Recently, over on the Ask Reddit subreddit, u/Business_Reporter420 asked Reddit users to share the fastest they'd ever seen a coworker get fired. The comments were filled with people sharing THE most ridiculous things they've witnessed new hires do in the very brief time they were employed. Here are some of the most perplexing fireable offenses:
1. "When I worked for a startup, we had to hire about 100 people in the span of two weeks, which I told my boss was a bad idea, but the CEO insisted. We ended up hiring this young lady even though she had a spotty résumé. She was very cheerful and friendly in the interview, and my boss's instructions were if they were nice and friendly, 'pass them on to me.' On her first day, she came in 15 minutes late, got into an argument with a customer on her first training call, and took the mic and farted into it as loud as I've ever heard a human being fart. We paid her for the full day. Best hire ever."
2. "The first day, her grandmother died. Understandable. The second day, her car broke down. Bad luck. The third day, she had no electricity and couldn’t blow dry her hair. She was told not to bother coming in at all."
3. "A guy at my work was caught playing World of Warcraft for hours each day. The boss called him in and told him that was wholly unacceptable and he had to stop immediately or he'd be canned. Less than an hour later, IT called the same boss and said the guy was back in his office playing again. He was let go that day."
4. "In high school, I worked at a clothing store as a cashier. The guy working with me had his sister come through with a huge pile of merchandise. He scanned one item that was on clearance for, like, $2 over and over again for everything she had, which was likely worth hundreds of dollars, but he didn’t realize the manager was standing right behind him. The manager said, 'Go clock out and give me your name tag. You’re gone.' He didn’t argue or anything. He just put his head down and walked off. Then, the manager jumped on the register to clear the transaction, and the sister took out her card and said, 'This is gonna be a credit.' The manager said, 'Not for $2, it’s not. Get out of here.' The sister actually tried to complete the purchase like nothing had happened."
5. "I was still training him. I was bartending at a restaurant, and we were doing a deep bar cleaning. We had to move one of those big margarita machines, so a couple of us were trying to figure out the best way to move this thing as it’s pretty heavy. The new guy said he'd 'got this,' pulled out a vial of cocaine, did some, and then bear-hugged the machine and lifted it onto the bar. I told him something along the lines of 'Dude, that was awesome, but you are so fired' and pointed to the cameras. I was, like, 20–21 at the time, but even then, it blew my mind."
6. "I used to work night audit/front desk at a motel adjacent to major highways. It was a super chill job, I loved my boss, and it was cool by me. But god, trying to hire and train was a nightmare. One lady claimed to be computer literate, but when I asked her to click on a field on the computer, she picked up the mouse and tried to physically touch the correct spot on the monitor with it."
"Another got extremely confused when I mentioned that sleeping with a guest was completely out of bounds."
7. "I was training a new hire for a large online retailer who, at the time, focused on books, CDs, and DVDs. One of the books we shelved was on Germany's U-boats. He suddenly felt the urge to tell me about all the wonderful and misunderstood ideas der Führer had. He never even made it to his lunch break."
8. "Day 1, delivering pizzas. I was the trainer. The dude wasn't familiar with the town at all (this was before GPS was a thing). It was only the second delivery, and he got in the car and proceeded to floor it, showing off all 80 horsepower in the 30 feet of parking lot, before slamming on the brakes to turn on to the main street. He nearly hit a customer and her young child, so I said, 'Whoah, slow down. You almost hit that kid.' His response was 'F— 'em.' That was his last delivery. He lasted all of about 90 minutes."
9. "I worked in a sales call center about 10 years ago. A new guy started on a Monday morning, got trained on the basics (which took about an hour), got assigned a desk, and set off to work. A half-hour later, it looked like little puffs of steam were rising up from his computer monitor. It turned out he was vaping on one of those disposable e-cigarettes, the kind that sort of tried to look like real cigarettes. He got told by the boss that we couldn't vape indoors, and if he wanted to, he'd have to go outside and do it on a break. About 30 minutes later, again, the same thing happened. He got caught again and was told, in no uncertain terms, that if he wanted to keep his job, he'd have to stop vaping at his desk. An hour later, he got caught hiding under his desk vaping and was promptly fired, all before lunchtime. The dude could have just gone outside."
10. "I was working as a stable boy and showing the new girl around the stables. As I introduced her to the horses, she was very apprehensive to come near them, refusing to even step into the stall (she signed on to help care for the horses). Later that day, she admitted she was terrified of horses, so the boss let her go."
11. "When I was in college working at Walmart (cashier), I trained a girl on the register one evening. Maybe a week later, she came through my lane buying groceries. I asked her how she'd been since I hadn't seen her since the day after I trained her. She told me she was waiting on her court date. One of her friends went through her checkout lane, but she only actually scanned about a third of the items. About $1,500 of merchandise went out the door free of charge. My response out loud was, 'Oh.' My response in my head was, 'Did you seriously not see the camera mounted above every single register???'"
12. "I had a new hire smoke weed in the bathroom within two hours of starting his first day, not vape or anything but literally lit a joint in the bathroom. Like, bro, my office is 10 feet away."
13. "A former coworker told me about an incident at a prior job where the person who showed up to work was not the same person they interviewed. Obviously, they were immediately let go."
14. "I worked second shift at a factory. Late in the evening, we would prop open the doors along the side street to try to catch a breeze in the summertime. One night, this drunk guy stumbled in through the side door and just started striking up conversations with everyone like he owned the place. I ran over and tried to tell him that he couldn't be in there. And he started telling me he was supposed to start work that night. We kind of argued for about five to ten minutes about the fact that I didn’t have anyone new starting that night, and I finally told him that he needed to contact someone in the office the next morning. When I came into work the next day, the first shift supervisor told me that he was supposed to have a new guy start that day, but he never showed up. I told him that the guy had actually shown up…12 hours early, staggering drunk. In a way, he was fired before his first day on the job."
15. "The new guy offered to pull a semi-trailer to a dock for unloading. He said he did it in the Army all the time, but I told him, 'Nah, you gotta get tested out by the safety guy first. Someone else will handle it.' Five minutes later, I see him pulling the trailer around anyway. Okay, I gotta go tell this dude he's fired two hours into the job. But before I could advise him of his updated employment status, the damn trailer came loose from the tractor and slid right off the back. He did know how to drive a semi. He did not know how to check that the trailer was locked in."
16. "He came in two hours late, didn't do any actual work, and then asked how long he had to keep doing tasks 'below his qualifications.'"
17. "The new dishwasher told the hostess he wanted to have sex with her in front of the entire staff and several early morning customers. It was borderline a mob."
18. "They got a speeding ticket, 20+ mph over, in the company car picking up lunch for the staff. Day 1."
19. "She showed up and just instantly dropped her entire life story on the boss, preventing them from getting anything done and not doing any work her whole first shift. The boss gave her another chance, but the next day, she just sat in the back in tears for the whole day over a text she got."
20. "I was training someone new at the register, and an old man kindly let us know that he asked for fries with no salt (we were right across from a dialysis center), but his were salty. The trainee accused the old man of just trying to get hot fries, snatched his bag out of his hand, and tried to throw it at his face. I managed to catch his arm before he could and ripped the bag away from him. This was the first time I’ve ever had to pull someone by their ear into my office. It was literally like dealing with one of those middle school bullies from an '80s movie...except he was 18. This was the second hour of their first day working the front."
21. "Before even getting hired. One morning, my coworker came in upset and told me that some weirdo on the bus rubbed on her and said all kinds of pervy things to her. Then, she froze in terror as she looked across the office. The perv had just gotten off the elevator. Turns out, he had a job interview scheduled with my coworker's boss. So, she informed her boss what happened and said if he hired the perv, she was quitting instantly. The perv probably would've gotten hired because he knew someone higher up the food chain. But my coworker's report to her boss made certain he never got the job."
22. "Our boss hired a new person as a contractor. He was available to work immediately, so he was scheduled to start the day after his interview. The next morning, my boss turned up, very annoyed, and showed me his phone. The new hire had sent several rambling and confused texts that could be summarized as, 'Had a few drinks last night, won't be able to come into work today, you know how it is.' My boss told him the contract was canceled."
23. "I worked as a cashier in a small retail shop full time, and it was just me and the owner. A new girl was hired so I could have weekends off. But the owner caught her sleeping in the back on a nest of store T-shirts. He only came in to check on her after seeing her boyfriend on the camera for over an hour, keeping watch while she napped. She barely made it a week."
24. And finally, "We all get a company laptop where I work. This guy was hired, deleted his anti-virus, and was caught visiting porn websites on his intro day."
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.