There’s been a revival of discussions around abusive employer behavior on social media, and that’s a great thing for workers’ rights. However, it takes two to tango, and sometimes, workplaces are totally justified in firing their employees. On Reddit, commenters recently shared the stories of how they got fired, and some of them accepted the fact that they had it coming.
Employer-labor relations have always been tense, but the aftermath of the COVID lockdowns have put their own spin on labor relations. Office attendance is mandatory for some and a dealbreaker for others, and both the lockdowns and recent economic turbulence have caused some to reevaluate their work-life balances.
#21
Went to see Grateful Dead at RFK stadium in DC. I told the manager not to schedule me that weekend but he did anyway. Told him I wouldn't be there. When I returned Monday I was fired. Worth it.
Funny thing is my wife (gf at the time) was also scheduled and went with me to the show. She wasn't fired - but she quit when she found out I was fired.
Darryl's Restaurant in Raleigh, NC. - by the way they had some pretty good food.
46points
In their survey, the top 3 reasons employees said they were fired were personal issues (30%), bosses who were jerks (23%), and office politics (19%). It was clear from the survey that employers saw things differently, as the top 3 reasons they said they’d fired employees were attitude issues (57%), personality issues (41%), and failure to complete their duties (40%).
#22
I told my boss that I intended to quit and asked him to find a replacement. Instead he just fired me.
44points
#23
Finger was almost bitten off by an octopus. Boss fired me while I was in the ER waiting to get evaluated. Exact words were “Bro, I’m f*****g pissed. You’re fired”.
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44points
#24
Told school admin that they were full of s**t and that their academic honesty policy is b******t. I caught a senior cheating on my final (phone in hand googling answers admitting to it), failed him, he failed the year couldn't walk. Admin said he didn't cheat...
F**k that b******t.
43points
Employer-labor relations are always a balancing act for all involved. Sometimes a split is for the best, but it can often be worthwhile for both parties to find a real compromise.
#25
I'm a single mom with three kids. I had two deaths in the family back-to-back, then my kids got sick. I missed about 2 weeks in total of time over a span of 9 months. They demanded I get help with the kids, asking me where the father was. Explained that he is not around, filed a complaint to HR about them asking me that and also denying breaks, and got fired bc HR was a friend of my Supervisor. It was a terrible job.
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41points
#26
I was 19 and asked the wrong question. I was working in a call center way back when long distance plans mattered. Second week in I kill it hit the top of the weekly sales nice little bonus all good. Next week I can't close for s**t I'm at the bottom, list seems stale people that we've called before. I'm pitching this one lady and then she says she just switched to our plan describes the rest of the pitch only the name of the company was diffrent then ours. Otherwise exact same plan. I was young and didn't really care beyond a paycheck so I went to talk to my boss. He says there are a lot of long distance plans out there don't worry about. Next few days lots of similar calls. I also noticed the manager room had a f**k ton of phone books from other states. Asked about that. End of the week I was canned for performance. Next Monday they got raided by FCC and FBI. Turns out they were reselling folks the same plan over and over again under a diffrent name. They were also illegally pulling names from phone books. And overselling the amount of long distance time they'd actually bought so people were getting over charged.
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40points
#27
On paper? Called into the meeting room before shift and told "Making some changes."
In reality? Discussing wages with senior employees. Which is why less than a month after I was gone, 2 of the remaining 5 production quit. The two with the most seniority.
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38points
#28
From 1980-1982, I was the publications director at a college. I always got very good/outstanding ratings from my supervisor.
One day she came in and did my review -- as usual, all ratings were in the top two performance categories. Then she told me she was letting me go, but offered no explanation. She actually patted me on the head and said, "I want you to know it's nothing personal, and if I had a daughter, I'd want her to be just like you."
I was very young (25) and newly married, and as she was aware, my husband was a graduate assistant making $3,500 a year. I closed the door to my office and sobbed.
It took me a long time to get another job. I was a week away from running out of unemployment benefits when I finally got hired elsewhere.
I found out later that she routinely fired people in that position after a year. I held the job longer than anyone.
The woman who fired me was a psychopath. She would rearrange my office while I was on vacation. When my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to have a mastectomy, I asked to take a few days off to go out to help her. I had plenty of vacation time, but my boss said she would be out of town for a week and someone had to hold down the fort, so I had no choice but to stay. My boss was in the office all that week.
About a year after I got fired, I got a call from a woman who said she had just been fired from the same job.
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37points
#29
I told the manager that she was an “entitled pompous self-centered mentally ill bully who was also almost certainly bi-polar”. Got fired within a couple hours.
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33points
#30
I took on a role that was not fit for me. It was my second job as a software developer, and the role was dev #2 at an early stage startup. As in, the entire dev team was me and another engineer.
Startup life can vary greatly, but this was a financial tech firm near Wall Street. To say that it’s a lot of responsibility is an understatement. There’s no such thing as saying “that’s not my job” or “I don’t know how to do that”. If the company needs it, you have to do it.
It was a good learning experience because I was pushed very far outside of my comfort zone, but it also gave me crippling anxiety and I got burnt out. I made a bunch of mistakes and was eventually fired over it. The job was so hard that I was actually relieved to get fired.
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31points
