“Drunk Every Day”: 69 Times People Got Fired For Doing The Most Ridiculous Things At Work

For my team specifically, one employee made consistent personal purchases on the corporate card over the span of a month. I only caught it because of expense report reviews. I asked him why and he didn’t have much of an answer. Usually, it would happen because their personal cards resemble their corporate card, but I guess that wasn’t the case here.

Another employee committed timecard fraud. We’re in the office Monday through Friday, and our policies state that hourly employees must clock in at their desks or at an ADP kiosk once they’re on campus. This employee was clocking in from home, commuting about 50 minutes to the office, then clocking out after returning home.

I caught it because our timecard software captures IP addresses. I don’t micromanage timecard punches; I trust my employees to do the right thing. Because of that, it took me about four months to notice. The punches showed a T-Mobile IP address instead of our Spectrum Business network.

Before the termination meeting, I gave him an opportunity to come clean by asking whether I’d find additional instances if I looked back further. He said, “No.” I checked before the meeting and found that he had, in fact, done it multiple times, so he also lied about it. He was terminated on the spot.

Worked in one of those big buildings with reflective glass. New guy goes outside, sits down at a picnic table for lunch, pulls out a pipe and smokes a bowl. That picnic table was outside of the HR management offices and within the view of the door camera . The door camera also saved a still image every time someone badged in or out. So they had all of the HR management team witness it, plus several pictures. He of course tried to deny it.

A paint shop I was roughly associated with. It turned out the plant manager would tell smaller clients he could 'do their work on the side' for cheap if they weren't as picky about the colors (black is black, right?), but then would just throw their parts on the line without paying himself, taking customers from the shop and getting paid himself, with the shop doing all the work without even getting anything.

Also.... there was a second warehouse off-site that *somehow* he had installed a hottub at, and would drink beer there. In the warehouse. In a hottub.

I ran an industrial computer at a chicken plant, Two of the girls on the line were making extra money on lunch breaks turning tricks in their van.

Chain restaurant. Dude has been there for two or so days. Still in training, not officially on the rotation yet. In that time he managed to get in an argument with the general manager about what his duties were. Later claimed he didn't know she was the GM, despite the fact that she wore a fancy golden nametag with "GENERAL MANAGER" printed on it

Comes in on day 3 smelling of alcohol. Helped himself to some of the food, out front without paying, right in front of the manager on duty. Asked one of the servers where the takeout plasticware was. Got angry at the server when she didn't know (because it wasn't part of her job, takeout was handled by the hosts).

Started yelling. Got into a fistfight with a second server who had stepped in to protect the first one. Got tackled to the floor by the ex-military manager. Eventually limped out, never to be seen again.

The cops were even called, but he was gone by then. Thankfully, it was a super quiet day.

When I was a shift leader at Popeyes, a fryer poured the entire oil from the filter thing down a floor drain in the middle of winter. Common sense was not common.

My coworker was getting upset at the number of hours she was getting. Even though I put her down for her requested amount, she would call out at least 6 times per pay period, and when i brought it up to her (trying to see what we could do) she blew up on me and quit. A few days later she emailed me, called me a c**t and a walking red flag.

Now she's asking for her old job back 🙄.

One of our new engineers, during probation, twisted another new engineer’s nipples in front of everyone.

I worked a grain mill with a bloke we'll call Scott a couple of years back. Scott started the same week as me. First, he tried to convince everybody that my general courtesy meant that I wanted to smash (I was the only woman on-site).

Then the tantrums started. I'll call one of our team leaders Craig. Scott had an issue with Craig that none of us could figure out, but he would go out of his way to pick fights with Craig constantly.

Then he was caught walking along the top of a shipping container outside of the fall cage. Then the morning crew discovered a two-inch-deep gouge in a steel I-beam, and reviewed the cams to see that he was Tokyo Drifting one of the forklifts the night before.

He was finally fired after we hired some after-schoolers. They would come to do simple tasks like sewing feed bags shut. The industrial sewing machine used to break down all the time. We all knew it was a bit c**p. But still, when it breaks down on these fifteen year old kids, Scott (father of seven) feels the need to absolutely verbally eviscerate the poor kids.

One of them refuses to come back to work, and the next day Scott's pulled into the owner's office. We worked out he'd been sacked when he did a burnout in the company carpark about twenty minutes later.

Scott should be at least 50 by now. I hope he's grown up.