Have you ever had to fire someone who worked on your team? It’s pretty awful. Not only is it painfully hard to separate someone from their source of income and, you know, purpose—it’s a whole rigamarole to go through the “let’s try to save this” conversations and the human resources paperwork. It’s a lot, probably for everyone involved.
Over at Reddit, user GravyXNips, asked people—bosses, employers, CEOS—why they had to fire people. And there are some doozies. Hint: It’s rarely about not doing their work. Let’s just say that people really do use the xerox machine to scan their naked body parts. Yes, really.
What’s the craziest reason you had to fire someone? from r/AskReddit
Here are the amazingly crazy (and sort of hilarious, but also sort of super pitiful) employers have had kick their employees to the curb:
1.
“We had someone fall asleep at his desk with a lit cigarette in his hand. In an office full of cubicles like maybe… 6-7 years ago? Smoking wasn’t legal anywhere indoors let alone in an office building lmao. And the first time he wasn’t even fired. He was fired when it happened again!”—CactusPearl21
2.
“Hoo boy… I’d have to go with the guy who in the span of 24 hours. Started a fistfight with another employee (on camera, with witnesses) then called the police and said the other guy did it, trying to press charges. I just sent the video. Then trespassed on the property the following day and slurred at my boss (on camera, with witnesses), then called the police and said my boss did it. I just sent the video. Hurt himself somehow and went to the hospital, where he told the doctor he’d been attacked at work. Doc found no injury consistent with his story and well yeah, camera…”—YDAQ
3.
“I worked retail, and we had an employee that would hide and take naps inside racks of clothes. Somehow that wasn’t the reason we fired her. We fired her for stealing clothes and then wearing them to work.”—asleeppam
4.
“Once a had a guy call in sick to his restaurant/bar shift right before his shift and then proceeded to show up shit faced drunk for happy hour during the time he was supposed to be working. He was not a bright man. Edit: dear lord, I posted this before bed thinking nothing of it and woke up to like 15k upvotes. Here we are at nearly 21k. Restaurant life man. So many can relate. To clarify, with this guy it was not an isolated incident. Mental health days are totally legit, just don’t come to work for happy hour shit faced. Restaurant life be wild on so many levels.”—skdubbs
5.
“Dumbass stole a $100 bill out of the register at the end of his FIRST shift alone on register.”—USPSA-Addict
6.
“Years ago, at a lumber company. Had a guy, less than two hours after he started on his first day, pick up his car with a forklift and stand underneath it to see what was rattling when he drove.”—woodenman22
7.
“Not me but my dad. He has a small handyman company with less than a hand full of employees. His tools somehow have the habit of growing legs when he’s at construction sites so he rigorously writes his name on everything with permanent marker. One day, shortly after he hired someone new, his folding ruler is missing. He asks around if anyone has seen his folding ruler but that doesn’t seem to be the case. He doesn’t think much of it, sometimes things get lost. The next day he sees the new hire with a familiar-looking folding ruler. He asks him to see it. New hire refuses.
Dad tells him that he’s his boss and insists he shows him the ruler. He complies under pressure. Sure enough, there’s my dad’s name on it in capital and bold letters. Now that could’ve been an honest mistake and there probably wouldn’t have been any repercussions if he simply said “Oh, my bad. Must’ve put the wrong one in my pocket. Here’s you’re ruler.”
But the new hire insisted that this was his ruler and that the name on the side of it wasn’t my dad’s handwriting but rather a note the new hire had written on it himself to remember my dad’s name. What makes it even more stupid is that my dad’s company pays for the tools of his employees. He could’ve simply asked for a folding ruler and my dad would’ve given him one for free but, no, he needs to steal the bosses folding ruler and give the stupidest lie imaginable as an excuse.”—WilhelmWrobel
8.
“Had to fire a guy for coming to work high on meth and getting lost in a closet while painting it. Asked what the deal was and was told, “Shhhh I am having a conversation.” That was his last day, lmao.”—bunnyb2004
9.
“Not too crazy. More stupid than crazy. One of the programmers on my team was sitting at his desk looking at porn. And this is cubicle land. No offices. My Director walked into the area to talk to me and saw it. Then it was the first thing he told me about, so I got up and walked over for a look myself and there it was. The director and I looked at each and I said I gotta take care of this. So we walked back to HR, I told them what was going on and what we saw and they told me to fire him. So I did. He lost a $110K job for looking at porn on his computer at work.”—thejaundicedeye
10.
“I work at an art studio where we teach classes and sell pottery that our artists make for others to paint. I’m one of the artists and the manager. I started getting a funny feeling about one of my employees.. she wasn’t doing anything blatantly wrong, just seemed to work really slowly sometimes, request insignificant but kinda odd schedule changes, and have different break habits from the other staff. I started feeling like she was stealing but this is a really small business so I didn’t have her on camera or any way to really prove it… Until she accidentally sent me a video of herself painting pieces that I MADE from her home!”—ENEBZILE