Bosses of reddit, what is the stupidest thing you have had to fire someone for?

I’ve shared this one before: Talking on the shop phone. I was managing a coffee shop at the time and was in the office doing payroll, and ordering. I got a call from my boss on my cell phone asking why he kept getting a busy signal when he called our location. I went down to the shop and there’s a line of customers out the door with my one employee completely ignoring them and chatting away on the phone. I chastise her and get to work making drinks, I ended up comping a good handful of them and giving 50% off the rest. Once it had slowed down one of my favorite regulars came to me and said that my employee had been on the phone the whole time as the line built up, talking explicit details about blowjob techniques. Her excuse was that “that bitch shouldn’t have been eavesdropping on me”. I fired her that day.
— Coastie071

We had someone call off work because his mother had passed away (no problem take time to be with your family). He then told us he felt guilty because he lied about it, he just wanted a few paid days off.
— TheSexyMicrowave

my sister got fired at her job as a cashier for asking customers if she could "have a small bite" of their food
— Arsiamon

It was this high school kid's first day of work at Burger King. He was there for about an hour or two when I told him to pick up trash outside by the tables and drive thru. He totally lost his shit. "I'M NOT DOING THAT! I DIDN'T SIGN UP TO PICK UP TRASH. HOW DARE YOU!??" I fired him instantly, and he practically ripped off his work shirt, threw it on the ground, and started stomping on it. Then he ran out while he was still screaming at me. I was in shock the whole time.
— uniqueusername1190

Gave a young friend of the family a job manning a parking garage from like 6 to 2am. Just had to sit there and make sure no one fucked anything up, destroyed equipment, vandalized, etc. She decided to throw a party there, smoked out my office with all her friends, trashed the office, then lost the keys to the facility. Costing hundreds of dollars to change locks. 10$/hr to sit there, watch TV, whatever. Eff that, I'm gonna fuck this up royally. Gave an excon a chance as a doorman at a hospital. He worked til 10pm. Until one night after his shift security caught him in the basement of the hospital with a hand truck full of thousands of dollars of baby formula, taking it to his car. Apparently he had been wheeling the stuff out for weeks and had a pretty good side income. Came to me the next day, apologized and asked if I could save his job. Haha. Bc he really needs it and he'll never find another job that pays so well bc he's an ex con. Thought about that a little too late. I told him he'll be lucky if he doesn't go back inside, but no way he's keeping his job.
— bccs222

A coworker at my apprenticeship had only 3 weeks to his degree. He stole a bunch of expensive metal. Just to sell it to a scrap yard a few kilometers away for like 10% of its worth... He got caught selling it + video footage. So he threw away a 3 year apprenticeship for maybe 50€.
— hhpl15

Back in my retail days I had to constantly remind an employee to take a shower, and comb his hair, and not play Crazy Train by Ozzy over the speakers....everyday...it became too much.
— StargasmSargasm

Relaxed retail gig. Worker who was maxed out on unexcused absences called in sick to watch a Sunday basketball game on tv. His team was losing so he came into work to visit with his coworkers. They were all really close. He didn't come to work to work, he came in to hang out and shoot-the-shit with his coworkers while they worked and picked up the slack for him. I had to explain to him that he couldn't just come to work if he was sick and had to go home. He didn't want to leave so he admitted to lying about being sick so he could watch the game. I then asked him why the hell did he come into work still. He figured since he already called in sick, he had a day off to do whatever instead of working so he was bored and thought he'd come see what we were up to. He was a really sweet guy, but a bit of an attention whore and dumbass. I felt bad for firing him but it wasn't fair to his coworkers who worked really hard to pick up his slack. They still tease him about it to this day. TLDR: worker called in sick to watch basketball game on tv, still came in to work to say hi and hangout.
— Portr8

Two cooks doing lines of cocaine off the cutting boards on the line. Drugs are rampant in this industry, but goddamn.
— Top_Chef

Warehouse manager here. You’ll find an endless supply of hilarious firing or “walking out” stories from logistics and supply chain professionals. I recently walked out a temp who, on his first day, told a female employee he wanted to lick her up and down like a lollipop. For the entire 5 min walk to the front of the building, I was trying to help him understand what was wrong with what he said. He still left sad and confused. Update: Just like in the comments, we get a lot of trolls in the warehouse too. Those are some of my favorite to walk out.
— _deliriumtrigger

Watching porn on a work computer. Not only is it immediately flagged, it's incredibly stupid.
— RSHeavy

Stealing. I managed a used game store and this guy was a great worker, showed up on time and everything, but he started stealing, and he decided the best the to steal was gaming consoles...that we keep track of with serial numbers...and then sell the consoles, to the same store chain... surprise surprise I get a call "this console was traded in twice without ever being sold?" He was arrested the next day.
— stick_fig5

I know a friend who works in the food business. They had a guy who dropped a block of cheese on the floor, didn't tell anyone, and proceeded to grind it up and serve it to customers. No one became sick to the best of my friend's knowledge, but corporate happened to be reviewing the security cameras and caught him. It would have been so much better if he had just discarded the cheese.
— DemandsBattletoads

A guy I knew in IT was told never to press a big red button. He was explicitly told it would shut down all the digital systems in the warehouse- a digital failsafe and reboot that took several hours that shut everything down. Later that month he pressed the button to see how it worked, shutting down the warehouse for several hours’ worth of rebooting. The red button has a glass case now.
— AngelusCowl

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