I lied on a job application.
I claimed to made entirely of potatoes.

So they sacked me.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 15:15, Reply)

*que smugness*
It seems the last few QOTW have been to bolster me up. I've never been fired.

The last company I worked for went tits up in November though. Thats almost the same. Except a little more suprising.
(mehmeh 0% witty, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 15:15, Reply)

My one sacking
Only been sacked once.. Been made redundant lots of times..

Anyway, back to my sacking...Never found out why I was sacked (I suspect it was because the Boss' wife did not like me), just got a phone call one morning telling me not to bother going to work.

Bitter? Yes, for a bit. Then I realised I had been doing a crap job for a crap company, so really couldn't give a fuck.
(Ok, I'll get me coat, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 15:12, Reply)

I'll give them something to drink before the war...
My first job out of Polytechnic was working for a consultancy in my home town. The MD was a prat who looked a lot like John Cleese, and had his head up his arse. He took it upon himself to patronise me pretty much from the word go. He gave me all the shittest, most boring crap to do, and complained to me (albeit passively) when I didn't get it done or simply didnt get it.
Example.. The company produced a magazine on a bimonthly basis with bugs and features of their software listed and submitted by users. He asked me to go through these (there were a couple of thousand, mind) and reproduce them.
There was no point to this, he just wanted me to reproduce them.
I would ask why I couldn't work on the new windows software (which was easier and far more interesting) but he ignored me and instead chose to patronise me further with a weekly 'lesson' in computing. (Most of which I hasten to add, I can say was bullshit and only half correct at best).
After I'd been there only 4 miserable months, he sacked me. I had just completed on a new flat, and was mortified.
He complained about the state of my trousers, the fact that I wore an earring (so did someone else in the company, but that was largely irrelevant to him), and about my timekeeping.
I was physically choked up when I left, not because I was leaving, I couldn't stand the company or the job, but because of the financial shit I was now in.
13 years have passed since then... Was I caught bang-to-rights? In a way. I was a lazy little sod back then, and I merely wanted money to indulge my active social life outside of work.
In a way not, because the job was presented to me in such a boring way that I couldn't help but hate it.
When I take on junior staff, I give them plenty to occupy them, I don't patronise them, I appraise them regularly as to how they're doing and I never deal out suprises.
But then I learned how not to do it from a bunch of jerks in 1993
(LunarJim, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 15:07, Reply)

A good friend of mine
recently found out that she has Hodgkins Lymphoma (that's 2 friends I have with it, now). She called her boss to tell him she'd be off the next couple of days, as she'd just found out she had cancer....her boss fired her.

Now this is highly illegal, which neither her boss nor my friend realised, so I popped into her work place to have a word in the boss's ear.
She's now on full disability (State disability and boss is making up the rest of her checks) until chemo is over with, and when she goes back she'll be getting a payrise.
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 15:06, Reply)

Special delivery
I once worked in a silkscreen printers. Jack, the owner, came to the factory every day and sat in an office high above the factory floor at the top of a long flight of metal stairs. His beach-ball shaped body was framed by his stumpy little arms and legs and sweaty, round head. He was one of those permanently agitated people with a bright red face who look like they're about to explode. He was incredibly rude and arrogant, and clearly considered himself to be some kind of high-powered industrialist, rather than the owner of a grotty little printers in Walthamstow. He had a way of talking down to people that grated on me from the very first time I met him, and his low opinion of me was obvious from every comment he directed at me.

I'd only been there a week or so when I was called up to his office. I hated going up those stairs - those kinds of elevated factory offices are specifically designed to communicate the message, "I'm so much higher than you that you have to climb 200 stairs just to talk to me". I should really have been grateful though. It turned out that Jack had a Special Job for me to do. He needed a package dropped off at the Post Office. He held up the package, to help me understand. "Do ... you ... know ... where ... the ... Post ... Office ... is?" he asked, slowing down his speech and carefully pronouncing every word. Yes, I knew where the Post Office was. He told me anyway, in the same careful manner. He told me how to go to the window, how to weight the package, how to buy stamps. Between every instruction, he stressed again and again just how important this package was, how urgent its delivery was. "THIS ... MUST ... BE ... DELIVERED ... TODAY".

Jack saved the most important instruction for last. "You ... MUST ... give ... the ... package ... to ... the ... cashier". And don't try to put the package in the post box. And don't leave the package by the cashier's window. And DON'T PUT THE PACKAGE OUTSIDE. He repeated these very difficult instructions. He made me repeat them after him.

The factory foreman was up there the whole time and saw all of this. He was actually a nice guy, but not the most cheerful person in the world. He seldom smiled and he looked permanently worn out. He had a resigned look about him - I suppose he'd been listening to this kind of shit for years. Part of my difficult task was to report back to Jack when I'd returned from the Post Office, and the foreman was still up there in Jack's office at the top of those fucking stairs when I got back.

"Did ... you ... do ... as .... I ... told ... you?", Jack wanted to know. Yes, don't worry, I did it all exactly as told. I took the package to the cashier, I weighed it, I bought the stamps, I remembered to get a receipt, and then I put the package outside the Post Office, on top of the post box, just like I'd been told.

Jack turned crimson and literally began to shake. "YOU DID WHAT??!!". Don't worry, I said, I left it outside, on top of the post box, like you said. Jack had this white foam at the corners of his mouth at this stage. His beach-ball body was bobbing up and down and he was waving his stumpy arms, opening and closing his mouth. He was actually speechless with rage. "Naaah, s'all right," I said, "I'm only joking. I mean, I know how to send a package. I'm not a fucking idiot."

The most gratifying part of this was that the foreman, who had been standing next to me, emitted this little choking sound, and was then very obviously clenching his jaw, desperate not to laugh. He excused himself while Jack tore into me ("I DO THE FUCKING JOKES AROUND HERE!!") and when I returned downstairs there he was, and he gave me this beautiful smile, and he'd clearly spread the word, because so did everyone else in that miserable dump.

I lasted until the end of the day. It was so worth it.
( mofaha ┐( ˘_˘)┌ ʅ(́◡◝)ʃ, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 15:05, Reply)

I was sacked from a pub...
because the bitch of an assistant manager (whilst the landlord was away) deceided she didn't trust me (for what reason I do not know) and she thought I was taking drugs on duty (with absolutely no proof, and was untrue).

Now I earn £600 a day.

Fuck her.

May she rot in hell, along with her £5.25 an hour.
( Madam Marlboro wonders if you've found her yet, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 14:54, Reply)

First time
I was about 16 and had a part time job at a supermarket stacking shelves, cleaning and other menial shit.
When my 2 week probation was up I was informed that I "didnt have a future in supermarket retail".
Gutted. No, really.

Second time, working for a village off-licence.
Apparently there were hundreds of pounds missing from the till every week and we were underperforming. I knew all the people working there and none of them were stealing cash (although we would have a bag of crisps or chocolate bar every now and again with out break). We were underperforming as it was an expensive offy in a small villge.
Anyway the brass decided to fit hidden cameras in the stock room.
I was sacked after a disciplinery for taking a bag of crisps. Yep, a bag of crisps.
Some of the others were sacked for snorting speed off the managers desk but that is another story.

Funny, but they weren't so concerned about us when a guy comes in with an iron bar threatening myself and the pregnant girl I was on shift with because we wouldnt serve his obviously underage girlfriend.


Oh, I was also made redundant a week after the (small)company's bosses called us into a meeting and told us that there was £16 mill in the bank and that everything is doing fine and one week before I was due to sign on my first mortgage contract.
(Baj does Minecraft - http://www.youtube.com/w92baj, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 14:46, Reply)

Too much initiative/creativity?
My first job in IT was for a network hardware company in Slough, designing their website. The boss wanted three versions of every page for some stupid reason, and I suggested that this wasn't necessary and that what he wanted could be acheived far more elegantly in another way. But he wanted it done his way, so I figured fair enough, and went ahead doing what he wanted.

The next day he fired me because he apparently didn't trust me not to have ideas of my own and implement them without his knowledge. Cunt.
( wangmaster2000, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 14:45, Reply)

Bah Humbug!
My father was made redundant on Christmas Eve 1992 because the firm went bust (I was 15).

Cratchett: "What of Tiny Tim?”

Scrooge: "Bah. He and his ukulele shall go wanting."

A few years later my dad met up with the head partner and told him how I always cursed his name for making him redundant on Christmas Eve, to which he smugly replied, "Wasn't the first time".

John, if you are reading this (which you are blatantly not), I am glad every business venture you have been involved with has gone bust & that your wife left you & your children wont speak to you. I now run a successful practice with my father, so if you are in need of work feel free to go rot in the gutter, you fat useless cunt.


In answer to the actual question: Yes I have been sacked, when I was 17 I did one shift as a waiter at a posh teacher training college and was never asked back. They did give me a slice of Chocolate gateaux and I still have the dish it was on (11 years later).
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 14:44, Reply)

Northern monkeys!
i was working on a building site a while ago, a rhumour started to spread that some people were going to be layed off, due to lack of funding.
a meeting was called to dismiss this as just a rhumour... a week later 4 of us got layed off!

so, me being me, decided to spray paint '2 faced northern monkeys' in rather large letters inside a room, behind a large stack of materials... so yeah, rather bitter!
(viva_le_boosh, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 14:42, Reply)

The day after my company christmas party in some fancy pants Cambridge restaurant...
I woke up and wondered into work my brain still spinning from the effort of drinking company sponsored booze. 3 g+t's, 2 litres of leffe, a bottle of red, and then i don't remember much more.
I wondered in, was asked upstairs, given my P45 and escorted out. I still have absolutely no idea why I was fired. Most irritating...
( djdirect, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 14:40, Reply)

It was actually the Monday just gone
Very dodgy circumstances.

I was sat at my desk on monday morning when my new boss decided he wanted at chat with me at 11.30, given it was 11 and he had been my boss for 4 weeks and still hadn't properly introduced himself as he had been "ill" for three weeks, In total we had been in the office together three and a half days. I presumed it was just a hello type thing. No. He took me to the canteen and told me as of 5pm that day I was no longer in my department. The reasons he gave were 1) we have a timer tool thing that is basically in place so that managers can sit on their fat arses in another room and be able to tell if their team is working without having to disrupt their very important wanking session. I think it's a whole pile of shit and quite frankly I did far too much work to bother stoping and starting it every two seconds as in all honesty the only times I got a good result was when I was doing no work and just fixing the results to make me look good. Needless to say my current manager, having seen me for all of 3 and a half days decided I didn't do enough work, strike one.

Strike two was I had an orange hooded top with tigger on it. there is nothing in the dress code to say I can't wear it, if I was female I would be able to wear it but for some reason my manager told me not to wear it. I ususally took it off after a bit but sometimes I'd forget. He told me half an hour to take it off was unacceptable.

The third thing he got me for was sending a long email to one of my friends about my weekend. A lot of things happened over the weekend and I thought as not to disrupt both our work I would send him an email as I had an unusually quiet morning and any work I did have to do I did whilst writing the email.


Those were the the reasons he gave, but I think there may be more to it. I was leaving the company in three weeks anyway, and he knew that. Unfortuantely he is a spineless piece of shit with a monotone voice. He is one of these people who can't get authority naturally, which is not a good thing for a manager. The only way he can get authority is by sacking people and hoping that everyone else falls in line. I've seen him do this before but I thought he had got over that stage in his life. But no, he goes and does it again. Unfortuanately I was only a temp so I don't really have any rights.

By the way, in case you were wondering his name was **, he worked for Bradford and Bingley in customer relations. His email address is *removed by mod* Just in case you wish to tell him how much of a spineless piece of shit he is. Oh, and if you ever work with him, don't trust his ass kissing lips.

I'm still bitter.
( bobzarkoff, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 14:26, Reply)

Oh so nearly...
Working at a pub in Grantchester, Cambridge (named after a famous WW1 poet), the Chef had spontaneous nosebleeds all over the floor, which I was expected to mop up (ooh, this could go towards last weeks QOTW too), and then they said that because the kitchen was in such a filthy state (nowt to do with me), I would come in over the weekend to springclean it. But they couldn't afford to pay me. The payment was, in fact, keeping my job. I told them to go fuck themselves. They grew purple with rage, and opened their mouths to fire me, but I nipped in and said "oh, and I quit". Thank God, they were a load of freaks anyway.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 14:24, Reply)

I was working at a well-known dept store
and me & mates used to go in the customer cafe for breakfast.

As the guys working in there knew us, they'd give us the odd extra rasher or slice of toast.

Security got wind of it and launched a full-scale investigation - hidden cameras, the lot.

And so they sacked me.

For nickin toast.

Imagine what they'd have done if they knew about the THOUSANDS I'd had away in cash & stock?

They shoot horses don't they?

Stay warm.
( Geoff the Clownfish You know Myra, some people might think you're cute, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 14:22, Reply)

Bloody drunkards
I used to work in a classy establishment known as Bargain Booze and wasn't sacked as such. I found out I'd lost my job after my boss had literally drunken the profits away. By this I mean he had let the stock run low then drunk his way through the remaining alcohol. He even took cases of beer and packs of cigarettes and sold them on the street. I got a voicemail one day telling me i wouldn't be needed for my shift and they'd let me know when I was next needed. Did they call back? did they buggery. Next time I saw my alcoholic boss it was him driving a taxi (!) through town centre.
Moral of the story...Never trust a man who refers to himself as "whizzyman". He's bound to be mad as a box of frogs.
(Lucy Van Pelt embracing ginlovers, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 14:18, Reply)

Sacked for being too productive...
I once worked for Argos as a temp, my job was to key in data from e-mails into spreadsheets, I was fairly computer literate at the time so on my first day I wrote a script to automate the whole process.

I was pretty proud of my one click system so after a week or two I showed my boss why my productivity was so good, 2 days later I was told I was not to come in anymore.

Shit
(Minty Hit, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 14:17, Reply)

I needed floppy disks.
I got the sack from my first job. I worked as a stores assistant for a firm that made sonar equpment or something. After working there for about 2 weeks i started stealing computer stuff such as floppy disks (no cd's then) and spare hard drives for which i had no use whatsover, i still dont know why i stole them. Anyway they found out and said bring the stuff back or we call the rozzers. I had to go home get all the gear and walk through the factory floor listening to the sniggers from the workforce.

The worst thing was going home and telling my Mum and Dad i got a right slap for that.
(Uk-Mule, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 14:17, Reply)

got walked offsite
did some work for a financial organisation through 3rd party, wrote an app for them.

a bit later on i went to work for them directly as a contractor, thinking that i would be maintaining my code. nope. some 18 year old asslicker who had like 3 months experience in C++ was fucking up my code. I on the other hand had no PC.

this code ran their telephone support operations and included stuff for generating inter bank transfers so you'd think they would care.

what the asslicker used to do was change the code and introduce a subtle bug that he would miss as he didnt test it properly. the code would go into production, then the next day somebody would notice the problem. he would work 'all day' on the problem and into the evening, making sure he checked out on flexi time at like 8.30pm after everbdoy else had gone. even though he'd fix the bug usually in 30 mins and you could see that from the sourcesafe logs.

but the next day hed come in and tell his boss he was here till late, and in this company it was a kind of dilbert-esque hell hole where you'd get awards for doing good work (and all these awards built up into stuff like having a parking space in the directors block for a month). so we as a team had to watch this presentation of a gold key to an arse who was rewarded for lying about the time he took to fix the code he broke anyway. over and over again.

this went on and on. finally after 6 WEEKS of not having a pc and watching this I went to the director of the customer service bit and told him the whole story about how he was being fucked over by the IT department.

next day I came in and found - wow - my PC! then when my team leader came in I was walked offsite. The irony is not lost on me...
(Lord Of The Dunce, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 14:14, Reply)

Civil Service
In 2003, I landed a job at a certain department of the Civil Service based in an East Midlands city. It was a pretty crappy job, but after a few months on the dole and having lost the house, I needed to be able to support wife & child, so I bit this particular bullet.

It took four interviews to get the job. Four! For a £26K post! FFS! That included a trip to said city, reasonably enough, and a trip to Birmingham for no fathomably good reason; all 4 of these were from NE London. Two were in NW London too. Make of that what you will.

So I get this job, and get landed with a team of three called the Dream Team, because that's what they weren't.

Team Member #1 was the best of the lot - old guy, one grade below me, doing his time until he retired. Good honest chap, bit jobsworthy sometimes, but generally a Good Bloke. Nothing bad to say there.

Team member #2 was a woman in her late thirties , a cancer survivor - but from the way she told it, she may as well have been a victim. (Before we go further, my mum died of cancer so off your high horses.) Fat arse, hunch back, pin head, shit haircut and the personality of Goebbels. Nasty spiteful piece of shit. Again one grade below me but thought she was better. Evidently not or you'd have got my job!

Team member #3 was late twenties short dumpy woman, wannabe Yuppie scum though. Bought a brand new MG-TF, then decided it was too low to the ground to drive. After hubby has done what 15K and up? on it. Wanted a Burberry bag to carry when she went out in her jeans under the impression that it was a 'good look'. Quite. Obsessive compulsive too, so at least the stationary cupboard was tidy.

So anyway, I get assigned these three and a task to oversee a piece of work which wasn't furiously difficult, end result being I spent a lot of time on the Net.

Boss realises he's recruited poorly and vastly overestimated the task, and tries to stitch me up to cover his fuckup. Starts by giving me a warning for reading Viz at my desk as I ate my lunch (true!!), then it's disciplinary meetings but with no 3rd party observers, and he writes up the minutes which don't accurately reflect the meeting, as you'd expect. I think I'm getting stitched here and get the Union involved, who weigh in heavy (thanks Paul Matt et al).

Cut a long story short, he calls me into his office at 17:15, to tell me I'm going home suspended on full pay. The Union shuts up shop at 17:00, this is no coincidence. The crime is 'misuse of the Internet' which means ebay, Hotmail, and Yahoogroups - a crime more than 50% of the workforce is guilty of at this establishment.

That was the Tuesday.

Wednesday, found a job on Jobserve, called up, they're v enthusiastic as it was a firm I'd worked for before. Can i attend interview in Watford on Thursday? Damn straight I can, no job to go to after all.

Thursday interview, goes swimmingly, can I be on site Friday 10am?

Yeah alright then, I can do that. Where? Swindon? Go on then.

Sunday, I write my resignation letter to the aforementioned Civil Shithole and start a contract with a 50% pay rise. The one after that doubled again, and I've since settled back into permanent roles with an increase in salary of 128% over November 2003, much better people to work with, and no arsehole boss.

So in closing - Dave, from Sunderland, at a Civil Service place in the East Midlands, who lives in Crewe - you're a fucking arsehole, mate. :)

Apols for length but damn I feel better.
(InfiniteZenMaster, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 14:14, Reply)

P45 from Poundstretcher
Employed by said scummy retailer to restock shelves with worthless discount tat during run up to Christmas. I worked one shift in an airless, windowless stockroom with a Christmas CD on repeat, until my brain was thoroughly scrambled: I decided on the way out that my sanity was worth more than £2.16 an hour, and failed to report for my Monday shift. Two days later, a P45 plonked on to the doormat. Two weeks after the sordid session, I saw the wrinkled hag manager hobbling around with one leg in plaster, and smiled brightly.
( uncle bastard is twanging a dan moi, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 14:13, Reply)

In my defence she didnt say what I had to do to it.
I used to work at what was then Safeway.
I had quite long hair, when down it covered most of my face (and it was an undercut or pissbowl style).
I was asked to tie my hair up, so the next day I came in with pig tails. Warning number one.
A few weeks later getting bored with ponytails I had a "fountain" (like a ponytail but smack bang on top of my head) Warning number two.
In my second warning meeting my supervisor pleaded with me to just do something with my hair please.

So I dyed it pillar box red and got the sack.
(Barry Chuckle has gone out in the thong to feed the pigeons, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 13:57, Reply)

No.
So ha.
( Laughing Boy, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 13:53, Reply)

Now......I didn't exactly lie of sorts.....
On application to the job in mind, the question that led to my ultimate 'sacking' was answered truthfully. It's just a shame that in the period between then and starting the job, the answer had changed somewhat. It's all quite funny looking back really. I was taken into a side room, shown the evidence and passed all my belongings. Informing me that I will be paid for the entire month anyway. Thinking about it, it was a payoff really as I very much doubt what they did was lawful.

That's the only time that I have been sacked. I've walked out a zillion times and reached a mutual arrangement to leave.....but that was the only sacking.

I suppose I am a little bitter about it but then it also taught me valuable lessons.

And no, I'm not telling what got me into that situation in the first place.
(Oops....did I say that out loud cos I really bloody want to., Thu 23 Feb 2006, 13:52, Reply)

We sacked the drummer from my band
Because the singer found words such as "preteen" in his google search bar



Dirty nonce
( Styxx hates when people talk in the third person, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 13:49, Reply)

Sacked
I got a job at our local Petrol station a few years ago, there were two, one on each side of the road (a dual carriageway). The other was larger, busier, and known by staff as the "prison camp" compared to our "holiday camp" on the opposite side.

I worked the night shift, and after a week's training with one of the other guys, I was on my own. "Keep the doors locked," said the manager, "you don't want to get robbed." Yeah right. The only customers were lorry drivers buying coffee, fags, and porn, and a few stoners after a pie and a peperami at 3am.

Now the lorry drivers want a sit down somewhere other than the cab and since they all spent about £200 a night on diesel I thought it only fair they should come inside for their coffee, besides I didn't fancy making it for them and trying to get it through the little hatch without spilling it.

My plan - next time the local plod came in I told them to pass the message round: free tea and coffee to all police officers, all night, every night. It worked! At least once every hour a cop car pulled in and they would sit inside enjoying their free coffee. I even turned a blind eye to their habit of helping themselves to the sandwiches, in exchange for inside information about how to help myself to food, fags, petrol and cash without getting caught by the CCTV.

I was later sacked for "failure to protect company funds" - in other words not locking the door at night against potential thieves despite the fact that the windows were NOT bullet proof, there was only ever £50 in the till, and the most obvious act that I had my own private Police Force making regular patrols.

What made it worse was that a few months later the manager got the sack for robbing the place blind, basically doing no shopping except the free stuff she took home from the forecourt shop, never paying for petrol, and of course her "bonus" wad every saturday night.

My only regret is not getting more when I had the chance.
( Amos E Wolfe makes vinyl signs and things like that, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 13:41, Reply)

I once had a crap summer job working for British Gas...
Their flashy computer system crashed and none of us could do any work... I got bored... so I idly doodled the word 'Virus' across the screen in MS Paint.

I was fired for writing viruses.

I didn't even bother trying to argue with them... the job was just that shite.
( Beastie is doing science with his arse, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 13:41, Reply)

I started my own company.
And the boss found out before it was running properly.

Ah well, jokes on him. My company is doing fine, thankyerverymuch. Whereas his has disappeared off the face of the Earth.

Edit: Thirded, but the first real post, so nyah.
( Biggus Dickus , it was like that when I found it, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 13:31, Reply)

Redundancies.....I've had a few....
But getting actually sacked no.

Although I did work in a team once where one of the chaps was sacked for downloading gay anal rape porn. Can't think why.
(Swirly, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 13:30, Reply)

First post!
And I've just been sacked for accessing B3ta on company time. Shit.
(testmeuk, Thu 23 Feb 2006, 13:28, Reply)