Worked security at a factory that made kitchen appliances. It wasn't his first day, but it was his first shift by himself.

There's a gate at the front that you lock when you go on rounds.

Dude chooses to go on a round 5 minutes before shift change for the factory workers. He gets a call on company cell that folks are at the gate. Instead of coming back, he tells them to wait 20 minutes so he can finish his round.

20 minutes where they won't be getting paid.

Second in command big boss of the factory is out there checking IDs and directing traffic when dude gets back from his round. Now this dude is nice. Genuinely one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. Old union rep, shirt off his back type. Tells guard not to worry about it, all's good. Just time his rounds better next time.

Guard starts screaming at him about how he had no right to undo the lock, to get out of here, he'll handle them, and if he wants to make them wait that's his right. Boss man tells him to chill out, he won't get in trouble, just go do his log and then he can take over checking IDs.

Guard pulls out, in one hand, a mag light flashlight he was told not to have, and in the other chemical spray that's illegal for a guard to carry without certs (which he didn't have), and this is an unarmed site. Threatens to ""arrest"" him. When boss pulls out his cell to call the guard company, the guard sprayed him and knocked his cell onto the ground, and kicked it across the parking lot, breaking it.

Needless to say, he was fired. Boss didn't press assault charges, but we nearly lost the contract.

Was hired at a company as a designer. Went to the production meeting and sat down beside another designer (introduced myself and we started chatting). In comes everyone else and sits down. We all start chatting and do introductions.

Five minutes into the meeting the company owner comes in, chatting with a salesman. He glances around the room, then his face freezes on me - he then looks at the guy beside me and keeps looking back and forth. He finally motions for me to come outside the conference room. I walk out and he asks me what I was doing there. I tell him ‘remember, you hired me and my start day was today??’

He turned pale and just said ‘oh yeah I forgot’. He let me go back in the room but then I heard him call the guy beside me out.

The guy never came back. Apparently he had intended on firing him and forgot.

Needless to say I didn’t stay long before I found another job. The place was complete chaos.

I hired a woman once to work in the retail store I was managing at the time. After lunch, I noticed one of my long time employees crying in the break room. She had lost her wallet and whoever took it had wiped out her bank account at the Walmart next door. I called the manager over there and he pulled up the video and low and behold it was the new lady over there buying up gift cards. We called the police and after verifying what happened, they asked me if I wanted them to handle it quietly or to make a scene. I chose make a scene and they went into the backroom handcuffed her, told her why she was being arrested in front of everyone and marched her out. Needless to say HR agreed it should be an immediate termination.

One time someone showed up to work that was clearly different than the person from the interview. They never even got their badge.

My wife had a guy start at her company the same day she did, but he got fired that same day because for reasons no one understands he decided it would be wise to make his Teams (or whatever they used. Slack? I can't remember) profile picture a meme that said "Epstein didn't kill himself" or something to that effect.

It was a six figure software engineering job, too. I cannot imagine losing a job like that for such a silly, self-inflicted reason.

I was a contacted technician at a retail store. They hired a new salesperson, immediately gave me weird vibes. On his lunch break, he came over to show me what I thought was going to be a meme on his phone - it was porn.

He was asked not to return for a second shift.

Starting this off myself, there was one fella at my current job who bought vodka at a liquor store during his lunch break, poured heaps of it into his soda from a fast food joint, and wound up getting fired when they noticed him getting drunk as hell.

That was before I started working here, but coincidentally I met him at my other job!

No one got fired but my favorite story similar to this is from back when I worked in fast food (McDonald’s).

We had someone on their first day scoff when asked to roll breakfast burritos.

Toward the end of their shift she was asked to wash dishes and at that point she took off her apron, threw it on the floor and walked out saying things like “I can’t believe they have me doing stuff like this.”

Really? You can’t imagine preparing food and washing dishes in a fast food restaurant?

One guy during the probation period called IT saying his laptop was broke, they told him to bring it into the office. It turned out he was on another continent and didn't bother to tell anyone. As expected he lost his job.

It was one of the phlebotomists (person who draws blood) at the hospital I worked at.

It was her first day going off on her own. She accidentally went to the wrong floor/area that morning. She drew many patients' blood that morning for the morning blood draws. The entire time she was there, she did not double check even a single patient's name at any point. They were all wrong. All were mislabeled. All patients had to be re-drawn and she was fired for gross negligence.

Things happen and I've seen things get mislabeled many tines before. It's not good obviously. But if you do it once and no one ended up getting hurt, you just get reprimanded and move on. You generally don't get fired for a one off. But never before or after have I seen that level of mislabeling.

An old restaurant I worked at hired a new chef. He came in, completely rearranged the kitchen, changed the menu top to bottom ON HIS FIRST DAY, and introduced a bunch of complicated specials. Dinner service hits, chaos ensues and dude disappears.

I was on expo watching everything fall apart when one of the line cooks is like, "get chef,I don't know how to make this special because there's no recipe or notes"

I go into the walk in and he's haunched over in there and violently turns, around inhaling, all bug eyed. I told him we needed help. He doesn't hide his annoyance goes on the line, makes the one dish in question and is like, "see, that wasn't difficult" and disappeared again.

The line cook asked why I had the look on my face that I did and I said it was because chef was doing rails in the walk in. We both laughed, shook our heads and got through service eventually. Drugs are pretty common in the service industry but even that seemed extreme.

Anyhow we didn't see him for the rest of the night. Next day, I get to work and the owner is there and he pulls me aside and told me what happened after. Owner didn't even know he'd been snorting shit during the dinner rush

Chef continued his one man party and went into the booze closet and proceeded to help himself. When the prep cook showed up the next morning the kitchen door was wide open so she called the police thinking the place had been robbed. The police went in and found Chef semi conscious and incoherent, giggling in the office. He was fired and since he was a keyholder all the locks and alarm codes had to be changed

I've never seen someone self destruct that spectacularly.

To have been a fly on the wall when they called the other guy chef beat out for the gig and told him he could start immediately...

A couple times now at my current job they've hired someone, only to have them just not show up on their agreed first day with no communication. I'm guessing they just got a different job they like more or something, but still, I'd imagine one usually at least tells people not to expect you, under that circumstance?

I have a couple from the a warehouse job I worked at when I was 16. That place was wild lmao

• Fired from unplugging security cameras to charge his phone
• 30yo man harassing a 17yo girl
• That man's wife fighting the 17yo girl for "flirting" with her husband even though she wasn't
• Got on top of some shelves and took a nap. These shelves are really tall and you need a lift to get on top of them

These weren't on their first day, but I thought they are worth mentioning

• Racing during lunch in the parking lot
• 10+ person brawl in the parking lot over a guy stealing another guy's girlfriend
• A guy left his keys in his car so another guy just broke the window. He said he thought it was funny and that he got the bit from a movie, tv, or comedian or something
• A couple people got caught taking lunch on top of the shelves in a corner because the lunchroom was too loud. They also had a bed up there made up bubble wrap and yoga mats
• Going full speed into a door with a forklift while the forks were fully lifted
• Doing BMX tricks off the truck dock. I think people were riding skateboards off it too but I can't remember 100%

That's all the entertaining ones I can think of right now lol

Was a contractor for Walmart.

Got hired on as a lead dev, getting compensated 150k/yr.

2nd day, they told me I needed to switch contracts in order to stay on. New contract paid 50k salary.. with lots of required OT.

But, it's OK they said, you get benefits and PTO.

Fuck that.

Back in 2007 I worked in an office that required basic MS Excel / Word competency. The office manager led her to her desk and instructed her to turn on her computer (nothing fancy, a basic workstation with a large round button).

She couldn't figure out how to turn it on. The office manager sent her home and she never came back.

Not on the first day but after a few weeks. He missed work every Wednesday, always claiming to have eaten something bad the evening before (it was always the same food). He wasn't all that bright.

I worked at a pet shop for two glorious days not knowing that I was the backup in case the boss' nephew was accepted into his preferred college program. He was not accepted so I got the boot to make room for him on the team.

The manager doubled my first/ only paycheque because she felt bad. I'm still bitter 17 years later

I don’t know if this is what you’re looking for, but at my last company, they were so intense on the “we are family” indoctrination for new-hires that I saw many leave for lunch on their onboarding day and then just never return. Including mid-level managers.

When I was in highschool me and a couple of my friends got hired as waiters. We were required to attend these training sessions before we could start. It was your typical fake upbeat corp BS and we were a bunch of edgy teens, so you can imagine how it went. About halfway through the first session they tell my buddy he can change his attitude or leave, so he left.

I worked at a tiny hospital in a rural area as the sole IT admin. They hired a new Director of Nursing, a very long process because we were so rural it was very difficult to convince people to move out there to work. They had helped her find and buy a house, helped her husband get a job in the area, enrolled their kids in the local school system. They had me buy a new computer specifically for her and asked me to come in early and be available to help with any computer problems on her first day.

She didn't show up at all that day. People were pretty panicked about it. Next day she did show up, although about an hour late (not that anyone complained about it) and they rolled out the red carpet and everything. I spent most of the morning helping her get access to things and then she was off to more important things.

Next day she didn't show up at all again.

That one orientation meeting was the only time I ever saw her, a few days later they asked me to terminate her accounts, preserve emails and pull security camera footage. I still don't know what was going on. Drugs? If she had another job opportunity it seems pretty crazy to buy a house and move your whole family. She almost certainly would have been the highest paid employee, probably within the top 5 for the whole town.

But yeah, I guess if you don't show up and don't have a good excuse things end pretty quickly.

I used to be a kitchen trainer at McDs in high school, one of my trainees got fired on her first day without me because she couldn't remember what the different types of meat were. This was not only after spending my last 4 hours with her running through it repeatedly, but even directly after someone told her what they were she wouldn't be able to point any of them out. I felt kinda bad because she was otherwise really nice, but it really was impossible to get her to retain any information.

These are great stories, but my only experience has been people mysteriously not showing up for day 2 or 3...

It was 30 minutes into day 2.

I was accused of cheating on their personality quiz (honestly why?) and then was told I wasn’t to have labeled the boxes I was expressly told to label the day before…

She then had me tear out the 2 pages of notes in front of the office before she marched me out.

This was for an accounting position at a small HOA. So I feel like that was enough of an explanation. Everyone else was terrified of that woman.

Not exactly on topic but in the spirit of this post have a funny story. Hired a young lady recently entering the work force. She had been working about a week when we did our payroll run. This entailed printing out all the checks with pay details etc. Is done in an administrative office that is obviously kind of private. Not some place you would wake in without permission. Anyhow we started the payroll print and my manager stepped out briefly to get a coffee. When she came back this new employee was flipping thru everyone's pay check. Of course my manager immediately asks what she is doing to which she responds 'oh I'm just wondering what everyone is being paid'.

She honestly thought it was just fine to not only start flipping thru paperwork in the managers office but to also look over employee payroll checks. She simply had no idea and just stated what she was doing like it was just fine. Actually that was her saving grace. While we made it quite clear how inappropriate it was, being it was her first job, we chalked that down to immaturity and didn't let her go on the spot. Had she been older that likely would have been her last day.

Mind you she only last a week longer for a myriad of other reasons. Little common sense.

First morning at the job he comes in wanting to impress, so he copies some company data to his personal laptop to do extra work at home. He got fired at noon. The official reason was that he had copied that stuff without authorization, but a more likely reason was that someone had accidentally written an extra zero on the offer they made him, because it was several times above average in the area.

Not sure if it counts as a first day, but a third interview had me gone. I was quite late and they told me I was out of the running. Reasonable enough, but the company was in the middle of a move, so this interview was in a different location across town from the first two, and the only indication of where it was taking place was a tiny sign stuck in the ground. I must have circled the parking lot 10 times.

It was for the best because I later learned the work conditions there were rotten.