'He was gone in 5 minutes': 25+ Employees who got fired on their first day of work

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
May 11, 2025 3:00 PM EDT

Not everyone is cut out for the workplace. Some folks just hop from job to job for their whole lives, never settling at one company for longer than 6 months or so. That's because some people just truly hate working, and they refuse to improve over time. They see work as optional: if they can spend time chilling on the couch and mooching off a friend or family member, they're perfectly happy to do so. Career ladder? No thanks! A revolving door of jobs is just how they live their lives. 

However, if you really dislike working and you're blatant enough about it to get your boss fired up, you may just get terminated. One employee was bold enough to tell her boss that she didn't want to work, and got fired on the spot. That's how it goes! 

Next, read about the workers whose dumb bosses left them speechless, like one person whose boss caused the company to get "audited and fined $80k." 

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  • 01
    beb... Customer service desk at an insurance company. Basically just rerouting incoming calls to the relevant claims handler. 18 (ish) yo lad comes from a temp agency. Seemed a bit dippy but should have been able to manage this easy job. After a couple of hours he'd secured his headset to his
    via u/bebelmatman
  • 02
    head by wrapping sellotape around his head and face several times. Weird but...ok. Checked on him again 15 minutes later and he'd also sellotaped his telephone handset (each workstation had both) to his head in the same manner. Not only that but he'd sellotaped his whole head to his monitor and was just sitting there going "I don't
    via u/bebelmatman
  • 03
    quite know what to do about this" while the call queue stacked up. I know no one can be quite that inept and it's most likely he was either trying to be funny or he just decided he didn't like the job and wanted out, but I prefer to think he was absolutely mental, and imagine that he's now a stuntman or a rodeo clown or something.
    via u/bebelmatman
  • 04
    Karaethon22 I was assistant manager at Subway. I usually liked to give people time. It's a tougher job than it seems from the outside, everyone sks at first, and taking someone's livelihood away is not a decision to be made lightly. But I had one lady who only lasted 3 hours. She was perfectly fine for the first
    via u/Karaethon22
  • 05
    couple minutes, while the store manager was there. But she had a doctor's appointment, so she introduced us and told the new employee I was in charge when she wasn't there. As soon as my boss left, this lady just flatly ignored me when I asked her to do stuff like food prep or dishes. So I was already pretty ped but trying to be patient. When we got
    via u/Karaethon22
  • 06
    busy, I stationed her putting. veggies on sandwiches. She said a few things to customers that annoyed me, but nothing too bad at first. Then one guy asked for extra olives and she told him no. He was a bit offended and asked again, and she practically shouts, "you don't need any more olives, you have plenty!" So I tell her to give him the olives he's asking for. Then she
    via u/Karaethon22
  • 07
    starts shouting at me about Subway standard veggie portions like I wasn't the one who taught her 45 minutes ago. I tried a little to explain that it's a default amount but customers can get extra, no big deal. She wasn't having it, so I stepped away from my station, gave the poor guy his olives, and apologized. That's when she lost it and started screaming that I was undermining her
    via u/Karaethon22
  • 08
    (??). I told her to go do dishes and I'd cover her station. She went storming off, thank God. I was already planning on talking to the store manager about it, because holy sh. But as luck would have it, the franchise owner dropped in for something or other. As soon as new girl realized who he was, she started ranting about how I didn't control my veggie
    via u/Karaethon22
  • 09
    portions or some sh and I should be fired. When the franchise owner took my side, obviously, she shouted at him too. That was that, except that she called the store manager later, in tears, begging to know what she'd done wrong, and made it sound like she didn't realize I was her boss or that shouting at the owner about how he doesn't know how to run a business is inappropriate.
    via u/Karaethon22
  • 10

    Being unreliable can cause your job to evaporate in an instant

    sonia72quebec She just left, I couldn't find her anywhere. Called her later at her parent's home and fired her. Mom was p ed... at me.
    via u/sonia72quebec
  • 11
    UltimaBahamut93 So technically not their first day but this was the last day of their temp trial period and then the next day they were going to be made full time. He was a forklift driver and we keep materials stacked high on very tall racks. Operators are told never ever to drive with the forklift raised up. You remain stationary, lift up, get the
    via u/UltimaBahamut93
  • 12
    pallet, bring it all the way down, then drive. Driver decides to drive the forklift while raised, clips the water sprinkler, tears the piping from the ceiling, causes the water system to go off and half our warehouse flooded. We make labels in our shop and
    via u/UltimaBahamut93
  • 13
    paper and water don't go well together. He ended up destroying over $40K worth of finished product. That's product we already spent money and time making.
    via u/UltimaBahamut93
  • 14
    storm_queen "I know my application said I can work any time but really I can't work nights and weekends." She was hired for nights and weekends.
    via u/storm_queen
  • 15
    [deleted] The guy signed a non disclosure as we were working around movie sets and production offices. Throughout the day he continuously asked if he could take photographs.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 16
    Finally, I realized that his employment was not worth risking my own employment or the production companies information. He was relocated elsewhere but, he did not last long from what I hear.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 17
    BA... Guy lied about knowing how to drive forklift. Drove into support beam. To Europeans: there's no such thing as a forklift license in the US. When you go to a new job you have to redo the exam again. There's also no official exam so every place does it their own way.
    via u/BADMANvegeta_
  • 18

    When you're too honest with your boss, that's just what happens

    Owl... Girl snorted in disgust when I asked her to clear a table in her section. Wouldn't be shown how to set a table, and snapped at another manager. "Do you even want to be here?" I asked. "Not really." "OK, grab your stuff, good luck to you."
    via u/Owlmoose
  • 19
    [deleted] Hired a guy on the recommendation of another employee. He no-call no- showed the first day. Second day he no-call no- showed, but halfway through the day called to tell me that his kid was sick (which I'm sympathetic for because I have kids too), but I had to tell him we couldn't use him. Then waves of ab ive texts and phone
    via u/[deleted]
  • 20
    messages from him and his wife. His final text was super-long and explained how I'd just made it an enemy for life and that he was going to get even by starting up a rival business and putting me out of business. If only he'd put that much energy into showing up.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 21
    ThomasTheTrolll Dude got a job as the overnight shift in my gym. The overnight is here alone. He arrives at 9 and is here till 7 am. At about 10:30 another employee comes in to workout and notices the "Please scan here" sign is up. This is used when the overnight goes to the bathroom or has to step
    via u/ThomasTheTrolll
  • 22
    away from the front desk for whatever reason. The employee works out for an hour and notices the sign is still up, he walks into the break room, bathroom ect and cant find the new guy. Turns out he left an hour into his first shift. Manager had to come cover. He wouldn't have known till the next day if the employee wasn't working out there.
    via u/ThomasTheTrolll
  • 23
    Dude ignores all calls from the manager and doesnt even come get his check from his training days.
    via u/ThomasTheTrolll
  • 24
    [de... So i was managing a low end casual chain restaurant and had hired this kid (probably 17-18) the prior week... lets call him Tony. I had done orientation with him his first day and then i had a week off for vacation. On my first day back to work, Tony is an hour late. We are super busy so i just tell him to get to work cooking and i will address it later. He looks
    via u/[deleted]
  • 25
    very lost and confused even though he had 5 training days with my lead trainer. He pulls me aside and says he will be right back and needs to go to the restroom. I'm a bit frustrated with him already and confused why he's asking but i say its fine obviously. Then it happens.. My lead trainer comes to me and tells me that this kid is not Tony. I reply with "what to you mean?" She says "i
    via u/[deleted]
  • 26
    was training Tony for 5 days, that is NOT him. I honestly thought he was another new hire" Now, i had only met the kid once for an hour right before vacation so i honestly didnt remember what he looked like. I bolt to the bathroom to confront him once he comes out to find the bathroom empty with a folded up shirt and hat on the booth outside. The next day i call Tony to ask what
    via u/[deleted]
  • 27
    the h I. He ignores the first call and then blocks my next call, so i try from my cell phone and he answers, i say my name and He immediatly hangs up and blocks me too. So my staff and i were left to assume that Tony apparently sent his friend in to work his job, in full uniform, and nobody but my lead trainer caught it. Idk if i should be embarassed, or impressed that his friend has some
    via u/[deleted]
  • 28
    major bills to go undercover like that.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 29
    Co... I was an internal consultant for a regional healthcare provider. I was integrating a smaller and newly acquired healthcare provider that was mostly residential homes for elderly individuals with moderate mental health issues. Technically I was also the interim director of this new division during the transition period-once they were fully integrated I would
    via u/Comms
  • 30
    step away and return to my consultant role-and during the transition period I was everyone's boss. I was at one of the sites reading charts and coordinating with the site's program manager about transitioning patient records to our system when I physically witnessed the program manager berate a patient for requesting something completely
    via u/Comms
  • 31
    reasonable it was something about requesting transport but the exact details escape me. Berating them would have been verboten regardless but the request was simple, reasonable, and easily granted. In our system this would have been a simple "yes" without any fuss. But even if it were a "no" it should have been delivered in a respectful way with an appropriate explanation.
    via u/Comms
  • 32
    And then she immediate got on the phone and complained about the patient to a coworker while making fun of them. In. Front. Of. Me. I was sitting across the table from her. I looked at my assistant because I thought I was going crazy and her eyebrows were so high up
    via u/Comms
  • 33
    on her forehead they merged with her hair. I fired her on the spot. To clarify, it wasn't the program manger's first day on the job, it was her first day as an employee of my organization.
    via u/Comms
  • 34
    Chi... It is what happened on the first day but he didn't get fired until a bit later when we figured it out. Managed a msp team hired a bright guy.. All seems good on the first day. At the end of the first day he received a phone call where he announced his father has passed away.
    via u/Chief-_-Wiggum
  • 35
    2 weeks of compassionate leave for funeral out of state later, he was supposed to start work again but called from the car park to say he's too distraught. This goes on for 3 more weeks until one day we got a phone call from someone looking for this worker. It was his father.
    via u/Chief-_-Wiggum
  • 36
    As it turned out he's been running this scam where he gets jobs with multiple companies and pulls this same stunt getting paid during the probationary period regardless of what happened for as long as he can. He set ups salary payment to multiple accounts himself and to friends to avoid detection from tax agency.
    via u/Chief-_-Wiggum
  • 37
    This guy was smooth.. Lied and cried.. Conned the lot of us. Not sure what happened to him but we reported this to the tax agency for a Case of tax fraud.
    via u/Chief-_-Wiggum
  • 38

    Some employees prove immediately why they're a bad fit for the job

    spndl1 Obligatory not a manager, but I was training temps for our help desk. I'd done this a few times and help desk manager told me to let him know if there were issues with any of the temps. While there were a few people I knew weren't going to be very good, there was never enough to get rid of them.
    via u/spndl1
  • 39
    Until one day I get a group and one lady is just kind of glazed over while I'm going through stuff. Everyone had their logins and was following along to get a bit of experience seeing what to do and then having the opportunity to do it themselves. After my demo is over, I have everyone come up and show me that they can do what I just went over.
    via u/spndl1
  • 40
    There's the normal nervousness of being put on the spot, people blanking for a second before I prompt them on what to do, fat the keyboard, etc. All normal stuff until I get to the quiet lady. She comes up and sits down and I wait for her to log in. And I wait. And wait. She's locked out her account. Were you able to log in at all to follow along?
    via u/spndl1
  • 41
    No. Well that's annoying because seeing and doing at the same time really helps. people grasp the concepts of what they need to do, but whatever. I unlock her account and have her log in. She relocks her account. The new accounts had temp passwords that were all the same like ChangeThis01. Thought maybe she got a randomized one by mistake and reset it to the standard
    via u/spndl1
  • 42
    to be sure. She locks it again. The other two people in there training class are getting uncomfortable and I'm running out of ease the tension jokes. Reset the password again and really watch her. She's using hunt and peck to enter the password, so it's easy to see she's misspelling change every time she enters her password. This time I reset
    via u/spndl1
  • 43
    the password to Password1 and she's finally able to log in and change her password. It's the only time I recommended they get rid of a temp. Nice lady, but there's no way she would have been able to handle doctors yelling at her for 'the system being down' if she couldn't handle entering her own password or speaking up when she had an issue.
    via u/spndl1
  • 44
    Gregs_reddit_acc... Not a manager, but was training a new guy on a plastic bag cutting machine. The kind of bags used for products like fiberglass, peat moss, or salt. These machines sometimes have plastic build up around the sealers and when this happens the machine needs to be stopped and cleaned.
    via u/Gregs_reddit_account
  • 45
    Usually this only takes a minutes. Power off, engage killswitch, remove excess plastic, change teflon strip if necessary, disengage kill switch, then power back on. This was explained multiple times. Twice on the first night, he disengaged the kill switch and started the machine while I was working on it.
    via u/Gregs_reddit_account
  • 46
    Could have had my fingers crushed, or had it clamp on the tools I was using and send shattered pieces everywhere. Lucky for me the machine starts to vibrate a second before it actually starts and I was able to pull away quickly enough both times.
    via u/Gregs_reddit_account
  • 47
    I stopped the machine, grabbed my manager and my union rep, explained what happened and he was gone in 5 minutes. F___ him.
    via u/Gregs_reddit_account

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