Ever Get Fired?

George Grand

Was it worth it? Was it worth watching? I can give everybody elses episodes a good run for the money. Twice!

If you've got a good one I'd love to hear it.

AndyGwis

As long as google is in place, I plead the fifth on a question like this. Too easy to link this Polk Forum ID to my real name.

But, in short, yes (been fired), no (not worth it), yes (great story).

danger boy

been fired once... but in my personal file, it says I resigned.. so no one can track it back to being fired. but I surely was fired.

my story is boring.. so I won't go into details.

was it worth it? Hell yeah. I was unemployed for two days.. (sat and Sun), before I got hired by the competition.

Fired on Friday.. started a new job on Monday. Bump up in salary too at the new job.

As the old saying goes.. you're not worth hiring if you haven't been fired at least once.

Frank840

i am not going into details. I have been fired and now i am getting ready to marry that bosses Daughter. it was worth it

Systems

maybe later.

Chuck

candyliquor35m

It's called getting laid off.

steveinaz

I did once. Not a real interesting story, but here goes. I was 20, working at a Gas station (there were only 2 employees and a young punk boss). We had a hell of a snow fall, and record low temps. The city of Saint Louis was CLOSED. Missouri Highway Patrol promised to arrest anyone driving unless it was a dire emergency.

So...I called my punk-**** boss and told him my car was buried in snow, couldn't make it in. He says "oh well, I guess I'll have to do what I have to do...." I said "I guess you will." The little **** fired me. Months later he apologized for the whole thing. Shortly following, I joined the US Army.

bikezappa

I was working at Raytheon in MA for about three years. Always got reasonable raises but could never make a big jump in pay. My starting salary was low so it appeared I could never catch up. Had a long discussion with the wife and decided to go into the boss and make my case why I should get more money. Walked into the office at about 3:00 in the sfternoon and made my case. He just blew up and started to scream at me and call me an undeserving employee. Major rant and he told me I was done with this company, I was layed off 2 weeks later when he found a good excuse.

The real story is one of bad/good luck. As it turned out my boss just had come back from listening to the judge give him the settlement for his divorce that afternoon and he got hit bad. It didn't go over well that I also wanted more money. As it turned out I got a 20% raise with a new job 2 weeks later.

George Grand

"I want you to get arrested and jailed by the Highway patrol, so you can go and open up my gas station for all the customers that aren't allowed to be, and won't be, there."

What a douchebag Steve.



I'm not seeing a lot of "flair" here guys. Maybe it's just me.

steveinaz

Exactly. That's what I told **** head--not to mention my car really was buried. He was like 18, probably the owners nephew (aka ****-up) kind of situation. The **** never showed up to work, he constantly stole oil products from the store--then he would "cook the books" to cover it up--real piece of work. He'd call me or Harry and have us clock him in/out. On a rare occasion when he did show, he'd spend the whole day with his car on the lift. He had a crazy hopped-up Chevy Laguna, remember those monsters? This car was wicked.

Shizelbs

Once, over email, due to a miscommunication during a transfer of management. We'll see if its good or bad, but probably inconsequential.

steveinaz

I'm not seeing a lot of "flair" here guys. Maybe it's just me.

I would have to say that I have been fortunate, very few **** bosses; most of them were pretty good guys.

paymontna

If you count family, I have been fired at least 6 times. The best..We were working 2.5 hours from home. I hitched a ride home and was sitting on the deck drinking beer when my boss got home. He had to hire me back Monday morning because he needed a push out of the drive way because the fly-wheel was out on his POS Ford Ranger. Those were the good ole days...LOL....LOL

strider

Twice.

Both times were years ago. The first one, I was working at a beer store/gas station. I was twenty, in college, loved my job because I could get beer cheap and underage. My boss hired this kid whose mother had come in to get an application for him; she was a busy body type, knew everyone in the little town where the store was located. I knew the kid was a POS when his parents would come in every shift he worked. They'd stay for an hour or so, bring him dinner (never anything for me), talk to him about school, etc. Meanwhile, he isn't doing a damn thing; I'm on the register, stocking the shelves when there's not anyone to ring up. I asked him to help once, his mother told me he couldn't help because he was eating his dinner. He's smiling like the cat that ate the canary. Couple days later, it was a Friday, IIRC, he told me he had to go to the bank (20 minutes each way), for his mother. I was weeded at the register again, but somehow found the time to follow him out to his car and pummel him in the parking lot. Fun to watch, hell yes. Worth it? Yes and no, no more cheap underage beer, but I did get a better job after that.

Which leads to the next time I got fired. I worked as bellman at a nice hotel at the beach. Tons of money in the summer, the place had a kickass pool bar, women everywhere. I made the most out of it for a couple summers, let me tell you. Winters were different. No tourists = no money, so I did odd jobs around the hotel. It was February, there's a storm going on. Not just any storm, but a nor'easter. Eighty miles an hour wind, we're beachfront, so there's sand tearing your skin off if you ventured outside. My immediate supervisor tells me that I need to put a bunch of boxes of files in storage. No problem you say? Pffft. The storage closet is on top of the hotel, which is nine stories tall, 30 feet deep as it faces the ocean. Really feels narrow when there's debris screaming across your nose. I take one box to the room, scared the crap outta me. I ask my boss if I can do it the next day, he tells me no, I tell him to go f*&k himself. Fun to watch? I dunno. Worth it? Yes, especially when he got fired by his supervisor after I woulnd't come back to work for them.

ben62670

Lots of times. I can't tolerate stupidity, don't do the doormat thing well, and lots of times thats where management is. I work for myself.

Face

I worked for a karate school years ago. The job wasn't all I thought it would be, they wanted someone who was more of a salesman than a instructor. Since I couldn't adjust, I told told to find another place of employment.

petrym

I was working at Palwaukee airport (northern Illinois) in 1978 (17 years old) washing and gasing airplanes. My friend and I went to the far side of the airport to wash a two engine King Air-sized aircraft - we didn't fiddle around and got the whole job done in about 4 hours. The boss came over to check on us while we were in my car getting ready to drive back, he wondered why we were fooling around instead of working. We told him we were already finished and he could check the aircraft over, he said BS and fired us both without even looking at the cleaned aircraft. I took a job at General Fire Extinguisher and joined the Air Force a few months later - I was worried about telling the new boss I joined the AF - but he was happy I did as he was an old AF dude himself and wished he me luck. I probably would have joined the AF anyway, but that sealed the deal right then.

George Grand

strider wrote: »

but somehow found the time to follow him out to his car and pummel him in the parking lot.

Yes, especially when he got fired by his supervisor after I woulnd't come back to work for them.

This is some of the flair I'm getting at.

obieone

Got fired from a bike shop in high school because the register was always coming up short. The owner counseled me, and watched me work the register on a Sat. and couldn't figure out where the money was going. Finally, one day the register came up $34 short, so he told me he HAD to let me go.
Six months later I stopped in to say hi, and found out that it was the Senior mechanic that had been stealing the $$$.
Told him it WASN'T me!!!

RuSsMaN

I shot myself in the head with a flare gun once, does that count?

petrym

Were you "fired"?

dkg999

RuSsMaN wrote: »

I shot myself in the head with a flare gun once, does that count?

Obviously you're not a native Texas boy if you only did it once :rolleyes:

I've never been fired, but I've been through the "suggest that you consider resigning" a couple of times. Once I suggested that my attorney be present for the discussion, and one of the only smart people in the room realized the confidential company information I had and made a counter-offer. The second time I was immediately hired by another part of the company and my job was to reverse the trend in credits allocated to the sales team due to screw-ups by my previous managers area. After I reversed over $2 million in credits and proved beyond any reasonable doubt that he was an idiot, they hired me back in that division.

shack

Never been fired...but I quit under "questionable circumstances". During college I was working at this store called Al-Mart. Similar to Kmart at the time. It was basketball season and I had camped out all night on campus in line to get student tickets for a basketball came between Tennessee and Kentucky. Tennessee had Ernie Grunfeld and Bernard King and Kentucky had Rick Robey, Jack Givens, Mike Phillips. It was a BIG game. Tennessee was ranked in the top 10 and it was Kentucky. My manager was a guy that had started with the company right out of HS and worked his way up. He was just a year or two older than me. He was a ok guy but he thought he was real cool and I think he resented me because I was going to college.

Anyway...he KNEW I had tickets to the game (it was a sell out) and I had been scheduled off for quite some time. It was a Saturday night game and I was working Friday night and Saturday morning. On Friday night there was a note to see him first thing Sat. morn. When I got there he told me he had to change the schedule and I was going to have to work Sat. night instead of him. I told him I couldn't because I had been scheduled off for some time and I had plans to go to the game. He then informed me that he had scored some tickets for the game and he was going and I was going to work. I said "Donnie, we have to work something out because I have tickets and I had to camp out all day and night in line to get them". He said "NO WAY YOU ARE GOING TO THE GAME! I AM! AND YOU ARE GOING TO WORK INSTEAD OF ME". I thought about it for a couple of minutes...and told him that I thought I would go to the game...and unless he wanted to leave the department empty...he might want to plan to be there instead of the game. I quit. Tennessee won. I went to work for Sears the next week and there I met my wife and one of my closests friends. Things have a way of working out for the best.

Shizelbs

Donnie the ****.

bigaudiofanatic

RuSsMaN wrote: »

I shot myself in the head with a flare gun once, does that count?

Hmm it depends did you do it at your own free will?

danger boy

steveinaz wrote: »

I did once. Not a real interesting story, but here goes. I was 20, working at a Gas station (there were only 2 employees and a young punk boss). We had a hell of a snow fall, and record low temps. The city of Saint Louis was CLOSED. Missouri Highway Patrol promised to arrest anyone driving unless it was a dire emergency.

So...I called my punk-**** boss and told him my car was buried in snow, couldn't make it in. He says "oh well, I guess I'll have to do what I have to do...." I said "I guess you will." The little **** fired me. Months later he apologized for the whole thing. Shortly following, I joined the US Army.

you should have just ripped out all his piercings

unc2701

Edit: GG has a point- didn't get fired...

EFanning

I am descended from two large eastern Massachusetts families of Irish lineage. There are several stories of people in my family being fired due to strong will.

I've actually considered compiling the stories in a book of short stories to be called "Fiery Car Crash." An unlce told a boss who fired him, "I hope you die in a fiery car crash."

It's funny.

George Grand

That's kind of interesting unc2701, but no winner. You didn't even get fired.

Now, if you were still in high school, and working as an usher (tuxedo, bowtie AND flashlight) at a Century Theaters FLAGSHIP movie theater like the Kingsway on Kings Highway & Coney Island Ave. in Brooklyn, and got fired for getting lucky up in the balcony while on duty, that might be a winner. "George? Is that you over there? George?" "Yes Mr. Zeller, it's me. I dropped my flashlight."


I am somewhat proud of that one. There were two of us ushers up there at the time getting to know two young ladies. Only one of us got fired. The other guy was a big, brown-nosing clown from the neighborhood. He got to keep his job there, which in retrospect is probably exactly what he deserved. Worst part was by the time I got out of the managers office from getting fired, the girls were gone!

I didn't miss that job one bit. It was okay for meeting debs, but so was just about every other freakin' place in New York right around the Summer of Love. I never saw one decent movie while I worked there, and some of them I had to stand through for what felt like a hundred times. Best one of the bunch was The Night They Raided Minsky's with Elliot Gould, and Britt Ekland. Gould had some good lines and at the end you got to see what was billed as Ekland's ****. Of course this was long before she would transform into a world class ****. All the rest of the movies were real dogs, including The Charge of the Light Brigade, a British disaster. I was glad to be unemployed.

That's one of my two, and I'll save my absolute crowning glory for tomorrow. It was sublime.

skipf

Got fired once. What made it interesting is that i didn't work there. I worked for a steel fabricator and had to go to another fabricator/supplier to pick up a load of steel. I had the truck parked out back near the stockpile of our supplier and was standing around watching them load our order when the big boss walked by. He looked at me and immediatly came storming up and got right in my face. "I'm not paying you to just stand around and watch others work" he screamed. "Go pick up your check right now, you're fired". I smiled and said "thanks, where do I pick up my check?" The guys loading the truck almost died laughing, and the boss realised all was not as he thought and walked off fuming.

George Grand

Heartwarming Skip. I wonder how many more times he looked like an asshat before the day was out.