'I'm practically doing your job': 25-year-old cashier belittles manager, gets "super fired"

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jan 8, 2026 11:00 AM EST

This cashier is breaking both the spoken and unspoken rules of his cashier job by bothering the managers, making everyone else give him the side-eye. 

We all make some faux pas here and there in the workplace, especially as the new person. Live and learn, right? In your first weeks and months at the job, you're still learning the ropes. You don't know everyone, you barely know how to do your job, and you certainly don't know who's your friend and who's totally untrustworthy. These first few weeks are crucial to learning how to succeed at your particular workplace. Who do you report to officially, and who do you report to in practice? Who should you be super serious with, and who can you be a little goofy around? You'll find out as you go. 

This worker made the serious mistake of being extremely impolite to a vice manager at his store, and it seems like, from start to finish, his retail tenure was filled with mistakes. His coworker, who shared the shocking tale, shares that he was hired during a rush, meaning that he might not have been the best choice for the job in the first place. He totally skipped a big chunk of orientation time, and since the company took him at his word, he literally lied his way into the job! They were so desperate to find workers that they didn't properly vet them, and that leads to instances like this one. 

I don't know about you, but if I lied my way into a job, I'd probably be on my best behavior. But John here took the opposite approach: he started telling actual managers that they didn't know how to do their jobs! 

As you can imagine, that kind of jaw-dropping impoliteness didn't go over well with either his fellow workers or the managers. The audacity of this dude to think that he could get away with such sass is truly stunning. That's just the tip of the iceberg, though. Keep reading to check out this person's full account of what happened. They then checked in 2 weeks later with an update, and whew, it's quite the read! I want to hope that John learned his lesson, but with an attitude like that, I can't imagine he has any more managerial opportunities coming his way any time soon. 

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  • 01
    Young man in denim shirt folds child's clothing in clothing store
    via Yunus Tuğ For Unsplash+

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

  • 02
    So I'm currently working for a rather large discounter as a cashier and stocker. This means that we have minimal staff to keep the store running (2 min., 3- 4 on busier days). This means that each worker not only has a higher workload, but also means that everyone except the first register needs to do multiple things throughout their shift. The one responsible for the organisation of tasks is the most senior full time employee,
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    internally known as the "vice manager". (Names and exact jobs and titles have been changed for privacy obviously) Recently we've fallen into a staff shortage due to our previous store manager getting promoted, and their replacement along with 2 other co-workers quitting due to medical issues and/or moving to a different city. This meant that regional was scrambling for new
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  • 04
    hires and onboarded quickly, skipping most of the formal onboarding process, which for me included about 8 (paid) hours of E-learning courses. Two of the three new hires are not noteworthy in the slightest, but No. 3, let's call him John, certainly was a character. John is a 25 year old toxically friendly non-native part time worker, that also works at a fast food chain across town as his second job. When John was
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    interviewed, he not only lied. about previous experience, as he claimed he worked for one of our sister organisations so knew "all the systems", but also lied about his availability, given his other job. This lead to the interviewer from regional saying that he is eligible to be a vice manager. When he started due to the rushed hiring and lack of store manager, he didn't do any of the e-learning. This is critical, since several of those (Register101,
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  • 06
    Health and Safety, Conflict Resolution, Youth Protection) are legally required to be allowed to work a register. Since we didn't know that he hadn't done those before at our sister store, he was allowed to operate the register, which he was unsurprisingly very bad at. Anyways. On day 2 of working with us, I had him as my second cashier, and he was already gossiping about that shift's vice manager, saying how she was bad at her job, and that
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    "she couldn't make it at [fast food place]". Then he complimented our most senior full time employee saying "wow you did that really well despite being... you know." Then he started actively spreading minor rumors about certain employees hating certain other employees, all whilst having the Ego of a lifetime. If you asked him anything, he'd claim to know it, then tell you something completely wrong. He'd casually
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    state that he was the fastest and most orderly and best at facing, etc. etc. etc., all whilst his cash register performance (digitally tracked) was severely under the quota. (Note that our quota isn't hard to hit. Once you've been at the register for a month or so, you'll hit it and there's no repercussions for it unless you're under it consistently. Most exceed it by ~30%).
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    This underperformance is why he was then subsequently denied the ability to be a vice manager of a shift, since at that point it had also come out that he didn't work in our sister store, but worked in a bakery in the same building as one. Then I was once again paired with him for a shift a few days ago. This is now month 3 or so of his employment and he is universally disliked as a gossiper,
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    underperformer and fake nice coworker. Whilst everyone is still professional, he isn't on a friendly basis with anyone, as everyone knows about his gossiping and weird self congratulatory compliments. That day I find out that he's handed in his two week notice, and what does he do? Underperform even harder. At one point during the day, his register crashes. When this happens, that register is out of
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    commission for a good 10 minutes, due to the automatic reboot sequence. The current vice manager then came to the register to see what's up and initiate the restart. I tell him "You could go outside and put the carts in the pen. They've been messy for a few weeks now." to which he responds, not to me but to the vice manager. "This dude doesn't have shit to say here." to which the vice manager responded "it's still a good idea,
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    come on let's go outside." (At this point they had a talk outside that I didn't witness, but got a transcript of later) John: "This clown doesn't have shit to say here. I'm practically doing your job." VM: "He's been here for way longer than you, and if regional walked in when you were just sitting there, it'd be your ass." John: "He just wants to boss me around, that rac_t." VM: "No he suggested something that
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    needs to be done anyways, and that he can't do as first register." John: "He obviously just wants to boss me around. I'm way higher than him in the hierarchy. He's just a cashier. I'm untouchable. They can't fire me I already quit. I can do what I want, and that idiot can't make me do shit." VM: "Calm down, then come back in and go back to your register, end of discussion."
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    After that John looked visibly angry at me the rest of the day. Now do note that John was 90 minutes late that day, after calling in that he'd be an hour late 10 minutes before his shift started. Anyways, I went to the VM after that to talk with him about John, where I found out about the conversation in rough strokes.
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    Then I didn't see John until the end of the day, but what happened during that time is going to end up with a severe whooping next week. John wanted to go 5 minutes early to catch the next public transit time, which was exactly at close, whilst we usually take ~15 minutes to close the store (paid). Due to the VM being sick of John, he agreed, but changed his schedule so he wouldn't be paid
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    the 15 minutes after close. Then John called the VM, who was in the store talking to a co- worker [Dora] that had come in for shopping late in the evening. Dora had at that point told John that he could restock the bottled water, since there was still time. VM: "Hey John what's up?" John(on speaker): "Yeah I'm done with the register. That stupid c*nt Dora just told me to restock the water. Who does that
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    b#tch think she is?" VM(stunned): "Uh, yeah. I'm gonna come get your register locked up. be right there." Now, obviously, Dora heard that. She didn't say anything so John didn't know she heard, but told the VM that she'd stay after close to talk to him. I don't think I've heard any co-worker use any curse words or insults ever, so this is a major out of bounds.
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    During close, she asked us if we were okay with being listed as witnesses, to which we agreed and she said that that next Monday, so in a few hours, she'd be contacting corporate to see if she can "Make him exit a little faster and on fire." This is getting interesting...
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    Here's the post-holiday update:

    Hello again. It's been 2 weeks since the original post, since I wanted to wait for the full process to unravel, which was slowed by the Christmas chaos.
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    As a quick reminder, the nightmare Coworker John is a 25 year old incredibly incapable, toxically friendly part timer that lied on his application about having worked for us in the past. After being a pain in the ass for a good quarter, then quitting and insulting one of our VMs (vice manager) (Dora) by accident.
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    So after that incident, Dora went to the regional manager to report this. This isn't the first report about John, given his track record as incapable, but it was the last. Though that's not quite correct, but I'll get to that later. Now, as mentioned in the original post, our atmosphere is very friendly and even mild insults towards coworkers would get you a talking to, so his behaviour was phenomenally out of line, especially to an off-duty VM
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    (Dora is also a VM). Though I don't know the full story, from what I could gather several from the upper brass came to our store to talk to our Store Manager, Dora, and John one by one, with 3 corporate members each. Dora said that they meticulously went through the event with her, but seemed generally pretty unfazed in their expressions. The store manager said that "they just asked about how much I trust you, Dora and a
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    few others, then looked around the store like the Inquisition and left. No idea why they came. Inspection isn't for another 3 weeks at least.". (Inquisition is what we call "Quality Assurance, Audits and Revisions" which is basically just the Audit Guys.) Now this Monday i look at the work schedule and John is completely gone. Not even a listing with no hours, just removed. Since I was heading that way anyways for shopping I
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    hopped in and asked that day's VM who said "no idea. they usually don't go away until at least a month after their last day.", and the store manager said: "I don't think I can tell you what I know. If you wanna know, go ask Claire." Now, Claire is our regional manager, who we're on quite good terms with. So I hit up Claire after getting back:
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    Me: "Hey Claire" Claire: "Hey OP, what's up? I thought you were off until the 3rd?" Me: "yeah I am. Just wanted to ask something a little off the record." Claire: "Oookay? Let's see what I can do for you." Me: "So just out of curiosity, what happened to John? He's not on the timetable anymore, and I haven't seen any good-byes." Claire (audibly despairing): "Oh yeah... John. John is about as close to Super- fired as possible. After Doral
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    called the HR director, HR sent out some guys to check up on things and John was stealing stuff. Not much, at least not much we can prove, but enough to fire him on the spot. His Personell File ist also marked with "Do not Hire" and "Do not Recommend", so I doubt he'll ever get a job with any company we're working with." Me: "They can do that?" Claire: "Apparently. I can't I know that much. Anyways anything other than
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  • 27
    that?" Me: "Uh no, that's it. Happy New Year's if we don't hear eachother anymore." Claire: "You too." So yeah, John is super fired. Sadly no epic battle. Some of you have attempted to guess where I work, though none were correct. If all our subsidiaries are counted together though,we have a little over 3x as many employees as DG, though our customer base is just as animalistic. Given John is
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    also likely blocked from working for our suppliers, I think a good half million jobs are forever out of John's reach, and afaik most Discounters call around to other brands to see if a person is a no no. So at least there's that.
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    Other than that, happy belated Christmas and happy New years in advance. Hope y'all survived the holidays, and managed to get some family time now let's make it past New Years (without me since I took time off>:D)
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    Man in denim shirt and gray jeans folds jeans display in retail store
    via Yunus Tuğ For Unsplash+

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

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