People who were fired on their first day at work/saw somebody get fired their first day at work: What happened that led to the firing?

LucasWaffyWaf@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 342 points –
187

Worked security at a factory that made kitchen appliances. It wasn't his first day, but it was his first shift by himself.

There's a gate at the front that you lock when you go on rounds.

Dude chooses to go on a round 5 minutes before shift change for the factory workers. He gets a call on company cell that folks are at the gate. Instead of coming back, he tells them to wait 20 minutes so he can finish his round.

20 minutes where they won't be getting paid.

Second in command big boss of the factory is out there checking IDs and directing traffic when dude gets back from his round. Now this dude is nice. Genuinely one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. Old union rep, shirt off his back type. Tells guard not to worry about it, all's good. Just time his rounds better next time.

Guard starts screaming at him about how he had no right to undo the lock, to get out of here, he'll handle them, and if he wants to make them wait that's his right. Boss man tells him to chill out, he won't get in trouble, just go do his log and then he can take over checking IDs.

Guard pulls out, in one hand, a mag light flashlight he was told not to have, and in the other chemical spray that's illegal for a guard to carry without certs (which he didn't have), and this is an unarmed site. Threatens to ""arrest"" him. When boss pulls out his cell to call the guard company, the guard sprayed him and knocked his cell onto the ground, and kicked it across the parking lot, breaking it.

Needless to say, he was fired. Boss didn't press assault charges, but we nearly lost the contract.

That's clearly a guy who didn't make it as a police officer

I can't imagine why, he sounds like exactly the type of person police departments go for.

Nah, the police understand who is and isn't a target. That guy didn't have that.

OP didn't specify how white the bossman was or wasn't. He could have been a target.

Should definitely have filed charges. I would be shocked if that was the first or last time this dude assaulted someone.

Shame there were no charges filed. This dude should've gone to jail.

Should've filed charges. Why do "mall cops" always act like they have any real power?

Not just mall cops, it's just people in general in any position of power. When I was young I used to host game servers for a community I created and liked to have a decent amount of people to administrate them and keep the games fun for everyone. There were people playing for months and always seemed reasonable and level headed and I'd see if they would be interested and most jumped at the chance to be more involved in the community. Every once in awhile though those reasonable and level headed individuals once they got some measure of authority went absolutely crazy and there's no indication of who it would be. People can be the exact opposite too, they clown around taking nothing seriously always trying to push boundaries, but then you give them some responsibility and suddenly they are the most responsible person you've ever met, they just needed a chance to show it.

Depending on the state, security guards do have some power. In Tennessee, guards can be bonded, which effectively makes them cops.

In Virginia, security guards have powers of arrest, so they're not cops, but can legally arrest and detail you, to include handcuffing and up to lethal force in certain situations.

But to your larger point, it's a power trip. I worked security for 10 years. Most guards do not give a fuck, they don't want to do anything more than the bare minimum, and will passively just sit there while people steal and shit.

But occasionally you get a power tripper. Someone who went into security because they couldn't hack being a real cop, so they decided to become a rent-a-pig. This is usually seen in people 60+ or under 25.

Was hired at a company as a designer. Went to the production meeting and sat down beside another designer (introduced myself and we started chatting). In comes everyone else and sits down. We all start chatting and do introductions.

Five minutes into the meeting the company owner comes in, chatting with a salesman. He glances around the room, then his face freezes on me - he then looks at the guy beside me and keeps looking back and forth. He finally motions for me to come outside the conference room. I walk out and he asks me what I was doing there. I tell him ‘remember, you hired me and my start day was today??’

He turned pale and just said ‘oh yeah I forgot’. He let me go back in the room but then I heard him call the guy beside me out.

The guy never came back. Apparently he had intended on firing him and forgot.

Needless to say I didn’t stay long before I found another job. The place was complete chaos.

Omg he had hired the replacement already and forgot to fire the guy... what a mess, and what an idiot

Yeah, I was young and it was my first job out of college (technically I worked thru college but this was my first after graduation) so I was very inexperienced still and also didn’t know what to look for when it came to red flags.

The owner’s wife worked there in a ‘higher up’ position and was the major cause of a lot of conflict at the company. Basically he would give people orders then she would come along and contradict them.

If anyone disagreed with her then she would go to hubby and complain about said person(s) making it impossible to please either because you couldn’t prove her wrong. That designer in particular was just the latest of ‘trophy wife’s wrath’. The place had an insane turnover rate I quickly found out.

At least it was a good learning experience and taught me to ask questions and meet people during the interview process.

I hired a woman once to work in the retail store I was managing at the time. After lunch, I noticed one of my long time employees crying in the break room. She had lost her wallet and whoever took it had wiped out her bank account at the Walmart next door. I called the manager over there and he pulled up the video and low and behold it was the new lady over there buying up gift cards. We called the police and after verifying what happened, they asked me if I wanted them to handle it quietly or to make a scene. I chose make a scene and they went into the backroom handcuffed her, told her why she was being arrested in front of everyone and marched her out. Needless to say HR agreed it should be an immediate termination.

Why were you fired?

  • I stole a coworker's wallet
  • I defrauded Walmart buying gift cards
  • I am very stupid

That's an impressive trifecta.

The worst part to me was that before the girl whose wallet it was checked her bank account and saw all the charges, this lady was "helping" her look for it in the store.

I love that they asked you if you wanted a scene. I would have chose it too!

If the "handle quietly" option was chosen in a movie, they would have taken the thief out the back, laid down some bubble wrap, put the silencers on their glock service pistols...

I actually think that's a little disgusting. The police are choosing Corporate Interests over simply following the evidence and upholding the Law, no matter who broke it, or where they were employed...

What??? The police were going to arrest this person regardless. They just asked if OP wanted attention drawn to them or not.

One time someone showed up to work that was clearly different than the person from the interview. They never even got their badge.

So they hired a professional interviewee to be interviewed for them? Amazing. I wonder how you'd get that job, and what the recruitment process would be like?

This is not uncommon in IT type jobs with individuals from a certain country. I was at lunch with a coworker when he was approached to do an interview for a cousin of one of his friends. I must have looked puzzled because he explained it to me and I was flabbergasted. He said that it was more common during phone interviews, but since "they all look the same" to white hiring managers, it still happens over video interviews.

Hate it when I do an interview with Don Cheadle and Terrence Howard shows up

It's more they have a friend that speaks better English do the interview and hope that big companies don't notice a difference when they start the job.

Had that happen to me once. Guy we phone screened did not match the guy on the video interview. Immediately bounced, you could tell their accent and talking style was different.

My wife had a guy start at her company the same day she did, but he got fired that same day because for reasons no one understands he decided it would be wise to make his Teams (or whatever they used. Slack? I can't remember) profile picture a meme that said "Epstein didn't kill himself" or something to that effect.

It was a six figure software engineering job, too. I cannot imagine losing a job like that for such a silly, self-inflicted reason.

At my last job some intern burst into Slack calling everyone "mald" for disagreeing with his sexist memes. That whole event was just a couple of hours.

Tf is mald?

I believe it's supposed to be a portmanteau of "mad" and "bald," possibly implying that we were discontent merely because of age.

The portmanteau is correct, but "malding" means that the person is balding from sheer anger.

It's a slang term used as a verb usually. To mald is to be mad. He was calling them mad.

I was a contacted technician at a retail store. They hired a new salesperson, immediately gave me weird vibes. On his lunch break, he came over to show me what I thought was going to be a meme on his phone - it was porn.

He was asked not to return for a second shift.

Lmao. This dude is sharing porn on this first day of work, like that is a totally acceptable thing to do.

Well... I've run into people here on Lemmy that legit believe that it's okay to take your workers out to a drag show as a corporate event.

So I'm sure that there's plenty of people that believe that softcore porn is on the table during work hours.

Drag shows are not necessarily pornographic, they’re often just theatre and comedy, and I’m confused how you got this impression that they are pornographic.

The most well known drag queen in Australia for decades was Dame Edna (now deceased) and no one would have batted an eye at going to watch her perform with work colleagues.

Drag shows are not necessarily pornographic,

Sure... But you're using a bad example. And I think that's part of the point... lots of people are lumping things in that just isn't a "drag show" into it to make it out that people like me are anti-whatever.

If we use your example... It's not a drag show... it's a character. One that was put on specifically for comedy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dame_Edna_Everage "Drag" isn't even mentioned on the page. Dressing in drag and putting on a comedy show isn't the same as a "drag show". Eg. RuPaul's proclivity to pole dance and emulate sexual acts on that particular televised series.

Dressing in drag and putting on a comedy show isn’t the same as a “drag show”.

yes it is?

you're thinking of burlesque. Burlesque has implied nudity, drag shows are comedic.

From the link @cypher linked at this post https://lemmy.world/comment/2475000.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_show

A drag show is a form of entertainment performed by drag artists impersonating men or women, typically in a bar or nightclub. Shows can range from burlesque-style, adult themed nightclub acts to all-ages events with sing-alongs and story times.

Using sources that people have linked AGAINST me... It shows the same thing I've been talking about. Just because all of them aren't this way doesn't mean that it's magically okay to do as a mandated corporate event.

Just because you don't highlight 'all ages events' doesn't mean it's not part of the quote

It's in the quote as a RANGE of possibilities. Meaning that the show ranges from NC17 to PG. The fact that half of the range is inappropriate for corporate events is literally sufficient evidence that it's not suited for a MANDATED corporate event.

Is going to a movie theater inappropriate for a corporate event? After all, movies range from NC17 to G also. You might say no, you can choose what movie to see and it's simple to pick one that's not graphic and appropriate for work. And I would say, it's the same way with drag shows.

On the technicians line of an electronics manufacturing facility, had a new hire come in on his first day. He was friendly. So much so that he wanted to use my workstation to log into his Yahoo mail and show me some pictures some female sent him. He calls up the photos and it's full nudity real big on my computer monitor. I tell him "dude, we can't have porn at work, close that out." He panics and turns off the monitor. At some point I have to turn the monitor and close out of the browser, when no one is looking.

He was showing a pretty inattentiveness to his first day on the job training just not seeming to want to have anything to do that's any kind of actual work.

Before the lunch break, he announced that he's going to the restroom, then is never seen again. All I could tell the supervisor was that he said he was going to the restroom hours ago then haven't seen him since.

Ctrl+W closes the current tab in most modern browsers. For the future.

There's so many lazy as fuck people like that. It's incredible. I wonder how they survive?

Over the years I've seen about a dozen people who just walk out while claiming they're going to the bathroom.

Starting this off myself, there was one fella at my current job who bought vodka at a liquor store during his lunch break, poured heaps of it into his soda from a fast food joint, and wound up getting fired when they noticed him getting drunk as hell.

That was before I started working here, but coincidentally I met him at my other job!

Mine is similar. Arrived, day one in a new team; this one was more high-intensity than the usual - a fast-paced and very hands-on work environment. Noticed the team leader was working in a dysfunctional and unsafe manner; seemed unsteady. As the most junior member and a newbie at that I hesitated to confront directly; thankfully I managed to find a more experienced colleague. Scene was made safe; turned out the guy was drunk as a skunk. Canned within the hour.

I’ve since learned to be stronger and more willing to confront suboptimal or dangerous performance in team members, regardless of their seniority.

That was pretty scary.

I knew a guy who would get absolutely wrecked on his lunch break in his car, and show up early thinking he was late because he was high as a kite on hard drugs.

You couldn't tell unless he told you. He was a top performer. Probably the only person I've ever met that was a well functioning drug abuser, and that's an understatement, the guy was fucked out of his mind all the time and to everyone around him he was perfectly coherent and capable.

What kind of work did he do??

Laptop repair in one of those third party warranty shops where the manufacturer ships them to get them fixed under warranty. Fucker had the best quality control numbers in the shop.

That is kinda cool but sad also. I knew someone like that as well. Worked for a company were the best quality control person for boards was a functioning alcoholic. And I mean like her hands started shaking around 9 o'clock. She would drink all day long from tiny schnaps bottles hiding in her office or from her flask.

These boards were mostly for prototypes or small series, so always something new to look out for. Tiny parts mounted by hand. She would catch any error or faulty joint. But couldn't talk straight. I never understood how that's possible. I guess these people are better focused when drunk/high. Or just ultra pros at their jobs...

I know someone like that. He's always drinking. And always drunk. He says he'd rather kill himself than drink less. Has a fancy government that drug tests him every 5 minutes just about. He makes a lot of money though. No idea how this is even sustainable. Guess they don't give a shit as long as you don't smoke weed.

Guess they don’t give a shit as long as you don’t smoke weed.

Sad reality :(

Got drunk for the first time a week ago, I struggled to speak but I definitely felt hyper focused on what I was doing. In contrast I'm usually focused on what's going on around me and have good spacial awareness. I can totally see myself doing quality control and not missing a beat.

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One guy during the probation period called IT saying his laptop was broke, they told him to bring it into the office. It turned out he was on another continent and didn't bother to tell anyone. As expected he lost his job.

We had this once with a guy working remotely who decided to move to Poland without telling anyone, which was not allowed in the terms of his contract nor did he have a visa to live in Poland. Only person I've ever heard of getting deported from Poland to the UK

Did you ever find out why he suddenly moved to Poland? Was it cheaper?

Definitely cheaper, I don't know if that was the reason though, he was a weird dude

I have a friend who was deported from India back to the US.

And I almost got deported from Canada and China back to the US.

This is becoming quite a thing here in Vietnam. We are starting to get quite a few undocumented migrant workers from the USA. It's slowly becoming problematic. I expect my compliance paperwork to increase in cost and complexity if the trend continues.

Also I see them die on the roads sometimes, maybe one per year. That's not an outcome I'd wish on them, but it's not surprising either.

Why are they dying on the roads?

Probably either stray meteorites or cars.

Makes sense. I don't know why, but I somehow read the original comment to mean that Americans were randomly dead on the side of the road, sans car. Lol

I read this as, "Probably either meteorites or stray cats."

Seems legit, moving along.

Driving a motorcycle unsafely in mixed traffic without a license, registration, insurance, experience, or the ability to read the road signs. Saw two doing unsafe stuff on my way to work today. Not sure specifically where they are from, I didn't stop to ask. I can infer non-compliance from the license plate types with decent accuracy though. Generally plates that say NN (foreign resident), NG (foreign organization), or LD (local enterprise) are compliant and others are not. There are a couple of exceptions beyond that, but they are quite rare.

One nearly got hit by a bus as they cut across the road at an intersection. The other was just being pushy but didn't outright do anything that would get them killed -- not really out of the ordinary, just 'somewhat unsafe'.

Had the same thing happen. They found out he logged into the company VPN from China.

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It was one of the phlebotomists (person who draws blood) at the hospital I worked at.

It was her first day going off on her own. She accidentally went to the wrong floor/area that morning. She drew many patients' blood that morning for the morning blood draws. The entire time she was there, she did not double check even a single patient's name at any point. They were all wrong. All were mislabeled. All patients had to be re-drawn and she was fired for gross negligence.

Things happen and I've seen things get mislabeled many tines before. It's not good obviously. But if you do it once and no one ended up getting hurt, you just get reprimanded and move on. You generally don't get fired for a one off. But never before or after have I seen that level of mislabeling.

Doesn't it take months of training (at least!) to become a phlebotomist? How can you screw up that badly on day one?

Like the other user sort of said...I'm sure she drew the blood just fine. It was the caring about patient safety that didn't happen.

My assumption would be that the training would put a huge weight on precisely that.

I really don't think they'd spend all that time just learning how to mechanically draw blood and not have entire courses and exams on patient safety, record keeping etc.

Unfortunately you can't force people to care about things they don't care about. She obviously didn't care. Or was maybe on drugs. Or both. Who knows?

An old restaurant I worked at hired a new chef. He came in, completely rearranged the kitchen, changed the menu top to bottom ON HIS FIRST DAY, and introduced a bunch of complicated specials. Dinner service hits, chaos ensues and dude disappears.

I was on expo watching everything fall apart when one of the line cooks is like, "get chef,I don't know how to make this special because there's no recipe or notes"

I go into the walk in and he's haunched over in there and violently turns, around inhaling, all bug eyed. I told him we needed help. He doesn't hide his annoyance goes on the line, makes the one dish in question and is like, "see, that wasn't difficult" and disappeared again.

The line cook asked why I had the look on my face that I did and I said it was because chef was doing rails in the walk in. We both laughed, shook our heads and got through service eventually. Drugs are pretty common in the service industry but even that seemed extreme.

Anyhow we didn't see him for the rest of the night. Next day, I get to work and the owner is there and he pulls me aside and told me what happened after. Owner didn't even know he'd been snorting shit during the dinner rush

Chef continued his one man party and went into the booze closet and proceeded to help himself. When the prep cook showed up the next morning the kitchen door was wide open so she called the police thinking the place had been robbed. The police went in and found Chef semi conscious and incoherent, giggling in the office. He was fired and since he was a keyholder all the locks and alarm codes had to be changed

I've never seen someone self destruct that spectacularly.

To have been a fly on the wall when they called the other guy chef beat out for the gig and told him he could start immediately...

That's amazing. How did he even get hired? You'd think there would at least have been one red flag.

I think the dude could actually cook. He'd been a chef at a resort in the Caribbean previous to that... makes sense: he cooked somewhere out of the country and I'm not sure if the owners reached out to that place.

He was a pushy prima Donna chef with ego and swagger. Dude was a skilled bullshitter who talked over people and I immediately didn't like him but I'm sure he knew how to sell himself when he was interviewed.

The guy who replaced him was also a total dick (what is it with chefs?) But at least he could hold it together. Amusingly you could tell he didn't want to be there: it was a Mexican place and he put meatloaf and a seared ahi tuna sandwich on the menu. His concession was adding cilantro, chilies or something to them. I left that place a few months later and he didn't last much longer

A couple times now at my current job they've hired someone, only to have them just not show up on their agreed first day with no communication. I'm guessing they just got a different job they like more or something, but still, I'd imagine one usually at least tells people not to expect you, under that circumstance?

Companies can't be arsed to let you know you didn't get hired, I can see how someone would just ghost if they got a better job. Not commenting on whether it's right it wrong, just making an observation.

It's so weird. I've seen a lot of people do that over the years.

One guy even responded to bring called, claiming he had spoken to the another manager about the start day, making it seem like a miscommunication. Next day rolls by and he's still not showing up. Didn't bother calling him at that point.

I have a couple from the a warehouse job I worked at when I was 16. That place was wild lmao

  • Fired from unplugging security cameras to charge his phone
  • 30yo man harassing a 17yo girl
  • That man's wife fighting the 17yo girl for "flirting" with her husband even though she wasn't
  • Got on top of some shelves and took a nap. These shelves are really tall and you need a lift to get on top of them

These weren't on their first day, but I thought they are worth mentioning

  • Racing during lunch in the parking lot
  • 10+ person brawl in the parking lot over a guy stealing another guy's girlfriend
  • A guy left his keys in his car so another guy just broke the window. He said he thought it was funny and that he got the bit from a movie, tv, or comedian or something
  • A couple people got caught taking lunch on top of the shelves in a corner because the lunchroom was too loud. They also had a bed up there made up bubble wrap and yoga mats
  • Going full speed into a door with a forklift while the forks were fully lifted
  • Doing BMX tricks off the truck dock. I think people were riding skateboards off it too but I can't remember 100%

That's all the entertaining ones I can think of right now lol

There was some TV show in the 2000s that was a workplace drama / comedy set in a warehouse (or like a Costco?) and I remember something about two characters making like a hide-out at the top of some shelves. Does anyone remember the name of that show?

I don't know anything from the early century but there's Superstore from 2015 which had a lot of stuff on that level.

Was a contractor for Walmart.

Got hired on as a lead dev, getting compensated 150k/yr.

2nd day, they told me I needed to switch contracts in order to stay on. New contract paid 50k salary.. with lots of required OT.

But, it's OK they said, you get benefits and PTO.

Fuck that.

What the hell? That should be illegal if it isn't already.

If an employer or prospective employer rescinds their job offer, or makes significant changes to the employment contract, through no fault of your own then you may have reason to engage an attorney and discuss Promissory Estoppel.

I am not a lawyer but it's worth knowing the laws :)

On the plus side, I negotiated to work remotely for a few weeks, due to needing to relocate.

So- I was actually able to work both my current job, and the "new" job without losing time for either job.

So, on the plus side, I didn't lose anything, and got an extra paycheck for a few days. But, man, that would have been really shitty if I had relocated, and THEN got that notification.

As another interesting note, I discovered the other head-dev was only getting compensated 30-40k a year..... for literally managing a world-wide system. He doesn't work there either now.

Did your original contact allow for them to just terminate like that? No minimum?

You know, that got me curious... I went back and found the contract.

#1- There is this questionablly illegal clause in it.

But, yea, absolutely nothing in the contract about this swap-a-roo.

Back in 2007 I worked in an office that required basic MS Excel / Word competency. The office manager led her to her desk and instructed her to turn on her computer (nothing fancy, a basic workstation with a large round button).

She couldn't figure out how to turn it on. The office manager sent her home and she never came back.

But she said she was amazing at KOMputers … clicking … double clicking.

Opening emails, sending emails...

Maybe she could be relationship manager.

Just remember, don't search for Google on Google. I have it on good authority that this will break the internet.

Maybe even triple clicking

there was a joung guy like 4 years ago in the job orientation (it area)
he could not turn it on either
He called the pointy finger of the teacher "magic finger"
he never got into the it apprenticeships but likely he got into another job orientation

I don’t know if this is what you’re looking for, but at my last company, they were so intense on the “we are family” indoctrination for new-hires that I saw many leave for lunch on their onboarding day and then just never return. Including mid-level managers.

Not on the first day but after a few weeks. He missed work every Wednesday, always claiming to have eaten something bad the evening before (it was always the same food). He wasn't all that bright.

"I know I'm allergic, but Tuesday is peanut butter night."

I worked at a pet shop for two glorious days not knowing that I was the backup in case the boss' nephew was accepted into his preferred college program. He was not accepted so I got the boot to make room for him on the team.

The manager doubled my first/ only paycheque because she felt bad. I'm still bitter 17 years later

Ah nepotism.

Not sure where you live, but I find it pretty wild you can fire someone without notice with no egregious misconduct.

When I was in highschool me and a couple of my friends got hired as waiters. We were required to attend these training sessions before we could start. It was your typical fake upbeat corp BS and we were a bunch of edgy teens, so you can imagine how it went. About halfway through the first session they tell my buddy he can change his attitude or leave, so he left.

I worked at a tiny hospital in a rural area as the sole IT admin. They hired a new Director of Nursing, a very long process because we were so rural it was very difficult to convince people to move out there to work. They had helped her find and buy a house, helped her husband get a job in the area, enrolled their kids in the local school system. They had me buy a new computer specifically for her and asked me to come in early and be available to help with any computer problems on her first day.

She didn't show up at all that day. People were pretty panicked about it. Next day she did show up, although about an hour late (not that anyone complained about it) and they rolled out the red carpet and everything. I spent most of the morning helping her get access to things and then she was off to more important things.

Next day she didn't show up at all again.

That one orientation meeting was the only time I ever saw her, a few days later they asked me to terminate her accounts, preserve emails and pull security camera footage. I still don't know what was going on. Drugs? If she had another job opportunity it seems pretty crazy to buy a house and move your whole family. She almost certainly would have been the highest paid employee, probably within the top 5 for the whole town.

But yeah, I guess if you don't show up and don't have a good excuse things end pretty quickly.

These are great stories, but my only experience has been people mysteriously not showing up for day 2 or 3...

Semi-proud to say that after an intro day showing him the scope of the software, my replacement quit. We tried to tell him in the interview but maybe he just didn’t believe us.

I'm not sure if that's a pride point or not

I'd quit just as soon whether it be a mountain of 10 year old PHP or code for a quantum computer that my puny mind cannot comprehend

Shit I wouldn't mind a job maintaining a mountain of PHP code: high salary, low expectations.

The first full-time job I had was stuffing circuit boards. We got a new person in one day, she was clearly struggling but it seemed like she was trying... She never came back after lunch. I mean, say something or ask questions, any of us would have helped her out.

It was 30 minutes into day 2.

I was accused of cheating on their personality quiz (honestly why?) and then was told I wasn’t to have labeled the boxes I was expressly told to label the day before…

She then had me tear out the 2 pages of notes in front of the office before she marched me out.

This was for an accounting position at a small HOA. So I feel like that was enough of an explanation. Everyone else was terrified of that woman.

I still do not understand how HOAs are a thing. I know why they are a thing (Karens gotta Karen) but its insane to me that people allow these weird racist and fascist little hamlets to exist governing their private property.

I used to be a kitchen trainer at McDs in high school, one of my trainees got fired on her first day without me because she couldn't remember what the different types of meat were. This was not only after spending my last 4 hours with her running through it repeatedly, but even directly after someone told her what they were she wouldn't be able to point any of them out. I felt kinda bad because she was otherwise really nice, but it really was impossible to get her to retain any information.

Ok like... hamburger, bacon, chicken, sausage? Like those kinds of meat? Omg...

I worked in McDonald's a long time ago, but there was reg meat or regular meat that is the one they use for hamburger. Then there's the quarter meat (quarter pounder). There used to be big Xtra back in the day that was different too. Probably also, crispy chicken, mcchicken those are different.

First morning at the job he comes in wanting to impress, so he copies some company data to his personal laptop to do extra work at home. He got fired at noon. The official reason was that he had copied that stuff without authorization, but a more likely reason was that someone had accidentally written an extra zero on the offer they made him, because it was several times above average in the area.

Not exactly on topic but in the spirit of this post have a funny story. Hired a young lady recently entering the work force. She had been working about a week when we did our payroll run. This entailed printing out all the checks with pay details etc. Is done in an administrative office that is obviously kind of private. Not some place you would wake in without permission. Anyhow we started the payroll print and my manager stepped out briefly to get a coffee. When she came back this new employee was flipping thru everyone's pay check. Of course my manager immediately asks what she is doing to which she responds 'oh I'm just wondering what everyone is being paid'.

She honestly thought it was just fine to not only start flipping thru paperwork in the managers office but to also look over employee payroll checks. She simply had no idea and just stated what she was doing like it was just fine. Actually that was her saving grace. While we made it quite clear how inappropriate it was, being it was her first job, we chalked that down to immaturity and didn't let her go on the spot. Had she been older that likely would have been her last day.

Mind you she only last a week longer for a myriad of other reasons. Little common sense.

it was just fine to not only start flipping thru paperwork in the managers office but to also look over employee payroll checks

Hey so believe it or not but she was right; people should have the right to know what their coworkers get paid. Stop pretending it's supposed to be secret.

Workers should be allowed to discuss their pay if they choose. They shouldn't be able to access peoples' private financial information because they feel like it.

Fuck no. People have the right to keep their wages secret if they want. It is up to them to disclose that at their choice only. I certainly as their boss would not disclose the hours or wages someone gets without permission. Are you for real?

I don't like this weird culture of paying people different wages for the same jobs. That's where I'm coming from.

You're allowing them to pay you a lot less than someone who just happens to be better at corporate bullshitting

I don't like this weird culture of paying people different wages for the same jobs.

Ideally people would be paid the value of their labour. People with the same job often have different labour values. So that's a good reason for people to have different pay for the same job. A roofer that can lay more shingles, waste less material to bad cuts, and build roofs that don't need leak in the warranty period deserves to be paid a lot more than one that is slow, wasteful and sloppy.

But there are also bad reasons for people to get paid more for the same job. Eg Skin colour, height, corporate bullshitting, gender.

I agree compensation transparency is good but I don't think the answer is new hires snooping on people's pay stubs.

Sure- but it's not something for you to be able to look at just because you want to. If I don't want you to know something about me you don't have the right to know.

Bullshit. People get various wages because typically they have different skills and some are definitely more motivated or at a different point in their careers. The new hire that is not fully trained for their job, comes with no experience and has yet to master skills should get the same wages as the person that has been there for twenty years? That is mental.

You’re a fucking moron for believing this. It is literally only advantageous to the owners and investors in everyone keeping their wages secret. Obviously the activity described by OP is pretty dumb but to the larger point everyone should openly discuss how much they earn, only detriment is showing how unequal and stagnant wages are.

Not sure if it counts as a first day, but a third interview had me gone. I was quite late and they told me I was out of the running. Reasonable enough, but the company was in the middle of a move, so this interview was in a different location across town from the first two, and the only indication of where it was taking place was a tiny sign stuck in the ground. I must have circled the parking lot 10 times.

It was for the best because I later learned the work conditions there were rotten.

I work in it company that support small business. a customer of ours has an employee demographic of about 90% women they had hired a marketing guy and I was setting up his work laptop around noon after talking with him about 10 minutes and getting his desk set up I knew this guy wasn't going to last long with him mansplaining how it was done back before Windows 95. The paperwork for his termination had already been started by 4:00 p.m.

Not at any workplace of mine but at school. We had a substitute teacher for a day in I think in our sophomore year. Teachers save the easy teaching sessions for when they can’t show up, which means all a substitute teacher has to do is occupy the class with a documentary or something from the handy dandy wheeled video projector and make sure everyone behaves. However, she got a substitute who didn’t understand a word in English. And again, doesn’t really seem like a problem if you’re just there to hit a few buttons. But she got us a documentary with, well, let’s just say wildly inaccurate closed captions that looked ripped from a 50 Shades of Grey AI crossover fanfiction.

Why would you apply to a job having to manage children without knowing any English? That sounds like a nightmare to me

Sounds kind of like my experience when I ended up in Spain teaching English to a class of fifteen 7 and 8 year old Spanish girls. My Spanish was terrible, their English wasn't great, it was carnage. Eventually I more work teaching adults and learned Spanish but it was a messy time.

On his first day, he came on to one of the women I worked with very aggressively and shortly after told another to "bring me a cup of tea, quickly" while on the way to a meeting.

He was escorted off the premises by several other members of staff a few hours into the day once all of his system access had been revoked.

I'm sad to say this, because I know what a bad rap this field gets already and I know so many lovely people who are part of it.... But, they worked in InfoSec.

We hired a receptionist who didn’t know how to use a computer. Couldn’t type or even use a mouse. This was at a small tech company maybe 20 years ago and she was 20 something at the time. She interviewed normally and I guess someone else wrote her resume. I don’t know if she thought she would just figure it out on the job? We did skills and typing tests after that.

These days young people have such bad computer skills I know I'm going to put them through an excel course before they do anything else.

In the finals of my programmer apprenticeship was a multi table excel section (on paper of course) that had a 25% weight.
What was very confusing for like everyone.
Excel makes no sense, we can make a database and use SQL or something but not excel

We hired a person who lived hours away from our office. To save on hotel, he had the bright idea to spend his first work-week nights at a non-stop bar (open 24h/7). He showed up still drunk on his second day. We let him go on day 2.

I got fired before my first day. Well kind of.

So I was in college at this time and I had applied for and got hired at McDonald's. I had previous experience working at McDonald's in a different town. Not sure exactly what position it was anymore but something something lead I think. Anywho at the end of the 'your hired' talk the manager that did the hiring told me that the Christmas party was like that weekend and I should really show up to meet everybody. So despite not working a single day I show up for the Christmas party.

Well, her boss (the boss of the person who hired me) saw me and determined my hair was too long for a guy and fired me. He basically said that boys were to have essentially a 1950s men's haircuts if they were going to work for him... At McDonald's. I don't remember the specific words but I remember getting the vibe that he was very homophobic and that he thought long hair was somehow gay. So I was given the ultimatum of getting a proper men's haircut or I could be done. And despite not being gay myself I didn't want to work for some dude who just oozed homophobia, so I peaced out and told everyone I could at the manager of that McDonald's was a homophobic piece of shit.

For those wondering how long was my hair... It just barely touched the collar of my shirt, if it even touched. You know the 'broke college student who can't afford or remember when the last haircut was' look.

A week or so in Flipkart, 2 new trainees were caught kissing on the top office floor. Fired at spot.

Well, I passed out at a warehouse because my supervisor wouldn't let me go for a water break in 100+ degree weather, and I got fired for "loafing."

Does that count?

I once quit on the first day of a job.

I had previously worked with industrial robots and automation. Fixing them, calibrating them, making hardware and software adjustments as needed.

I was between jobs and found a small business that seemed like it was looking to do some automation expansion. The interview was a little weird because they were kind of vague with specifics. That’s not entirely abnormal with companies that have proprietary processes or automation, though I felt they were being a little bit overly cagey.

They wouldn’t take me into the clean room, which again isn’t unheard of, if in my opinion a little overly protective.

My previous job had been partially titled “Maintenance” (as in I maintained the robots) and the small company asked quite a lot about my versatility in maintaining things. I think that makes sense for a small company to want one person do all things for a robot.

I get a call that I’m hired. On paper the job looks good. Pay is a little low but this was an in-between job.

I show up for the first day of work and one of the first things I have to sign is a 15 page front and back Non Disclosure Agreement. That’s an insane length. My previous job with a huge, established tech company was a two page NDA and they actually had a lot of different processes.

So, I sign their crazy NDA and I’m taken into the airquotes “clean room”. First thing I notice is that I’m not suiting up or even putting on a white room style jacket. I see a cup of coffee on a “clean room” work bench. This is not a clean room.

I’m walked through and out of the “clean room” and to the outside back of the building and shown some air conditioner units. Told I need to work on those to fix them, and then later in the week I’ll be cutting the grass.

Lol.

No.

I left at lunch.

Imagine having to sign an NDA to fix someone's air conditioner.

The forst job i had was advertised as a customer service role. My thinking was itd be taking calls in the customer service department. With it being my first ever job/interview I missed all the red flags, sales were mentioned berifly but i figured it wasnt the main part of the job so itd be fine, and they even asked me about being on a phone.

Cut to my forst day and im brought into a room with roughly a dozen other new people, we are split into teams, assigned a team leader and told tp follow that person to the train staion. Turns put it was a door to door sales job. I quit before we got to the train station.