a little tmi but what can you do? He must be an honest soul. Went home for the afternoon, came in on the third day his pants again and asked to go home. There was no fourth day.
    via u/TeddyBabyyy
  • 04
    p38-lightning Dumbest, maybe not the worse: A mechanic in my chemical plant wrapped expensive copper tubing around his chest and put his coat over it. It was a really cold day and it started drawing up to where he couldn't breathe - just as he got to the guard gate. The guards had a good laugh unwinding the soon-to-be-unemployed mechanic.
    via u/TeddyBabyyy
  • 05
    unflappedyedi I was a newly hired manager at McDonald's. The guy before me was working the cash register. This store was very highly trafficked, it was right off of the interstate right on the border of city and middle of nowhere. It was the first place to stop and get some food for travelers coming in, and the last place to stop and get some food for travelers leaving out.
    via u/TeddyBabyyy
  • 06
    It was not uncommon to have over 1,000$ in under an hour in the cash register and policy was to "drop" money in the safe at least once every hour. So this new guy comes in, works for a few hours, but the manager never did the drops. After about 4 hours, the employee goes to the bathroom and disappears.
    via u/TeddyBabyyy
  • 07
    Turns out he left with over 4,000$ from the cash register. Police were called because obviously they have the guys ID, address, and information on file. Only to find out that everything was false. He stole someones ID and social that looked similar to him and used a fake address. I don't think the police ever found him or figured out who he was.
    via u/TeddyBabyyy
  • 08
    [deleted] ⚫ First job in insurance, weird guy wanted to be in SIU, the team that investigates fraud. He got it in his head that, rather than investigating external fraud as part of the claims department, they were a kind of clandestine CIA operation who were listening in on our phone calls and you could get tapped to join if you were smart enough and hard working enough. He was fired for sleeping at his desk repeatedly.
    via u/TeddyBabyyy
  • 09
    TAC1313 Removing the high limit switch on a dryer causing the clothes to catch on fire. Twice.
    via u/TeddyBabyyy
  • 10
    asking_hyena blew up 45 000$ worth of equipment through shoddy electrical work he had been already trained for. To be fair, this one's also on us management, we probably shouldn't have let him have a go at even this simple electrical work considering how unreliable he had shown himself to be thus far.
    via u/TeddyBabyyy
  • 11
    jimmyb1982. I'm not a manager but an employee of an airport cargo handling company. We had a guy, crash a brand new jet engine airstart unit into a jet engine. Bosses were not happy.
    via u/TeddyBabyyy
  • 12
    Nuttonbutton Literally just shoveled money out of the cash register into his pockets with 3 separate cameras looking at him. He took several thousand dollars.
    via u/TeddyBabyyy
  • 13
    baltinerdist I read that as dumbest instead of worst and started typing this, so I'll finish it out anyway. I managed a call center for a while. One of my staff was a 23 year old guy who just could not figure out how to get to work on time. He had his own car and only lived like 15-20 minutes away, but he would be perpetually up to a half hour late shift after shift.
    via u/TeddyBabyyy
  • 14
    We had a generous tardiness/absence policy - three strikes for unexcused absences but an unexcused tardy was only half a strike - and we were even nice enough to give him just a verbal warning at least two or three times instead of starting to count them because the call center wasn't one that had like an inbound
    via u/TeddyBabyyy
  • 15
    call service level, it was just outbound calls so the time you lost hurt you in other metrics and killed your chance at getting bonuses, but soon enough he had burned through five of the six unexcused tardiness he was allowed.
    via u/TeddyBabyyy
  • 16
    The last time he was tardy, I brought him into my office and told him this was his final written warning. If he was even a minute late clocking in without a legitimate excuse for the next 90 days, he would be terminated on the spot. That was on a Tuesday.
    via u/TeddyBabyyy
  • 17
    On Wednesday, he was scheduled to arrive at 4:00 PM for an evening shift. He walks in at 4:25 PM holding a Starbucks cup in his hand. “I couldn't help it, the drive thru took forever!" I took his badge and walked him out. I hope he learned from it.
    via u/TeddyBabyyy
  • 18
    Difficult_Image_4552. Supposed to drive a car from one city to another on a Friday. Probably 2 hour trip? Took it to Mexico and partied for a weekend and delivered the car on Monday. This was not even a border state.
    via u/TeddyBabyyy
  • 19
    bigfatfish5000. Not a manager but a carpenter with sevral employees but I had a worker doing a window replacement I'm a person's home. The room he was working in had a fully stocked bar. Employee drank a 400$ bottle of liquor and homeowner found him passed out in their guest room
    via u/TeddyBabyyy
  • 20
    SpeakerCareless . 4 mo. ago I had a coworker get fired for applying for jobs on a jobs site using her company computer at work. After she'd been warned about appropriate internet use and that she was being monitored. Had a different coworker fired for looking at at work on a work computer, also after being warned about appropriate internet use.
    via u/TeddyBabyyy
  • 21
    I had an employee who was the absolute rudest and most incompetent but he made it easy by just calling in sick for 2 weeks straight and refusing to provide a dr. Note.
    via u/TeddyBabyyy

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