Managers Reveal The Fastest They Had To Fire A New Hire

The business of hiring and firing is always a gamble. The person you allow into the building is basically a complete stranger. They may end becoming your best friend or greatest nightmare. A lot people can't hold it together log enough to get through the first shift. It can be shocking how crazy or just plain stupid some people are and, that you initially missed the red flags. The story of an employee's firing can be the thing of workplace legend. "Remember so and so?"... Oh girl!

Redditor _SquidLarry wanted members of upper management to admit... Managers of Reddit, what's the fastest you've had to fire a new hire?


Back when I was a manager of an auto shop I had to hire a new guy to handle "driveability" problems - basically carburetors and engine tunes and sensor problems back then. It took forever to find someone, but I finally hired a guy who had 20 years experience, an impressive resume and all the certifications.

Suspicious thing was he showed up for his first day driving an old beater Chevette, body one color, hood another, fenders another, giant toolbox hanging out the back hatch. Supposedly he was a top-end high-earning tech? First week there were problems with misdiagnosis and comebacks, Monday after his wife called in sick for him. She showed up to pick up his check. Next week more problems, wife called in sick for him Monday again. Our dispatcher figured something was up with the guy. Tech goes for a smoke-break, dispatcher comes out and checks the big-gulp the guy always had at his toolbox; turns out its like straight vodka.

Anyway, fired, third week in.


Hired a kid to work opening shifts at a local pool. We were short staffed so he was learning the ropes with me on a 5 am shift. As we opened he asked if he could make a quick cup of coffee. I agreed asking him to make me one. Around 5 minutes later a swimmer comes up to me and said she saw my lifeguard snorting something. I was obviously pissed and went to go see what was going down. I go up to the window and saw him doing more. After a short argument he finally decided to just leave and not make me drug test him. Lasted a whole 10 minutes of us being open.


I managed a gas station for a while. I hired this guy who seemed completely normal, which was hard to come by so I had him start the next day. After about 30 mins of working he says he needs a break. No big deal, something must have come up. Maybe 10 minutes later a customer came in saying a man was passed out in the men's restroom. I send another guy working into the restroom and the dude I just hired was naked and completely unresponsive. Paramedics come and turns out he overdosed. He survived but I still never got an answer on why he was naked.


One week. I got a call from the county jail because this girl I had just hired had been arrested and she refused to give any info to the police except for the fact that she worked for this particular store. They called me trying to figure out her info and a person to contact about her arrest. I told them I couldn't give out that info but I would call her emergency contact to let them know that she was in jail.

I call this girl's emergency contact (who was her mom) and told the mom that her daughter was currently sitting in jail. All the mom said was, "figures" and she hung up on me.

After she was released from jail, about two days later she ended up in the hospital from alcohol poisoning. So yeah, I had to let her go. The worst part is that I actually liked her.


Not a manager, but I usually sit in with the manager during interviews.

They decided to bring in a contractor; I didn't think much of his technical skills during the interview, but the manager decided to give him a chance.

He fell asleep during his orientation, then twice at his desk. This was his first day, before lunch.


I had a person who was all smiles in the interview to be a personal banker. She seemed to have a knack for sales, and just, really sharp. Within the first hour of her starting, post training, she attempted to deposit 100,000 into a dummy account she had set up. It set off about a million red flags in the system that alerted me, my boss and my bosses boss. Time from clocking in first day post training, to being fired/arrested....20 minutes. 10 of those were waiting for the cops.


Within 20 minutes of her first shift she took around $200 out of the register.

We put exactly $300 in the register at the start of each shift for the float.



Less than an hour after orientation.

Got a call shortly after he went to work that he was harassing all the women and claiming "we wouldn't dare fire him or he'll come back at night and break our panels with a hammer, like he did to his last job" he was bragging this to EVERYONE.


About an hour. Kid was a temp hire and we set him up at his job, showed him what to do, and turned him loose. There was a can of degreaser sitting with the machine he was operating. I came into my office and sat down, looked up, and watched him pick up a shop rag, spray a lot of degreaser on it, then he pressed it into his face and started huffing it. Deeply. I got up, went over to him, and said, "Come on, son" and walked him to the door. I asked the temp agency to please attempt to weed out a little better.


I had a bartender who lost money her first shift by herself. The drawer started with $200, came back with $140. She had worked 6 hours and did not have many credit card tips or anything, so she "somehow" managed to spend all of her tips + $60 without leaving the building. Yeah, fired.


I worked for a major 3 lettered computer company. A new service tech was hired. Once he logged in, he pulled out a portable hard drive from his backpack, connected it to his machine, and started to copy everything he had access to. Within 3 hours security was escorting him out the door.


I hired a guy - he shows up late on his first day then proceeds to make offensive and racist remarks to co-workers and the clients. 2 hours.


Not me, but I had a friend who supervised a movie theater. They hire this kid, first day, first showing of the day, he lets 20 people in and follows them in himself. he thought no one would notice he and his friends partying while watching a movie that he closed sales to so they'd have the room to himself.


I work at a daycare. I'm not a supervisor but I watched my supervisor fire someone on the first day.

Most of our new hires are actually middle aged women. 90% of them are awesome but a lot of them feel super entitled because they're middle aged. Doesn't help that I'm only 23 either. Anyway our new hire's first day of work. She seems ok, doesn't make to much of an effort with the kids. Not that abnormal, takes sometime to get comfortable with other people kids.

We change diapers on a schedule unless they poop or obviously need a change. I've changed a couple diapers already and noticed she doesn't lift a finger if the kid needs a change. 10 am roles around which is when we change every kid.

I ask her to help me. She seems surprised and goes, "Oh I don't change diapers honey!" Yep this lady refused to change diapers. She took a job caring for babies... she was fired maybe an hour later.


Ok, i have one, but I'm not a manager. I had worked IT for quite a while. There was a guy I worked with at a job that was... troubled. but trying to get it together. He had lost a previous IT job because he was selling surplus gear on eBay.

Through an odd set of circumstances, i met this guy in a social setting, unrelated to work. My friends that had known him a while said that the eBay thing is what led to him losing his last job. Anyway, smash cut to 4 years later, I'm a a completely different job and I see him. He had lost a TON of weight (not that he was fat or anything to begin with). Anyway. I said _"dude what's up?" _He looked super skittish and said that he had just got hired. I said cool, hit me up sometime and we'll catch up.

I never saw him again. That night he allegedly entered the building and made off with several servers. He didn't realize we had cameras everywhere and had him dead to rights hauling it off. He was given a choice to return it and leave or they'd file charges. He returned it and left.


Two different ones. I run a car dealership I hired a young guy 22 maybe? He is waiting around after getting hired to get his passwords and is out with other salesman. A man walks in with his daughter and the guy starts loudly talking about her. The Dad hears and is brought to me. I walked out and fired him. That one was 20 minutes after being hired. The second I hired a guy to be a salesman and asked him if he has a record. He said no and was fired 4 hours later for having a Grand theft auto charge....


I let some poor kid go after 30 minutes. He didn't want to quit because it was his first job, and he bought scrubs entirely for this occasion- but he was clearly in over his head the second he started his orientation (to my own credit, he interviewed like a CHAMP, and some people are just really good at saying all the right things). I asked if he would feel better if he was fired (my intention being to remind him the "fired" is a bad thing, so if he doesn't think he can hang- he should quit on his own terms). He said "yes," so I fired him. He shook my hand and told me I had nice eyebrows and left. The next day he emailed me to let me know he was quitting... I told him there were no hard feelings since he was already fired. I have now learned to ask every PHLEBOTOMIST applicant if they are comfortable being exposed to blood. Thanks Connor.


A temp we hired for a project interviewed well. Well dressed, a bit on the svelte side, spoke perfect English with the barest hint of a London accent. Looked you in the eye, had a ton of credentials. If anything, he seemed over qualified for what was essentially a grunt lab position. Did well with a bunch of managers.

First day of work, he went to orientation. I got a call from someone who worked in that building, and said my new temp was a real piece of work. Sat in the conference room, slipped his shoes off, and propped his cracked feet on the chairs in front of him. Okay? He also brought a huge, sloppy, highly spiced pastrami grinder. Left a mess behind.

Day 2 he showed up to the computer lab. He was a completely different person. I mean, like a different human: he was squat, overweight, different face and hair. Had a thick accent. I didn't know who he was, but he was not the guy we hired. The only similarity was his ethnicity. But he was completely not the same person. This guy was gross and completely inept.

We went over his resume and I got a copy of his ID. He wasn't even a US citizen. I had never come across this before: the temp company pulled a bait and switch. On Day 3, he was 2 hours late, but by that point I had the permission to fire him based on his lack of being a US citizen.

We later found out this temp agency would send the nice guy for the interview, and then send someone of the similar race to the job with the same name, and then had gotten away with it for quite some time. But usually they guy they sent was not this poor of a worker, so sadly, it went unnoticed.

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