Ever been fired for really no reason?

[mattttherman3]

I have,today in fact. Basically the company I worked for received complaints about me, but they never bothered to ask for my side, just informed me of them and told me to shape up. They were taken at face value and were either lies or half of the story. I really have lost faith in humanity today. The official cause for my dismissal was "lacks communication skills". But I really think they wanted to get rid of me because I am a pretty fat guy. I mean, I did my job well, showed up early for every shift. Just was never given a chance to defend myself.

By the way, I was a security guard. I was honestly treated better as a line worker at Mcdonalds, but I was terrible at that job except the grill. I quit that job for this one. Sad part is, Mcdonalds would have paid more eventually. I'm going to look into being a bouncer as you need a security license to work that in my province. Funny thing is, my co workers were PISSED when I called them to tell them what happened. They knew I did my job very well. Always early and everything. It's so sad that a few people with an axe to grind can ruin a good thing.

SO anyone have similar stories?

 

[Colour Scientist]

Not fired but I was basically forced to quit a job because my manager took a dislike to me. I tried to be nothing but nice to her but she was an absolute ****.

She cut my hours, made up stories about me to the owner so I would get warnings and said shit about me to my co-workers. I wasn't the only person she did it to, that place had the highest staff turnover in the company because of her.
Eventually, I realised the stress wasn't worth it, found a better job and left.

The most scathing thing about it was she gave me this big fake hug when I was leaving. I didn't return it.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

They can't fire you if you don't have a contract, but I lost my freelance job to "internal reorganization". I think it was because I suggested getting paid for overtime. We'll never know.

 

[The Night Angel]

I got fired a few summers ago whilst working in a shop for following my boss's orders. She forgot to put me on the timetable for the week and told me to work off the previous week's timetable. The previous week I'd been given Tuesday off on the timetable, but on Monday they asked me to come in Tuesday and take Thursday off. So there we were the next week, me following last week's timetable, so on monday I went to a friend's house for a LAN party and didn't get to bed till 9am. They rang at 10am asking me where I was, to which I replied that Tuesday was my day off. I told them I couldn't come in, and they onsisted I had to. I told them I just couldn't, so they fired me.

 

[krazykidd]

Well i lost my last job because the company i was working for could no longer afford to pay me . Sucks , but luckily i got a new job . I make a bit less , but i like it a lot more . So it balnces out .

 

[Aris Khandr]

For no reason? No. I lost my last job when the company shut the store I was working in down. They offered to move me to another location, but since I lacked a car, working at a store 20 miles away just wasn't an option. The one before that was even worse. I got hired, went through training, and worked super hard for two weeks. Then the economy went to hell, and we could have practically played football in the store all shift, there were no customers to know the difference. So hours were cut. Being the new girl, all of mine were right out. I came in once a week to check the schedule, but was never on it. After a month and a half of that, the manager pulled me aside and asked me to start looking for other jobs. Not because they wanted to be rid of me, but it was obvious that business wasn't going to pick up any time soon, and she didn't want me to keep wasting my time.

 

[Bestival]

Not really fired, but my contract wasn't extended once. Official reason was that I had too much sickdays, but I always felt it was more about them just needing to get rid of a few people.
Didn't really care though, just took a 6 month vacation for the hell of it and now I'm back there.
They'll probably pull the same shit again in December. At least I won't have sick days again, now that I know what caused it.
Suddenly got allergic to milk, which is god damned bullshit tbh, and really hard to figure out if you've never been allergic to anything before.

 

[Callate]

I was once fired from a paint store because I sat down to crush boxes, which apparently made me a less efficient worker than my manager who was spending his time chatting with customers and fantasizing about his son's girlfriend.

 

[ninjaRiv]

Man, this shit happens a lot, I think.

I was fired for no reason. He could because I had to work three months before being made permanent and getting the protection of a real contract.

I later found out that he'd advertised for my job three times in 9 months after firing me.

 

[Frungy]

I got threatened with being fired once (well, technically they were reorganising and my position was no longer around), but it was all just an attempt to pressure me into accepting a position with a lot more responsibilities in the head office (a different city, where I didn't want to go) that they wanted me to take, but wanted to put pressure on me to accept it without asking for too much more in the way of money/perks.

It backfired on them. I quit, and a month after I left they reinstated my position, but actually had to create three more regional duplicates since I had been shouldering the national workload for the position quietly and efficiently. It was only when I left and they started getting calls from the other branch offices asking for stuff that they realised that I'd been doing the job tried to pressure me into accepting at head office the whole time, I'd just been doing it from my local office instead.

I was actually very amused. I had the new people contact me asking what to do, and when I told them where to look on my PC they found detailed charts of the workflow and quality control processes that I'd put together at some point because... well, flowcharts are cool and sometimes I'm a bit scatter-brained and needed to make sure I didn't skip a step.

The CEO (the moron who tried to pressure me, failed, and then realised his mistake too late) actually gave me a very nice letter of reference after he'd calmed down.

So, no, I've never been fired and hope never to be. I'd rather quit than be fired. I'd also rather quit than do something I don't enjoy doing or give in to bully tactics. My father gave me some very good advice when I was quite young, he simply said, "Be the best at what you do, and you'll never lack for a job.". It doesn't matter what career you choose, whether its flipping burgers or brain surgery, be the best at it and people will be lining up to offer you jobs. I was in a new job inside of a month (no interviews, they just heard I was available and offered me the job).

My trick is to use my downtime to take a long, hard look around me and find something, anything to improve. Even if its just a 1% increase in efficiency. Of course I mess around a lot, like now, but I have time to mess around because after a few months my area of the business is running like clockwork, and just a few minor nudges keep everything running smoothly. Last time I had an interview the interviewers asked me that old favourite, "What is your greatest strength?". I replied, "I'm lazy.". This shocked them until I explained that I don't like doing anything twice, because doing it right the first time saves me effort; I don't like inefficiency, because it wastes my time and I'm lazy; I don't like interpersonal conflict, because its a waste of energy... in short, I make things run smoothly not because I'm a nice person or a genius or anything else, but rather because I'm lazy as hell and doing it any other way is just way too much like hard work.

 

[zidine100]

Not fired but it was a temporary contract (well the uk jobseakers work placement program, aka the screw you program where they allow company's to hire people and you just get jobseakers which is along way bellow minimum wage for working full time hours, so they dont have to hire people during busy periods and they can throw them away like used garbage when there done with them) i was working doing data entry admin, where they said if i worked hard i would easily get a job there. So naturally i Worked my ass off to the point where there was virtually no more work to do by half way through the day. They sort of underestimated my typing speed, i presume they expected someone who could barley type.

Then to have them turn round and say, yeah we only hired you to fill in for the temps, were actually installing a new system that will make this job completely obsolete, but hey what are you complaining about you got experience right?

so i basically got up at 0600 am to get a bus for three months worked 8 hour shifts to get paid well bellow minimum wage, £80 every two weeks, to get experience in a near obsolete and mindless job, so they dont have to hire people to actually do said job.

Needless to say i was not happy.

And you know what the kicker was, I volunteered for this one, i wasnt forced like most of the other people there i was actually looking for work.

I have a much MUCH better job now, might i add.

and yes i know this isnt the most professional thing to say, but damnit.... my references from the charity shop i was volunteering were worth more than that waste of time.

 

[Random Argument Man]

Not fired for stupid reasons, but more pushed into quitting actually. I worked in a small company that sells sandwiches. Mostly a mixture of Subway and a local diner experience. Anyway, manager trained me and gave a reasonable set of hours. Never got the pace right. He basically decided to cut my hours to the point that I didn't had any shifts. After two weeks, I got 4 hours with minimal pay. Manager kept training new people and offering them a minimal of 25 hours. Learning that, I wasn't happy


I decided to quit and try to find a new job. I ended up cutting my losses and moved back to my parents for a month. Didn't spend much. Went to visit a few places during the summer.

 

[farscythe]

meh i got fired because i was the only one not there at that time.
basically some damage had been done to the fire proof ceiling and they asked every one who done it.
as everyone said it wasnt me . i got the sack because when i got back from my 2 week holiday i was the only one that hadnt denied it.

 

[Kaymish]

no back when i could be fired there was never a time i was fired with out reason and many of the stories i am seeing here are patently illegal where i live
i have only ever been made redundant before once when the company i worked for hired an apprentice to do my job and more for less and when our government sold off our air force i decided i didn't want to go from pilot to secretary
anyway only i can fire myself now given that i own 65% of the shares and i have appointed myself CEO of the company

 

[saoirse13]

This thread has made me feel a little better (and that's meant in e nicest possible way)
Basically, today in fact I was taken aside and told that mi may not have a job by next Friday if I don't pick everything up by then.

Now here's the kicker, I started the job three weeks ago. I'm basically doing reception/admin/accounts in an industry that I am completely new to and have never working in before fair enough I understand that I should at least have a grasp as to the different jobs I am carrying out each day. And I do for the most part. The girl who is "training" me will tell me how to do something one minute (which I have written out notes for) then the next minute she will tell me that it's not right or that I'm doing certain things wrong even though that's how she has told me to do certain tasks.
Not only this but what gets me is the fact that not only will I be running the office by myself, before I started this job they had 3 other people all working together to carry out all the roles and task that I will be doing by myself. They have had 4 people quit in the last year who were all employed in the same role as me.

And the icing on the cake is the fact that I basically left a good job that I loved for a job that does nothing but make me miserable, stressed out and completely patronised everyday.

So today has put me in a real crap mood. To go from one job where my boss praised everything I did to go to another job where the staff and the management patronise you, make you feel stupid and try to undermine everything you say and do, it really is soul destroying. Maybe I'm wrong, but for the most part, when someone starts a new job it usually takes a month to two months to fully know how to run things. To know where every file is kept to low how the prices for all goods and services off by heart to knows dactyl how the accounts in that company are done.

So I feel your pain. And I get e shitty feeling. But hopefully things will work out better for us all going through these shitty times.

 

[Therumancer]

I have,today in fact. Basically the company I worked for received complaints about me, but they never bothered to ask for my side, just informed me of them and told me to shape up. They were taken at face value and were either lies or half of the story. I really have lost faith in humanity today. The official cause for my dismissal was "lacks communication skills". But I really think they wanted to get rid of me because I am a pretty fat guy. I mean, I did my job well, showed up early for every shift. Just was never given a chance to defend myself.

SO anyone have similar stories?

Well, I've been fired "without cause" twice (according to the state when I went to my unemployment hearings), and in one case wound up taking legal action against my employer which they wound up having to block by playing the "Indian Reservation" card, which means I would have won, but I couldn't afford to fight for years to get the goverment to force them to face me off the reservation. To put it bluntly they wanted to get rid of me for increasingly aberrant behavior due to brain damage (pacing, talking to myself, occasional mood swings). In the enviroment I was in I wasn't an easy target, and they wound up taking advantage of a touchy situation to try and set me up. To put it bluntly I had a superviser freak out in the middle of the gaming floor, and then later threaten to rip my head off (in front of witnesses) trying to goad me into attacking him to make it easy. I *ahem* managed to obtain video footage of him doing this in front of other supervisors and managers which went to my Lawyer. I was officially fired for telling him that he had his tongue up someone's ass, with the arguement being that this was "out of line" and that what he might have done to provoke it was "irrelevent", as was my technical standing which was odd to say to least. It got messy, went through multiple boards of inquiry with victories on both sides, until eventually I lost and got canned because at the end of the day it was never really about the incident. Having spend a few thousand dollars of my own money fighting them afterwards before finding out I wasn't rich enough to afford justice wasn't a lot of fun. If some people reading my posts ever got the impression I was bitter with my former employers this is why. It's also why I have so little faith in certain aspects of our system. I won't go into any more details than this however, it annoys me to even type it.

That said, one thing I'll tell you as someone who has been involved in many, many employee walk outs over the years, and done penny ante suerveillance for supervisors from a number of departments (ie crap like, put the camera on the smoking area and keep track of how many times you see Joe Blow, how long he spends, and who he talks to)... in disputes with customers, bosses, or even fellow empolyees, who is right or wrong doesn't matter for the most part. All your bosses care about is that there was an incident, and it got attention. Your bosses want things quiet, nothing happens is GOOD, when something happens they get upset. If your involved in a handfull of incidents that's more noise than they want, and even if your right, they will replace you with someone who gets involved in less commotion. The fact that I can point this out hopefully provides some context for my first paragraph as well (not that it much matters). When your on the bottom of the food chain, as a clerk, cashier, food service worker, and have no special training or useful skill sets your paticularly disposible. In fact the people you work for, WANT you to be disposible, and have every intention of getting rid of you from a job like that (fair or not) within a year or two to prevent you from accumulating too much in the way of raises, seniority, and benefits anyway. In some cases getting fired from a job is inevitable, and while it may be unfair, getting all upset when the guillitine falls on you doesn't make any differance.

I guess the bottom line is that it's rare when your in a job where you have a chance to defend yourself, workers are just that disposable, especially for entry level jobs that require virtually no skill, or are relatively easy to train people for. It's not a good thing within society, and one of the reasons why I am so "left wing" when it comes to worker's rights and my support of unions and such, especially nowadays.

 

[mattaui]

Given the nature of my current profession, I've had times where whole offices of folks have been brought in, told we had several weeks worth of work lined up, then all told to go home in a day or two because, after all, there wasn't that much work anyway. Of course, as independent contractors, that's always a risk, but there's a reason I'm shifting my focus towards a different industry these days.

 

[Slash Joel]

Alot of these seem to be sue able offenses. But anyway I did get fired from my job at culvers for a day. What had happen was one of the managers this punk ass kid who never deserved the promotion to manager in the first place. He hated me more than anything and I have no idea why though having only worked with him three times with me being outside in the dining room and him back in the kitchen. But one day he came to me and said your fired now get the hell out of the restaurant. But unknown to everyone of the employees the owner was a close friend of mine who had hired me for the summer for something to do while i was in between a job and a full time internship. It didn't go well for that manager after that and even more so when the regular customers started complaining of my absence.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

You call THAT fired for no reason? I was sacked from my last job for LITERALLY no reason. I was working at a printing office and doing pretty well- working fast and efficient, getting along with the other staff, basically working well. One afternoon in November, about 3 months after I'd started, they called me up and basically said "Don't bother coming in tomorrow, you're done." They fed me a line about how the company couldn't afford to keep its casuals over the end-of-year period (coincidentally this was the EXACT end of my 3-month trial period before upgrading from casual to permanent employee) and sacked another poor kid who'd only been there for a week or so, but that was it. One day I'm doing fine, the next it's "you're done".

The REALLY dodgy thing is that, because I was on job finding assistance at the point I'd found the job, the company was being paid a 3-months stipend to keep me on, to encourage them to keep me and prevent me from becoming unemployed again too soon. They sacked me literally as that stipend ran out. Yeah, that doesn't sound suspicious AT ALL.

That broke me. I haven't had a job since then, and it's been almost 1 1/2 years. I haven't been able to bring myself to find another job because I just can't face the prospect of finding one only to be thrown out at the whims of an uncaring employer again. I've been looking, but my heart honestly isn't in it. Basically, those corporate fuckers ruined me.