Reddit user u/Quintowne posed the intriguing question: "What is the fastest way you've seen someone get fired?" Naturally, the thread filled with hundreds of stories that would make any HR rep clutch their pearls. BuzzFeed Community members also shared some of their own stories. Here are some of the wildest:
1. "A new hire wrote a long email to her boyfriend saying how bored she was at work and how she looked forward to talking on the phone with him soon for a couple of hours to make the time pass. She then accidentally sent it to entire company. The CEO came flying out of his office and told his assistant to have her fired. The email was so bad, it sounded like a joke at first!"
2. "My company had a mid-level manager who was assigned to lead a pretty important project. He decided to bring in a whole mini-fridge, stocked with beer, to his office. Our company has strict guidelines around alcohol (it's only allowed when pre-approved for certain end-of-day functions, and with certain controls). One day, he was at his desk working on something and very openly drinking a Coors Light when an HR person happened to walk by. Instantly fired, lol. I still wonder what the heck that dude was thinking."
3. "The maintenance guy at the hotel I worked at was fired on the spot because he was caught stealing tips from housekeepers. He would go into empty rooms before they cleaned them and pocket any cash. He made way more money than them too, which made what he did especially awful."
4. "I worked at Subway very briefly during high school. After I'd been there long enough to know how everything worked, they hired this new guy. He was the same age as me at the time, about 17 or 18, but he had an extremely short temper. He was scheduled to work a five-hour shift on his first day. About three hours in, a customer requested more mayo on their sandwich. He drizzled more on, and they said they still wanted more. This dude's face turned bright red, and he said, 'Fine, how's THIS for MORE?!' Then he unscrewed the cap on the mayo bottle and just dumped all of it out onto the sandwich. The customer was understandably confused."
"He wrapped up the mayo-ridden sandwich, picked it up, went into the lobby, then out the front door, and, not kidding, just chucked the sandwich full-force, like a football, into the parking lot. The customer was upset, understandably. The hot-headed employee tried ignoring her afterwards. The manager came out of her office to hear what all the commotion was about. She reviewed the camera footage and told him to leave on the spot. I never saw him again, and he was removed from the schedule and the team group chat the same day."
5. "A woman was hired as a receptionist in our office about five years ago, but it turned she didn't know how to use a computer. She literally came up to me to ask how to CC someone. She couldn't be bothered to do her job and asked the most senior woman in the company if she could cover the reception desk for a bit. The office was in central London, so she'd go out on a Friday night with her mates and then come into the office and raid the kitchen at 2:00 a.m. for drinks and snacks. She was surprised when she was caught on the card reader and the CCTV. She did not last long."
6. "Had a coworker explain to our supervisor how he found this great loophole for making extra money. The loophole: If a customer had exact change, he’d just pocket the cash and cancel the order on the register."
7. "A nepotism hire got fired within a week for continuously painting/graffiti-ing the bathroom with poop."
8. "During an annual sales meeting, a colleague got trashed on the plane ride there and pressed his bare butt on the plane window as it taxied to the gate, hoping to moon some friends who had just landed nearby. A VP was on the plane. Dude was fired and immediately sent home (on the company dime). He never even left the airport."
9. "First day at work, he took one look at his would-be boss and declared, 'I won't work under a woman.' So, he was shown the door."
10. "I did the firing. I was the sous chef of a large reception hall, meaning I was serving food to hundreds and hundreds of guests. One party had a big seafood display — shrimp, oysters, crab legs, and vodka — all in a giant, decorative box of ice. When that portion of dinner service was finished, two new waiters were tasked with returning the big ice box and the leftovers to the kitchen and dish pit. They dumped the ice back into the ice machine. The CONTAMINATED ice. It even had some discarded shells. I saw it happen. I had to show them the door immediately and have a serious talk with their head waiter. They lasted two hours, tops. Those idiots could've killed someone. Imagine you have a severe shellfish allergy, and the ice in your glass of water is lethal."
11. "New person got access to the medical records system. Week two: They looked up our boss and bragged about it. They were walked out that week."
12. "A colleague let a middle school kid drive the bus. Buh-bye!"
13. "Had a supervisor start selling Amway from his office. He hinted at favorable treatment for anyone who would buy. Reported him to HR, and when they asked if it was true, he pulled out a catalog and tried to sell them something. Fired on the spot."
14. "I worked in a restaurant, and when someone at a table wanted to return their Mai Tai, the server chugged it right in front of them and said, 'It tastes fine.'"
15. "Had a young lady start with our company, and on her starting day, she didn't turn up at 8:30 a.m. We tried calling her to make sure everything was OK. At 5:00 p.m., she called back to say she had a job interview at 9:00 a.m. and decided she liked the new job better. We terminated her employment that afternoon. A week later, she called to ask if the position was still open. It was, but we told her no."
16. "My first job was at a boat marina gassing up boats, selling snacks, etc. A nepotism hire jumped in the boat docking area to go for a swim on a date. Big no-no. Super dangerous and also super gross behavior because of all the gas and oil in the water. Our boss saw and he got fired."
17. "First day at work, hired by a temp agency. Me and one other guy had to put stuff in boxes and tape them shut, then stack the boxes on a pallet. He couldn't keep up and could barely use the tape gun, so he decided it was time for break. He went to the lunch room and took someone's lunch. It was the boss's lunch. He stole the guy's meal that his wife had prepared for him. The boss man came over 15 minutes later and wanted to know who ate his BBQ. The guy had BBQ on his shirt and still denied it. I just looked at him and the boss and said, 'Well, I hope it was good, man...'"
18. "A mate many years ago started a part-time job at Pizza Hut. The first customer he took a pizza out to asked for him to be sacked, and he was. To be fair to the customer, my mate had a string of cheese all the way from the pizza dish to his chin. He thought no one would notice one slice of pepperoni missing. He was wrong."
19. "I was quality assurance for a place that evaluated operations involving explosives. I was leaving soon, so my replacement was hired. I recommended against his hiring because I'd heard bad things, and he seemed shady, but they hired him anyway. So, on his first day, I was tasked with training him on the job. He was already highly qualified on explosives (more qualified than I was, in fact). Anyway, as we're evaluating a couple of guys working on the internals of a live AIM-120 missile, this clown's CELLPHONE goes off in his pocket. To even get into the bay we were in, you had to walk past about four signs that say to leave all electronic devices outside because even tiny amounts of EM emissions can set off the explosives, especially when the covers are removed/disassembled."
"So, I wrote up my replacement with a direct safety violation, and he didn't have a job by the time he got back to the office. Quality assurance's reputation was in the crapper for months. That idiot could have gotten five people killed, including himself."
20. "During drop-off hours, our preschool receptionist decided she needed to have coffee ASAP. Instead of heading down to our staff room and making a pot, she decided to leave our whole school unlocked and left to go down to Biggby Coffee. That was a big no-no. She was fired as soon as she came back."
21. "First day on the job, they gave another coworker a wet willy. Not kidding."
22. "I worked at a theme park in college. A guy was hired around the same time as I was. He was a great employee until they found out he was coming in on his days off, clocking in, riding the rides, and then clocking out. He was gone by the end of the week. He claimed he had to take care of his kid that day, so they shouldn’t fire him."
23. "I saw a coworker once make a 'big boobs' gesture as our boss's wife walked past...while our boss was walking right behind her. The guy was packing his stuff within five minutes."
24. "My first job was in a small grocery store, and my boss asked a coworker to do the dishes in the bakery (baking pans, etc). She replied: 'I only do my own dishes. Somebody else put these here, so I’m not doing them. I’m serious. Fire me if you want, but I won’t do them.' Boss said: 'Okay then, don’t bother finishing your shift. Goodbye!'"
25. "He pooped on an office floor and just walked away like he had no clue he'd done it."
26. "The guy responsible for opening the shop on Saturday morning went out and got blitzed on Friday night. We showed up to work to find his car in the lot, but the doors locked. He didn't answer his phone. We had to call the owner in to get us inside. The guy was fast asleep under his desk. He was gone before you could say 'hangover.'"
27. "I was on a new team hired for corporate sales. They trained us as a group. We were given the task of creating a presentation with graphs and charts to show how we present to a group, then we'd be given pointers on how to improve. One guy showed up an hour late, waltzed in, and said he was tired from the drive in and needed a coffee before settling in. We were in suits and ties, and he was wearing a dress shirt with a huge eagle on the front and jeans. He came back a few minutes later, and when asked to present, he said he didn’t prepare anything, but he was happy to answer any questions they may have had about presentations. We all looked at each other in disbelief. He was fired on the spot by the manager. I heard that they asked him to return his laptop, and he stiffed them for months before they sent a repo man to his door to pick it up."
28. "I worked at a grocery store a few years ago. A new guy was hired, and on the second day on the job, he was caught stealing food. He would grab items off the shelves, walk to the break room, and eat them."
29. "Annual promotion season. An HR rep at my previous employer was sending her boss the salary/raise calculations for everyone in our office. In sending, she accidentally CC’ed our office's contact group. No one worked that day. Many people left angry. She left, as she was no longer employed. But one thing she did do was help a LOT of people negotiate better and fair pay."
30. "I was training for the job I have now in a group with six other guys. First day, they tell us we can NOT leave the grounds for lunch. We have a great canteen service or you can bring your lunch, but you can't leave until the end of your shift. Day 2: Two of the trainees hop in one guy's truck and drive away to the Sonic down the road off the grounds. They were fired when they came back to the training room after lunch. Their excuse was that they thought that policy didn't apply until after training was over. Special kind of stupid."
31. "I was a manager for a cosmetics store at the mall. On my day off, I got a call from one of my long-time employees that our new hire had tried to fight a girl who came into our store because she was the ex-girlfriend of the new hire’s fiancé. I had to come in on my day off, pregnant and starving because I hadn’t had time to eat yet, to deal with this absolute middle-school nonsense. When I got there, the new hire and her mom were just chilling by the register, as if fighting people while at work was a totally normal, everyday occurrence. The mom had the audacity to say to me, 'She didn’t have any business coming in here!' I had to inform her that our store was open to the public, so she had every right to come in, regardless of her motives."
"Then, I had to fire the new hire. The wild thing was, she thought I was coming in to check on her — like I was there because I had her back! I actually hate that I missed the fight because my long-time employee said she threw the weakest, saddest, little punch."
32. "Brand new nurse, first day on the unit. Showed up high as a kite and twirled down the hallway in front of everyone."
33. "We had a nepotism hire who was hired unseen, and showed up for her first day of work wearing the wrong pants. The second day, she was supposedly in an accident and couldn't come in. The third day, she showed up so high and was so combative with management that the police got called and she was arrested for battery on an LEO, possession of drugs, and introduction of drugs into the jail. Good times!"
34. "My first job was at a hardware store. After I'd been there a while, a bunch of us were sent from different stores to help set up a new store a province over. We were there for about a week and given a lump sum of cash to pay for meals, etc. The second morning of work, one of our coworkers was MIA. A few girls had seen him drinking in the hotel bar the night before. It turns out, he spent his entire meal allowance on booze, got completely hammered, and passed out in his hotel room. He did not stay for the rest of the store set-up."
35. "I work for a large big box store. We brought on a new hire last week. Three days into the work week, we noticed either he didn’t have a radio, or he just didn’t know how to operate it. It turned out he was arriving to clock in, leaving until lunch, clocking out and leaving again, returning to satisfy the clock again, leaving, and then returning yet again to clock out for the day. He did this for three days. A new hire. His lead was also given a meeting, as they weren’t doing due diligence and trying to find him."
36. "My coworker was having marital problems. She and her husband were in the process of moving back in together and trying to work it out. For context, this was a super busy office and she worked as hard as any of us. One day, her husband called her at work, in the middle of our chaos, and told her he was having second thoughts. Well, of course, she got upset and took the call outside. She came back in and told us what happened, and we tried to console her, but eventually, we went back to work. The following day, her a-hole husband called her at work again and told her he wants a divorce! Obviously she had to go home because she was so distraught. The next day, she came into work and our boss fired her right on the spot."
"I get that our boss didn't have time for employee personal drama, but this was a very small office and we all got along great. He could have cut her some slack. It's not like she did this all the time, and we valued her as part of our team. They got a divorce and she moved back to her hometown where she reconnected with an old boyfriend, and they've been together for the last 14 years. So, I guess it was a blessing in disguise for her."
37. "Within two weeks, a new hire was found sleeping in the middle of a fort of inventory he made. They walked him out immediately."
38. "I worked in a small, family-owned restaurant in high school. There was a new server who I helped train. She was able to pour beer/wine because she was 21 — that's the law in our state. About a week into her working there, I asked my boss where she had been because I hadn't seen her for a couple of days. My boss told me she had lied about her age, and they found out. She wasn't actually 21. She had been pouring beer and wine illegally. I'm confused as to how she thought they wouldn't find out since they literally had to have her driver's license (with her birthdate) on file."
39. "I worked as the reception manager at a clinic. A new hire once spent her first few days loudly congratulating people in a packed waiting room when the CONFIDENTIAL write-up from the appointment they just had said they were pregnant. I had to do the firing when she didn't see what the issue was."
40. "In his first week, the new guy decided to complain about the boss (using very colorful language) to a coworker. Unfortunately for him, that coworker was the boss's daughter. Yep, he was gone that day. Gotta know who you're talking to!"
41. "A coworker came in for what was her third or fourth shift with a decent-sized bruise on her leg and stated that she had gotten by tripping up some stairs in the loading dock. She was fully ready to claim her injury with worker's comp and was speaking to management about going to the doctor and whatnot. Then, they pulled up the security footage. There was never a fall, and she was immediately shown the door."
42. Finally: "This happened many years back. I was hired, along with another guy, as a benefit sales rep within an established payroll company. Our company had access to their clients as potential leads. On his first day out of training, he sent an introduction email to the entire lead list, which wouldn't be bad if he BCC'd everyone. Instead, he CC'd the entire list, basically handing every client the direct email addresses of this huge company's CEO, CFO, COO, etc. It was a total mess. Several clients demanded the guy be terminated, which is what happened, but even worse, at the end of the year, our company's contract wasn't renewed and I lost my job too."
Yikessss. Have you ever seen a coworker get fired at lightning speed? Tell us in the comments!
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.