'I laughed... gave him a high five, then fired him': 20+ Bosses whose bumbling employees needed to be fired ASAP

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jan 26, 2025 11:00 AM EST

Every workplace has that one legendary employee who's been there so long and has somehow never gotten fired. This person makes constant mistakes, is impolite to customers or clients, is constantly dozing off in their chair, and never, ever responds to emails. But somehow, they keep their job, year after year, while the other employees around them pick up the slack.

Even the worst employee will eventually fly too close to the sun, though. Just ask the bosses below, who caught their employees doing some insane stuff while on the clock. Some employees joke about sleeping in their offices or sneaking out to run personal errands on their workplace's dime. But you can only do that for so long before your manager starts to give you the side eye and wondering why your productivity is so low. 

Other employees got away with bad behaviors for a while before their bosses finally caught on. Just check out the story of the employee who was pilfering gift cards for ages until a clever manager finally caught them red-handed. That's the kind of mistake that'll ensure you won't work in retail ever again! 

Next, this mother-in-law attended her grandchild's 7th birthday party but ate none of the party food and all of the fridge leftovers… a good thing her daughter-in-law called her out for it! 

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  • 01
    'He laughed. I said, "I'm serious. Get out."
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 02
    makemeabicycle1 Large corporation with lots of cubes. Fired one employee who had a really sweet office chair. After the employee was fired, he requested his office chair back. After proving it was bought by fired employee and not company, HR went back to get it a week later for the fired employee.
    via u/makemeabicycle1
  • 03
    Sweet office chair was missing. HR does an investigation and finds a manager in another dept with a sweet office chair. HR asks manager where he got a sweet office chair. Manager claimed the chair was his for years and lied to HR. HR has fired employee identify his chair as that of
    via u/makemeabicycle1
  • 04
    the managers "chair for years". Manager is fired from a higher than six figure job because he lied about a chair.
    via u/makemeabicycle1
  • 05

    This guy commits to a bit

    182manycookies I guess not the craziest. But, one of my middle aged employees constantly repeated the same joke. As awkward as it was, I couldn't fire him for it.
    via u/182manycookies
  • 06
    I work for a gas company and we have to dig in peoples yards. Every single time a person would ask us what we're doing this guy would respond with "we're here to wreck your yard" but he would say it with an old school Dracula voice. So It would sound like this "vear here to veck ver vard!" the customer would just look at him confused and I had to jump in and explain properly.
    via u/182manycookies
  • 07
    He did this every single time. I told him to stop repeatedly, but he honestly thought it was hilarious.
    via u/182manycookies
  • 08

    What was bro thinking??

    BCCakes I was once a supervisor in a call center. I came out of the bathroom, turned the corner, and saw a phone agent sitting there in his cubicle. He had taken the laces out of one of his shoes and had lit it on fire. He was just sitting there watching it. I said, "This might sound like a joke, considering what's
    via u/BCCakes
  • 09
    going on here...but you're fired." He laughed. I said, "I'm serious. Get out." He went to HR to complain about me. When he told them what had happened, they escorted him out of the building.
    via u/BCCakes
  • 10

    This person arrived at just the right moment, avoiding an even bigger catastrophe

    [deleted] I worked as a chief for IT repair and maintenance biz, we had few people, so I had to leave the shop for a customer visit, I jokingly told a new guy in training"try not to burn down the shop, while I'm not here". So I come back about 45 min. later and found there's smoke coming out of the shop, I freak out, there's no one to be found, I grabbed
    via u/[deleted]
  • 11
    the fire entinguisher and go in... I find theres a connected (on) soldering iron placed on the seat of the new guy's workstation, luckily there's no fire, but the soldering iron has melted and burnt most of the seat hence the sm ke, I
    via u/[deleted]
  • 12
    unplugged it and take the seat outside and blast it with the fire extiguisher. Then the guy returns with a no- worries face and said smilingly "Sorry, I went out for a smoke", he didn't pass the training is all I can say.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 13
    Johnhaven | managed a Blockbuster store back in the mid to late 90's and an employee changed the name in the system on a non-customer account from "Non Customer" to "C Sucker" which printed out on the receipt of everyone that bought something without an account.
    via u/Johnhaven
  • 14
    off. Yes, I laughed my a Then I gave him a high five and fired him.
    via u/Johnhaven
  • 15
    sto... I have this one employee who is always on Reddit. He doesn't know I know it yet, we're going to hold off confronting him on it until we have enough of a case to fire him.
    via u/stoicsmile
  • 16
    Dweller I hired a tech for my PC service shop after months of searching for someone who could keep up with the pace of a very busy shop. On day 3 a regular customer came in, set his newly upgraded PC on the bench and motioned me over. He has just had a new motherboard installed and wanted me to take a look.
    via u/Dweller
  • 17
    The new guy had installed his MB with fr king DUCT TAPE. I asked him where he even found duct tape in my shop and he said he brought it from home. I told him "grab your tape and the rest if your sh and go." He responded with "I am a good technician!" and all I could do is shake my head.
    via u/Dweller
  • 18
    I still feel bad about how I handled that, firing him on the spot in front of a customer, but g that was SO wrong I could not even begin to think how he thought that was the right thing to do.
    via u/Dweller
  • 19
    ApolloLEM Dunk his head into a five gallon bucket of fake-bl I did not fire him, since I put him up to it.
    via u/ApolloLEM
  • 20
    01-559-2620 Guy was "repairing" all the old/broken alternators we removed from the HMMWVS, apparently that meant he was stealing the copper from inside, also when we opened his Locker he had atleast 5 cases of spent Brass ammo cassings in it... selling it all at the Junkyard.
    via u/01-559-2620
  • 21
    He was fired that day, escorted off post by the Military Police and handed over to the local authorities. At his house they found several Vehicle parts and sensitive items that he "aquired" while working.
    via u/01-559-2620
  • 22
    adango One day during lunch a dude from my neighbouring team was telling us how much productivity is lost when girls in the team get pregnant. Little did he know that the lady sitting behind him was the director of our division. He was thrown out of the department in less than two hours..
    via u/adango
  • 23
    WaterproofThis I was outside smoking a ciga tte the other day on the opposite side of the parking lot and noticed my closing cook pull up in his car. He got out, walked in for a minute and walked back out to his car and drove off. I went back and got to working and asked my cashier what dude did while he was in there. Says to me, "clocked in and left."
    via u/WaterproofThis
  • 24
    Guy is supposed to be there at 9, shows at 8:30, clocks in and leaves to drop his kids at home comes back at 9:45. Not only was he late, but he thought we were going to pay him for running personal errands. He no called no showed the next day. He'll be on the schedule next week.
    via u/WaterproofThis
  • 25
    I'm a manager, but not one that can fire people. I'm not sure why my GM won't get rid of people like this guy, and i can't wait to get a better manager or promotion or new job.
    via u/WaterproofThis
  • 26
    saintjon856 Had to fire the best employee I never knew I had. I would hand out work orders first thing in the morning for the guys to complete around the office building. This one kid is doing almost twice the work as everyone else and he only has one stipulation, he gets to pick the jobs.
    via u/saintjon856
  • 27
    I get a call after about a week of this and then two calls, and then four calls all from various execs complaining about him. This guy has been taking all the work orders that the hot secretaries and admin assistants have been putting
    via u/saintjon856
  • 28
    in, knocking them all out by lunch, and then spending the rest of the day chatting them up and trying to get them to go out with him.
    via u/saintjon856
  • 29
    tirar_azucar a few years ago, I was having a lot of issues with gift cards. customers would buy them, bring them back to use them, and find that the value on the card would be gone, despite their payment. our gift cards were only good within our company, and we had no online store. their gift cards had also never been activated, and the SKU
    via u/tirar_azucar
  • 30
    numbers on the card did not correspond with the SKU numbers on the receipt. So I set up a little sting. I had my mother walk in on 4 separate occasions and buy a gift card from each of the 4 employees authorized to give them. All but one matched.
    via u/tirar_azucar
  • 31
    We watched the kid like a hawk after that, and sure enough, the next time he had a gift card to issue, he would swipe it, swap it with a blank gift card behind the counter, place the blank in an envelope, and pocket the loaded one. I did not feel bad at all for having the cops him out in front of everyone as well as pressing charges.
    via u/tirar_azucar
  • 32
    Cheezburger Image 10459137280
    via Aakash Malik For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 33
    ru... This story is long, so I'll shorten it as best as I can... Towards the beginning of my career, I worked in large data center and was quickly moving up the ranks and getting new responsibilities every few weeks. In this datacenter, we used around 300 backup tapes per day and the tape manufacturer offered a sort of rewards
    via u/runnerdan
  • 34
    program associated with the number of tapes that you bought. Think of them like airline miles. We bought a couple million in tapes per month, for perspective. My boss calls me into his office and asks that I take over the management of the rewards points that we've been receiving from the manufacturer as the guy that had been managing it was having "issues" lately
    via u/runnerdan
  • 35
    (going through a bad divorce, doing sketchy stuff at work, out sick a lot, etc.). We'll call him Rob. We used these rewards points to buy fireproof racks and other work equipment (or so we thought). More on that later. My boss requests the credentials to the rewards account from Rob, tells him that I'm taking over, and Rob sends me the login and password. Rob lets me know
    via u/runnerdan
  • 36
    we have about 50k USD worth of points in our account. I was having trouble logging into the account via the website, so I called the fulfillment company for assistance. When I called, I explained that I was taking over and needed the account details. The response from the girl of the phone was "Which of your accounts?" I'm
    via u/runnerdan
  • 37
    confused because I wasn't told there was more than one account. I ask for all of the credentials for all of these accounts. All four accounts... I get the logins and log into each account...
    via u/runnerdan
  • 38
    The account that I had been told about by Rob did have about 50k worth of points in there, but the other accounts that had much much more. Apparently, Rob had been using these other accounts as his personal "best buy". In total, he had already spent about a million dollars worth of points for personal laptops, TVs, watches, workstations, cameras, monitors, stereos, etc. He would have
    via u/runnerdan
  • 39
    everything shipped to the loading dock and would load his new Lexus SUV full of stuff. I don't know how, but he caught word that I had figured out his gig. I let my boss know and legal was contacted pretty quickly. Legal interviewed me and I explained how I figured everything out.
    via u/runnerdan
  • 40
    About a week later, legal came by and got him to "talk". He had been with the company for almost 20 years, so had a pension and whatnot. After he spoke with legal, he left sick for the day...and never came back. He went on long-term dis lity and couldn't be terminated while on leave.
    via u/runnerdan
  • 41
    We couldn't touch any of his stuff for months. His computer and office sat untouched, per legal's request. A couple weeks after this went down, I saw him, in his car, while i was out running. He saw me and I saw him. I took off into the nearby woods as I figured he couldn't run me over if I had trees protecting me.
    via u/runnerdan
  • 42
    fetalasmuck Former coworker at an ad agency is a Web Developer and takes advantage of the fact that so many companies need them now. He gets hired at a place, does the absolute bare minimum while exhausting all vacation time and personal days, and then once he gets fired for performance he moves to a new city and does it again.
    via u/fetalasmuck
  • 43
    TheOnymous I used to work at a theater. Pretty small place and one of three small theaters in the town, so even though each had different ownership they would help each other out with various things. Guess there wasn't much competition for whatever movies the huge 12 screen Century theater didn't want to play.
    via u/TheOnymous
  • 44
    We had one guy sub in as a manager from one of the other theaters a few times. Something about him I never really liked, but I really didn't have any actual complaints. Eventually, this guy ends up leaving his manager position at the other theater getting hired by ours. Whatever. A few weeks later, I'm cleaning the place out after we closed and he comes down and starts chatting
    via u/TheOnymous
  • 45
    with me since he finished his paperwork early. Tells me he got fired from the other theater and it was "total bulls ". Of course, he goes on to tell me about how he had wanted to see a certain movie his old theater was playing, but had put it off too long. Last show was already over, but the theater hadn't shipped out the film yet, so he decided to have a private
    via u/TheOnymous
  • 46
    showing. Another movie wasn't doing that great, so cancelled the showing (put up a sign or something) and replaces the film, then watches the entire movie during his shift. Head manager found out and fired his a
    via u/TheOnymous
  • 47
    When I looked at him like he was insane, he kept repeating himself and talking about how unreasonable it was that they had fired him as if there was some aspect of his story that I didn't understand. I understood and would have done the same thing to him.
    via u/TheOnymous
  • 48
    Eventually I sort of lamely said "yeah, that s ks man" since he was now MY manager and I didn't want to make my own job any harder.
    via u/TheOnymous
  • 49
    MandoMark Working as a 3rd Shift Supervisor at a box plant making corrugated boxes, one of my employees had a habit of disappearing around 3 AM, couldn't find him. One night my boss the Plant Manager and I were walking around inspecting the plant around 3am, and went into one of the meeting rooms. The missing employee was stretched out on the
    via u/MandoMark
  • 50
    conference table sound asleep. The boss motioned me to be quiet, and we sat down and just watched the guy sleep. Everntually he woke up enough to realize the lights were on and someone was in the room and started to get up. The PM spoke up and told him "Naw, Might as well lay back down, as long as you're asleep you have a job. Come in to see me tomorrow about your check". We left the
    via u/MandoMark
  • 51
    room and turned the lights out. The guy snuck out at some point, I never saw him leave. It was the coldest firing I'd ever witnessed, I keep it in my back pocket if I ever catch someone sleeping.
    via u/MandoMark
  • 52
    Ed... Happened to my dad; He started working as an electrician in the late 70s. He got his first job at a construction site. Now you have to know that in electric wiring is a rule that gray or white wires are neutral and red blue and yellow are live wires. First day at work he been told to forget everything he learnt because in this construction
    via u/Eduki
  • 53
    site the red wire was the neutral. Long story short he was in a rush and forgot that the red wire was the neutral and connected it to a live. wire. There was a big boom, and some equipment destroyed but nobody gut hurt so he wasn't fired.
    via u/Eduki
  • 54
    T.L.D.R. My dad connected a live wire to a neutral, because construction site was not using general wiring color code.
    via u/Eduki
  • 55

    Priorities!

    lemurscreech Not a boss, but a journalist and I once saw a fellow journalist make a call to a pretty high-ranking official, and then tell that official who he was interviewing to hold on while he went and got a Snickers out of the vending machine to eat while he was on the phone. Our boss did fire him, and it was amazing.
    via u/lemurscreech

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