Nope, that was all Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. KMart never recovered. You may have had a more indirect impact. 
I’ve never been fired or in a position to fire people. I can’t imagine it would be fun for either party, though.
Never been fired, but I’ve fired many. I’ve even fired people who worked for other managers, because they were too spineless to do it themselves, so I did them a favor. Most people I’ve fired were existing employees in places where I came in as a new manager. Too many places have people in the wrong jobs, carry deadweight, etc., and I take care of it. I have a fairly good track record of hiring people who are good matches for the job duties, but I’ve had to can a few due to stealing, drug use, and sexual harassment.
I’ve fired one person. A clerk at the video store I managed took an impromptu 4 hour lunch, and had the balls to come back to work like nothing was wrong. “It’s my birthday!” was the excuse when I questioned her. It was her 4th or 5th bizarre schedule deviation with an explanation to match. I didn’t feel bad about that one at all. She lived at home with her parents, and really needed to learn a lesson about job schedules.
I’ve been fired twice. At the first company, I had worked there for years beforehand, and was re-hired without the usual formalities like mentioning they had instituted mandatory drug testing. After a week, they mentioned “Oh yeah, we need you to go pee in a cup!”. I had been smoking weed daily for months, and knew what the results would be. So, I smoked a joint on the way to the lab. After the predictable result, they just neglected to put me on the next week’s schedule. Oh well, I had another terrible job the next week.
The second time, I was involved in a wreck while driving the company van. It was the third time I’d wrecked one of their vans, (the first two were deemed not my fault). So even though they had partially caused the third it by having me work a physical job for 8 hours without a break, I figured the firing was coming. Sadly, a longtime friend was my boss, and he had to fire me. Hilariously, I was replaced by the owner’s nephew. Within a month, he wrecked one company van into another company van while the van was parked in their shop. I’m pretty sure the owner felt like he couldn’t win at that point.
I’ve been laid off once. I could have kept the job, but I didn’t like it, and I could get another one. Other people on the team were going to have a much harder time finding a new job after being laid off. I went to my boss and asked if I could switch with someone. He said “Give it to me in writing”. Done, and everyone was happier.
Well, I missed the edit window: But I’ve been fired three times. The third was actually the second chronologically, and I view it as a favor.
I was working at another branch of the former video store. I didn’t like working for the idiot manager over that location, who I was basically training, and she knew it. So, she was looking for a reason to fire me.
I was leaving for the day, and another manager asked me to take a plastic trash can back to the office before I left (I had already clocked out). I asked some inconsequential favor in return, but my request was refused in a really rude manner. I already had the can in my hands, but since they weren’t willing to reciprocate, and were needlessly rude: I was going to head home. I said they could take the can back to the office themselves, and tossed the can behind the counter.
Even though the can was never within 5 feet of them, this was construed as “throwing a trash can at them”, and I was fired. The company was out of business in a year. Serves them right. I don’t begrudge them firing me, I would have found a reason to fire someone if I was too stupid to do my job and the subordinate in question was constantly pointing this out. I just wish she had actually caught me being insubordinate (because by then, I was being really insubordinate every day) instead of making stuff up.
After that, I went and got in on the 90’s tech boom, and ended up with a career. Best firing ever.
Was sorta kinda fired when I was doing temp secretarial work during vacation in high school. About three days into an assignment that was supposed to last for 2-3 weeks, I had car trouble (this was long before cell phones) and as a result was about 20 minutes late. I immediately called the temp agency to let them know, and I voluntarily worked through the lunch break we were given to make up the time.
Nonetheless, at the end of the day the supervisor beckoned me over and handed me the phone, saying “the temp agency wants to talk to you.” On the other end of the phone was an apologetic rep from the temp agency saying “sorry, this office doesn’t want you there anymore, but don’t worry - we can find you another placement.”
They did indeed, and it was MUCH better than the first job.
I also fired someone after months of progressively worse lateness/falling behind on work. It’s very hard, legally, to fire people in Indonesia, so we basically had to buy her off - she knew she was being fired but we gave her so much cash to go away that she didn’t threaten legal action.
However, the process was very unpleasant. She accused me of being a bad manager because I didn’t have children. We were in an 11th story office (with windows that opened onto a ledge) and she threatened to jump out. So all in all, not fun. But it is a testament to her poor performance that paying her all that money and getting through the unpleasant discussions was the better alternative to keeping her on staff.
In high school, a friend of mine got me a job at a local video store. I noticed one week I wasn’t on the schedule at all and the same the following week. My friend also found his hours cut. Turns out, the manager was replacing all the male employees with attractive females. The place was out of business within a few months.
I’m not sure if the reason for the business failing was incompetent staff or that they couldn’t rent pornographic videos in that small suburb.
I’ve only been fired once. I got a part time job working a grocery store register. One day while working a really bad ear infection flared up. My fever spiked and I got dizzy. I had to leave early. The next day I couldn’t make it in because I was in bed. I then found out they fired me.
Years ago, I had a job that involved supervising the secretaries at a midsized law firm (maybe 40 secretaries, if I remember right). One morning I was in early, about an hour before the firm opened.
I met one of the secretaries, a fairly recent hire, in the hallway. She was stumbling drunk. She must have been out all night, and made the stupid decision to go straight to work rather than go home and call in sick.
I told her that she should go home. Nobody but me had seen her yet. I told her that I’d tell everyone she’d called in sick.
She agreed, and walked towards the elevator banks. Unfortunately, as she was getting on the elevator, she met the managing partner, getting off the elevator.
That was it. She was terminated on the spot. I do remember that the partner, fearing a lawsuit if she stumbled and fell on the subway or something, I guess, insisted that a cab be called to take her home.
One of the most bizzare termination I had to do was with a young girl whom this was her first job. It was minimum wage clerk at a mall cd/movie store during the holidays and she seemed competent enough when she was working.
However, it soon became apparent that she failed to grasp the concept of what a work schedule was. When she didn’t show up for work one day I got a hold of her and she plainly told me she was busy doing something else and if she had some time tomorrow she might drop by to work a few hours. ???
When I did terminate her for another missed shift she was still very confused about why she couldn’t just work when she wanted to.
Never been fired. I used to manage a small staff at a garden center years ago and had a high school girl who didn’t show up for several scheduled days over a holiday weekend. When she called for her schedule, I told her not to bother coming in and why. No real drama there and that was my only firing experience.
I had to fire local employees overseas. One man in Lisbon was taking contractor kickbacks. Two of my AC technicians in Mali were stealing compressors and selling them on the black market.
I’ve never been fired, but was “downsized” twice. Both times came as a nasty shock; going from $150K/yr to zero is a rude kick in the balls, but at least I had a month’s notice. The other one came without warning. On a Friday afternoon, the asshole calls me and the other manager into his office and hands us our severance letters and checks. Then he scurried out to his car and disappeared, the fucking coward.
About 30 years ago my sister took over as manager of a coffee shop near a ‘christian’ college. She found about 60 college students on the books as part timers, all scheduled like 2 hours at a crack. Half or more of them wouldn’t even show up for that - they really just wanted an employee discount. So she cleared off the chaff by first eliminating anyone who didn’t show up for work over a two week period, then told the rest that they were going to do at least 10-12 hours every week or she didn’t want them. Most quit on their own.
I’ve been fired a couple of times. Mostly deserved it. Was fired for fraudulent reasons the last time, because I busted my supervisor for violating company policy on the day he was promoted to assistant director. Can’t have that, get rid of the guy making the fuss. He got fired less than a year later for… wait for it… violating company policy. The boss who protected him retired very shortly thereafter.
Never been in a position to fire anyone, but have been in the spot many times of telling a co-worker that they were going to be fired if they didn’t stop their shit, only to watch many of them end up getting fired for that exact shit. You’d think having to be on time for school would teach kids that being on time for a job is important, but it’s amazing how incredibly stupid kids can be when they get out of high school, become ‘adults’ and think they know everything and can do as they please.
Like the guy I worked with who was late every single day, walked right through the warning process from informal to written to final before screaming “NO ONE TOLD ME I COULD BE FIRED FOR THIS!” when in fact, everyone had been telling him this and he’d seen others be fired for it.
Been laid off once, and been “laid off”, meaning fired, but not really for cause once.
The lay-off was oddly enough, the more hurtful of the two. I’d got a job with a startup-ish company, and everything was going well for me, and seemingly for the company. Then one morning, I came in, and there was a little note in my chair, along with 60% of the other chairs in the company. After a brief chat with my boss, that was it.
The “lay off”/firing was more a consequence of me not being a good fit with the consulting firm that I worked at. I had the unfortunate habit of not quite being conformist enough, along with being somewhat outspoken about things I thought we could improve. I did a good enough job not to be fired outright, but I wasn’t really a “good little consultant”, in that I tended to wear clothing that fit the letter of the dress code, and not the spirit (stuff like patterned shirts, khakis, etc… and not the usual boring blue dress shirt, black slacks, black dress shoes uniform), and I had a real distaste for typical consultant shenanigans, such as spending hour upon hour meticulously formatting database queries, and then literally printing it out on paper and putting it into prettily formatted binders as a record for our clients.
I pointed out that we could get utility programs that could format it consistently and accurately EVERY SINGLE TIME, and that printing it out was crooked, in that there was no actual use for printed SQL queries, and that we were basically bilking our clients out of thousands of dollars worth of billable hours (the cheapest of us billed at $350/hr) by spending days on end pickily formatting this stuff, and then printing and collating it into binders.
That sort of attitude at a management consulting firm doesn’t get you far; the mere suggestion that you stop doing anything that you can bill the client for is looked at with a lot of hostility, and you’re viewed as disloyal and not a team player.
So I got “laid off”, meaning that I’m eligible for rehire, technically, and that they’re not going to badmouth me if potential employers come calling to verify my employment. I don’t think I’d put them down as references though.
Never been fired. Never will be fired - I’m so close to retirement that I’ve told them that if there are layoffs I want to be first. But there probably won’t be and I know stuff no one else does.
Fired 2.5 people. One was an intern who worked for me the year before, and was great, and just vanished the next year. His mother didn’t even know where he was. The second was a guy I inherited from another manager. The third would have been fired, but we had a nice voluntary termination package then and he was able to take that.
I’ve seen people get laid off, but I’ve never had to do it.
What kind of position do you work in, or what field?
I’ve never fired anyone. I’ve made someone understand I was unhappy with their work and that they’d never receive a raise, but I’ve never fired anyone. Likewise, I’ve never been successfully charged with an UC claim.
This^. No one in the room should be surprised when a firing happens - if any one is, the manager is not, IMHO, doing their job.
My most bizarre “firing”, and the only one that didn’t fit the rule above, was of a temp. She called in the first morning she was to report and said she would be late. When I asked why, she replied “I can’t find my makeup case”. I replied “Oh, that’s OK! We’re pretty informal around here, just come on in!”, to which she replied “I couldn’t possibly come in with no makeup on”. I told her to take the rest of the day to find her makeup, I was calling the agency for a different temp.
I have been laid off (downsized) twice. Both were sudden and caught me by surprise. That’s not pleasant.
I had to “fire” one young lady. She simply wasn’t working out…couldn’t grasp the concepts. She realized it herself, and said she wanted to leave, but wanted to work out her probation period (90 days, I think she was 60 days in at that point.)
HR said no, if she turned in her notice she had to leave, so all I really did was tell her that we would have to say goodbye sooner rather than later.
We had two employees crash and burn and they resigned themselves, by basically not coming back to work. That taught me a lot about how to hire right and what to look for in the position. We’ve had a stable bunch the last three years and have made what I believe will be another good hire who starts on Monday.
I’ve been fired several times:
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I was fired (from a United States government position) with the stated reason from my direct supervisor “I want to hire a man for your job because I don’t think it’s the sort of job women should have.” The job, for the record, was counting fish and other wildlife. After I complained about it to the direct supervisor’s boss, they offered me the job back (having in the meantime hired a guy), which I declined - having no desire to work for that supervisor in any capacity. I was still living at home at the time, so I just found another job and went about my business. I was pretty steamed about it at the time though.
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I was fired from one job for being friends and roommates with one of the supervisors (not my supervisor, mind you - she supervised the day shift and I was night shift since I was in college during the day). Mind you, we’d been both friends and roommates when I was hired - and were open about the relationship. We had gotten a new department head, who was terrified my friend was going to take her job (even though my friend had, in fact, declined her job before the hiring process for new lady started). She had really wanted to fire my friend, but the Big Boss thought that was ridiculous - if they were firing people for being friends, she had to fire the lower-level employee of course. At the time, I was incandescent with fury over it all, now it just makes me roll my eyes. For the record, my friend and I? Still friends
The company? Went under within a year. -
I was fired from a job less than a week after reporting a co-worker for sexual assault. He was the Big Boss’ nephew, who waited for me to go into the ladies locker room to change out of my uniform, followed me in and then refused to believe no meant no. The meaning of a swift kick was less ambiguous. My boss (who worked for the Big Boss, who was, in turn, a political appointee, told me that I was being fired for “failure to complete job responsibilities” and then we had a super awkward talk that went like this: Boss: “You did not do Task A” Me: “Yes I did, three days ago. The paperwork is in your inbox. I can see it. It’s right there points helpfully” Boss: “Well, Task B isn’t done” Me: “I did it last week, as scheduled. It’s not due for repetition until next week unless we get unexpected influx, which nobody’s reported to me.” Finally, after we’d run through variations on this theme for 15 minutes or so, she just told me she didn’t think I was working hard enough, a statement with which it’s not really possible to argue effectively. It was a part time college job, so I bitched about the whole thing to my friends and then found another marginally-more-than-minimum-wage job and only thought about it while dealing with the police and attorneys with regard to Mister No Doesn’t Mean No.
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The most recent firing I still have no earthly clue about. I went in one day, after a scheduled, planned and pre-approved vacation, and my boss and a box containing my stuff was waiting for me. He refused - even when asked point blank - to say why I was being fired. He just kept repeating “It’s not working out”. The placement firm that got me the job in the first place even called to inquire about it for me and got nothing. I remain confused about it, although a co-worker told me later that the lady they’d hired to replace me was a former employee and personal friend of his wife who’d fallen into a rough personal time and was willing to do my job for about half what he paid me. I wasn’t even mad about it at the time - just really freaking confused and sort of panicky because I was the sole breadwinner in our household at the time.
The only time I’ve had to fire anyone it was absolutely crystal clear why I was doing it - I’d caught the dipshit actually smoking weed in a company vehicle while he was supposed to be driving to the hardware store to buy some supplies. I sent him to do it, noticed 15 minutes later the truck was still where it was when I sent him, went over to see what the deal was and he was toking up. I opened the door, took a sniff, told him “You’re fired, and I’m calling the cops, so get a fucking move on unless you want to go to jail.” Since he was all of 16 at the time, it wouldn’t have been much jail, but man his mom was pissed when she found out.
I’ve been fired so often, my friends call me “Winchester”. 