Foo - Ever get fired? If so for what?

I just voluntarily got layed off earlier this morning because there was no work left for half of us summer guys, and my coworkers with families and debt need the money worse than I need car enhancement and ammo money.

Anyway, I certainly wasn't fired this morning, I volunteered to be layed off, but the last time I lost a job I was. A couple of years ago I worked for a construction company that was such a burocracy that they would hold meetings for no brainer decisions, and they would out do Wallmart when it came to screwing over employees and customers. They got tired of me pointing out simple things they could do that would cut their costs in half, or please their customers better and make things run more smoothly. Even if they couldn't be more right, companies don't like it when 18 year olds (20 now) point out obviously better ways do things, and they fired my ass. I went right from there and got a job making 50% more money, so it was a mutually benifitial firing. In any case, getting layed off gave me the idea that it would be interesting to have a discussion about why some of us foosters were fired from various jobs.

I once got fired for not wanting to tell people they looked good in the clothes we were selling when they didn't. That's actually the only time I've gotten fired, though I quit under a one night suspension at Meijer for refusing to cover someones break back in the college days.

Possibly for having a strong sense of ethics. Later I learned the company was under investigation.

i didn't turn up to work for 2 and a half months, and when i finally did show up they put me back to work straight away- its so hard to get fired by the nhs.

i didn't turn up to work for 2 and a half months, and when i finally did show up they put me back to work straight away- its so hard to get fired by the nhs.

Obviously, they didn't want the bad press of having terminated the employment of an orang-utan. :D

Not technically fired, but I got out of a few months of service in the Navy because I got fed up with the Chief Master at Arms on our ship bringing kids up for really petty offenses, and the Captain giving everyone nearly the maximum punishment without any regard to mitigating circumstances. When one of my guys got written up by the Marines at the station gate for not obeying their order to go away while they were manhandling his buddy for having a recently expired ID, it pushed me beyond the limit. I wrote a rather rash, but scathing set of comments on the incident, and I learned that the Captain had zero tolerance for objections to kangaroo court proceedings from his Division Officers. The MidPac commander offered me a fresh start on another ship, but I declined the offer.

i didn't turn up to work for 2 and a half months, and when i finally did show up they put me back to work straight away- its so hard to get fired by the nhs.

I was working for a guy that owned a small business back in the partying days and I also decided to take a few weeks (not months) off. I didn't bother to tell the guy I was working for, I was to busy partying and getting drunk every night.

After about a week I stumbled (literally) into my boss at a party. He said, "i wondered where you have been." I pretty much ignored him. A few days later I went back to work and he never said a word. It was business as usual. Obviously he didn't have a lot of backbone and I was more than willing to take advantage of that.

I worked at this one Garage back in college and on all the cars I did oil changes on, we put those little stickers on the windshield that tell you when to come back. Well, these particular stickers had a place for your name, but since I didn't feel like having my name on it, and in past garage's I've worked at didnt have that space, I didn't put my name. So instead, I put "Dr. Love" for some stupid reason, and after 5 or 10 cars and two days, my boss informs me that someone took offense to the sticker and is filing a lawsuit. No more job...

Been fired many times, usually for attitude problems. Walked out of many more jobs out of anger and frustration.
Haven't burned any bridges since college though... I'm a good boy now :D

Something Explody just said in another thread reminded me that I was actually fired from another job. I worked retail to put myself through college and when I finished my Masters, I was working at a library and a K-Mart. I gave notice at the K-Mart and the very last night of work, 15 minutes before closing, I was closing up the photo area when a guy came back. He'd picked up a phone in electronics and gone up to find that it was not the phone he thought was one sale. He came back and stopped at the counter and yelled at me about how he had to walk all the way back because I was too lazy (I believe he called me illiterate too) to make sure that the sign was on the right phone. I told him that I was in photo (hence the lab coat) and if a man his age (college age) had a hard time walking the 100 feet from the front of the store to electronics he had bigger problems and quite frankly he could kiss a certain part of my anatomy (of course, worded differently) because I didn't intend to be someone anymore that people could dump on and expect to stand there quietly.

The manager came back a few minutes later and asked me what happened. He thought it was pretty funny but said that maybe - as I was leaving anyway, I should just take off early. I got the message but didn't care because OHMYGOSH after seven years of taking bad attitudes and condescending crap it felt good just to let it go. :D

Will be fired in two months due to the shutting down of the one profitable group in our company. Being successful irritates this company to no end; the guilty are shown the door.

a mutual agreement.
I disputed a new commision program where I worked, they wanted to pay me less on some very large accounts and wanted to put me on a click-down on the commission structure and I said No.
So they said well Gary, I said Adios.
That was on a Friday went to work with a competitor on Monday.

First time in 30 years, it was a humbling experience

I was "let go" along with the cleaning lady because the dot-com I was interning for simply ran out of money.

I got fired for showing up to work drunk, its not like I was driving or anything. I was just teaching people how to drive.

Twice....first time at a pizza joint for drinking beer and making too many pizza's for myself while washing dishes. To explain: I had to maintain the kegs since it was a tap beer place so why not have a pitcher and a few pizza's while cleaning up at night.....sounds harmless.
Second time I spent the weekend in bed with my girlfriend and never called my work at a clothing store to tell them I wasn't coming in. Two weeks later, I was in there shopping and the manager asked if I wanted my old job back. I said sure and he promoted me to manager immediatly and he quit. The owner was dead, the store was closing, I was the manager and there were only two employees left. Needless to say, we took long lunch breaks......:)

Only once in high school. An assitstant manager at at a resturaunt I worked at for three years thought I was hitting on his girlfriend. I wasn't. Anyway, he made me work kitchen clean up duty every night for a couple weeks when I wasn't even a kitchen employee. And gave me extra assignments so I was always the last one to leave. My last night there I cornered him and let him have it (verbally). I used words I haven't used before or since. He had another manager fire me, he wouldn't even do it himself.

SB

I volunteered to be layed off...
So now you can collect unemployment for six months, you socialist.

:)

So now you can collect unemployment for six months, you socialist.

:)

I am uneducated on unemployment pay. I only had the job for about 10 weeks. Does that actually qualify me for 6 months of unemployment?

Just once...my grocery store job I had during my high school senior year (e.g. almost 20 years ago).

I ran a "scrub machine", with a few other guys who mopped behind me to clean the store floors after closing. At one point I accidentally bumped a produce display and a piece or two of fruit fell off. I didn't notice them, but the guys mopping did and picked up and started playing catch with it. About a minute later I noticed them playing and made them stop and go throw the fruit away. We continued and finished the floor cleaning.

The next day, I find out that another guy working after hours, who was kind of my "rival" went to the manager with another story. This guy and I always competed because we were technically the same level, and he tried to boss me around all the time. Being the guy I am, I usually told him to "shove it up his assteroid". Anyway, he told the manager that "we" were playing in produce...I was knocking fruit around all over the place and we were having a big ole' fruit fight. As evidence, he showed the manager some fruit seeds that had apparently splattered against the scrub machine when that initial (and only as far as I know) piece of fruit fell.

Anyway...next day the manager calls two of the four of us involved and tells us we have until next week for find another job. Then he says "are you going to work hard for me until then?". Wes, the other guy gives a big "yes sir", I just scoffed and laughed. He sent us out to go back to work, "for now".

I talked Wes into just clocking out and leaving that night....if we're fired, let's not hang around. I went across to the street to a rival grocery store, in my uniform, and was hired on the spot. And because it was the manager's night to close, with 2 of 4 people leaving, he had to get out and help mop himself! Hah!

So many time they call me canonball. :o

I've been fired twice. The first time I accepted a job I wasn't right for. The person hiring seemingly wanted ANYONE to fill the position. I told them I'd need training, and ALOT of guidance (I was just out of college). They hired me, weren't interested in showing me how to DO the job and then told everyone I was fired (except me). I turned up for work on Monday & was handed a check and asked to leave. I wrote the boss a letter laying out the circumstances of my hiring and firing. He wrote back with a letter of apology and included a glowing letter of reference.

The second time I was fired was a classic case of New Boss/New Staff. A new person was hired to run the startup that employed me. Even though I had done a great job in my opinion (with very little money & staff) the new guy decided a change was needed. He hired one of his cronies from his old job at double my salary. I was fired, got 6 months severence and benefits. The startup declared for bankruptcy before my severence ran out and I found a new job within a month of getting fired. The people still employed by the company at the time of bankruptcy were owed a month of salary, recieved no severance or benefits. They later got some of their back pay.

In both cases I thought it was a lesson learned. Don't take a job you're not right for, especially if that company has no intention of training you. And secondly, a new boss or administration or company might eliminate your job or fire you for reasons other than job performance. There isn't much you can do about that. Don't take it personally. See it as an opportunity and move on.

I was fired once. I was supposed to have a plane out of the hangar and on the tarmac by 7AM. It was a King Air. Normally this would take me about 30 minutes. So I showed up to work at 6:30 and they were already tugging the plane out. I was like WTF? My coworkers did not like me I think because I reported one of them who hit the wing tip of a Cheyenne on the hangar door and didn't want to say anything about it. I was directing him and yelling stop but he thought I was incompetent and kept going and smashed it. You can crash a plane that has damage to the wing. Anyway they used that whole incident of me showing up to work supposedly late and not getting a plane out on time to fire me. Pissed me off but I moved on to better things.

i got fired from subway for not being the managers freind and not going to get the copy paper she forgot to pick up. :/


i hope she's in jail on drug charges now.

i got fired from subway for not being the managers freind and not going to get the copy paper she forgot to pick up. :/


i hope she's in jail on drug charges now.
Come on, MERTY, my boy....I'm sure you have at least another dozen firing stories you could share with us. :)

i didn't turn up to work for 2 and a half months, and when i finally did show up they put me back to work straight away- its so hard to get fired by the nhs.


what is the nhs?

Come on, MERTY, my boy....I'm sure you have at least another dozen firing stories you could share with us. :)


nope. just that one.

i still can't figure out why it's so hard for me to get called in for an interview.

the only problems i can think of is that maybe they think i'm using a fake first name (my first name is a tad odd), or that they think uncharacterized entry level seperation means dishonorable discharge...

what all do they find on the checks they run? health problems?

nope. just that one.

i still can't figure out why it's so hard for me to get called in for an interview.

the only problems i can think of is that maybe they think i'm using a fake first name (my first name is a tad odd), or that they think uncharacterized entry level seperation means dishonorable discharge...

what all do they find on the checks they run? health problems?
I wouldn't think so....are you sure your resume is well written?

Try a book called "Resumes that Knock 'Em Dead" by Martin Yate. It was recommended by a guy teaching a class about interviewing as "the bible" for resumes and job related information.

nope. just that one.

i still can't figure out why it's so hard for me to get called in for an interview.

the only problems i can think of is that maybe they think i'm using a fake first name (my first name is a tad odd), or that they think uncharacterized entry level seperation means dishonorable discharge...

what all do they find on the checks they run? health problems?

Bike Forums is pretty popular you know.

:D

Only ever been fired once and that was for inapproriate relations with management.

I was dating the assistant manager they fired her as well!!

i've had problems since before i came here. and most of you don't know my name or what i look like.

I was fired once for not showing up to work at Kentucky Fried Chicken, god that job sucked. they had no AC in the back and all of us in the kitchen were wearing bandannas around our heads to try and keep the sweat out of the chicken. (a bucket 'o' "extra sweaty crispy" comin up!)

second time was because I was "Making too much money" as a manager for a pizza place. LOL!

third time at a bookstore where I made too many mistakes on the register.

I have not been fired since.

I have been suspended without pay once.

Lessee... I was fired once from a Telephone Tech Support position... the reason given was "You just aren't fitting in." Never mind the fact that I'd been there a year and a half, and received a performance bonus EVERY month, and most of the customers I dealt with would call in and ask for me personally... Oh... and when I applied for unemployment, they had no record of me working for that year and a half, because the jacka** wasn't paying unemployment payments.... he got something like a $20,000 fine and had to pay back unemployment taxes for everyone. I had to show proof that I worked there, and it took me an extra week to get my unemployment (Though they back paid me)

Another time I was fired because the owner 'Didn't feel he could work with me anymore' ... Oh... and he started playing the commercial he'd filmed a week later... the one I explicitly told him I did NOT want to be in, and he had the guy film me, anyway. A quick call to my landlady (Who was a lawyer!) and that commercial dissappeared after less than 2 days on the air. :-) I wonder how much it cost him to film a new commercial?

I've walked out on two jobs, once when I was wrongly accused of stealing a digital camera (they said they had video of it... when viewed, the video plainly showed me finding a camera box, glancing inside, the box was clearly empty when I opened it) ... after having spent 15 minutes getting yelled at, 5 minutes viewing the videos that clearly showed I was innocent, then getting chewed out for 'wasting' time (I was learning how to use a photo printer that I was supposed to be able to demonstrate and sell...) they told me 'You can go back out on the sales floor, now' .... I went straight into the back, and clocked out, and went home, went back only to pick up my paycheck. Great way to treat your #1 sales person, idiots.

Hrmm... then there was the temp job where I started knowing nothing about the systems I was working with, and 2 months later I had reduced the time required for the job I was hired for from 6 hours a day to less than 2, and was spending 6 hours a day doing tech support. I COULD have totally automated the job, reducing the required time to about 15 minutes a week, but my boss started being an ass, (I think he was afraid someone was going to offer me a permanent position... by the time I'd been there 3 months, I knew more about the systems and how they worked than he did, and he'd been there for years) ... I ended up giving him my notice, and when I told the temp agency, they told me not to bother going back.

Once. It was a high school summer job working alone nights at a gas station. I was also concurrently putting in 40 hr. a week as a carpenters apprentice. A couple of times I forgot to put an item or two away when closing up. It was a good lesson learned because I was smoking weed when closing up, although I wasn't very serious about the job anyway and it was beginning to affect my apprenticeship, which required me to spend at least 2 hr. a night studying blueprints in preparation for the next days work, and also doing material takeoffs for oncoming projects.

I got fired from Home Depot, of all places, for screwing with my punch time. We all knew that you had 7 minutes leeway on the machine, and well, one day I just decided to take it too far. I took my lunch for about an hour and a half on the company dime, then decided to punch out an hour early. Well, the manager who was on duty that day saw me one my lunch break, then just so happened to see me as I was punching out. A little talking was done, and I was walking out of there. Oh well, I haeted that place anyways. It literally sucked all soul out of me...That, and they refused to let me put my bike inside, even though they had tons of space in the warehouse. I think it was the best thing that happened to me.

One of my good friends never got fired, but he was a franchisee of a pizza shop(dominos), and they shut him down. What he was doing is he was buying a lot of stuff privately, I.E. walmart & supermarkets. Basically they have their own in-house system for the vegetables & meats, and a contract W/ coca-cola. Well, he was finding way better deals on the coke at walmart, you know when they have those insane sales? He also was finding the supermarket next door to him was cheaper for the tomatoes, green peppers, mushrooms, etc. It probably tasted better too. Anyways, head office basically told him that he couldn't do what he was doing, and shut him down for it. WTF? I mean, he's saving himself money, which means he has a little more money(like to pay employees!) I understand why they have these systems in place, I just don't like it...

nope. just that one.

i still can't figure out why it's so hard for me to get called in for an interview.

the only problems i can think of is that maybe they think i'm using a fake first name (my first name is a tad odd), or that they think uncharacterized entry level seperation means dishonorable discharge...

what all do they find on the checks they run? health problems?
Entry Level Separation means you NEVER have to inform an employer you were ever in.

Got fired from Levis once for laying out alot. I was so good at my job i didnt think they would want to get rid of me, yes cocky. I was out about 10 days in 3 months, then got the flu from jumping in a 30 degree river in the winter. Was out sick for a week and then got a letter in the mail saying I was terminated for excessive abences. I was only 18 and didnt care to much. I got married 8 months later and begged for the job back as it paid well. They re-hired me and I stayed for 8 years untill they shut down and went to Europe.
Its an odd thing. I now work for a surveying company where its impossible to get fired. Ive only missed 5 days in a year and 9 months, but almost everyone else lays out 1 to 2 days a week. One guy works only 2-5 days a month and STILL has a job!! Oh well, at least Im making good money..:)

One more I forgot about. Before I started surveying, i worked with a "friend" (yeah right!?:mad: ) doing electrical work. It was his buisness. He replaced a guy he had as a helper with me since he laid out 3-4 days a week. Everything went well until he started changing. I noticed he was a cheapskate and didnt like paying me anymore than he had to. I was making $9.00 an hour with no time and a half pay. He said he couldnt afford it, yet he could buy all kinds of toys and crap for him and his wife. It got to the point he would call me and say he was sick and couldnt work that day, or his wife was sick. This started cutting into my check big time as 9 and hour isnt much to play with. He even brought back the old helper for 1 -3 days a week which just didnt seem right to me since he was lazy. So after 5 months of busting my butt for him and only missing 1 day due to my accord, I turned in my notice. I tried to keep in mind he was still a friend of sorts and this was his way of making a living, so instead of the usual week or 2 week notice, i gave him a 1 1/2 month notice so he could be sure to find a competent replacement that could help him. I also told him I would stay on longer AFTER my notice ran out, and train the new guy if he needed me to. This was on a Tuesday. On that Friday he gave me my check at lunch and said "well thanks for all the help, I hope everything works out for you." I looked at him in shock since I hadnt even begun to look for a new job. I wanted to punch him so bad. I did nothing but good work for him and he ends it by firing me. I kind of expected him to do something like that anyway though. I relized after working with him for that time hes one of these people thats very vendictive, 2 faced and a backstabber. If he isnt in control to the most minute detail, he will screw you over. He was also a very big perfectionist. He once made me take down a smoke alarm box and move it 1'16th of and inch to the right!! After I stood there for a minute, I walked away and left. It wasnt until I got home, I noticed he cheated me $30 on my check. Anyway.....

I got fired from McDonalds:eek:
I was 15yrs old, I needed a job, so me & a friend both lied about our ages.
She of course called in on her 2nd or 3rd day of work(had a party to go to)
They must have found out about our ages, I show up for work & was promptly fired & got the "You'll never be able to work for McDonalds" speech:lol:

One of my good friends never got fired, but he was a franchisee of a pizza shop(dominos), and they shut him down. What he was doing is he was buying a lot of stuff privately, I.E. walmart & supermarkets. Basically they have their own in-house system for the vegetables & meats, and a contract W/ coca-cola. Well, he was finding way better deals on the coke at walmart, you know when they have those insane sales? He also was finding the supermarket next door to him was cheaper for the tomatoes, green peppers, mushrooms, etc. It probably tasted better too. Anyways, head office basically told him that he couldn't do what he was doing, and shut him down for it. WTF? I mean, he's saving himself money, which means he has a little more money(like to pay employees!) I understand why they have these systems in place, I just don't like it...

I don't understand why the franchisor Dominos wouldn't allow such things as bottled Coke from different source, but I can understand the ingredients for the pizza. There was actually a show on the History channel or A&E or something about Dominos and their whole goal was to be able to create the exact same pizza anywhere, and because of that, I guess the ingredients and therefore cooking times need to be the same. It was probably in the contract your friend signed when he started up or bought the franchise.

Some other franchises do allow you to find your own source of ingredients, though. And for the record, I really don't like Domino's...

I don't understand why the franchisor Dominos wouldn't allow such things as bottled Coke from different source, but I can understand the ingredients for the pizza. There was actually a show on the History channel or A&E or something about Dominos and their whole goal was to be able to create the exact same pizza anywhere, and because of that, I guess the ingredients and therefore cooking times need to be the same. It was probably in the contract your friend signed when he started up or bought the franchise.

Some other franchises do allow you to find your own source of ingredients, though. And for the record, I really don't like Domino's...
Yeah, their whole operation, even the dough making, is all from the same warehouse in Calgary. As for the coke thing, I believe they were tracking his orders, and found out that he wasn't ordering any coke, yet was selling a lot of it..? For the record, I don't like it either. I used to work for him when I was like 17, and overall it was a super fun place to work. He really treated everyone well, and tried to pay as best as he could afford.

I am uneducated on unemployment pay. I only had the job for about 10 weeks. Does that actually qualify me for 6 months of unemployment?

It wouldn't hurt to apply. The employment department often has access to those cushy higher-paying government, hospital, university, etc., jobs that people get and you wonder where the openings are advertised.

My firing story... I worked for an adoption agency and it was a really great job with nice people until I was asked to work full time, as they were reorganizing their office support positions. I said no, as I was ramping up to start working on the Bachelors again. Big mistake. Within 2 weeks, I no longer had a computer and had to go from office to office borrowing the counselors' computers while they were doing home visits. I would have to change computers 4-6 times a day during a 5 hour workday. Then they changed database programs and sent everyone to the training but me - and my main job duty was to enter all of the data into the database! You see where this was going, but I was young, naive, and clueless. Being something of a type A, I started getting stressed out because I couldn't do my job and strangely enough, it began to affect my usually cheerful work demeanor. After one of the more catty counselors complained to the executive director that I didn't smile at her when she came in the door, I was called into her office, told my position was being eliminated but they didn't want to lay me off because they'd have to rehire me, so she was firing me for not knowing the computer database program they didn't send me to a training to learn. She then admitted it was really because she didn't think "I was nice anymore". (This was a very small nonprofit agency with no one but a member of the BoD to advise them on HR issues.) I had no idea what to do. An older friend went to the unemployment office with me and we got the paperwork going. Not only did I get unemployment, the investigator offered to give me the name of some local lawyers, because she thought I had justification to sue them. I didn't do that for a crappy 25 hour a week job. I got a better one and have been there and happy ever since, which is the best sort of revenge.

(This was a very small nonprofit agency with no one but a member of the BoD to advise them on HR issues.) I had no idea what to do. An older friend went to the unemployment office with me and we got the paperwork going. Not only did I get unemployment, the investigator offered to give me the name of some local lawyers, because she thought I had justification to sue them. I didn't do that for a crappy 25 hour a week job. I got a better one and have been there and happy ever since, which is the best sort of revenge.

My friend worked for a nonprofit, first job out of school majoring in sociology and english, kid worked his butt helping older mentally handicapped function. Place was seriously understaffed even when the higher ups were making pretty good money. After about 12 months, he was about to do a stint in the Americcorps, so he gave them a months notice out in hopes of them finding a qualified replacement to train, only to have his resignation accepted early by 3 weeks. As stressful as the job was, he was really counting on the 3 weeks pay to help him out as he began the Americorps. Some of these nonprofits are a joke, you wouldn't believe how poorly they treat their patients and workers.