Anyone can get fired for violating the standard written rules - sexual harassment, bringing firearms to work, threats, violating non-disclosure agreements, theft, property destruction, substance abuse during work hours etc - but what could you do to get fired where you work that there isn’t a (current, heh) rule against?
If I ever decided to get fired, I’d like to make it memorable. The sort of thing that years from now people would still be talking about “remember how she got fired when she…”
There’s no rule against it, but I think I could probably be fired on the spot for this:
Nothing is worse than training people and having them not pay any attention. It feels like a waste of time when they’re not learning what they’re supposed to, and even worse when they end up not passing qualifications.
I’d announce to the people I’m training that I find their lack of engagement disappointing, and that I feel that it reflects poorly on my ability to train them. Then I would pull out some of the puppets from my college puppetry class and proceed to make the training into a puppet show complete with voices and asking the trainees condescending questions via the puppets. (“Can any of you boys and girls tell me what we mean by focus? Come on, don’t be shy, I know someone can!”) I don’t think I could get through the entire training before I was dismissed for gross lack of judgment.
So what could you do to get yourself fired creatively? These would have to be things you could plausibly accomplish on your own at your specific place of work, however.
Since I have total control over two very prominent websites, I suspect that inclusion of goatse or lemonparty on the front page would do it. It’d take about two seconds to do, and I would never work again. And probably end up in jail.
Drafting a Release (the document we have people sign when they settle their case that basically says they promise not to sue the company/insurer again over workers’ comp or sexual harrassment and pretty much anything else you can imagine) in which the employee promises to provide oral sex to me and anyone else who asks at least fifty-two times per annum.
Plus, since I know exactly whose attorneys will read the thing before getting their client to sign it, and whose will be too busy counting their portion of the settlement proceeds, I could totally make it happen.
As a Security Officer for a University, I could have a lot of fun with this one, briefly or for days on end depending on the wildly fluctuating level of supervision and campus activity I deal with.
As a customer service agent for a small to mid size distributor, I’d spend the day directing as much of the snark that I only wish I could say at the clients who are truly deserving of it. Our calls aren’t monitored, and I have my own office (more or less) so it’s doubtful I’d be overheard, but it wouldn’t take long for the complaints to start flooding in to TPTB.
Unfortunately I couldn’t be snarky to my co-workers because, honestly, we all get on pretty well with each other, so in order to spare them that feeling of betrayal, I’d have to feign insanity by answering every question with “cheese underpants” and then hoisting my junk.
You know, I don’t even know what it takes to get fired from my job. One of our staff falsified time cards for months; one slept on the job; one stole drugs left, right, and center.
When I was a cashier at a grocery store, I wanted very badly to see how many customers I could ring up with a finger up by nose, rooting vigorously, before I was fired.
Okay, I work for myself at the moment, but until about a year ago I did have an office job at a family-owned business.
The Big Boss Lady has a yippy dog she brings to work every day. I adore cats and dogs, but this is no dog. It is a rat with exceptionally long and glossy hair. And, since Boss Lady certainly can’t be bother to walk the dog, and the low-level employees who are supposed to do it don’t ever seem to get around to it, ratdog urinates and defecates at will throughout the office building. That is, when she isn’t busy overturning trash cans looking to root through everyone’s discarded food wrappers.
I could never actually do it, because I’d never be cruel to animals, even a ratdog. However, one well-placed kick…
I know many employees there have fantasized about this.
I’ve posted before about an old job I had at an Internet startup that used the underpants gnomes as their business model (The CEO couldn’t even describe what the product did). Around when the company was circling the drain, the bigwigs held a staff meeting with a branding consultant to explain why we had to change the company name again (they picked a name already being used by another software company, even after I offered to introduce them to the trademark lawyer I used to work with). Knowing that the emperors had no clothes and no more money to run the company, I decided to snark.
Me: “Three years ago, Boss Coffee was giving away leather jackets with “BOSS” written on the back. Hugo Boss sued, claiming that putting the name on clothing infringed on their trademark. How was this resolved?”
Consultant: “Uh, I think it was decided that the giveaway was acceptable since it was a promotional good rather than their main product.”
Me: “Ok, so there’s our solution: Sell DumbassITCompany-brand T-shirts at $30,000 each, and with every purchase we give away a free promotional server management software package.”
The volume of the laughter was directly proportional to how far people were sitting from the five executives. When I was fired a few weeks later (not only me; I think two-thirds of the staff went that month), this incident was listed on my termination notice.
Giving a blowjob in the bathroom. Well I was in loooove at the time. And it was after hours. And I was done at the time…just waiting for the others to finish up. But appaerntly this was still a NO-NO.
I actually said I was quitting and wasn’t allowed to… will try it again in November.
Maybe next time my boss comes up with some magnificent response like that time I’d mentioned I wasn’t feeling well and he accused me of stealing from the company, I should say that my only regret is I can’t steal more cos they sure ain’t worth a minute of my effort.
“Uh, I think it was decided that the giveaway was acceptable since it was a promotional good rather than their main product.”