“To err is human to forgive is divine” gets floated around a lot and generally is a good mindset to have, but in a professional setting, there are some errors grievous enough that one can and will lose any potential second chances.
So one netizen wanted to know what outrageous, career-ending mistakes people had made and the internet delivered in spades. From downright malicious bosses to dangerous slip-ups, all sorts of things can ultimately get a person unemployed. Be sure to upvote your favorites and comment your own stories below.
#1
Showing up to work noticeably drunk (I broke my typical vodka-for-breakfast routine) and it ended everything in my life as I knew it…
But in the best way possible. I worked a corporate insurance job and was already on notice for poor performance/attendance. I went to work, and was in a black out, which wasn’t unusual, but because I drank more and added a different liquor than usual I wasn’t really functioning. My boss had a coworker Take me home. HR called and told me basically that I could take some time off and take care of my “health issues”… strongly suggested FMLA… saw my therapist that weekend— I’d been lying to him about how much I drank and desperately trying to get him to help me manage my drinking better.
Turns out I’m an alcoholic!! I checked myself in rehab and haven’t had a drink in eight years.
At that particular job, I went from being on the brink of being fired to being promoted to assistant vice president, and being sought after by competitors in my industry.
I ended my career as a drinker. And I shifted the trajectory of my life.
Quitting, drinking and reflecting on the reasons why I was drinking and learning that I can’t control jack s**t aside from my reactions and responses changed my life. I’ve been through some of the most difficult adult situations in these past eight years and I would still say that my life has only gotten better and better over time.
If you think you have a drinking problem, I say it’s worth a look at yourself. quitting drugs and alcohol is not easy, but my God it’s so worth it.
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198points
#2
I was opening my packages in the mailroom, using a pocket knife to slice open the package tape. Secretary came in and chatted. We’re both Italian so we gesture a lot while talking.
Sometime after the conversation, the Ops manager came down from his office and escorted me out of the building. Had forgotten the knife in my hand while talking with the the secretary and she made an accusation that I had threatened her with it during our conversation.
Was fired three days later.
I had worked with this woman for almost a decade. Helped her children with their homework etc.
Years later I learned corporate wanted to take down my boss, and started the process by going after his biggest supporters. I was the 3rd domino to fall. After I was railroaded, almost 40% of the branch’s staff left the company. I guess the secretary was in on it, and leapt at any excuse to take me out.
Shame. Really loved that job. And got fired when my first child was due in only four weeks. Was very demoralizing for quite a while.
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168points
#3
Led and recruited a sales team. One of the female sellers admitted that our CEO was sexually harassing her. Got her to confess to our Sales Manager. Found out that more of our female staff had similar experiences so i rallied them as i needed evidence before proceeding. CEO got an ear full from HR. Proceeds to pressure all his female victims until one of them drops my name. I get fired.
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128points
Most errors and mistakes end up remaining internal, nothing but an unhappy memory for all involved. But add in a live broadcast and a microphone and we can still “enjoy” some particularly public mistakes to this day. Football (the one where you actually kick the ball) presenters Richard Keys and Andy Gray unknowingly broadcasted their opinion that a female referee wouldn’t understand offside rules. Both lost their jobs.
Networks are pretty quick to dump workers who make such mistakes, but politicians tend to have a bit more staying power. In 1997 Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien joked around with some other Prime Ministers that U.S. politicians would all be in jail for selling votes in nearly any other country.
#4
Went on a first date with a girl who turned out to be a horrible person 20mins in, I did what I could to get out of it because she was telling stories about crazy things she’d done and was proud of. I didn’t pull anything to get out of it, just dodged land mines and asked a ton of questions about her so I could get out of it sooner. Then said I wasn’t feeling the connection and I wanted to be honest so we didn’t waste each others time.
Found out a week later that she contacted my previous employers, because she found my LinkedIn, told them all stories about how I talked a ton of s**t about them all. And now I can’t get a reference from my previous 3 jobs… and people I was on good terms with.
All because I went on a date with a psychopath.
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118points
#5
One of the Directors wasn't happy with some work I'd done, started poking me hard with his finger to punctuate his comments. I punctuated back considerably more forcefully.
113points
#6
A guy I knew got fired for sleeping with the boss's daughter
Nothing dodgy, entirely above board - he didn't even know they were related and had never met her before
They met on a night out, he went back to her (parents') place and they had sex. No problems, no drama etc.
The next morning they got dressed and she was showing him to the door when her dad... his boss... walked out of the kitchen
IMO that's pretty f****d up - they were consenting adults, he had no idea it was his boss's daughter. No significant age difference, she wasn't wasted or anything, she'd never worked at (or AFAIK even visited) the company when my friend was there or even met him
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112points
Another way to end up with a particularly well-known mistake is if there is enough money involved. In the world of financial markets, these are called “fat finger errors,” where someone hits the wrong keys (easy to do with fat fingers) and sends out a trade with wildly incorrect amounts. In 2006 a trader at Mizuho Securities in Japan short-sold a stock and ended up making the company spend around ¥40 billion to fix it. This would be about 288,084,775.00 United States Dollars in 2023.
#7
Not exactly a “career” but i worked in a fast food spot that didn’t have any air conditioning, and theres a workers law where i live that states once it gets to a certain temp in the building they legally can’t stay open. I brought a thermometer to work
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103points
#8
Didn't happen to me. But I remember a coworker of mine getting fired because he put laxatives in his own lunch bag. Some d******d kept stealing parts of our lunches. Turned out, it was our supervisor.
Edit: Jesus Christ...that's a lot of upvotes
Edit 2: I'm not to keen on the specifics since that coworker and I weren't exactly friends or anything. Just kind of had simple conversations during lunch and whatnot. Apparently it is illegal to poison food with malicious intent. And some of my friends who worked there said he got into some legal trouble because of it. Nothing came of it from what I heard. But that's about all I know.
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96points
#9
Tried to get better pay for my workers. Corporate did not like that.
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96points
Similarly, Deutsche Bank on accident sent $6 billion to a hedge fund in 2015. This was a result of a junior employee putting in the wrong number while their boss was on vacation. The error was later rectified, but it does make one wonder why these mistakes never end with a bank depositing $6 billion in my bank account.
#10
Called the HR lady the “angel of death” to a coworker on chat. (HR was in a different state, so any time they came to town we all knew it was most likely to lay off people ). Angel of death came to get me shortly after 😂😂
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92points
#11
Kind of the opposite.
I worked at a second hand electronics store, a dude came in with a PS2 to sell. I noticed the serial number was scratched off and thought that was a concern, but processed it anyway.
It went through testing, came back greenlit and I assumed that meant that it was ok.
Assumed wrong, management sacked my a*s an hour later.
Went home, re-evaluated my life choices, and that year went back to college. Got my A-levels, then my degree, and now Ive been a software engineer for almost 10 years.
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92points
#12
I was a part time intern making $9 an hour (USD) and my boss asked if I had any plans for the weekend. I had said I was going to buy a new car (very much old and used as that's what I could afford) and he asked if I was buying a brand new car. My response was that my budget isn't big enough for a new car and a couple weeks later during my 1 year review my manager said they didn't have the work for me and that I was disrespectful for telling the boss I didn't make enough money. At the time I was living comfortably as a college student just needed different transportation. I tried not to be disrespectful but apparently I was.
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89points
While not career-breaking, actors messing up lines in front of a camera is a pretty common bit of entertainment for all of us to enjoy later. Many contemporary films will post gag or blooper reels later, but these exist for a variety of media. Leonard Nimoy, most famous as the emotionless and logical Spock famously cracked up when he misdelivered the line "The plants act as a repository" and instead said, "The plants act as a suppository."
#13
Getting promoted to supervisor started the dominoes falling.
I worked at a prison. I had been there for about 7 years and I knew I was most qualified, so I applied for the open sergeants position. I got it, which is where this story starts.
As a sergeant, it was my job to do investigations and document the findings whenever an inmate alleged his life was in danger. I would do the investigation and do a report on my findings, and it would get sent to the warden for them to interpret the evidence and make a final decision.
So, one day, an inmate gets beat up on a building I was in charge of. This inmate had never spoken to me, and had never told anyone he was having friction with his cell mate. Well, when questioned about it, the inmate said he had told me he needed to be moved and I told him I would. Initially, my supervisors believed him, but after I pulled up the surveillance camera that showed i had never even gotten down to that area that night due to being on a mission from another one of my supervisors all night, they admitted I hadn't talked to him. However, the higher ups needed someone to blame and because it was my area, I got the blame, and got fired.
As a side note, I was salty about getting fired because I cared about my job but I wouldn't go back if they begged me. I have a much better job now and the prison is so short staffed because of how they treat their people, the officers are stuck doing 16 hour days, 6 days a week. No thank you.
Edit: f**k it, what are they gonna do? This was the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
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85points
#14
i took a half day off for a doctor's appointment. it ran longer than i thought. i texted my boss that i'd be a bit later than expected.
i got home 1 hour past the allotted time for a half day and missed a meeting. i was fired the next day. "an hour isn't 'a bit.'" i'd been at the company for 6 years. it took me 6 months to find a new job in a different field. but i'm much happier with the work i'm doing now.
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80points
#15
Derailed it a bit, took some years to recover.
Got security responsibilities added to my duties as sysadmin at a small university. Was asked by my boss' boss, the IT director, to do a security audit. He asked me to report on the audit at a department meeting.
I asked if I could present my results to him privately instead and have him present to the meeting, but he insisted I could take care of it.
My report showed major security holes, demonstrations of tests of said holes and recommendations for patching said holes. Many of the patches were at the level of "change the administrator password from 'password' to something less obvious".
As my political acumen was near zero at the time I didn't realize how the report on major security problems made the IT Director look completely incompetent in front of the entire department - he had built and configured the campus computer system pretty much on his own, at least in his mind, and was quite proud of his accomplishment.
He suspended me on the spot, demoted me and tried to convince the university to fire me and try to bring me up on criminal charges for hacking into the university's computer systems.
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76points
These can be so popular that certain animated films will include them, most famously Pixar, which animates scenes of the characters messing up their lines. This creates an interesting parallel universe where, for example, Woody is just a character played by a toy. And if it wasn’t already clear, Pixar films are animated, so there can’t be bloopers, at least not in the sense that we think of them, so this was all just extra content for the viewer to enjoy.
#16
Built a castle out of Christmas chocolate biscuit boxes in the warehouse of a major retailer on a night shift and proceeded to fall asleep in it for a few hours.
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76points
#17
Sent an email to someone I thought was helping me, threw me under the bus
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65points
#18
I sent a scathing email about my boss directly to my boss. It wasn't meant for him. To this day I still have no idea what possessed me to put his name in the address bar. I noticed his name the exact moment I hit send. You have never felt that much panic.
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64points
#19
Talked about comp to another employe. They told the manager about it. Got fired. The good part is it’s illegal and the idiot created a paper trail around it. They settled out of court for way more than they would have saved by people not talking about comp.
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62points
#20
Call centre taking a manager call, put the chap on hold and comforted the teammember "he is a bit of an arsehole isn't he"... Forgot to also put the call on mute and he requested a call recording... Whoops!
Then while on suspension, I broke my leg, and went to my hearing after far too little sleep and too much tramadol. When they asked me what the impact of my actions was, I said it was "crippling". Far too pleased with that pun to give a f**k about the outcome.
Spent the next few months coasting through bills selling bits and bats; eventually got into marketing, a win in the long run!
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56points