Have you ever been fired?

[garzy]

have you ever been fired from your job? was it a nasty experience? also, most importantly, did you know it was coming???

EDIT: OH, and why did you get fired?

[jefhatfield]

yes, once

i had a part time job when i was in school...as a booth clerk for a supermarket...my job was to count the money, log it, and get it ready for the armored truck

i had just six hours to sort out $27,000 (on average) dollars in coins, small bills, and checks

i was just too slow

the manager expected me to know what i was doing, but i did since i was a graduate school business student...but that was not what the job needed...anyone can add...he he

being fast and getting the money ready for the armored truck was key...don't get the money ready, and the manager gets his bonus check late

when the manager fired me, he was sad to do so...i liked him a lot but he was later fired, too for funneling too much money for bonus checks for himself (the store allowed the managers to cut back checker hours to make his own check fatter...to a point though...i wonder if he got tired of getting paid late due to me...hmmmm

i went to work for a couple of accountancy firms in later years as part time gigs and even cpas could not punch the keys as fast as those supermarket booth clerks;)

[garzy]

man, that sucks
i feel im about to get fired, and i think they are gonna pull one of those "im sad to see you go"

ive never been fired

[Stelliform]

.....

[szark]

I was fired once, from my first job at a movie theater.

One of the other employees occasionally snuck people through the side door for free. Some of the managers knew this, and it didn't really seem to bother them.

Then one day he started charging people half price to sneak them in. I didn't report him the first day he did this, because the managers never really seemed to care when he did questionable things in the past (he let in about 10 people that day). The next time I worked with him later that week, he was still at it so I reported him. Unfortunately, he had made $100s of dollars in the meantime and involved several other people. The cinema chain held an investigation and fired everyone who had known about the scam.

The manager was sympathetic, though, and helped me get a job at another cinema (managed by a friend of his).

[wdlove]

They didn't say that I was fired. It was at a funeral home, they told me that they need to let me go, because buisness was down and they really couldn't afford to keep me on any longer. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Worked part time in a hospital lab supplies and morgue attendant. That's the place were if met my wife. Went into nursing much happier taking care of patients, felt like I was making a difference in their life. Very much enjoyed the one on one contact.

My last job they told me that I should retire, I could no longer do the work satisfactorily. My supervisors cared about me and didn't want to harm my prospects. They did say that the way my job performance was at present, that if I decided to stay on they would have to fire me eventually.

[jethroted]

I was fired from a gas station when i was 17. I just went in to work one day, and the new guy I had been training was there and said he boss wanted to see me. I saw her and she told me that i was fired because they had tried to get a hold of me a number of time to come in, but I was not home to answer the phone. I was like "so you want me to be sitting by my phone waiting for you to call me into work on my days off? I'm not a loser. I do have a social life." She shrugged her shoulders and explained that that was the kind of person they were looking for. Someone who is basically on-call 24/7 but only getting paid for the hours they work. I said " Yeah well, I guess I don't feel so bad about eating all that food from the shelves and drinks from the fridge then." then after watching her jaw drop open, I let myself out the door and laughed. I was kinda bummed, but it was a ***** job anyways.

[Kwyjibo]

Originally posted by jethroted
I was fired from a gas station when i was 17. I just went in to work one day, and the new guy I had been training was there and said he boss wanted to see me. I saw her and she told me that i was fired because they had tried to get a hold of me a number of time to come in, but I was not home to answer the phone. I was like "so you want me to be sitting by my phone waiting for you to call me into work on my days off? I'm not a loser. I do have a social life." She shrugged her shoulders and explained that that was the kind of person they were looking for. Someone who is basically on-call 24/7 but only getting paid for the hours they work. I said " Yeah well, I guess I don't feel so bad about eating all that food from the shelves and drinks from the fridge then." then after watching her jaw drop open, I let myself out the door and laughed. I was kinda bummed, but it was a ***** job anyways.


haha, i used to work at a quiznos and on sundays the regular manager had the day off. and me and this older woman would work. Since she always had to cut the meat she let me make whatever i wanted so basically every monday i would bring a big sub for the ppl at lunch. It was great. I never got caught or I was caught but I was much better and faster at making sandwiches than anyone else and i refused to train people correctly ( i would tell them it was an "instinct thing" they had to learn by trials and mostly errors needless to sya none of them go real good at it) so i guess i got to stay and gorge for a whiel because of a catch 22.

[GeneR]

I don't usually share stories but here's one that I doubt I'll be making into any film:

I was working for a temp agency when I was 18 and I got sent to work for the accounting department of some big hospital. Well, suffice to say I got stuck at a pretty boring job.

Anyway, I was told to do reception work for a while with multiple phone lines and to relay information from the reception desk to the individual offices in the backroom. They didn't have intercom. They had this really weird typing device that spit put little messages at other people's desks. In fact every person in the office had one of these little machines.

So after a while I got bored. Answering the phone takes about as much intelligence as, well, let's just say that in this case it was boring as heck.

I started playing around with the little message machine, trying to figure it out. I realized that you could actually send a mesage to yourself if you wanted and you'd get this silly little note saying whatever you want.

So while nobody was noticing I would send little messages to myself.

After a while I stared getting creative.

I'd come up with little notes like "When in doubt, bail out..." that sort of thing. And to make things more interesting I would tape them to the bottom of the reception desk.

Nobody was going to look there, right?

Well, things didn't quite work out that way, you might say. The boss in the office -- the man I was reporting to -- realized that we had a problem with the phone lines. He ended up walking up to the reception desk and getting down on his back to start working away with the wires.

I was praying pretty fiercely at that point that he wouldn't look up at the desk to see all the notes I planted under the desk.

I can still hear his muttering, "Well, that's interesting..."

Needless to say, my temp assignment ended shortly afterwards...

:D

Second thought, I may still use this experience in a film... :D

[howard]

never been fired...only had one real job though.

[maradong]

:) no student life is wonderful :p

[voicegy]

Well, I'm in my 40's and have had many jobs, but I've since settled into IT for a large school district...been with this district in a variety of positions for 'bout 17 years now...so I'm old enough to have at least one good fired story.

And it was only once, and it hurt me quite a lot.

Back in the 80's I was a teller for San Diego Federal Savings and Loan Association, which later became Great American Federal. This institution was always ahead of the curve in playing with technology. We were one of the first with "Passcards" (now commonly known as ATM cards) and had the first ATM in the city, installed at the airport. (It actually had a rotating drum with instructions printed on it and stopped, like a slot machine, at the appropriate instruction depending upon what function you were asking it to perform!) We also had a Pay Bills By Phone service, and machines in lobbies where you could find out your balance. This stuff was so bleeding edge that people just couldn't get used to it, and the technology behind it was a bear to keep up with.

I moved from being a teller at the main office downtown to the ATM department (nerd that I am, I was just fascinated by the machines...by then we had about 15 of 'em at branches and at stand alone locations) I had a tearful good bye party with all my buds at the main office, including a great gal who I used to party with (keep your minds out of the gutter!) who worked in the Loans dept.

I worked at ATM ops for a while, then an incident occurred where a deposit bag from an ATM went "missing." For some reason, I was a prime suspect, and was given THREE lie detector tests until cleared.

I then moved on to the Computer Operations Center in Fashion Valley, where the very heart of the organization was located. I was in heaven...glittering lights and humming machines everywhere...just like Lost In Space! One day while performing routine maintenance, I noticed a whole box of the aforementioned "Passcards" on the floor under a desk. Curious as to why they were there, and if the password worked on one of them (it had been written on the back) I checked it by performing a 20 dollar withdrawal at the ATM downstairs. It worked, and it had a balance of thousands of dollars..it was a "test" account and should not have been sitting out in a box exposed like that.

I redeposited the 20 bucks in the machine, and made a note to tell my supervisor about it the next week. Instead, I was hauled into the office on Monday and grilled like a common criminal, being told that I'd better "watch myself" blah blah blah. I was quite taken aback. The entire incident at the ATM was on tape, and was "retained" for "evidence."

However, I was not fired. That did not happen until a full year later, when our computer room was moved to new headquarters in National City. Without warning, I was taken into a room and my supervisor, the internal police and another person from security surrounded me and made me sign a paper assuring I would take no recourse against the company, and told me I had become a "bond" risk and had to go.

Years later, I found out the truth. Remember that gal I was friends with at the Main Office? Unbeknownst to me, she went to JAIL for a few years for embezzlement...part of the evidence the company seized was her personal address and phone number book...and I was in it, as well as other co-workers. FROM THAT MOMENT ON, everyone in that book was watched, myself included, and after the incident with the missing ATM bag and my finding the ATM cards in the computer room, the head of security's royal behind was chewed out for such LACK of security, and he had it in for me ever since. He finally succeeded in getting one of the most loyal and happiest employees that company ever had in getting the boot, and I was miserable for months.

Two years later, Great American Federal went belly up from bad real estate investments in Arizona land, and poor management. A nearly 90 year old San Diego institution went up in smoke.

I never laughed so hard in my life.

DON'T MESS WITH ME!:D

[scem0]

many times, by my mom. For little jobs. Like making a web-page
for our family's small business. :)

[vniow]

Meh, never been hired, but I'll make sure to get a job like vocegy!http://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=251718

[3rdpath]

many years ago i got fired for growing my hair long enough to pull back into a ponytail...BFD. wasn't even against company policy...the funny thing was i got hired by our competitor for more money the next day. about 90% of my customers followed me to my new job and my old place eventually went out of business.

karma's a wonderful thing.

:)

[rainman::|:|]

i was fired once. through a temp agency, working data entry in a very large insurance company... the supervisor and i had ... differences i guess, me being human and not having any live mice for her. The friday before christmas, she was all smiles and was talking about next week. Saturday night i get a call at home, poof fired for "lack of initiative and output". pfah. silly little bitch just didn't like me. tried to launch an investigation with the temp agency (this happened to many people, the agency once told a worker "there's a reason the enviroment is so sterile over there" but wouldn't go into it) but they told me to piss off, wouldn't even reassign me. Turned out for the best in so many ways, went from a low-paying lackey to a respected team member. love my job now, wouldn't want to work anyplace else :)

there's a reason for everything i guess :) it was one hell of a depressing christmas tho...

pnw

[trebblekicked]

i didn't exactly get fired, but i was part of an indie film where the director went certifiable.

i was an assistant editor, and the writer/director had some mental disorder (bipolar/paranoid). the shoot was really rushed, and there was some audio problems with two reels, and when he found out, he flipped out and fired half the staff (including our staff). didn't really make sense to fire editors for an audio tech's screw up, did it? well, the movie never made the light of day, so as 3rd path put it, karma is a wonderful thing.:)

[Mr. Anderson]

once, summer after freshman year in college. I was a councellor for a YMCA day camp. Last about 2 weeks, but the woman in charge didn't like my leadership style.

My kids had more fun than any of the others - and it showed. I found out later that she ended up hiring her nephew to replace me.......figures. I was the least senior of all the councellors, so she obviously made an excuse to let me go, no warning, nothing, just come see me in my office....

D

[medea]

hmm well sort of, my last job was technical support for an ISP, it was rather easy and I quickly moved up to (whoppdewoo) Level 2 Tech and soon became employee of the month (on an odd note there were only 2 other employee of the months and I was there for almost a year....) so anyways I was able to work with basically no hassle from any supervisors and such and life was great, only thing is the company works off a point system, for everything you do wrong like miss a day of scheduled work you get a point against you and if you 4-5 points the managers have a talk with you and if you reach 6 you basically will be terminated, well towards the end I was getting letting things get a little out of hand at home staying out way too late and everything that goes along with that and I started to miss some days here and there, I can't blame myself completely for that though because they made it so easy-they have this digital voicemail thing you have to call for problems such as missing a day off and you type in your employee code leave a message and that its, you never have to speak to anyone so needless to say I ended up abusing that.....so anyways to wrap it up I was coming back from Tampa and my car broke down, it was ruined and I had no car, I missed that day of work and I had a hard time getting rides to work for awhile after that and started missing some days but mostly I was just late a lot (being late gives you like half or a quarter or a point...) and even though my floor supervisor and some other sups was aware of my situation my manager and the head manager were away on vacation, the only manager left was this asshole day-shift manager and nobody ever talks to this guy, so anyways I had to miss another day and I called in because Jim my manager was supposed to be back, the phone picked up and it was this other asshole (I think his name was Scott?) and he was like "oh Richard, I've been meaning to talk to you, I wasnt aware you were missing so much work, listen I need to go through this and talk to Brad (head manager) and I'll call you back..."
So I waited around and he finally called back, he was like "man Richard there is no way we can let you come back to work, you have more points then anyone has ever accumulated, but we figure that in about 7-8 months enough points will have gone away and you can return then...blah blah..."
see each month so much of a percentage of your points go away, and at that point I had 15 points against me, for awhile while I was actually working there I was a sort of living legend, every day people would come up and say "man you havn't been fired yet? you are the ****..." etc..
I found another job though and even though I dont make as much money I would never return to that place, I mean no one ever came up to me to talk about the points until the end, anyways sorry that took so long....

[mcrain]

Originally posted by szark
I was fired once, from my first job at a movie theater.

One of the other employees occasionally snuck people through the side door for free. Some of the managers knew this, and it didn't really seem to bother them.

Then one day he started charging people half price to sneak them in. I didn't report him the first day he did this, because the managers never really seemed to care when he did questionable things in the past (he let in about 10 people that day). The next time I worked with him later that week, he was still at it so I reported him. Unfortunately, he had made $100s of dollars in the meantime and involved several other people. The cinema chain held an investigation and fired everyone who had known about the scam.

The manager was sympathetic, though, and helped me get a job at another cinema (managed by a friend of his).

You could have sued under the whisle-blower statute, but then again, a job at a movie theatre probably isn't worth it.

[garzy]

so since im probably going to be looking for a new job soon, does anyone know a website with some tips on writing up a resume?

[crazytom]

I used to work at Six Flags in the Season Pass department. I only worked there a couple of seasons. I quickly made it to 'Crew Lead' and in my second year was in charge of training at least 30 people on how things worked on our 'new system' in our 'new building'.

We had about 10 cash registers that we spaced very close together and sometimes people would have a problem with their register or computer. Most of the time, if they had problems, I could simply tell them what to do. Once I got this stupid girl who had no clue what she was doing, so one really busy day day I just reached around her and typed the proper command into the computer. The next day I was called in to the main office, given a piece of paper and told to defend myself in writing (they didn't tell me for what).

The next day I got fired for 'sexual harassment'.

The next month, I found out that she had my job.

Oh, did I mention that 9 out of the 10 'upper management' positions were filled by women? and all of my immediate supervisors were women?

[wdlove]

Originally posted by vniow
Meh, never been hired, but I'll make sure to get a job like vocegy!http://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=251718

I noticed your new Avatar vinow! Sorry, but even with a magnifier I'm not sure what it represents. Please explain I'm curious! :confused:

[medea]

Originally posted by totalr0xx0r
so since im probably going to be looking for a new job soon, does anyone know a website with some tips on writing up a resume?
www.monster.com

[kiwi_the_iwik]

I've been fired once, and quit once. Although, I've had stacks of jobs, those two seem to stick out the most as the funniest experiences of "impromptu retirement" that I can recall...

The "fired" scenario:

I was working as a freelance camera assistant/operator in Sydney, Australia about 12 years ago - I'd just moved over from New Zealand, and was keen to get stuck in to some serious work. Soon, I had been given the opportunity by my agent - ABC TV had been commissioned to film a documentary portraying the life of Patrick White, a literary legend in Australia. It was to be shot on film - GREAT! I thought...

Unfortunately, they only needed my services as a stagehand - doing basic things like rigging blue matte background curtains, and lifting heavy items. Otherwise, I was to sit down and shut up - according to some silly little bint with a clipboard.

Not one to do nothing, and being as keen as a beaver (as well as being bored STUPID), I decided to assist the gaffer on the shoot (the guy in charge of lighting). I was already learning lots from watching his style of work, and was an avid fan of creative lighting. He was happy to see me pitch in, and saw that I at least could follow his instructions - and even act on my own initiative when it came to placement.

Later that afternoon, the "bint" approached me and fired me on the spot, citing the old demarcation ruse - "...you only should have done the job you're employed for...". I was collecting my things, under her watchful (and EVIL) eye, when the gaffer came up to me and asked me what was up, to which I told him.

"How much were they paying you?"
"$150 per day".
"Right - you're now on $250 a day as my assistant. Consider yourself hired."

"Bint" walked away in disgust - she couldn't argue with one of the most powerful people on the set.

Revenge was sweet...


The "I quit" scenario:

My wife and I had just got married, and made the pilgrimage over to the UK a week after the happy day - to seek our fortune. She got work straight away through a temping agency. I, however, after shaking so many hands, and kissing so many babies - not to mention going through a pair of shoes in the process - found that my "cold-calling" technique to the many production houses and television stations in London was coming to nought. Our happy time was quickly coming to an abrupt end with a resounding "thud". I was ordered to get ANY job going - and if that meant McDonalds, then so be it...

I went rushing to her temping agency for help. They gave me the usual typing and spelling tests associated with general office work - 60WPM, nice spelling, pleasant phone manner... I thought it'd be a cinch. Unfortunately, the only job I could get was to work in a theme park operating some bizarre ride that spins people upside-down (all done with NO training, at that...) - for a paultry £3.50 per HOUR.... Ugh!

I accepted, thinking it couldn't get any worse. I was wrong.

It was then that I saw the uniform I had to wear... (Hmmm - nice hat...)

I'd made it to the lunch break - with my integrity bordering on total collapse. Standing on the balcony overlooking that pathetic waste of decent useable space had me transfixed, until I realised my mobile phone was ringing. It was the operations manager of ITN News - he wanted me to start for 2 months on a regular shift pattern, starting tomorrow. "Was that all right?" he asked. "Of course, I'd love..." I was cut off mid-sentence by a snivelling little turd, 5 years my junior, straight out of business school, wearing a suit.

"Hey, YOU! WHAT do you think you're DOING?!? How DARE you bring a phone onto this park! What if a PATRON saw you using that?"

I spoke softly into the phone - "Sorry, John. Could you hold on a minute, please?" I put him on hold - he didn't really have to hear what I had to say to this burke.

"You can take your stupid ********** hat, and your stupid ********** job, and shove it up your stupid ********** a*se. And if you EVER attempt to talk to me like that again, your mother will have to feed you corn pureed through a straw for the rest of your pathetic little f***ked-up life."

"...John, are you there? Great. See you tomorrow morning."

My pay instantly went from £3.50 per hour, to £20 per hour - and I've never been out of work since.

Not bad...

:)

[szark]

Originally posted by mcrain
You could have sued under the whisle-blower statute, but then again, a job at a movie theatre probably isn't worth it.

Well, I essentially was fired for not reporting him the first time. I witnessed a violation of company policy, and didn't report it. That action itself (not reporting it) was a violation of company policy.

It worked out well, though. The new cinema promoted me up through Assistant Manager. I eventually worked at two other theatres in the chain, and learned how to run the projection booth at the last location. (That's what I really wanted to do, anyway. :D )

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by totalr0xx0r
so since im probably going to be looking for a new job soon, does anyone know a website with some tips on writing up a resume?

i know paulwhannel does resumes...i used to be a govt hr officer and also helped the edd with looking over resumes

hard copy resumes should be one page, and as i understand it, on electronic resumes, you can fudge and make it over one page these days

i have looked at e-resumes that seemed concise and brief and ones i thought to be one page, but some were undoubtedly more than one page and that was no offense to me

mostly, don't make it too long and redundant...hr officers have their eyes fall out after tons of resumes and an angry hr officer has little attention span and patience and there is always the circular file for those resumes

if it takes you five hours to write a resume, fine...but realize the hr officer will give it no more than 15 seconds to read it and towards the end of the day, less than that

so keep the format simple...name/address/phone, objective, skills and/or work history, and education

i am now a tech so i like jargon, but before i was a tech, those jargon heavy resumes certainly made it to the trash before they made it to the tech manager

some resumes are scanned with electronic gear and staples break that gear when they get gummed up in them, and then they have to call techies like me at 75 an hour to fix that sh**...so another reason to keep it to one page

i got my BA in hr and all the things i learned about resumes are certainly not followed by non hr trained people and it's a mess out there...hopefully one day there will be a standard hr program, like ms word is in business making .doc a standard extension, and resumes can be all done in e-mail format to put in extra information if needed for really specific jobs that require it

pm me and i can give you suggestions on your resume

[uhlawboi80]

never been fired...quit several times at jobs that pissed me off.

oh, looks like vinow's new avatar is jelloshotsrule's avatar with the wet spot on the pants replaced by an upturned female smiley face with blush circles on its cheeks....not sure whats up with it though

[noel4r]

yeah once, for using the vice president's phone to make personal calls after hours. i wasn't sad though, it was a horrible job, and it allowed me the opportunity to seek and find a better job.... so screw them, hehehe

[MacFan25]

Originally posted by maradong
:) no student life is wonderful :p
exactly! i have never been fired from a job. but i am only 15.

[wdlove]

Originally posted by uhlawboi80
never been fired...quit several times at jobs that pissed me off.

oh, looks like vinow's new avatar is jelloshotsrule's avatar with the wet spot on the pants replaced by an upturned female smiley face with blush circles on its cheeks....not sure whats up with it though

It looks like the lady is holding a rose! :cool: