Who has been fired? Why?

Ringo · October 17, 2003, 1:34am

I have. Once. Unfortunately, I most certainly deserved it.

At the time I was playing with the workingest band I ever played with. We played somewhere every weekend night. I also had two part-time floral delivery driver jobs, one on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the other on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. I worked two evening shifts a week in a restaurant, which I opened and managed during the day on Sundays. In a normal week, the band met for practice three weeknights. I was a busy lad.

So we got a week long gig, Friday through Thursday, in Victoria, which is about 125 miles from Houston. It wasn’t too hard to arrange subs on the restaurant schedule, and one other band member and I just decided we’d make the daily commute to work our day jobs.

After a week of playing until almost 2:00 AM and then driving back to Houston to show for work at 8:00, I was a little tired. That had been when we could just leave everything in place. The last night, though, we had to tear down and load equipment, settle up with the bar, etc. We wound up getting back to Houston with just time enough for me to proceed straight to my floral delivery job.

Man, was I beat! I loaded up my first delivery run, left the shop and stopped by my apartment. I was still wearing stage clothes, including knee-high leather boots that I didn’t want to suffer through an already sure to be miserable Houston summer day in.

I sat down in a chair and leaned over to take off one of my boots and…, suddenly it was 3:00 PM! Yikes! I jumped up and proceeded to haul ass through my deliveries. By the time I got back to the shop, Mack, the owner, who was already curious about my long absence, had begun receiving calls about the quality of cut flower arrangements that had spent the better part of a Houston summer day in a closed van.

Mack, who, as an aside, I’ll mention was rather flamingly gay, opened up on me with, “You lousy two-timing bitch!” It was over in seconds.

I felt bad about it. It was entirely my own fault, and I had let Mack down.

As a postscript, I’ll add that Mack asked me to come back to work for him several weeks later (I had no idea floral delivery drivers were hard to come by), which I did, and at last parting we were on good terms.

So, that’s my fuck-up - no downsizing, layoff, buyout - I just out and out screwed the pooch and got fired for it.

Baldwin · October 17, 2003, 2:19am

Let’s see… fired six times. Once by a temp agency, which takes some doing.

1980, from a pizza joint in Johnson City, Tennessee. Manager didn’t like my “attitude”.
1981, from a Waffle House, after two days. Even shaved my beard for that job. Trust me, short-order cooking is a pain in the ass unless you have a flair for it, and I just didn’t.
1993, from a large German-owned electrical equipment manufacturer called Siemens. I was falsely accused of sexual harrassment. After a few days, HR admitted that I was innocent, but then retroactively changed the reason I was fired. (GWB couldn’t have done it better.) They claimed that there was a company rule forbidding (I kid you not) the exchanging of any private correspondence on company property; I had in fact handed a personal letter to a coworker. At the time, there were two or three married couples working there; I asked if the rule meant that one of them could be fired for giving his or her spouse a Valentine card in the shop. The HR lady actually said, “Yes.”
By Manpower, the country’s largest temp agency. Immediately after leaving Siemens, I started looking for work, and signed up with these idiots. They gave me a battery of tests for English, math and computer skills, in all of which I scored quite high… then sent me out to a $6.00/hour manual labor job at a cardboard box factory. After four hours I told the folks at the factory that a mistake had been made, and went home, with the result that I’m on Manpower’s black, black list of ne’er-do-wells.
I worked for a financial printer called Bowne, processing documents for electronic filing with the SEC. Good money, but long hours and constant pressure. It wasn’t unusual for people to quit in the middle of a shift – they’d just reach a point where they’d had enough, and take off. I didn’t do that, but I did get in the habit of being a few minutes late, for which I was ultimately fired. Not really sorry about that.
Shortly thereafter I went to work for a giant insurance underwriter called Marsh. Last December, they wrongfully fired me for insubordination, based on the assertion that I had disobeyed instructions. (A lie; actually I had repeatedly requested instructions, and had been told to do what I wanted.) Later, my supervisor, her boss and the HR lady all committed perjury by repeating the same lie in a series of hearings with the state Dept. of Labor as I attempted to get some unemployment compensation. Therefore, I had zero income for most of this year, and have come close to penury.

Note: My last day at that company, I knew I was going to be fired. I didn’t quit for fear of jeopardizing my ability to collect unemployment in the event I had trouble finding a new job. As it turned out, they fired me and used a lie to keep me from collecting unemployment, and the fact that I had been fired tends to prejudice some potential employers. If I’m ever in such as situation again, I’ll pre-emptively quit.

Rick · October 17, 2003, 4:14am

How does six in a row strike you?

Insurance company I found another job, and was trying to streach my employment out to the end of the year for my paid vacation. they found out and canned me in Dec.

Printing company. Got a new boss who I did not get along with. In her eyes I could do nothing right. The day after I won an award for top salesman in one product line I got canned.

Auto parts store. bottom line they were assholes, I told them that.

Mail order auto parts sales for auto racing team. Took companys sales from 8K/month to 36K/month, and the boss fired me because I was making too much money. (he designed the pay plan)

Auto dealer, had a comeback. Owner of the dealer has service manager fire me on Monday night. On Tuesday at lunch another mechanic quits. I get re-hired at 1PM

Auto Dealer. I was a shop forman. Guys under me complain about me. I get whacked to make shop happy. 1 month later the two guys that kept mouthing off about me were both fired for theft and fraud. When I heard this I went

Funny thing is every time I got whacked I went to a better job.

Mayor_McJesus · October 17, 2003, 4:43am

I had a job as a disk jockey and worked the 6:00AM-Noon shift on weekends. I showed up one cold Saturday morning and was quite surprised to find the janitor vacuuming the area where I usually saw the station’s gigantic control board. He asked who I was and I said “I’m the DJ.” He said something to the effect of “Well, there’s the DJ now” and pointed at a computer. The new station owners had automated everything and changed the format (literally in the middle of the night) without telling any of the employees. Good times.

kung_fu_lola · October 17, 2003, 5:01am

Twice.

The first time, I worked for a very strange, very bourgeois woman. She owned a gymnastics/dancewear store. I had trained for 15 years in dance, and she hired me in order to teach me the ropes, so that she could get knee surgery and leave me in charge of the store for 8 weeks while she was out.

Then she proceeded to belittle and intimidate me in the sweetest, most innocent-looking way. She loved to guilt-trip me. If I made a mistake, my sincere apologies meant nothing, I had to grovel to set things right. She reduced me to tears weekly. By the end, I was second-guessing myself all the time, as a direct result of her bullying. And because of this second-guessing, I made quite a few mistakes. She cut and cut and cut my hours. Since this was my first 9-5 job ever, I didn’t get the hint. Finally she had to call me onto the carpet and spell it out for me. The best part of her explanation for letting me go was; “You’re really more into Modern Dance and here at Elite we’re more about ballet.” As if no other forms of dance count at all. Like I said, she was very petty bourgeois.

The second time, the new manager and a longtime employee of the store I was Manager Trainee at, set me up to frame me for - get this - being a prostitute and cruising johns in the store! There was minimal, ambiguous evidence of me being an escort, and ZERO evidence of me cruising in the store, but the District Supervisor (who was a scary, shriveled bitch), fired me and had me banned from the mall. Just on people’s say-so. What they had couldn’t have convicted me in a court of law, but it got me banned from a mall. Those security guards are idiots. I would have sued, if I’d had any money.
The whole reason for this was to open up the Manager Trainee position, so that the longtime employee would get it two months later, when she turned 18.

I am soooooooo much better off not working at those places.

Rico · October 17, 2003, 5:42am

I have a wonderful story about getting fired - if you’ve heard this before, stop me - I sometimes forget when I’ve posted these stories.

1988 - I had been programming KDLX Radio in Utah and doing the morning show for over 3 years. The owners decided to sell, and the new owner proceeded to destroy everything I had worked so hard to put together.

I was fired within two weeks of the takeover. It was two days before Christmas 1988. I cleaned out my office, loaded up my Camaro, and went home.

I had a date for New Years Eve and I wasn’t about to break it. The owners of one of the local clubs were good friends and had invited me to be their guest that evening. So my date and I went to the club and had a rip-roaring time.

About 11:30 the lead singer of the band stopped the music and announced that if you lived in any of the towns north of us, you were advised to find a hotel - the local reservoir dam was cracking and was not expected to last the night.

After midnight, my date and I went out to my car where I turned on my ham radio and heard the local emergency group mobilizing a dam-watch. I checked in and was assigned to watch a very sturdy highway-type bridge over the river - the river that the reservior had dammed up.

Oh yes, the reason for this long story. I was directly across the river from the antenna and transmitter house for the radio station that I had so recently been fired from.

On the radio we heard that the dam had indeed broken.

About two minutes later my date and I heard a roar. I looked to the left and saw a 100-150 foot wall of water racing down the river, heading straight for the bridge. I started the car quickly and backed up about 500 feet, leaving approximately 2 years of rubber on the pavement. Yelling into the radio that the water had reached the bridge, we watched as not only the bridge was washed away by the force of the water, but the antenna and the transmitter building were instantly washed down the river. The radio station went silent, then turned into hash as the power was lost.

Pieces of the transmitter and antenna were found 30 miles downriver in the next few days.

The next day I called the new owner of the station and offered any assistance to help him get back on the air. He was very rude as he told me where I could put my offer and hung up on me.

It took him over 6 months to get the money together to get back on the air. In that time he nearly went bankrupt and only got back on the air because his parents loaned him the money to purchase a new transmitter and antenna.

In 1995 I went up to visit my parents, and stopped by the studios to see an old friend who was doing the afternoon shift. The owner walked in and his eyes got very big when he saw me. I went into his office, shook his hand, and asked him how things were going. One look at him was all it took. When he bought the station he was trim, fit, and dark haired. He now had an enormous beer-belly and had a wild shock of white hair. We talked for a couple of minutes, then I excused myself so I could go gloat in peace.

Don’t ever fire ME just before Christmas!

Obsidian · October 17, 2003, 6:14am

I once also got fired/blacklisted by a temp agency. The woman I usually dealt with called me one night at 6:30 to beg and plead with me to please do this thing tomorrow morning. It involved handing out paychecks on behalf of TSA (you know, the airport securty people). I was told to be in the lobby of a particular airport hotel at 7:30 AM. And by the way, make sure I dress very professionaly-- to wear my interview suit.

I get there at 7:15. I wait-- intermitantly calling my temp aganecy-- until 8:15 when the TSA guy finally strolls in. I say, in a lighthearted way, that there must have been a mix up, as I was told 7:30. He says no mix up, he said seven thirty to make sure I’d be on time.

Then he says, we’re going to the airport. Startled i say okay and dig out my keys. He says no, no, ride in my car. I ended up arguing with this guy for ten minutes about why I’d prefer to drive my own car than get in with a stranger. I should have left then.

Instead, I drove the the airport, and went into the employee lounge, where I was sat in a folding chair, at a folding table (in my BEST suit), where people were otherwise sitting in overalls and eating breakfast.

The original guy explains how to distribute the paycecks. I notice there’s a sign on the wall saying TSA will have a rep. from the accounting department available on payday to answer questions and hand out checks. Apparently, just hiring a temp in a suit was deemed good enough. I sit in my little chair, and ask when the people are comming to get their checks. The guy says 2PM (which means I have 5 1/2 hours with NOTHING to do but sit there and twiddle my thumbs)-- also, that they’ll need me to stay until at least 7PM.

I should point out (and I’m sorry if this is TMI), but I had a bladder infection at the time. This is totally managable in a normal office, but in this case the bathroom was at the other end of the terminal. The guy got upset because I would get up and go to the bathroom-- stopping my busy job of doing NOTHING-- to take a piss. Also, there was no water available, and when I finally bought a bottle he told me he didn’t want me to have it near my ‘desk’. I was really miserable, so I called the temp agency, told them i was sick and BEGGED them to send a replacement, as I just didn’t have a 12 hour day in me. They said no. More pleading and she said she’d call around, but it could be a few hours. I say okay and mutter about calling my roomate and having her bring me a pair of pants (pantyhose were killing me) and cranberry juice.

The response: “Oh no, you can’t do that. They specifically requested the temp be in a skirt.”

I hung up, told the dude in charge I was sick, walked outside and hailed a cab home. I called the temp agency from the freeway and left a message.

They didn’t actually fire me, but they never returned my calls after that (I was just trying to get my check). Yeah, it was my fault, but they deserved it.

racer72 · October 17, 2003, 12:57pm

1973, Jack In The Box. The owner did not like me experimenting with customers food. Dandelion leaves on Jumbo Jacks, Tabasco in tacos, extra sugar in a soda. Nothing that would make anyone sick or kill them though.

Taco Bell, 1978. I worked part time at a Taco Bell while in the Navy. Money was extremely tight, being married with a young son. Got caught eating a taco without paying for it first. I didn’t have 29 cents to pay for it.

Been laid off from my current employer 3 times. 2 of the 3 times I was hired as a temp so it was expected. Been there almost 18 years this time, hope to last a few more years.

Nangleator · October 17, 2003, 1:13pm

Baldwin, I’ve been ‘fired’ by a temp agency. I took the tests, really impressed them, and ended up in a warehouse. I now refer to “Office Specialists” as “Warehouse Specialists.”

The payback was, I worked for a different temp agency for years, making them all sorts of money when W.S. was still in a snit over me. When they changed managers and noticed my test scores, they called me incessantly. I refused to take their calls.

Being a guy and a temp is tough. They always want you to do the heavy lifting.

Obsidian, I love that you left them in the lurch!

jjimm · October 17, 2003, 1:21pm

I’ve been laid off due to bankruptcy with alarming regularity (my friends known this phenomenon as “the curse of Jim”).

Actually fired twice, both from from voluntary positions: once, I volunteered as a waiter for a charity event. I tipped a pint of Guinness over a customer and that was the end of that. The second time, I helped out in a friend’s pub, and was canned after 20 minutes for being “basically shit”, as he said.

Alias · October 17, 2003, 2:38pm

I’ve been fired a few now. Look!ninjas already pretty much explained the big one, but my most recent is baffling to everyone.
Forgive me if I get a little bitchy, it’s a recent event, and I’m still a little annoyed about it.

I was working at a bakery until a month or so ago. For anyone familiar with sourdough, you know that sourdough starters (what makes sourdough sourdough) need to be “fed” every day. If you don’t feed the starters, you can’t make the sourdough. Well, the bakery I worked it did business MOSTLY in sourdough. At least half of the breads we made were sourdough.

Well, one night, I was alone in the bakery trying to accomplish the dozon or so tasks that had been put before me before everyone left. I was running my ass off cleaning, stocking etc. I was there longer than my 8 hours when I’d finally finished, so I gladly signed out and went home.

The next day was my day off, but I learned from a coworker that I’d forgotten to feed the sourdough starters. Oops. I was very upset, but she assured me that they’d fixed the situation, and not to worry. The next day, I went to work like normal, and I was greeted by a very stone-faced boss. He glared at me and told me to go to his office. Once in the office, behind closed doors, he glared at me and asked me to tell my side of the story. I told him that I’d forgotten because I was alone and had a TON of things to do by myself. He shrugged and asked me about the magazine.

What?

He said that a magazine was found behind the counter, and he was sure I was reading it instead of doing the sourdough starters. I didn’t know what he was talking about, and I told him so. He shrugged, and said he didn’t know who else would have been reading it. I told him that I had no interest in Bon Apetit magazine, and perhaps someone earlier in the shift had been reading it. He then semi-jumped me for accusing the innocent, hard-working people of the bakery.

Then he asked me if I wanted to keep my job. Of course I said yes. Good, he said. Then he told me that if I continued to work for him, I would be under a microscope for the rest of my time there. He said he knew he couldn’t trust me, and was just waiting for me to slip up so he could get me on something concrete. Did I want that? No, I said. Suddenly, he was all smiles again. He said I should find another job, a job where I’d fit in and be happy. Don’t worry, he told me, I won’t tell people what happened. I’ll tell people that we parted mutually.

I should have realized right then and there that it was his way of weaseling out of paying me unemployment. The situation is still being determined by the unemployment agency.

The moral? Never trust a baker.

Scumpup · October 17, 2003, 2:45pm

I got laid off (along with 3 other teachers) from my first teaching job. Economic problems in the area lead to declining enrollment, so the three people at the bottom of the seniority list, one of whom was also tenured, were released.

jjimm · October 17, 2003, 3:00pm

Alias, sounds like you need a Baker Infuriating Hat.

Eliphalet · October 17, 2003, 3:29pm

I’ve been fired twice, once for “inability to perform tasks”, and another for insubordination/incompetence.

The first, I deserved. I was a dumb college kid who was working Summer nights in a warehouse. I didn’t enjoy the work, was always tired (I worked days at my other job), and just couldn’t get my mind around this constant mind-numbing work. They let me go 2 weeks before I was going to resign to go back to school. I took the 2 weeks as vacation.

The second one made me pretty bitter. After I graduated, I went to work for an internet insurance startup. I started at the ground floor of the company and got 4 promotions over 6 years. Had 2 managers, one excellent, and another that I continually had run-ins with. I worked directly for Excellent Boss (EB), and indirectly for the other one (BFH). Got an excellent review from EB both times he reviewed me.

They laid off the excellent manager in the first round of lay-offs when the dot-com industry started south. I went to work for the BFH.

She did my annual review after I started reporting to her, and gave me an even better review than EB did. I thought, “Cool, I might survive her after all!”

Then the abuse started. And it was constant. Daily, sometimes twice daily. And vicious. I hung on, because I liked my co-workers, and HR had intervened in the past to protect employees from abusive managers

The BFH’s management style was intimidation, verbal abuse, vulgarity, cronyism, and harassment. There were several occasions where I heard her abusing employee in such a manner that they were in tears when she left. Several of us filed complaints with the HR director. Then the HR guy left, and she got a crony hired as Director.

This Director spent more time on golf than on HR. He couldn’t be bothered to respond to e-mails or phone calls. In a year of hell, he never ONCE came to see me about my complaints/concerns.

Many of my co-workers, people who had been there almost as long as I had, were terminated. I’d kind of thought I was safe, as I was one of the old-timers (one of the first 50 employees ever hired, in a company of nearly 400).

I realized my mistake when she got employee number 11 fired for incompetence. Ken was an amazing programmer who had written almost 25% of our major software package. He’d been there 8 years, working for nearly a dozen different managers. He’s suddenly lost all ability to program?

At that point, I knew it was a matter of time. I started looking, and she terminated me for incompetence just days short of my 7 year anniversary.

It took them 7 years to realize I was incompetent? And she wrote my last review, with glowing praise?

I followed EB to another company, where I’m much happier. The MFH was laid off less than 6 months after I was. She’s still unemployed 2 years later.

And the best part is that she applied here at my new company; EB & I told HR we’d quit before we’d work with her again. They wisely decided not to hire her.

Isabelle · October 17, 2003, 3:43pm

I was fired once because I wouldn’t do the nasty with the BIG boss.

Jerry took me out to expensive restaurants to review payroll and leads. (I was the sales secretary) Often the discussion would lead to his poor relationship with his wife. I would just listen. Afterall he was probably 12 years or more older then me. What experience could I offer him?

In order to get to the mailbox (which was outside) you could cut through the warehouse.

On this day it was raining and I cut through the warehouse. On my way back with the mail Jerry whipped his (ahem) out and told me to put my mouth on it. I said Jerry there are people in the next room. He begged and pleaded and I turned him down.
He zipped his pants and said nothing else.

We both acted like nothing happened for the rest of the day.
I was a single parent and needed that job. I could keep my mouth shut.

The next day I went to the office and a telemarketer had landed my job. I had been fired with no reason.

My father convinced me not to take legal action because he said my name would be in the paper and since I lived in a small town…that coulnd’t be good.

ArrMatey · October 17, 2003, 3:45pm

Once. Almost a year and a half ago.
I was doing tour groups through an old west museum, where my duties included showing people around (mainly grade-school groups), doing a speech about old-time movie theaters, and showing a silent film, then re-setting the film in time for the next group. The problem was, timing-wise, there was about 5 seconds between tour groups on busy days. I could -either- give them the speech, or re-thread the projector. Not both. There just wasn’t time. At first, my boss said he’d do the re-threading. And he did for a few days. Then he stopped, and after the third time of me having troubles with getting the movie set up and giving said speech simultaneously, the bosses’ boss shows up and starts (literally) cursing me out for not doing my job. Even after explaining why it’s not possible, he continues to curse me out and make it out that somehow I should duplicate myself to do the job. Couldn’t complain about my boss’s absence- he was the uber-boss’s son. (Family business).
After that it just got worse. The groups started comming in even more quickly, and I was then told that I had to make the speech more interresting. No problem, says I, and whips up a few more interresting facts about early movies. -Then- I’m told that I’m ad-libbing too much, and have to stick -exactly- to the script that I was given. When I asked how I could make the script more interresting without changing a letter of it, I was once again cursed out.
The final straw- I had signed up for part time work, and had made it very plain how many hours I could work, and when. I had even taken something of a pay cut so I could assure those hours. A month after the script incident started, I began to get scheduled hours that I -could not- comply with. I told my boss this. It didn’t matter. I still got scheduled for bad hours. The week of the 4th of july, I took a vacation that I’d told them about two months earlier when I was hired. When I came back, I was scheduled -no- hours. I called my boss and said, “So, does this mean I’m fired?” He said, “Pretty much, yeah.”
I’m still amazingly bitter about how poorly that place treats their workers (and 90% of the people that work there feel the same way- they’re treated as ‘disposable’), and give it an appropriate hand-gesture whenever I drive by it.

But I’m not bitter.

Carol_the_Impaler · October 17, 2003, 3:47pm

I once got fired because I would shrink-wrap porn.

(My boss was a real slime-o. He’d make … ahem… comments about my sex life, how stupid I was, et cetera. He had me shrink wrap the porn because he assumed it would throw me. It didn’t. So a few days later he goes off on me, and I give it right back. So he fired me.)

I felt glorious and free after that. I think I even thanked him as I walked out the door.

Eliphalet · October 17, 2003, 3:52pm