50 People Who Made A Critical Mistake During The First Day On The Job And Got Fired

A while ago now (20 years ish) the person who showed up for work was absolutely not the person who was interviewed. Heard a couple different stories for what had happened (either they sent someone else to interview for them or someone stood in their place because they went awol but both to me are far fetched). Never got to the bottom of it and wasn't high enough in the company to learn what happened. But it was definitely weird.

He lasted 1 day, went for drinks with the team and boss. Commented about the boss's 16 year old daughter then just would not stop. "Is she single" was the last straw. He did not make it to day 2.

This guy was 30 and in an $80k/yr Network Admin job (decent money in 2014).

We hired an office manager. She was the 20-something college graduate daughter of one of our clients. She was professional in demeanor and seemed a perfect fit. All they had to do was sit at the front desk, greet visitors, order office supplies, and just do random, easy office tasks. It was a essentially a receptionist, but we tried to give her a better title, and opportunity to do other things and maybe grow into a better role. The first half of the first day went great. We found out later that afternoon that she was offering to procure one's choice of we*d, e**tasy, or m*th to the staff. At the and of the day, we called her in and asked if she was offering d**gs to the staff, and she fully admitted it, and apologized for not being more discrete. She legit thought we were mad about her lack of discretion, rather than the d**g dealing.

I can win this. Company hired a new CFO to lead the finance function. Day 1 the FBI raided the building. Apparently the guy was a fraud who was going across the country and sweet talking businesses into his services and swindling them out of all their money. No idea if he used a fake name or how it happened in the background check but that was a wild day. Yes, he was fired.

Dude was asked to change a light bulb in the back and ended up taking down three cameras and taking them home.

Dude I started with during an overnight, locked-in stocking position at Toys R Us went absolutely f*****g mental. He worked about one quarter of the shift, then started talking complete madness, then disappeared entirely. As in, we couldn't find him anywhere. We'd see evidence he was still in the store, but didn't see or hear him at all. After a couple hours of this, he would suddenly leap into whatever aisle we were in and just start SHRIEKING. Or laughing manically. Or literally throwing merchandise at us. Bizarrely, he tried to show up the next day, as if he were unaware of what went down.

The lead guy said that happened A LOT -- dudes just couldn't handle being locked in a silent, empty store all night. "Why'd you think we were hiring three guys at once for a 6-man crew?".

An exec at my company showed up on his first day (not counting orientation) high on opiates and had a 'concealed' firearm that he didn't do a very good job of concealing. Didn't even make it past 11:00 am.

We were in a rut and desperately needed people, so my boss told me to lower my standards (commercial driving job and I had disqualified like four candidates, all warranted imo). I said fine, I'll try, and he sends me a student from our driving school (first three days are classroom, last 2 days are for driving.

This man shows up. Late. No uniform (we bought him one). I ask him where his uniform is. Left it at home. I say okay, you can have someone bring it on lunch, let me see your driver's license. He says he also left that at home. I say how do you show up to be a driver on your first day, late, without your uniform and license. He says sorry, he overslept. I fired him on the spot. He cussed me out and walked away.

My boss started to scold me until I told him what happened. He stopped lol.

Stole someone's phone while in the break room putting her stuff away to start her first shift. Right below a security camera, too.

I fired someone on their first day in my department (was dept head) employee came in 30 minutes late. Did not call ahead to say there was a problem etc. I asked what happened, why were they 30 min late? Employee shrugged, sipped her travel mug of tea and said “I just couldn’t get out of bed this morning.” 😳 fired her on the spot.

Trained a guy at a large liquor store, I was a department manager. Nice guy, worked hard, seemed engaged. Sent him home a little early since he was training. Tried to sneak out a handle of vodka on his way out the door, got stopped by security. My only reaction was “really, dude?”.

Showed up in pajamas and when walked to the circulation desk, wrinkled her nose and said she thought she wouldn't have to actually talk to people. The position was titled circulation and customer service...

Worked at a takeout counter, was training the new guy. Constantly spilled food on his hands and fingers when filling up containers. Decided the best way to clean it off was with his mouth and tongue.. in front of customers.

Working at a fast food restaurant in my small town and a woman comes in asking for an application. she was well known around not just our town but our whole county and a couple around it for being an addict, but me and the other managers working there at the time decided we’d give her a chance. (two of us are children of addicts and she had kids, so it tugged at a sore spot. we were absolutely not going to judge that woman based on something like that, nor did we think the other businesses were right for not hiring her because of it) she comes in for her first shift and when she showed up, she brought us all food from her other job she worked at another restaurant and we’re all so happy we found such a cool staff member. she’s talkative and kind, you could tell she was definitely just a little off but hey, nobody working a dead end fast food job in a small town is ever all there, right. all is well, until she goes outside to smoke, asks if the smoke breaks are “just for cigarettes”, and then has her son (like mid 20’s) bring her a “goodie bag” so they could sit in her car and smoke. parked right in front of the camera, so we ended up catching her on camera smoking cr*ck with her son, and the real kicker is she didn’t even clock out at all. she sat out there for 20 minutes still clocked in and tried to come back in obviously geeked and didn’t see a problem with that. that was a fun call to make to the store owners to explain why she was being sent home and asked not to come back.

He sexually harassed a female colleague who stepped into the HR office immediately. It was on camera, too. He didn't even get to unpack his brand new laptop when he was escorted out.

He made it through the work day fine. Then we had a little welcome party for him after work where he proceeded to get completely wasted, walked up to our CEO and started yelling incoherently at him while poking him in the chest with his finger. CEO gently pushed him back asking him to hit out of his personal space but drunk goy staggers backwards until he hit a wall and passed out. He was terminated before he woke up.

We had a new tech admin start. Around noon he was headed out the back door as the police were coming in the front door. Turns out he didn’t have custody of his kids when he took them from Texas. Termination paperwork was done and approved by 12:30.

New guy was hired as a courier driver. Came in for his first day, and was handed some paperwork to deliver to the nearest city about 20 minutes away. He says “I don’t drive in the city”.

That was literally the job, so he was quickly dismissed.

He got put on inventory unloading with me and we were getting all sorts of musical equipment in. He started taking all of the drum sticks that we were getting in and sharpening points on them with his knife and then trying to see if he could get one to stick into the wall (it was one of those giant pole barn type warehouses with some sort of plastic lined paper insulation). Eventually someone saw him and walked him out. .

He tried to hack the company computers and get customers' information.