The summer between high school and my freshman year of college, I started my first job ever at a dry cleaning chain near my house. The chain of 3 or 4 cleaners were all owned by the cheapest family in existence. My boss was the son who was probably about 27 years old and an asshole. He had the angriest disposition of anyone I've ever met before or since then. Everything that man said to me made me put my nerves on edge. In all honesty, I had nothing to worry about because I worked harder than anyone there. Plus I had the bonus of not being a meth head, having all my teeth, bathing regularly, and not being a prostitute. When I was hired, Tommy told me three things: One, I am your boss, no one else can tell you what to do; Two, I'm starting you out at $7.14; and Three, go follow Debbie around. So, I did as I was told, and learned how to go everything in less than a day (apparently tagging and sorting clothes, filling out tickets, and working the register is a complicated thing?). When I asked Debbie what times I was supposed to work, she said that new girls are supposed to come in at 7am. So I did this, and didn't leave until close, which meant I was working 12 hour days for. I did this for a week. Yeah, you do the math. Those fuckers owed me a shitton of money. Tommy senior and Tommy Junior took me into the steam room and told me that they were docking my pay that week to $7.00, and if it happened again, they would fire me. I went home for lunch and cried. My dad laughed his ass off.
When I was 17 I worked as a lifeguard. At the time, I thought it was unfair that we were not allowed to have a t.v. in the guard room with which to play guitar hero 2. I went to my boss to address the issue. After I stated my case, she looked at me like I had pissed on the floor and then told her to clean it up. "Black Sheep Dog, first of all, having a tv is out of the question. Secondly, you're aware that you already have three write ups right? At this point you are on grounds to be terminated." BSD: "oh." My employer had a three strikes policy, and in one way or another over the course of a month, I had fucked myself into three write ups. Despite my stunning retardation, I was given a second chance. Flash forward four days later after the 4th of July weekend, I come into work an hour late looking like I had spent the night partying with Charles Bukowski. My eyes were blood shot and I my neck was covered in hiccys, and this was for teaching swim lessons (I figured if any of the kiddies asked about the numerous contusions on my neck I would mention something about getting attacked by an octopus) . I was fired on the spot.
I've only ever gotten fired once, and it was a legitimate case of the boss being completely insane. I wrote a whole Greek-poem-esque monologue on the subject back on the old board about a week after it happened, but I'll summarize. I was basically hired by a woman to do a job I'm highly experienced at from working under a different boss. She saw how I performed under said old boss and hired me on the spot to do the same job for her. Since I was working at events that happen every couple of weeks, there was no issue of overlap between the two bosses. Well it turns out this new boss is a control freak and extremely narcissistic, which is the total opposite of the boss I was used to who delegates absolutely everything to other people and doesn't care how you get it done as long as it gets done. The first thing my new boss does when I arrive is give me a full rundown of my job down to the tiniest most basic detail. I tell her it's no problem, I've done this for years and know how it works. The rest of the time I spend working with her goes a little something like this: -I do my job and solve problems as they arise because I know the rules and regulations and am capable of a base level of problem solving -She constantly asks for updates on my situation and gets angry when I solve minor problems without consulting her despite the fact that I've done what she would have instructed anyway and am keeping her updated on anything major. -Repeat ad nauseum until she periodically decides to replace me with a clueless volunteer with no experience for a few hours as I sit in the bleachers musing about how she's squandering her resources and I'm now getting paid to sit on my ass and eat free food I'd even run everything so well that we were ahead of schedule almost the entire time I was actually doing my job, despite the fact that I'd always inherit a situation of being behind schedule from the clueless volunteer I replaced. Eventually she fired me on the last day for "talking back" to her, despite the fact that I'd diligently bitten my tongue the whole time and remained professional about the entire thing. We were ahead of schedule by 30 minutes at the time I got fired. It was after I told my old boss that I found out what a sociopath that woman really is, and how she'd single handedly managed to run the whole organization into the ground since she took it over precisely because she couldn't handle letting people do their jobs and wanted to micromanage every aspect of her employees work. It turns out she fires most of her employees within days of hiring them, and ironically only keeps on the most incompetent purely because they call in all the time unable to figure out what's going on and what they should be doing to solve it. Oh, and I say she was narcissistic because in the middle of one of the shows we had two "Special Events" scheduled that turned out to just be excuses for her to parade around in front of everyone and show off. Oh well, fuck her.
Working for $VOZcorp (a big, well known compsci corporation), got slacked on the 31st of december one year... because i made the mistake of telling someone from the agency i was working with that i wasn't interested in extending the contract for another year, but that i would gladly finish current contract til the middle of january ($VOZcorp always hires thru agencies). Agency used the (illegal, i'm told) clause they always have in their contract that they can fire you whenever for whatever the fuck ... and called me on the 31st of december, new year's day, to tell me that was my last day. I got so smashed at the NYE party that i apparently was talking backwards at one point.
This thread is relevant because I just got canned from my job a few weeks back. I was working as a cook at a bar, and the owner who is an absolute hot headed prick that has some serious anger issues decided he wouldn't even tell me himself that he was letting me go. I found out from an outside party that didn't even work there, that I was fired. The whole reason for this mess is because of one Sunday afternoon when we were swamped with a rush of people due to the Browns game that day. I was on my own trying to knock out a shit ton of orders, and people just came pouring in, ordering food like we were giving it away. I was doing okay and had a bunch of orders waiting at the bar for the one chick that was bartending. She, on the other hand couldn't realize that I had the food ready, and it needed to be given to customers so it just sat there and got cold. People walked out. I was pissed off like no other. A week goes by, and I get a text from this guy who I know that frequents the bar, saying that hes sorry I got fired. This was all news to me. I got nothing from the owner, no call, no voicemail, not even a text. I also heard he had an issue with me being away one weekend a month for my Reserve duty which is total fucking discrimination. Thinking about taking legal action, but I'm not sure. Anyways, I'm relieved that I don't have to put up with the bullshit at that place anymore.
In high school I was the single worst employee to have. I would be a model employee for anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months. Once I had a mastery of the tasks, I would find ways to complete them faster (read shittier) and then fuck around. Then being bored I would just be a complete douchebag. Ugh I suck. Couple of the shitcans: Walmart, unloading trucks - first job ever. Just awful, went from showing up late a few minutes to maybe showing up at all for a week or two. Lasted 2 months with probably 1 full week of work, would have been fired earlier but the manager was stealing electronics off the docks and had to build a secure case for my termination. Call center, customer service for banks - Making $11/hr in high school was nice but not worth that shit. Spent 3 weeks in training, showed up for 1 actual day on the floor and stopped going. 2 weeks later got an official letter of termination hand delivered to the house, mom and dad were just so proud of their son.