'Yeah, I'm not doing that': Employee fired and tasked to train incompetent replacements before leaving the company, training backfires

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Aug 21, 2024 8:00 AM EDT

This employee's final two weeks on the job may have been an ordeal, but at least it ended on a triumphant note. He was let go from his company and tasked with training his replacement, two well-connected employees who were extremely lazy because they knew their jobs were safe. 

Unfortunately, the Redditor couldn't simply refuse this final task because he needed a strong recommendation from his employer before moving on, so he did his best to give the new hires the play-by-play when it came to the company's printing workflow. The new hires both refused to listen to him, so when the final day of that two-week training period came along and the new hires were tasked with managing everything themselves, their collective incompetence was on full display. So at the very least, this Redditor was able to walk away feeling ever so slightly vindicated considering the fact that his former bosses were going to have to deal with this total lack of professionalism themselves.

Keep scrolling below for the full story. For more, check out this post about a job candidate who went "full Karen" on their hiring manager.

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  • 01
    CAUTO ROT
    via Bank Phrom
  • 02
    LO off and replaced by 2 lazy, privileged waffles L OC I used to be in charge of the printer room in a rather large company. We shipped a ston
    via ActualMis
  • 03
    of product every day, and everything shipped had to have the accompanying printed label/documents. Nothing can even be loaded onto the trucks without this paperwork. Now this was in the olden days of the 90s, so we had seven massive, 4-foot
    via ActualMis
  • 04
    tall dot matrix printers that did all the work. These printers were temperamental b and if the paper jammed, the printer did not automatically stop printing. It would just keep pushing/jamming more and more paper into the machine
    via ActualMis
  • 05
    until, if left untended, it would break down. Running the printer room was a 2-person job. When I started I trained for 2 full weeks with the two current printer room employees (one was being promoted, I was replacing him).
    via ActualMis
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    It was a rough f'n two weeks, let me tell you, getting the hang of the job, the various things you had to learn, do, etc. One thing that made it even more complicated was the fact that each printer had it's own personality with it's own problems. Another was the fact
    via ActualMis
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    that a problem in one printer could have a different fix than the exact same problem in another.
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    The job would be quiet for 45 minutes straight, during which we did routine maintenance and such, but was really slow and quiet and restful. Because this
    via ActualMis
  • 09
    company processed it's shipping orders in batches, once an hour. And then boy, on the hour, every hour, the batch of orders would go through and thousands and thousands of orders would come spitting out. Now, if you were on top of things and kept everything running
    via ActualMis
  • 10
    smoothly, the orders would print out very neatly and quickly. But if you didn't know what you were doing, if you didn't maintain things just right, you'd get a back up and things would go to s very, very fast. And when one machine went down you had to fix it FAST, before the next one
    via ActualMis
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    jammed, because guaranteed those machines would jam up multiple times on every batch print job.
    via ActualMis
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    So I've been working the print room for several months, and things were great. Then my coworker gave his 2-weeks notice. We tried to train my
    via ActualMis
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    replacement, but he was incredibly lazy and got fired fairly a few days after the end of his training. Which left me in the printer room alone.
    via ActualMis
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    Then the bosses inform me that my "position" is being phased out, and I am going to be replaced by two employees
    via ActualMis
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    transferred from a different department. So not only am I losing my job, but I have to train my replacements. And I desperately needed a good recommendation from this company, so I couldn't just quit or half-a it.
    via ActualMis
  • 16
    I quickly learn that both of these transfers are lazy and useless. They'd been with the company for decades, had friends in the head office, and knew their jobs were safe. I'd show them how to do something and they'd flat out laugh and say, "Yeah, I'm not doing that". Every day I'd be
    via ActualMis
  • 17
    trying to train them and they would ignore me, chat with each other, leave to go sit in the cafeteria. Leaving me to do a 2- person job alone. Luckily I was good enough to handle the workload, but it was annoying. Mindful of the fact that I needed a reference of this company, I
    via ActualMis
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    kept extensive notes on each day's progress. I clearly documented every single instance of the replacements refusing to learn, even listen to my instructions. I also followed up daily with my direct supervisor, and he knew what was going on. And my notes
    via ActualMis
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    went into the company files and were passed up the line. Despite my scathing reports, head office did nothing. Now it's my last day. This is the day the training process assigned for letting the newbies work alone, with no help or
    via ActualMis
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    supervision allowed, to see how well they handle the job and the pressure. I was, in writing, forbidden to help them or answer any questions. As I expected, things fell to s pretty much immediately, minutes into the first batch of orders. One of the biggest
    via ActualMis
  • 21
    printers jammed, and the clueless thad no idea how to fix the printer jam. Because they ignored me every time I tried to show them how. So they turn to me, and demand that I fix things. I'm sitting on a desk, coffee in one hand, an
    via ActualMis
  • 22
    apple in the other, and smile and say, "Yeah, I'm not doing that". So one of them is yelling at me while the other is basically thumping uselessly on the printer like a gorilla that just found a candy machine. Then a second printer jams.
    via ActualMis
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    Paper starts spilling out of the back of the first printer (which, if you knew the job, was a really, really REALLY bad warning sign). "Well, I'm going to go to the cafeteria, good luck!" I say as I stand up. As I'm leaving a hear a third printer cccrrrruuunnnch and jam up.
    via ActualMis
  • 24
    I went to my supervisor and let him know what was happening. He said he not only expected as much, he had predicted so repeatedly to his superiors. He once once again specifically forbade me from offering any help. So I went to the cafeteria and read my book for a little over an hour.
    via ActualMis
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    Then my supervisor comes to me to let me know what happened. The entire printer room is down, every single printer either jammed up or actually broken. The company is losing thousands of dollars every single minute. One of the shipper/receiving supervisors finds me, all in a
    via ActualMis
  • 26
    panic, begging me to get the orders printed. "Sorry, I'm not allowed to do that," I replied. Now several people are running around outside the cafeteria, all in a panic, running from place to place to figure out why they
    via ActualMis
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    don't have any shipping orders. The chaos took HOURS to resolve. And I wasn't allowed to fix the problems. Any time someone started giving me a hard time, my supervisor would intervene and show the memo from the bosses stating that I
    via ActualMis
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    was forbidden to help in the printer room that day. I spent my entire last day at work drinking coffee, chatting with coworkers, and reading my book. The whole fiasco ended up costing the company tens of thousands of dollars.
    via ActualMis
  • 29
    Everyone_dreams 17 hr. ago S they did that to you. Way to go to your boss for letting it all go up screek to show the higher ups how dumb this was.
    via ActualMis
  • 30
    ActualMis OP. 17 hr. ago Thank you. I'd like to say the higher ups learned their lesson, but the replacements just got shuffled off to some other department.
    via ActualMis

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