'[He] kept calling the shop manager a clown to his face': 20+ Employees whose poor decisions led them to get fired

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
May 14, 2025 5:00 PM EDT

Not everyone deserves to get fired, but some people make it impossible for their bosses to keep them around. 

Firing an employee is often the worst-case scenario for an employer. They'd rather have that person quit if possible, so sometimes employees receive numerous warnings or get put on a performance improvement plan. These things should clue the employee into the fact that their employer is not happy about how things are going, and that they should start seeking new work ASAP. But for some employees, getting fired is the only way to make them realize just how badly they're really doing at their job. 

Up next, read about this 16-year-old who quit his job after his parents spent years giving away his money to his younger siblings: "My parents are bad with money and they spoil my younger siblings." 

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  • 01
    'Yeah, I just didn't feel like showing [up]'
    via A. C. For Unsplash+

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

  • 02
    Child of Valhalla Guy in the shipping dept. kept calling the shop manager a clown, to his face, and was warned to stop. The guy finally got fired when he decided to play circus music at full volume the next time the boss man came around.
    via u/ChildofValhalla
  • 03
    UniversalMe She messaged in the groupchat we had for employees saying something along the lines of how she hates the job and she hoped the building burned down. Loved that girl.
    via u/UniversalMe
  • 04
    ThatGirl76 He was found sleeping under his desk. When awake he was caught repeatedly sneaking out the back door (no receptionist) and leaving for hours. He was taking credit for the work of others while trying to his work off on the data entry girl. He worked there for 2.5 weeks.
    via u/ThatGirl76
  • 05
    knz-rn He put an ultrasound guided IV in a patient's artery instead of their vein. He wasn't signed off on performing that task yet and did it anyways.
    via u/knz-rn
  • 06

    This dude sounds insufferable

    Antrax- I'm a software engineer. My company hired a software architect who specialized in a different field. About a week after joining, he declared we need to restructure the whole software. So far so good, except: • The new structure was not clear to anyone but himself.
    via u/Antrax-

    When other employees have to bend over backwards to make sure one dude isn't botching all their work or metrics, it's time for the boss to intervene. 

  • 07
    • He could not explain what was wrong with the existing structure. Now, software engineering is still engineering. There's some leeway but ultimately there are right and wrong answers. Reasonably adept engineers should be able to communicate and convince each other of ideas, barring their egos. This guy, though, just sort of made up his own language. Like he'd tell you
    via u/Antrax-
  • 08
    the software needs to be made of boondoggles. connected to flimbusters, and you'd ask what he meant by flimbuster and he'd just launch into a long (~10 uninterrupted minutes) explanation at the end of which you still had no idea. While this was going on, he was generally being annoying. Nothing earth- shattering, but he'd leave empty coffee cups on
    via u/Antrax-
  • 09
    people's desks, would pull them in "a brief discussion" that would take up over an hour, bad-mouthed some of us to the rest of us, bad- mouth some of us to upper management, generally sleazy stuff. It went on for two months. Two months where we engineers genuinely couldn't figure out if the guy is a misunderstood genius or a scam artist, because
    via u/Antrax-
  • 10
    nobody could figure out what he's on about, and he was extremely adamant about whatever it was, repeatedly bashing the existing architecture for being a de d-end. It ended when one of us basically called him on his bulls. Told management "we can't figure out what to do here, let's take all the time we need to make it concrete" and just spent
    via u/Antrax-
  • 11
    entire days locked in a room with him and management, slowly forcing him to go into details. The endgame was for Mr. Architect to write a document explaining in full detail what needs to be done. He had two weeks. He didn't show up to work after they passed, and the document he left behind was just the chapter headings.
    via u/Antrax-
  • 12
    I think we dodged a bullet but the story is so crazy I don't think I'll ever be free of the doubt that maybe he really had a good idea I was too dumb to comprehend.
    via u/Antrax-
  • 13
    IAM_REPTAR_AMA He called the cops on himself during peak hours because there was a warrant out for his arrest.
    via u/IAM_REPTAR_AMA
  • 14
    puterTDI We had someone that was impossible to work with, largely because he couldn't listen or comprehend what others are saying. This isn't a language issue. He just literally could not comprehend what he was being told. He was so self involved that it was impossible to get him to stop and listen to someone
    via u/puterTDI
  • 15
    else. I was lead over him for a project briefly simply because the project was going sideways. My way of dealing with him was to not assign ANY tasks to him that actually had to be done (I would assign him bugs we had already decided not to fix) and then refuse to help him (his favorite thing to do was ask for help then argue/refuse to listen and try to make the conversation
    via u/puterTDI
  • 16
    take as long as possible keeping the other person from doing their job). In the end, he got put on a PIP. He argued with our boss about it, all the while not comprehending what it meant, then left his office and went to the office of the next person up (who obviously knew of the PIP) and proceeded to argue with him. The great part was that the PIP was about
    via u/puterTDI
  • 17
    comprehension and listening skills and he completely failed to listen to THIS boss as well and was fired on the spot. He then kept saying he would go get his stuff from his desk and could not understand what they meant when he was told he could not go back to his desk and that they would ship him his personal possessions. He just kept repeating that he
    via u/puterTDI
  • 18
    had to go back to his desk to get his stuff.
    via u/puterTDI
  • 19
    yonderthrown1 I work at a large manufacturing plant. About once a week, a dude and his team-leader accomplice would come to work before their shift, clock in, hide out in the locker room for 20 minutes during shift change, walk back out the gate and drive to a different job where the two would work for 8 hours. Then the accomplice would go in the system and
    via u/yonderthrown1
  • 20
    put in a clock-out time, making it look like they just forgot to swipe their badges on the way out. Getting paid over 20 dollars an hour while not even at the place. Due to absolutely terrible supervision at the plant on off-shifts, it surprisingly took months before they got caught red handed. Fired AND a nasty lawsuit for fraud.
    via u/yonderthrown1
  • 21
    There are plenty other stories but that's the ballsiest on the part of the person getting fired that I can think of.
    via u/yonderthrown1
  • 22

    Bro picked the one job he shouldn't have taken, then did the job for 4 months!

    outjack01 Delivered pizzas for us for about 4 months without car insurance. Finally got caught after rear ending someone on a delivery and paying him $200 cash to not report it. Told us he hit a wall. Might have gotten away with it if he didn't make a Facebook post about it the next day.
    via u/outjack01
  • 23

    This used to be a popular party trick... but it should never been done in the workplace

    [deleted] used an can of axe body spray and a lighter in the crew room as a flamethrower
    via u/[deleted]
  • 24
    jenseben000 Poked holes in the cups so when we filled them up they would pour right on to the customers, had anger problems, (not his fault, but probably not the best quality for a fast food employee) was lazy, showed up late a lot, would purposefully mess up orders and get people the wrong drinks, and wouldn't stay clean shaven (we had a pretty
    via u/jenseben000
  • 25
    strict rule on having no facial hair). The last straw was that one day he didn't show up at all. When the Director called him to ask why he didn't show up, all he said was, "yeah, I just didn't feel like showing." My Director then informed him that didn't need to show up ever again. No was was sad or surprised to see him go.
    via u/jenseben000
  • 26
    Redici Was working pizza and the GM highered a new driver, overall a decent guy, maybe a little slow at times, and doesn't seem to be picking up on simple things like how to do prep. About 2 months after he started I'm the closing manager and I get a call at about 9 pm, it's the new driver saying he couldn't find the address the customer had given him, the
    via u/Redici
  • 27
    only problem being I didn't know he was working that night so I ask him what he's talking about... He was the opening driver, he had taken a delivery at about 2:30 pm just before I had gotten there and when he looked up the address in his phone it told him that the address was for a place on the north end of Dallas, the pizza place was in Austin. This dumb a had driven 6
    via u/Redici
  • 28
    hours there then spent another hour trying to find a place that didn't exist. The next day the GM asked me to cover his shifts for the rest of the week as he was fired for "an inability to perform essential job functions"
    via u/Redici
  • 29
    Smittywasnumber1 I worked at a cheese factory in a small town. During the off-season there was not a lot of work to be done around the place except for maintenance and housekeeping stuff. Our stores guy would go missing. on an almost daily basis and only appear an hour or two before knock off. He would usually say that he had just popped out for lunch or that
    via u/Smittywasnumber1
  • 30
    he was working on something at the back of our site. Management couldn't prove he was skipping out on work, though, and when we were on production, he was generally good at his job. So they largely turned a blind eye. Where he f ed up, though, was when there was a local go-kart competition.
    via u/Smittywasnumber1
  • 31
    He skipped out after lunch and competed in the main race - placing second. It got published in the local paper the following week and the manager read it while having his morning coffee. He went over and congratulated him on the result while handing him a suspension notice. HR terminated him the next day.
    via u/Smittywasnumber1
  • 32
    athaliah He missed a major deadline and didn't tell anyone and didn't show up to work to face the music. Then they found out he was assigning some of his work to another coworker but turning it in and saying he did it. Then they tried to fire him but he didn't show up for 3 days. They basically drove to his house to fire him.
    via u/athaliah
  • 33
    do... She got caught breaking federal law by a regulator, then asked the regulator to cover for her. Regulator didn't cover.
    via u/doublestitch
  • 34
    [deleted] She was slower than dirt so everyone had to pick up her slack. Sometimes we even had to help her when we were done cleaning and ready to leave. The boss was part of the team and was aware of this. Instead of firing her, she devised a new pay plan. Instead of paying. hourly, she would pay each employee per jobs they did.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 35
    When she informed them of this (I had quit just prior but remained friends with another employee) slowpoke called her out. Asked questions like how would they be able to keep track of their pay, how was that fair to the person cleaning the bathrooms because those took the longest, often leaving no time to do a second job, etc. Questions everyone wanted asked. She
    via u/[deleted]
  • 36
    got fired on the spot. She also accused the boss of trying to pay herself more...which was exactly what happened.
    via u/[deleted]

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terrible coworkers getting fired firing story firing employee fired work stories toxic-workplace fired story coworkers working fired on spot employees coworker got fired
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