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Unemployment numbers are down. In some places, there are more jobs than workers willing to do the job for the salary being paid.
In this job market, beggars—employers—can't be choosers if they want a full workforce.
Unsurprisingly, some new hires don't last.
Reddit user Pyapio asked:
"Reddit users, what did the new employee do that got them fired right away?"
Not What Smoked Meats Means
"Working at a restaurant years ago. 20-something-year-old new busboy came in for his first day after his training shift."
"We couldn’t find him after the first 10 minutes of his shift until one of our cooks found him smoking a cigarette… IN THE WALK IN FREEZER."
"I’ll never forgot our manager’s reaction. He was like, 'Dude, you could’ve just taken a quick smoke break outside since it’s not busy; actually, go do that now!'."
"Opens the back door out of the kitchen. Busboy walks out, and our manager slams the door shut behind him."
~ PoignantPoint22
From The Very Temporary Agency
"Awhile back my supervisor was on the bus to work."
"Some random guy asked him if he wanted to go in on some meth with him. My supervisor politely declined."
"It turns out that guy was from the temp agency, and it was his first day."
"He got sent home before he even started training."
~ Panthean
New Meaning For Pee Break
"I was training a guy who was carrying around a large water bottle. He would drink from it pretty often. I didn't think much of it as I was more concerned with how utterly stupid he was."
"He couldn't understand basic concepts and asked the dumbest questions. I was forming a theory in my head that he was a space alien and it was his first day on Earth. I was going to recommend to my manager the next day that we don't keep him on."
"I arrived at work the next day and brought up the new guy. Manager and another guy there both said 'He won't be back'. Why? 'The water bottle...' What about it?"
"New guy had arrived at work before me, and was pouring some kind of salt out of a packet into the bottle. They asked him what he was drinking."
"He said it was the recommendation of his 'healer' (whatever that means) and it was 'healing salts' and part of his 'therapy'."
"He said it was called 'urine therapy'. He was drinking his own urine the whole time."
"Well, he was going to be fired anyway. He was too stupid to do the job."
~ MZM204
The Best Part
"Ate all the skins off of all the rotisserie chickens in the gourmet section of the supermarket."
"He said he couldn’t help himself and ate the skin off of one chicken 'because that’s the best part'."
"Then, to make sure they all 'looked the same', he ate the rest of the chicken skins as well."
"I personally think he won on some level."
~ MikeAppleTree
Maybe Party Less Hardy
"We have a team of people that go around the country setting up retail spaces, like the shelves you’d see at a CVS or 7-11, but for our facilities."
"Anyway they hire a new guy and on his first outing he misses the flight. Then when he finally gets to the location he gets a DUI in the company rental car."
"So yeah, that was pretty much it for him."
~ Sprucing_guy
Really, Party Less
"Showed up 2 hours late, hungover, in a dirty t-shirt, cutt-offs and dirty sneakers and obviously un-bathed. He looked GREAT 3 days ago at his interview."
"They walked into the office and the manager met him halfway across the floor."
"New Guy: 'Oh, hey! I had kind of a wild weekend'."
"Boss : 'Go home. Do not come back. You don't work here'."
"It was a customs house brokerage."
"We were a 'casual office', but like khaki & button up shirts casual—not 'passed out at the sports bar' casual."
~ Eponarose
Side Hustle
"Selling illegal substance (not marijuana—much worse stuff) in the bathroom."
"Customer would come in, guy and customer go to the bathroom together immediately. 30 seconds later they both exit and customer leaves."
"Third time this happened the boss followed them in after 10 seconds and saw the deal go down."
~ Ganbario
Oh, Joe...
"The company I was working for (company A) had a contract with another (company B) to provide labor. Company A was laid back/chill/artsy culture. Company B was corporate as can be."
"We hired someone (Joe) and told them their first job would be this contract with company B. We also told Joe that company B drug tests, so if you need to sit out or do some 'on the job training' for a few days—aka detox—let us know.
"He said not a problem, went to company B job, took a drug test and failed."
"'Oh yeah, I smoked some weed, but I thought it wouldn’t show up because it had been a few HOURS since'.”
~ chegwick
Netflix And Train
"1.5 days into the job, she was watching Netflix on her phone with her airpods while she was receiving training from the manager."
"When we approached her about this, she said 'is this not okay?'."
~ dubstylers
Quite The Set Up
"I worked at a company where we hired a techie engineering type, and the first day he spent all 8 hours setting up his workspace, his monitors, several keyboards, various equipment etc..."
"We had a small in house get together, he drank too much and spit on one of the founder's friends and made some derogatory remarks."
"Was fired at 8am the next morning and spent the next 4 hours disassembling everything he had just put up."
"Didn't even work 1 day."
~ JaydedXoX
Security Requires Paying Attention?
"Was training a guy as overnight security, so I'm explaining to him how we handle medical emergencies, explaining how residents alert us, we go check on them, then what we do if emergency services has to come in.... Literal life and death information."
"I ask if he understood what I said or if he needed me to repeat any of it... Guy is engrossed in his phone, earbuds in both ears."
"I wave my hand in front of his screen. He pauses, and asks if I need something."
"I told him I needed him to pack up his sh*t and get off my site. I called my regional and told him not to send that guy back as one of our residents will probably die on his watch."
~ CylonsInAPolicebox
Experience = Longevity ≠ Expertise
"Worked at a facility that processed mail for the post office."
"There was a specialized sorting machine used only by our postal inspector in the back corner of the factory. We were all told when hired, and constantly after, this machine was stupid expensive, and the one rule was DO NOT USE THE ELECTRIC PALLET JACKS NEAR IT."
"There were signs posted, yellow lines painted on the floor as a no go zone. Even cement posts surrounding the area. Mail DID have to be moved there so you could fit between the posts with the normal, non powered jack."
"New floor lead is hired, he's come from a similar company and has years of experience. His first night our shift opens with a team meeting with our manager. On the other side of the floor the new lead is moving pallets of mail around."
"Suddenly we hear a crash. He has driven the electric jack directly into the expensive machine. Destroyed the computer, two monitors, the loading belt, the cabinet that held a lot of the innards of the machinery. Just smashed it to smithereens."
"He was gone the next night."
~ offspring515
Please Work While Working
"One shift she was reading a novel. 'Oh hey, please don’t read on the job'. 'OK, no problem'."
"Next shift she brought her Switch. Now we were a little confused because we thought we covered this. 'You only said I couldn’t read. You didn’t say anything about games'."
"Next shift she brought cross stitch. 'No, you can’t do that while you’re supposed to be working'."
"I kid you not, that was when she asked for a list of everything she was NOT allowed to do while working."
~ MycroftNext
MYOB!
"Bank executive job and new guy decided to look up the balance of NBA stars about 15 years ago."
"He got fired."
"For those that don’t know—this is wildly illegal and against bank policies. You never have the right to look up anyone’s account unless they explicitly give you permission verbally and in writing."
"Let alone for a bunch of celebrities."
"Instant fire and he never worked in the industry again. Total idiot."
~ TheStarcraftPro
I Have To Do The Job I Was Hired To Do? Really‽‽
"He wouldn't get off Reddit. I'm serious. He was on his phone all throughout training."
"Once he got a workstation, not only was there always something non-work related on his computer every time I walked by his desk, his bookmark bar was 100% sites like Reddit and digg, 0% work related links like our bug tracker and office wiki."
"And the thing was, this was a work environment where it was totally okay to spend company time on sites like that, almost everyone did. You just had to also get your work done at some point."
"He also would take regular breaks to just walk around the office and ask people what they were working on. Not just a quick 'hey, what project are you on' but like, an extended interview of stupid questions. High schoolers visiting for job shadow opportunities had better questions than this guy who went to a top computer science (CS) school."
"He was assigned to my project, so I got to see the little work that he actually completed. Usually for the first few tasks, the lead programmer would assign the newbie some ridiculously easy tasks to get them oriented to our workflow."
"The very first thing this guy was assigned to do was to copy/paste a few lines of code into a specific file. The second task was exactly the same, except he had to write the two lines of code himself."
"It was still a ridiculously easy task that should have taken 5 minutes."
"An hour later, he complained to the lead that it was too hard and he didn't understand why he, a person who was hired to write code after going to college to learn how to code, was being asked to write code."
~ PreviousObject1312
What's the fastest you saw a new hire fired?