103 Bosses Share The Funniest And Weirdest Reasons They Had To Fire Someone

When I was 17 I worked at Wendy's and one night one of my coworkers had a really bad asthma attack in the back room... the manager insisted that no one call for an ambulance because the company would be liable, after about 10 minutes of this girl gasping for breath on the floor I picked her up and took her to the ER where they gave her a shot of something to fix it... when I got back to work they fired me for leaving during my shift... I didn't even fight it that was the worst job I've ever had.

We had a guy at one of the bases I went to get medically discharged (psych problems) for bouncing an imaginary basketball all the time. And I mean all. The. Time. Sitting in the break room? Dribbling it. Walking to his vehicle? Bouncing it with him. On the computer? Yup. They even had someone "spy" on him when he was home alone. Sure enough, he was dribbling that imaginary ball. So long story short, he ended up getting medically retired. On his last day, he shot the ball into the trash can and said, "guess I don't need that anymore." Dude was faking the whole time, for almost two years, just to get med boarded and get out.

In the 1990s I was managing the snowmaking department and supervised the crew for a popular ski resort. We worked 7pm - 7 am and by our first break (about 10pm) everything in our area was closed so you had to bring your lunch, snacks or anything else or you were up s**t creek.

We had a new hire named Nino who was a huge Samoan guy. Nino was a d**n hard worker when he wasn't drunk. He showed up several times completely trashed and I'd send him home. (employee housing which was within crawling distance) This really didn't bother me because we had a b****s crew and the slack was easily picked up.

Sometimes it was more trouble than it was worth having him there because of the crazy s**t he would do. Once, he drained a water line that held about 7500 gallons right onto the middle of a popular intermediate run. It was 6am when I discovered the massive glacier he had created. I had to go get a grooming cat and attempt to break it up before we opened. I roped off the area and finished clearing the ice at about 11am, well after opening. I covered for his a*s because I felt bad for him and told the hill manager that it was a busted hose that caused it. This was strike 1 for him.

Strike 2 was when he decided it would be ok to try clean the inside of every grooming cat interior with lemon pledge. Seats, hand controls and all, including the windows. It took 3 hours to clean up that waxy, hazy s**t.

Strike 3 was one of the most W*F incidents I have ever seen in the workplace. Nino showed up for work sober for once but started asking if anyone had any food. He hasn't been to the store and had nothing in his shack in employee housing. At lunch (midnightish) he was nowhere to be found and didn't show up when the break was over. We chalked it up to him going somewhere to get drunk.

At about 4am I'm the only snowmaker near the main lodge at the bottom of the mountain when I hear an explosion somewhere near one of the chairlifts. I head towards where I heard this explosion and it was not a pop. Or a bang. It was a window shattering, car alarm tripping explosion. As I near the area where I heard this blast come from I see the flashlights from the security guards waving in all directions. I get to the chairlift and see this large naked man covered in what looks like s**t and blood is flowing from his face. As I dismount my snowmobile I realize its Nino. He's standing there naked and badly hurt. He starts screaming at me to help as he covers his face. There are f*****g chili beans everywhere. I see the security guards running towards us and I'm on my radio with first aid getting the emts on the way.

I'm trying to look at Nino and calm him down. His face is a mess of blood, glass chili beans and a corn chip shaped piece of sheet metal embedded in the side of his head. The security guys are here now and they're as bewildered as I am. We get Nino down to the day lodge deck where we lay him down on a rubber door mat. Emts show up and get him packaged for transport.

As I go to leave the day lodge I notice there are chili beans all over the place, little clusters here and there, chili beans on the roof, windows and peppered all over the snow. I follow the intensity of the bean blast to the main chairlift nearest the lodge.

The "lift shack" which is the indoor control room for thar chairlift (for you non skiers/boaders out there) looks like it had been b**bed. This isn't some old 1950s plywood lift shack either, this is a multi million dollar high speed quad "lift shack". The windows are gone. The door is hanging on by only it's lower hinge. Chili beans everywhere. And blood. It smelled like Taco Bell and burnt electronics. That fried amp smell, with cheese. The control panel is missing knobs and LCD panels are shattered. The 3x5" aluminum window frame was blown out and laying on the ground in the loading area of the lift. Whatever happened here was big.

The lift was shut down until they could repair it. I went to visit Nino at a nearby hospital. He tells me it goes down like this:

He was looking for food so He went to he lodge and found a can of chili beans by the kitchen loading dock. Nino couldn't get in to cook them so he decides to go to the liftshack and see if they had a microwave in there (which many did). His clothes were wet so He turned on the heater and hung his clothes up to get dry while He ate.
There wasn't a microwave in there but finds an old space heater. This was a 1970s exposed element (like a toaster) heater. I had used it myself hundreds of times in the past and it kicked a*s. Well Nino turns the heater onto its back and places the 3 GALLON can of chili beans on it, apparently unopened.
Nino plops his naked a*s into one of the chairs as his beans cook and his clothes dry.

Nino falls asleep.

Chili beans everywhere. He can't hear, his eyes are swollen shut and he has a piece of metal in his head. He then tells me he didn't know where he was or how he got there. He said he couldn't even remember who he was. Nino must have been out for a minute because it took me a couple to get to him and he was still in Narnia when I approached him that night.

I didn't really have to fire him. I don't think I legally could under the circumstances anyways. Nino never came back. He left all his s**t in his employee shack and didn't even come to pick up his last check.

TL:DR - Almost d***h by chili beans.

Snowmaker falls asleep naked in a lift shack with the heater on and a huge can of unopened chili beans on it. Chili beans explode and demolishes chairlift control room and almost ends naked snowmaker with shrapnel/concussion. (Snowmaker had disrobed to dry his wet clothes.).

I had an employee apologize to two different tables for forgetting to put their food order in. They had been waiting like 45 minutes and nothing had been entered into the system.

We looked at the camera system because he had been acting weird all day. After he wrote down their order, he proceeded to go outside and fire up a joint. He was apparently too high to remember to put in the order.

It was his first, and last day.

EDIT: Sorry for the confusion, I meant it was his first day on the floor by himself. He had a week's training before.

I had a new employee I had trained for about a week straight (We'll call him bob). His first day came around and it's time for his shift, no bob. I tried to call bob no answer. Thirty minutes later still no bob. finally an hour and a half later he calls the shop. His excuse "my mom wanted to take me shopping and said you would understand. I'll be there in thirty minutes". My retort "Oh no rush, turn in your apron and name badge when ever" *click*.

Wasn't me, but a guy in my class got fired from one of our local stores when he was caught j**king off with an apple that had a hole in it. We called him applejacks for the rest of the year.

Sister had to fire my aunt. She got her a job at a call center for a cable provider. Aunt decided she didn't want to work for a few days, called in and said her husband died. Sister found out when co workers were pooling money to send flowers...It did not end well. Uncle never knew he died!

We had a kid that worked at the deli in the supermarket from my home town who was fired after he ate all the skin off of every rotisserie chicken they had.

I worked at a sonic in high school. I was promoted to night manager. First thing my boss had me do was call my grandparents to fire them.

"Grandpa, I have to fire you and grandma."

His reply, "I love you and I understand why this is happening. Tell your c********r of a boss that I'll be in to work tomorrow and he can fire me himself."

First time I ever heard him cuss.

I got fired when I was 15 for going to a maths exam.

I got a call just before the exam started.

"Jolly, you're supposed to be at work. Where are you?"

"... I'm at school. I have an exam. I'm 15, I told you this."


"No, you're meant to be at work. Who am I going to get in now?"


"I don't give a f**k."


"Right, you're fired."


"Okay."




Now AS a manager, I didn't really get to fire anybody over anything weird. But I did fire one girl because she was smoking m**h in the work toilets. Silly girl has a kid now. But at least she's off the pipe.


**EDIT** First off, not British. Australian, get over the extra "s" on math*s*, or I'll start bagging on Americans for excluding a "u" in "colo*u*r".

Secondly, for the people wondering if this is legal - I'm not bothered if it was or not. The fact was, he was asking a High School student to skip an *exam* on a weekday, in the MIDDLE of that day to go work. It's the Manager's responsibility to understand the importance of completion of secondary education, I feel that needs to go without saying. If a Manager is unable to read a sheet of paper telling them what days a teenager has School, then they shouldn't be a Manager in the first place. I didn't book the day off because I had no need to. It's common f*****g sense.

Not the boss but there was a blind guy working at my company who would take naps while sitting at his computer, took them a while to catch on.

Every day at lunch, she would drink roughly half of her Jimmy Johns (or whatever) soda, then take it with her to the bathroom to fill it back up with whiskey. She did a pretty good job covering up the smell, and since she did it from day 1 it wasn't immediately obvious that she was getting drunk.

Found out on day 4 when she knocked her full cup over and we all got punched with the smell of booze in the afternoon.

I was fired from a dog kennel for unknowingly playing with a wolf.

She thought I knew it was a wolf and I was being a reckless teenager.

Fired a girl for hiding in a walking cooler and eating candy right out of the box with bare hands.(managed a DQ) I walked in, caught her with her hands literally in the cookie jar...and she still tried to deny it.

Ahhh...gotta love fast food.

My wife had to fire a Guitar Center employee, because he came to work late. His excuse? **He was wired all night from smoking catnip.** He wanted to feel what cats feel.

She sent us a text that she was skipping her shift to do c*****e. She then sent us a text immediately afterward that the previous text was meant for someone else and she was resigning.

EDIT: Since so many people have been asking:

1. She had been late or skipped shifts many times before, this was not her first offense.

2. She was a known heavy drinker, and had m[ent]ioned other d***s before.

3. She was not a clever person.

Nurse here, first job was in a nursing home. One resident told me there was a devil in the window and it kept scaring her. I thought dementia. Walked in the room just as a person in a devil mask slammed themselves against the window. I ran outside and tackled them and pulled off the mask a la Scooby Doo. It was one of the CNAs. He thought that giving her a heart attack would be fair retribution for her being a little cranky when he took vital signs. Fired him on the spot even though I didn't have the authority to do so. It stuck.

He took pictures of another co-worker pooping and posted it on facebook. The pooper wanted to press charges for s****l harassment. These were guys in their 30's.

a guy at my old job got fired for drawing a d**k on every single rear brake assembly that we made in this 3day period that he was doing it. Apparently a couple hundred of them got onto cars before Honda found out. There is literally a d**k drawn onto a couple hundred brand new Honda CRVs left brake assemblies.

I didn't do the firing, but I watched a co-worker get fired for refusing to sign her annual performance review/goal settings document.

I have to say, my boss did just about everything he could, and at the end of almost 2 solid days of discussion and negotiation, on the third day he told me he said this:

Him: "Is there anything in either of these documents you think is not correct?"

Her answer: "No."

Him: "So will you sign them?"

Her answer: "No."

Him: "I'll have to dismiss you if you won't sign them."

Her answer: "You can't do that."

And she found out the hard way that he could.