Getting fired from a job is definitely a little embarrassing, but sometimes, it's completely warranted.
Case in point? Reddit user u/njaana asked in a now-viral Reddit thread for people to share the fastest they'd ever seen a coworker get fired. Here are some of the responses that'll give you a whole new level of respect for HR:
1. "I used to train new hires at a warehouse. We have a floor for robots to zoom around on, full of merchandise, and cold spite. Only certified technicians could set foot on that floor. The rest of us? Instant termination if we did it. We stressed this frequently throughout orientation. I was training a group of new hires at a work station on their first night. One of our managers came over to introduce himself. One guy, who had already been copping an attitude, asked him about stepping on the floor."
"The manager reiterated what we told everyone: Do it, and you're fired. The guy said, 'You mean don't do this?' And put one foot on the floor. Away he went. I heard the rest of the new trainees laughing over how stupid he was. He was even whining about it the whole time his termination was being processed."
2. "There was a new guy hired as quality control inspector after a lot of vetting. The job site was an aluminum extrusions factory — lots of hot, sharp, and heavy things that could crush your hands and slice you up, not to mention all the moving parts. He showed up first day on the job reeking of beer. He said, 'I was just celebrating my new job with my friends before work!' He refused the booze blow test at a nearby hospital. Paperwork was completed and he was fired after 90 minutes by the supervisor and HR."
3. "The first day of work, he got caught watching porn at his desk."
4. "Many years ago, we hired a line cook that had a decent amount of experience. He started on steak night. The first steak was undercooked. Re-fire, undercooked. On his third try, undercooked. Fourth try, the cow was still mooing when it came off the grill. The front of house manager goes to head chef and tells him to kick the cook off the line, so he does. His new job was to replace me on the sauté station. The first order he got there was for a side of asparagus, so he put the asparagus into the hot pan and added enough oil to deep-fry them."
"He turned on the stove. Oil escaped and hit the flame, and started a fire. He went to grab water, and if not for my head chef stealing the cup, we might've had a bigger fire. Just like that, gone. It turned out, all of his previous jobs were real places, but his supervisors were just friends who lied. Total time of employment: three hours."
5. "When I worked at Babies 'R' Us many years ago, an employee wrote on the break room white board, 'Fuck bitches, hire dimes.' For some reason, it escaped him that there are cameras pretty much everywhere. He was done after maybe three days on the job."
6. "I worked in maintenance at a beach resort. One of the housekeepers managed to get her son a job as a 'runner', someone who would collect the dirty laundry after the housekeepers stripped the beds. She was actually worried when he started working, because I guess he'd a bad track record with other jobs. About three days after he started working, his mother confronted him about his new, expensive-looking athletic shoes and a gold chain around his neck."
"He just shot back something about having a job now, which didn't make sense because he hadn't even been paid yet. About the same time, there were a couple of reports at the front desk from guests who were missing large sums of money. A police report was made, and people were questioned. So after only about four days, this kid was fired and went to jail for stealing from guest rooms."
7. "It was a family-owned business, and she said something insensitive about the owner's recently deceased daughter."
8. "A new employee showed up to work early on her first day to eat. We worked at sub restaurant, and she came in with a competitor's stub and started eating in the lobby while in uniform. The boss nicely asked her to eat in the back so customers wouldn't see. She started screaming and throwing a fit, so the boss told her to leave and not come back. I'm not sure if you can really even say she got fired...she never clocked in once."
9. "We had a guy start in London on a Monday, and he left for a a conference in Seattle later that week. I met him at Heathrow with his badge and laptop on his first morning, and boarded the flight with him. Longish story, but he ended up slapping a member of the flight crew because she wouldn’t let him sit in business class. I called HR when we landed and fired him in baggage claim. We paid for him to fly back to the UK next day."
10. "It was his second week. The guy came to work very drunk, picked up the emergency axe, and trashed the place with it. He was instantly fired and processed in court shortly after."
11. "I was working in a small grocery store and we had a new butcher start. He showed up and asked the boss to pay for his taxi because he didn’t have any money until payday. He worked for a few hours and then left for lunch and never returned. We find out why when we went to close the cash register and it was off by about $1,000. So we checked the cameras and watched him shove the cash into his big rain boots. The kicker though? He went to play poker and that’s exactly where the cops found him hours later, with some money still in his boot."
12. "We had a new IT hire. It was his first full-time job, he had good qualifications, and seemed okay. His first night, staff called me. He was spamming women with messages on their private phones. One woman's husband called me, saying her phone's camera was on nonstop and wouldn't turn off. He also installed software to switch on their cameras remotely. On day one. He wasn't allowed back on the premises."
13. "On the first day of a new daycare hire, she spanked a child."
14. "On her first morning, she wrote an email to her manager about how grateful she was to be with the company, how she looked forward to working for us, etc. She also wrote an email to her friend about how she'd got a cushy gig, and would scam them for as much training as possible for the first couple of months, and then leave. Apart from the general lack of wisdom of saying this on the company email system, when writing such contradictory emails, it's vitally important to put the right addressee on the right email. She walked out the door after two-and-a-half hours."
15. "I worked at a fast-food restaurant. The new guy came in for his first shift, which was an evening shift in the drive-thru. He literally posted where he was and what he was doing on social media, and told all of his buddies to come through for free food. He then started screwing up orders on purpose, and handed his friends free stuff. The manager called the police and he got arrested."
16. "He slept with the boss' daughters — yes, daughters — the night he got hired. The real twist was that one of those daughters is now his wife, and his former boss is his mother-in-law. So, I guess he got the last laugh, and a lot of awkward family dinners."
17. "We had a company holiday party, and the girl who used to be the receptionist had just gotten hired as an account person. She got super drunk that night and started grabbing male employees' crotches. A member of HR took a car service home with her since they lived near each other. She threw up on the HR person on the way home. When they dropped her off at her parents' home. they said not to come back. I think she'd the job for maybe two days."
18. "My brother's friend got a job at a car dealership in our town. Within a couple days of working there, he somehow was allowed to 'test drive' one of the brand new models. My brother and I lived a few miles out of town on 40 acres of land. His friend drove that brand new car out to our property to test the four-wheel drive. Well, it being a wet Pacific Northwest winter that year, he swiftly managed to get the car stuck in almost a foot of mud halfway up a good-sized hill. It took a tow truck three hours to get there and an over and hour to pull him out. All the while, the dealership was calling him asking what happened. The thing was DRENCHED in mud from him spinning the tires. He was fired that night."
19. And finally, "I worked at a bill collection firm in the early '90s (don't judge me). A guy started working there, went through the two days of training, and then started working. After about an hour, he got up and left. Didn't say, 'I quit.' Didn't say, 'this job isn't for me.' He just got up to go to the bathroom, went through the front door, and drove away. It took the managers a few hours to figure out that this guy had gotten the job with a fake name, and erased his own debt on the computer."
Do you have any wild "fired in a flash" stories? Share them in the comments!
Note: Some responses have been edited for length/clarity.