15+ Employees who got fired in surprising ways: 'They asked him to train his replacement'

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Nov 19, 2025 3:00 PM EST

If you got fired, would you train your own replacement? For many people — probably most! — the answer would be a firm "No." Once you're told you're fired from a company, that's it. You're done with that place for ever and ever. At a lot of companies, you don't even get to go back to your desk one last time, or say goodbye to your coworkers or bosses. Instead, they'll probably hand you all of your belongings in a banker's box, and send you on your way. And forget about severance pay — we all know that most companies are happy to let their ex-employees figure out how to pay the rent without any additional cash handouts. 

Maybe this sounds a bit jaded to you, which is a fair assessment, but just wait until you read the wild stories of these employees who got fired in some pretty tacky ways. I mean, one person shared the story of their first — and last — day working at an ice cream parlor. They were somehow expected to memorize all 31 flavors of ice cream within the first few minutes on the job. That's a pretty silly requirement for any job, but especially for an ice cream parlor, where customers can peer through the glass at every flavor before picking one. Anyway, their boss flipped his lid upon realizing that they hadn't memorized 30+ flavors of ice cream immediately, and just fired them. How bizarre! Keep scrolling to read the rest of these excellent stories of people who got fired from their jobs in the oddest ways, including many people who found greener pastures to turn to following their ordeals. 

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  • 01
    Woman in white shirt and apron smiles, to her right a man in a red button down frowns and crosses his arms
    via Levi Meir Clancy For Unsplash+

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

  • 02
    [deleted] My first job ever was for Baskin Robbins when I was 15. I went in for my first day of training excited to finally be making pocket money! The owner made me try to memorize the ice cream flavours in the first 30 seconds of being there.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 03
    When I was unable to recite them perfectly in their order he did this big hand motion and screamed "training over!" I laugh now but man that was crushing for a nervous teenager.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 04
    Lnonimous I worked in retail and our manager fired a guy after his 12 hour shift on Black Friday. Could've spent the day after thanksgiving with his family, but instead, the manager made him work in case it was busy, then fired him at the end of his shift. It was a douche move.
    via u/Lnonimous
  • 05
    schnit123 My dad told me once about a coworker getting fired on take your daughter to work day. It was before lunch too so they both had to be escorted out of the office carrying their brown paper lunch bags.
    via u/schnit123
  • 06
    sal... One capable IT employee was in the hospital due to an unexpected health emergency. They went to the hospital and fired him before his heart surgery. I shit you not.
    via u/salzocow
  • 07
    Edit: For those asking I was not long behind him for the chopping block so I don't know the rest of the story. I hope he and his family are well.
    via u/salzocow
  • 08
    [deleted] I had a friend who worked in an office doing office type shit. One day, his boss. croaked and he was was made interim boss. Anyways, he busted his ass in order to try and keep his new position. A month later, he interviewed. A week later, his boss called him into the office and said.... You know,
    via u/[deleted]
  • 09
    we really wanted to hire you, I was rooting for you, but someone with more experience and qualifications got the job..... do you mind training him? They asked him to train his replacement.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 10
    [deleted] I know someone who went to his company mailbox and found a paycheck. It was stamped "TERM CHECK". He went to his manager and asked about it. She said "Oh. About that. You were fired..."
    via u/[deleted]
  • 11
    [deleted] It's a long story, but I was early in my career. I wasn't fired for a good reason and I hadn't really stood up for myself yet. I just took abuse from management and did the best I could It was my GM's birthday, and we all had to pick names out of a hat, and we had to buy them a cake etc for their birthday. Well I had the GM,
    via u/[deleted]
  • 12
    who wanted to do his birthday in the morning with bagels. So I picked up 30+ bagels, cream cheese, giant thing of coffee, and we had this stupid bagel birthday thing or whatever Half hour later I get back to my desk, I'm called to HR and I was fired. Oh and thanks for the bagels
    via u/[deleted]
  • 13
    iprocrastina Girl I knew was here on work visa. She had been working at a company for several years that treated her well but ended up moving and got a job at a new one. Her boss apparently used her as a scapegoat, set her up with impossible, bullshit tasks (like planning the office Christmas party about a week beforehand), then fired her shortly before
    via u/iprocrastina
  • 14
    Christmas. That meant her work visa expired and she was going to be sent back to her home country. Apparently it's the law that the employer in this case pay for the fired employee's plane ride home, and her boss chose to fly her out on Christmas.
    via u/iprocrastina
  • 15
    savonwarrior Summoned 17 people (~20% of the entire workforce) to the operations manager's office 8 am Friday. The day before the Company Christmas party, where bonuses are handed out. Usually to the tune of $2k each. Two weeks before Christmas, no job, no bonus, needing to cancel a date
    via u/savonwarrior
  • 16
    night with their SOs. Morale wasn't too good. Two months later another wave of firings occurred, one of the guys was partying in LA the night before and called in sick. They forced his supervisor to call him repeatedly at home, telling him it was mandatory he showed up.
    via u/savonwarrior
  • 17
    He lived 35-40 minutes away. HR was waiting in the parking lot. Parked, they handed him a packet and check, turned around and drove 40 minutes back home.
    via u/savonwarrior
  • 18
    owls-and-vergubas I worked at a place that was sold to investors, they brought in a hotshot CEO to bump up the numbers, then sold to our major competitor. During the transition, about 20 people were let go in one day. The head of HR (M) and the other HR employee (F) spent all day at it. It wasn't easy, since a lot of the employees had been there since the
    via u/owls-and-vergubas
  • 19
    early days, 15+ years. There were tears, some shouting, the awkward "Hey Imma just stand here casually while I make sure you don't get weird while you clean out your desk also I'm so sorry this is happening" thing... After a whole day of that, the head of HR turns to the other HR employee and tells her, "Oh BTW we're gonna have to let you go too."
    via u/owls-and-vergubas
  • 20
    You may ask, how did I know there were tears, shouting, etc.? Because that skeezy butthole head of HR shared all the gory details with my coworker the next day, in our open office workspace. She didn't ask, but he needed to tell someone. To this day I get mad thinking about it.
    via u/owls-and-vergubas
  • 21
    000-000-oooyea We were having a departmental meeting, and the head of engineering, Myron, was giving a speech about how all of our customers are happy - and how all of his ideas are fucking awesome. Both of these were very false, so he was either lying or is disillusion.
    via u/ooo-ooo-oooyea
  • 22
    Next his boss is giving her presentation, and the little email message popped up at the bottom corner of the screen saying "You need to fire Myron". Myron was soon fired... and good riddance.
    via u/ooo-ooo-oooyea
  • 23
    [d... Told my boss I had a 2 week mandatory training block coming up with my reserves unit. Got told there's no way I'm not working during that 2 weeks. Told him it's not like I have a choice. Got fired.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 24
    suitology Friend of mine helped secure a BIG contract for the company he was working for. An incentive for getting contracts is you get a percentage of the profit. He Just started working there about 2 months prior and went out own his own several states away to talk. to a potential customer from a lead he got at a convention
    via u/suitology
  • 25
    (Basically, "Oh yeah I have a buddy who's looking into that. You should meet him") in person out of his own pocket. He secured the deal, called his supervisor to tell him, was congratulated, then drove 12 hours back home. His payout would have come out to around $40,000 over 5 years Went into work the next day and was fired for "suspicion of theft" and the boss of the
    via u/suitology
  • 26
    division (not the supervisor, that guy is lower) would be taking over all his current stuff. He lawyerd up immediately but since he was still on his probationary period and they could fire him without cause nothing but the finders fee (around $3000) was to be paid to him. Basically his boss tossed him to get some free money.
    via u/suitology
  • 27
    koopakid902 Was fired 3 days after my kid was born for missing time because I requested the weekend that my ex was in labour off, got the go ahead from my supervisor but I guess that never made it upstairs to the top boss because they got rid of me lol.
    via u/koopakid902
  • 28
    elentaari i was fired from petsmart for reasons i can no longer remember. immediately after the manager delivered the news, she asked me if i would mind staying for two hours to wait until the evening shift relief arrived. unpaid, of course. i laughed in her face and left.
    via u/elentaari
  • 29
    looknass My mom worked for a small medical practice that was fast on its way to bankruptcy. Her boss gave her a promotion without raise and over the course of the next year, made her fire her coworkers one by one. She came to realize the reason she was "promoted" was so her boss could make her do the firing while he avoided everyone. Her
    via u/looknass
  • 30
    coworkers saw what was happening, but still drifted away from their friendships with my mom as they saw her as an accomplice with the boss. The stress of firing her peers and feeling completely isolated at work was really eating away at my mom right up until the day her boss fired her, too.
    via u/looknass
  • 31
    I'm sure there's worse ways to get canned, but my mom is a sweet woman who hadn't yet learned to speak up for herself and I'm disgusted at the lack of character and integrity her boss had.
    via u/looknass
  • 32
    name_pending_ On night shift a coworker comes in and tries to log into the computer system. It doesn't work. She's locked out of everything. She'd also had trouble clocking in. The night shift supervisor is off that night. This lady starts freaking out and crying. She says she knew they were looking for a reason to fire her. When were they planning on telling her?
    via u/name_pending__
  • 33
    What is she suppose to do now? Despite multiple people reassuring her that if they were going to fire her, this is not the way they would do it and suggesting there might just be a mistake, she is still determined that she's been fired and they forgot to tell her before they cut her
    via u/name_pending__
  • 34
    access. She goes home and doesn't come in the next night either. She won't answer calls, and is out for the rest of the next week. Turn's out they hadn't fired her, but they had been looking for a reason to fire her. Not calling and not showing up for work was enough of a reason, so then she really was fired.
    via u/name_pending__
  • 35
    Woman in white shirt and apron holds pen and clipboard in cafe setting
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

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

  • 36
    dopkick My buddy moved across the country for a job. At the end of his second week he was informed they were going to let him go as part of a large reduction in force. He had moved all of his stuff and signed a year lease of an apartment. When he complained that this really screwed him over and the company had to know this was coming well before he
    via u/dopkick
  • 37
    started and should have just told him to not come his now former boss patted him on the back, chuckled, and told him something like "life's not fair." My buddy ended up getting the last laugh. His dad's best friend was an attorney with all the right connections in that state.
    via u/dopkick
  • 38
    His old company settled. with him when they were served with a lawsuit, claiming something like fraud and deception. He ended up settling for something that was over double his yearly salary.
    via u/dopkick
  • 39
    [deleted] I got fired because my boss fucked up and blamed it on me. I started my own business in the same field and made all key people leave my former employer and work for me instead. A year later they had to file for bankruptcy. Ah, the malicious delight.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 40
    wa... Not the worst I've read on here, but because it happened to me & still kind of stings a little - it feels bad to me. Previous company I worked. for got into financial trouble. The month before, I'd been awarded a considerable raise for 'excellent performance'. But they were losing contracts from
    via u/watsee
  • 41
    customers & not much fresh business was coming through the door. Walked into work one day without any indication that anything was wrong. My boss had taken the day off, as it was a Friday I didn't really think much of it. Next thing I know, my manager requested to see me in the private office (nothing unusual, we were amidst planning a project) and
    via u/watsee
  • 42
    handed me a letter from my boss to say that I was fired. Coward didn't even have the balls to tell me to my face. They reasoned that it was due to 'unsatisfactory performance', when I had not done anything wrong & as I said earlier, had previously been awarded a raise for my performance in the company so far. It was because they needed to cut some costs & because I was
    via u/watsee
  • 43
    the last one through the door - I was first out. By firing me, they were only required to pay me my owed salary & nothing else. Where, had I been laid off there would have been other financial responsibilities i.e. redundancy. So by firing me instead of laying me off, it was cheaper for them.
    via u/watsee
  • 44
    Some of the other guys kept their jobs, but the company has since been liquidated & re-started under a slightly different name. Funny thing is, I still have FULL access to all of the company and customer systems. They haven't changed any admin passwords since I left. I have
    via u/watsee
  • 45
    full administrator access to PRIMARY SCHOOL computer systems. Good thing I'm not a vindictive prick, but that shit is bad.
    via u/watsee
  • 46
    3 employees look at one employee who holds a pen in front of laptop
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

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

  • 47
    [deleted] I was walking into work and saw my coworker/friend being walked out by the cops. He stole money from the store and was caught. A week later, I was at a different store. Turns out, that kid got a job from that store also. HE WAS GETTING WALKED OUT BY THE COPS AGAIN FOR THE SAME THING. It was unreal
    via u/[deleted]

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