Most spectacular way in which you or a coworker has quit or been fired from a job

In My Humble Opinion
21

Oh, this one reminds me… same company. We were a credit card customer service call center, so employees all had access to credit card info.

One employee, a kid of maybe 21, decided to change account addresses and have cash advance checks sent to his apartment. Then he used them to buy a $30,000 Jeep. Which he then used to drive to work.

Which was totally kewl, apparently, until the FBI came in and busted him in the middle of the shift with hundreds of reps looking on. Jeep hauled out of the parking lot by the Feds.

Then, later, after I’d quit, an employee that landed on my team after being shuttled around resigned himself. Now, this guy was clearly not ethical, a lawsuit in the making, but the company’s solution was to move him around and give him higher and higher clearances! I’m not sure what he did, exactly, but I do know he is ended up a fugitive living in Israel.

22

I worked for a tool rental place in Houston for about a year and it was the workplace-from-hell, among the MANY problems was the maintenance budget of $0 for the equipment and tools and it was MY fault when (not if, when) things broke.

Many of us had dreams of “leaving with style” and the one that no one ever actually did was:
We rented post-hole-diggers called “little beavers”, the giant “leaving with style” deal was to put on the Marquee sign “rent a little beaver, it’s a good hole”

When I had enough of the company BS I took my camera in with me one morning, changed the sign, clocked out and took a picture of the sign. I found out later that my boss had to rush over to change the sign and was REALLY pissed!

Unclviny

23

I pretty much got fed up and lost it in a meeting and announced that I quit. I suppose the three other people in the meeting besides my harpie of a boss remember it. I went on to bigger and better things.

Another time the small company I worked for had to get rid of somebody, and that somebody was me. I was called into the HR guy’s office, a guy that I partied with every weekend and who’s girlfriend I adored, and was told by one guy while my friend buried his head in his hands that they had to get rid of somebody, blah blah blah. After that, we got up, and the guy practically perp-walked me all the way through the warehouse and out the door. Humiliation. He didn’t go back inside until I was off the premises. I went on to bigger and better things. I was having some beers with my friend the HR guy maybe a year or so later and was going to ask him if Tony Whats-his-face still works there and make a crack about how he used to literally back his car up to the loading dock and load it up with the good stuff but then I thought fuck it.

24

In between ‘major’ jobs…I took a job as a manager at a company. This dealt with statistics.

This was back when I was somewhat green but had some years under my belt. I was offered a substantial (double) my salary…and so I took it.

I lasted 6-7 months. It was a disaster.

First of all, I started with 5 people in my area. They were all pissed off/unhappy when I joined up. The major reasons were that it was mathematical work and none of the 5 were specialized in anything mathematical and had little desire/interest in doing it. In addition, I found the company didn’t really value math abilities and so the position my 5 people had was deemed an inferior position and they wanted to be ‘promoted’ out of it. To top it off, they were paid LESS THAN other positions in the company AND they were paid under ENTRY LEVEL salary of other entry level positions!

The attrition started right away. My first day I was informed when I came in that one of the five had resigned. 1 week later another had.

I was then NOT allowed to replace them!

For 6 months we struggled on with huge work loads. I couldn’t do any manager stuff or redoing of the department because I ran into internal opposition to any increase in prestige of my department and I was working about 86 hours a week just doing grunt projects!

During the 6th month a third quit. I was then allowed to hire 2 replacements…but the salary was even lower…it was a pathetic salary…less than a fourth of what I was making and little more than half of what I was making doing something similar at my previous job.

Needless to say…I received many applications and gave many interviews but, of course, they were not interested.

There was, however, a 48 year old recent college grad. She was interested. She was the only one remotely qualified. LOng story short, I used my hire authority over opposition to hire her…there was opposition from people who had no business in my department because they didn’t want me to hire someone old. I ignored them, hired her…and was smited down by the owner who told me I could not hire her.

HUGE ARGUMENT. I lost.

So I was down to 2 people. I was working about 90 hours a week.

Friday night…8 pm…I look at what needs to be done by the end of the week. I estimate it is about 26 hours of work. No way I can ask my 2 peeps to do more…they were at breaking point already. I figure out when I will do it and go home to eat/sleep.

I take the whole weekend off. Completely relaxed…no stress. I didn’t even worry about anything.

Come in Monday morning about 10:00 (normal time about 5:30 in the morning)

All hell had torn loose. They were in a meeting about what to do. People were screaming.
I walk in and am immediately nabbed. I listen to them for 30 min…like water off a ducks back. This incensed them even more.

The owner then comes in and sees my completely changed attitude and calls for a 15 min break and then we will come back and figure out how I will fix all the HUGE damage done. He is very pissed.

I walk back to my desk in a dream like state…and RIGHT at that time the phone is ringing. I pick it up and it is someone who knows me who says they could really use me at their company and was I interested. I say sure. They say the salary was about 75% of what I was making (which was still a nice bump from my previous job)…I accept.

I walk back into the meeting and am immediately set into by one manager of another area…virtually screaming at me.

I scream at the top of my lungs… “SHUT UP FOR A SEC” (first time I had ever screamed…it worked)

When they do, I say “I quit” and walk out.

====

When I look back, I see what happened. I had broke. I had completely broken under the stress and didn’t care anymore. I had heard about such things and I remember being alarmed about my not being alarmed about what was happening. I should have told someone I wasn’t doing work…but I didn’t.

The surrealism of getting a job offer right at the break in the meeting still gets me :slight_smile:

Best thing? It happened within 1 calendar year and the person who asked me to join his company was my nominal boss from the old one…so I never even had to put the job on my resume. :slight_smile:

25

Good God, man, what industry are you in? Where is 60 days’ notice standard?

Perhaps I’m marking myself as a relative novice to this whole getting-shitcanned-universe.

I’ve never quit or been fired <knocks on wood> but when I got laid off, the whole thing happened so fast! This was an honest-to-God layoff (“your position has been eliminated due to staff cuts”) and I had zero notice.

I was called into a meeting in such-and-such room. Since I had a meeting scheduled for **that exact time **anyway, I thought, “Oh, they changed rooms. Okay.” Walked in, saw my supervisor sitting there with a couple other folks, thought nothing of it, supe was always in on any meeting. Suddenly they’re telling me how sorry they are and how I need to sign this and that form. I was completely and utterly taken aback. I think my jaw actually dropped. (The phrase “like a lamb to the slaughter” keeps coming to mind.)

I pointed out to them that I had - no lie - seven different programs open on my computer, who knows how many windows in each program. I was in the middle of several tasks, none of which anyone else on the team, or in the rest of the company, really knew how to do. They blinked - clearly, no one had thought about that little part. I asked about getting my stuff back. That was the cue for one of the women who was there at the beginning to walk back into the room, holding a box. I hadn’t even seen her slip out of the room! She had neatly packed everything of mine, down to every last condiment packet I kept squirreled away.

And with that, I found myself in the parking garage, holding a box of stuff.

(Sorry, I don’t actually have a good firing or quitting story.)

26

So many jobs, so many co-workers, so many memories.

We hired one administrative assistant who drove an expensively restored classic Mustang. Three days into the job she found out the crew in the parking garage had popped the hood and looked at the engine. She delivered a blistering stream of obscenities to them and took off, never to be seen again.

One co-worker called into say his wife was sick and he was staying home with her. A few days later his wife called and asked if we knew where he was. We never saw him again, either.

One started his first day bright and early. He left for lunch and didn’t come back. At least he called to say he was quitting.

We sent an email to a client once. It bounced back. We called him, only to find his extension had been disconnected. A few minutes later we learned he had been terminated and escorted out of the building by security for “inappropriate sexual conduct.”

27

Not too long have the WTC attacks a man I knew was fired for sending a bomb threat.

He used to trade stocks from his computer at work. I suspect his boss knew and pretended not to, but who can say? Anyway, he tried to make a trade to sell some stocks that were tanking. The web site went down and he lost a bundle. So he sent an email in which he said that they were lucky he didn’t come and bomb their place.

I dunno if it was the FBI or Homeland Security or who, but guys from the government showed up and escorted him away. He was fired too.

28

I’m not sure I understand this. The " from senior lead maintenance technician to parts washer" sounds to me like he was being steadily demoted, but I don’t know what industry you’re talking about so maybe he was being promoted.

I’ve never heard of somebody complaining about not being laid off. Had he been deliberately slacking and getting demoted in hopes of being laid off and receiving the big severance package?

29

I worked in a duty and tax free warehouse - the lure of all the expensive consumer electronics was too much for some people - most often the temporary summer workers - pilfering was not uncommon.

The management would subject us all to random searches at clocking off time - invariably, there would be one guy in the line (a different guy every time, obviously, but it happened regular as clockwork) with fluttery hands and nervous eyes - and as he reached the front of the line, he would make a sudden dash for the toilets (to try to discard the stolen items), only to find the foreman waiting in there, then the canteen door, only to find it locked, then a bit of quite frantic, but hopeless darting about, and finally, resignation to his fate.

I must have seen it over a dozen times, pretty much the same pattern every time.

30

http://www.dol.gov/compliance/laws/comp-warn.htm There are tons of ways around it though, so don’t be surprised if it doesn’t apply to your job.

Pretty much so, and yes, he was effectively demoted during a series of restructurings. He got a reputation long before this as being the class clown, and when the old plant shut down he was shuttled between bosses (I doubt that his mouth helped him any.) At the time, getting laid off was the preferable way to leave since severance packages were mostly based on years of service (Several old timers started small businesses with their package.) Over the course of several layoffs (through the dotcom crash and the subsequent fallout), he had asked his boss, his bosses boss and then his department head to put him on the list. Each had replied that HR didn’t allow this. I’m sure that the real reason was that, while he was the biggest screwoff when away from his area, he still did good work.

Finally, he stormed the VP’s office, and the VP didn’t have time for his nonsense.

31

I worked at a newspaper in 1989/1990 and wrote a four-page letter of resignation to the psycho editor. I enclosed this with another two-page letter I gave to the paper’s owner (I was later told he got a good laugh out of it.). Among other remarks, I called the editor a cross between Benito Mussolini and Elmer Fudd. Nowhere in the letters did I use any profanity.

I once quit another job by slamming the door so hard it shook a two-story building.

32

Back in my travel agent days, a woman called in sick in the morning, but then she showed up at the company picnic/softball game that afternoon.

She was let go the next workday.

Another agent had been given a free pass on Pan Am for a flight to Rome. It allowed for an upgrade to first class, space available. Well, using her own computer, she booked four fictitious people in first class on her flight. Of course, they no-showed.

Pan Am called the agency to check on the passengers seeing as they were out some significant bucks. The agency traced the booking to the offending agent’s computer and sine in. The VP called the agent in Italy and fired her. Pan Am was also advised, so…when the agent tried to check in for her return, Pan Am disallowed her pass. She agent had to pay her (and her friend’s) own way home.

33

Mine was my a summer job while in college. I worked at the local newspaper, manning the machines that put the inserts into the daily paper. You know the crap you hate, ads, and fliers, and stuff like that.

It wasn’t a bad summer job, basically it was all automated,and you stacked the inserts into these bins that automatically inserted them into each paper as it went by, and you just had to stop the machine if things got gobbed up. Company policy was that you shut it down and then had to restart the whole thing. Sometimes you could just reach your hand in and grab it and you didn’t have to shut the machine down. And I had seen a few people get hurt by doing that, and my apron got caught on it once and I saw the damage that machine could do. So I vowed to hit the emergency button if it clogged on me.

So on my last day (I had already given notice) the machine clogged at my station. So I stop the whole operation and the little prick who was ‘the manager’ came all unglued and was yelling at me for stopping the station, etc. So I just looked at him and said ‘fuck you I quit’ and he was like ‘you can’t quit–your FIRED!’ and I just said, 'nope, I gave notice two weeks ago and today is my last day-FUCK YOU!" and walked out the door.

Age 19 :slight_smile: Only job I have ever quit (or got fired depending on your point of view) in that manner.

34

The stupidest boss I ever had hired a guy who could do nothing but BS. As a BSer, he was the best I’ve ever known. He could talk his way into or out of any situation you cared to name, except one: When the chief deputy sheriff of the local county and an FBI agent came into our office, he left in handcuffs when they did. He was an Army deserter, so we heard. The stupid boss stupidly said, “That guy must have been a hell of a fighter if they went to that much trouble to get him to go back.”

I swear this is a true story.

35

High school job: Theatre tech crew for rentals. At least two paid students had to work each event, with coworkers or unpaid trainees making up the rest of the crew, if necessary. One of the paid students, who had his own set of keys, would show up, unlock everything he had to, MAYBE do the load in, and then do the math. If there was at least one trainee, then he’d dump his keys on the other paid student (usually me, although he started doing this before I had even been hired) and say “I don’t feel well” or “I got called in to my other job.” Since he had a position of power (assistant tech director, which is why he had keys) he assured us we wouldn’t get in trouble for only having one paid student.

Surprisingly, this dereliction of duty, which probably violated the school’s insurance or rental policies, didn’t get him fired. Neither did that time he lost his keys in the parking lot for several months- they did eventually reappear.

But that day that he spent a good ten minutes yelling at the theatre teacher- our boss- in the middle of class, with choice foul language?

That was a firing there! His ass was out the door.

(He managed to stay in the theatre classes and the all-school plays, somehow. But we didn’t have to crew rentals together anymore.)

I don’t know how he got fired from his other job that he had at the time, and it’s possible he left it himself because it was pretty horrible. All I know is, he left the “other job” from the first tale, dropped out of high school with a semester to go, and got a job at the movie theatre my big brother works at. My brother is only relevant because he is the source for this tale:

One winter’s day my ex-coworker called the manager. “I’m sorry, but I went up to my stepdad’s cabin to snowboard, and I got snowed in. [Cinema employee] is with me so if he has any shifts coming up that’s why he’s not there.” The excused seemed to check out- his stepdad does have a mountain cabin, probably about two hours out of town, three in bad weather.

Less than an hour later, his coworker clocked in, oblivious to what my ex-coworker had sad.

The next day, my ex-coworker was his ex-coworker too.

36

I used to work for a private tutoring company that worked with kids with autism and learning disabilities. The company is nationwide, so the Los Angeles center frequently got transfer tutors from other centers around the country. There was a transfer from Miami, we’ll call her Donna, who was rude, abrasive, and constantly berated the students. She had a particular problem with one six-year-old with Tourette’s, who she insisted was sexually harassing her and trying to get her in trouble with the police and ruin her budding movie producer career. Um, he’s six, lady, and he can’t help what he says because of that little Tourette’s problem. :dubious:

Despite all this, she came with glowing recommendations from the Miami center director. Donna’s stay in Los Angeles was temporary, and she planned to go back to work in the Miami center at the end of the summer. But before she could do that, our center director fired her for all the above reasons. This brought up an awkward situation- was she fired from the Los Angeles center only, or did this firing carry over to the entire company? The result was a screaming teleconference with the company bigwigs in our director’s office that everyone in the entire center could hear. I don’t know if Miami ever took her back.

Another summer, we had a new hire named, um, Tyrone. Tyrone was actually a very good tutor- calm, firm, the kids liked him. However, one day, he did something very stupid. He jokingly told a little girl that if she didn’t finish her work, he was going to lock her up and she couldn’t go home. Not the best thing to say to a child with comprehension difficulties. :smack: Well, she went home, told her mother, mother called the office, and Tyrone was hauled in and fired on the spot. He later sent an angry letter threatening to sue, but nothing ever came of it.

37

There was an IT person at my office that got hauled out by the cops, screaming obscenities at the top of her lungs, threw a shoe at her old boss, the whole nine. I don’t know what happened but I believe the whole incident started over a new tech being hired with half of her experience and twice the pay, and she’d had enough.

38

Oh man. I guess I’ve seen a few. I’ve been laid off here and there, and have quit jobs a couple times, but never really felt compelled to go out in a blaze of glory, so all my stories are about someone else.

On an oil rig off Tunisia, two guys getting in a fight which escalated into one of them chasing the other though the accommodation hallways with a fire axe. They had to send them in on separate boats to keep them apart.

Many years ago a co-worker was physically attacked by one of my former bosses (in the office, in front of witnesses) basically for just mildly disagreeing with him. Guess which of the two was let go (well, presumably with a pretty good severance package to keep him from suing)?

Another oil rig in south Texas, a guy didn’t show up for his shift. Checked the hotel he was staying at, door to his room was wide open, no one there. After about three of days of increasingly frantic searching, with the police involved, he calls us from Mexico, where it turns out he’d been slung in jail for the weekend.

Salesperson, just hired a few weeks previously, is sent to Paris for a training course. Second night he’s there, gets completely blotto on drink (or something) at dinner, makes a pass at one of the other attendees, gets in a couple of arguments, and ends up being held down by one of the group while he threatens grevious bodily harm to everyone in the vicinity. He’s now exploring other opportunities.

A guy in my office right now clearly is unhappy in his job and has recently gotten in a couple of angry confrontations with both supervisors and peers. I suspect it won’t be long before he blows his stack. Too bad, he’s an OK dude otherwise.

39

Oh yeah, how could I forget this one? We had one operator who was called up to her supervisor’s office for a quick verbal reprimand. Whatever she had done wasn’t a big deal, but she took it the wrong way, got angry and defensive and started yelling at everyone in the area. Within minutes she was escorted out the door by security.

Remember folks, take it easy.

40

On my first real job a guy was quitting and let my group see his resignation letter. It was on the standard company letterhead, in a business style, but the body of the letter was the Far Side cartoon where there’s a sky full of UFOs, all piloted by dogs, and the dog’s on the porch talking to his master, saying “Well, it’s time for me to go. But just once, let’s see **you **roll over.”