74 New Hires Who Barely Made It Through The Door Before Getting Fired

Two hours. Financial Planning & Analysis department for an S&P500 regional bank. The CFO had a strict policy that every number presented to the C-suite or board had to have a 10-key paper tape signed and stapled to a printout of the presentation. New guy said "I'm not comfortable doing that." Dude, putting your signature on the most basic audit possible is the very definition of entry-level work.

Guy got hired at a local convenience store chain in the northeastern USA named WAWA(happy??)

He was hired by the AGM and his interviews only involved the AGM and Food Service Manager. His first shift he came in asked a few questions to the shift manager, Shift manager asked the GM what he should be doing and then he was given Computer based training modules.

The GM had just ordered himself Lunch. Got pizza delivered and put it in his office (Right next to the computer training area) while he finished up a busy rush.

GM came back to his office 45 minutes later. Found half his pizza missing, looks out and sees the new guy eating pizza while doing his training. At this point the GM had never met the new hire in person yet.

GM asked the new hire where he got the pizza from, without a seconds hesitation the New Hire said " I brought this in with me".

GM told him to stop doing his training and go home, New Hire got angry yelling "Who tf do you think you are? I was hired by (AGM's name)!".

GM replied " Im his boss and the person you just stole from on your first day".

Never saw him again, overall lasted maybe an hour.

I caught a pharmacy tech taking a big gulp out of a stock bottle of promethazine with codeine. It was her third day.

He was fired two days into the one week training because he was bragging about having a hidden camera shaped like a pen. Then he was caught taking pictures of the women in the class with it. Then, when confronted, he got hostile and started threatening people. Security walked him out.

About eight minutes. Temp walked onto a demolition site in dress shoes. Didn’t even make it through orientation.

"Who's that old guy with a face like a slapped bum"

Said within earshot of the company owner who was said old guy. Not fired on the spot but was gone by the end of the day after being told his services would no longer be required.

3.5 hours.

We were unboxing computers for a call center in South Texas. I was there to assist with setup and train the new IT staff. There is no one in the building aside from IT and HR who is conducting interviews for the new site. As we head for lunch, I tell the guys we can leave our boxcutters on the counter. One guy says "Thank god! I was starting to feel like a Mexican, carrying around this knife all day.".

HR was on the other side of the counter, all of Mexican ancestry. I was barely out of the parking lot and my phone rings. It's my boss. Fire him, fire him right now and don't you dare take him for lunch on our dime.

In college I was the crew leader for the night stocking crew at a large supermarket. I met a guy in one of my classes who immediately asked me to put in a good word for him to be hired. I told him i didn’t know him well enough to recommend him but he kept coming back to me begging for me to help him get a job and I finally relented.

He was hired and showed up the first night. He told me his plan was to break his arm and get workman’s comp. We both laughed. Night two he intentionally broke his arm and blamed me for making him do something unsafe. The jerk did it right in front of two other crew members. We all three turned him in. He settled for $1k from the store insurance company which I really resented.

In the 1990s I knew a head of department who joined us on a Monday. He was a bit of a go-getter and kind of dazzled everyone with his chatty nature and ideas - very different to the somewhat staid and old fashioned environment that was the factory we worked in. He lasted a few days before being marched out by security. Turned out that he had been paid a fee to relocate (fairly standard). Instead of getting a removal company, he got a friend to do the move; but then faked the invoice. When the company's finance department went to pay it, they found out, and queried it with HR. So... two days I think.

His replacement was even worse, but didn't try fraud on his first day, so managed to survive.

The fastest I’ve fired employees,

Daniel- 10 minutes…. Showed up for his first day and some Asian buyer walked in. He in front of everyone says “don’t bother with them they’re cheap and don’t buy anything.

Joe- 30 minutes….lied to me about having a car then demanded I pay for his uber to get there…..

Braden- 5 hours…. Actual nut job. Verbally berated other employees then took his shirt off and tried to fight me because I didn’t agree with his actions.

More details below
Braden then text me after about his hours, he calculated them on a crumbled piece of paper with a crayon and sent me a picture of the crayon calculations.

He was calculating hours for days he didn’t work……. And that’s he’s calling and that he’s calling an employment lawyer and suing me.

I had to explain to him that he didn’t start on a Monday…..

He started on a Thursday……

The Grand Finale …….. I mail his check because I don’t want him coming into the office and being belligerent.

He starts texting crazy that i robbed him and where is his money…..

I tell him I mailed it.

He said “how? you don’t have my address?”

Dude, the address you put on file the day of onboarding….. which wasn’t even 48 hours before the check was cut.

He then tells me that he gave us a FAKE address because he doesn’t like people giving his information……

Bro, I’m your employer. I have your whole a*s social security number, copy of the physical card and your drivers license!!!!

Typing this made my brain hurt….

I used to run 2wk inductions at my company. The model was that we had a third party trainer come in who ran the training, and then I was in there to represent the company and provide the "real world" support to the training. I also had firing powers for anyone who did anything egregious during training.

I fired two people.

The first was after three days. Young woman, early 20s. We had an office dress code, but it was extremely chill. It basically amounted to; no ripped clothes, no skintight or revealing outfits, be neat and tidy.

This girl just kept showing up in basically club wear.

The first day she showed up in a black mini-dress and kitten heels, no tights. I took her aside and very politely said that she needed to comply with the dress code she'd been sent. The next day she came in in skintight shiny vinyl leggings and a bralette with nothing over the top. I asked her if she'd read the dress code and her response was "yeah I read it but I don't own any clothes like that." I warned her that she was going to be asked to leave if she couldn't dress appropriately.
Anyway, on day 3 she came in in a pink ruffly miniskirt and ankle boots. Once again, no tights.

I felt a bit bad for firing her, she clearly didn't understand what she was doing wrong, I get the impression it was her first office job. But like... come on...

The second guy got fired after lunch on his first day, and I didn't feel bad at all. He was a white guy in his mid-40s.

My trainer buddy for his particular induction group was a guy who went by Addy. 2nd generation Indian Muslim. We all liked him, really lovely guy, funny, etc.

We're doing the opening spiel and Addy introduced himself. He mentions (as he does every induction) that he won't be around on Fri mornings as he goes to mosque and I'll be running the group alone until lunchtime.

The guy makes a loud, derisive noise at the mention of a mosque. Several of the other inductees look at him. Addy and I give each other brief eye contact of "oh.. oh, I hope this isn't..."

Later that day, we're done with intros, they're all on computers finishing the mandatory eLearning (we liked to get it out of the way in the induction where poss). The guy has some problem, raises his hand. Addy starts coming over and the guy says "No, not you. I want her to help me." (I am white).

Again, Addy and I share eye contact. Nothing conclusive so far, but we're watching.

Cut to lunchtime. All the inductees are up in our staff cafeteria. I walk past with my lunch (planning to say hi to the group, who all sat together) and overhear the guy just giving the most stereotypical, over the top rant about brown people in workplaces and how this country isn't British anymore and he can't believe they let him work there.

I can see from the looks on the faces of the other inductees that they are decidedly not into this. I stop the guy as they're all going back into the room after lunch and inform him that he has failed probation, give him the reason, and this nice security guard will escort him out of the building.

We had a new excavator operator who had just finished a retraining course after badly injuring himself as an arborist who rolled an excavator in his second day.

He was told he needed to switch machines, that his trench was too big to straddle, bur he had completed a certification and the guy telling him to switch machines didnt so he ignored the advice.

Work at a zoo. Kid working food stand got caught by a guest pouring straight liquor (which is served at his stand) into his cup and slamming it 3 times within a couple minutes. Security came and got him, insta-fired, made it less than a week.

New guy on day 2 called and said he was snowed in. Nobody else was snowed in. He then sent a picture that not only showed maybe half inch of snow on a sidewalk but was also immediately located with reverse image search.

I have such a good one for this. 20ish years ago I was training at my first corporate restaurant job in a mall. They hired a handful of people at once so there was a day of group training classes where they teach us about the company. It was split into a morning session, an hour break, and a night session.

In the first half there was one older woman (Darlene) asking dumb questions and being obnoxious but as a high teenage busboy I didn’t care enough to notice. She shows up right as the second session starts, and just a few minutes later so does the bartender from the other restaurant on the other side of the mall. Apparently during the hour break Darlene had gone to the bar, pounded 4 vodka Red Bulls, and then walked out on her tab.

She did this while wearing the uniform for the restaurant we were all training at complete with name tag. Darlene called the bartender a [gay slur] and told him to go away. Then she sat down so the training could continue. Once my manager got over his shock she was told to leave, but allowed to keep the uniform. I think he just wanted her off the property as soon as possible.

I was head of security at a hotel when I was 19. I'd started as a bouncer in a suit more or less, but somehow within 3 months every other security person including the guy who hired me got fired, so I ended up in charge just because I was a moderately level headed kid who looked plausible in a suit.

It was a big hotel though, and we had all sorts of weekend events I couldn't cover alone, so until they hired other internal security they contracted out to one of those uniformed security places. I was a little annoyed because the bookkeeper told me they were paying the company 4 times my hourly rate and all these guards would do is just sit in the lobby.

So whatever. An elderly lady in a fake cop uniform showed up. I introduced myself and gave her a radio and walked up to the front desk with her.

It was a relatively quiet night. The largest group that evening was a very large extended black family who'd gotten a ton of rooms and rented a ballroom for a family reunion. They were great, zero issues. Seemed like the most I'd be dealing with was trying to stay awake.

But I mention them being black because as I was standing at the front desk, one of the family members walked up requesting a wake up call or something, and this old lady looked at me, dropped a racial slur and said 'I hope they all get sickle cell and d*e'.

Like not in a whisper. She was 3 feet from him.

I yelled at her, a lot. And I apologized, a lot.

I wasn't actually sure I was allowed to just fire her on the spot since it was like the first night of their contract, and I was just a 19 year old kid dealing with someone three times my age, so I pointed her at a chair on the other side of the lobby and said 'That's your new post until I get this sorted out, don't speak to any guests for the rest of your time here, which I assure you will be short'.

I think we comped that guys room immediately and explained that they weren't an employee and that we'd deal with her. He was honestly way more gracious about it than he had to be. Then I called the night manager and got the contract security supervisors number, and relayed what had happened.

Her security supervisor immediately told me to send her home and then he showed up to fill in for her for the evening. Her supervisor was a black dude as well, and from the way he was talking she appeared to be done for good.

Good.

I'm a white guy from a pretty rural background, and I never approved of that racist bull, but that was maybe the most casually overt crazy stuff I'd ever heard. It must have been less than a half hour before she got the boot. Working that place exposed me to some wild stuff.

Worked as a coffee roaster/wholesaler. Had someone come in the first day and was teaching them how to grind coffee and the person used their fingers to push beans into the grinder. Said once don't do that, your liable to get a finger caught and that will be bad for you. Saw them so it again 30 minutes later and that was the end of it. Call to management, immediately fired.

Also had a lady who was fired inside a week because she kept insisting the French First Lady was a transvestite after repeatedly being told to stop talking about it but that took a little longer.

Coworker: 2 days. She wasn’t a fan of the chair and felt the room was dusty, on day 3, no call no showed. On day 4 job did a wellness check with the cops and she answered as if nothing was wrong. Finally called the job back, and when they asked what was up, she said, I didn’t like the chair or dust and didn’t think I needed to return until it was addressed. Day 5 they had her drop her computer off and she walked away like nothing happened.

Me: 1.5 days. They had us clock out then restock for 2 hours unpaid everyday. Left during lunch.

Restaurant in a casino. New guy on the cold line. Busy night. All he has to do is dress salad and look busy. Regional manager pops in for a surprise visit, comes thru the kitchen. New guy is balls deep eating chips and salsa right out of the cold line. Manager stops and looks at him, he looks back, munching, no idea who he’s looking at. Manager just looks at the gm walking with him, he does a little head shake and finger across the neck, and the gm just grabs the new guy by the arm and pulls him out of the kitchen. Never seen again. I didn’t expect him to last long but darn, like 30 minutes. And for the record we told him very explicitly not to eat salsa out of the cold line.

4 hours, he cornered a lady in the factory and was yelling at her to "show him her chest". The lads in the factory moved faster than I ever seen and he left with some black eyes and a bloody nose.