How to get yourself fired
came across an article this morning that reminded me I hadn’t written anything about Corporate America recently. As much as I love to rag on Corporations, I do have to admit that sometimes employees are just plain stupid. On second thought, maybe some of them just have a career deathwish.
In any case, as a past Manager type, here are some of my favorite reasons why employees get fired:
Claiming that you need to stay home because your kids are all home sick with the flu, when your kids live in another state… not within driving distance.
The death of the same family member… more than once.
Consistantly missing project deadlines because the computer in the bar doesn’t have an Internet connection.
When confronted with a video security tape (on equipment she herself had help set up) of one employee handing a $300 police scanner to her (drug dealer) boyfriend, her response was, “Oh, we just borrowed it for a couple of days to try it out. We didn’t think you’d mind.”
Getting drunk at the office party and hitting on the boss’ husband/wife. While not technically a firing offense, this will NOT endere you to the boss, unless he/she has brought them to the party to get rid of them.
While gathering for a meeting several years ago, a group of us stood waiting outside the conference room until a security guard could unlock the door for us. Finally, when the door was unlocked, we were greeted with an excellant view of another manager’s bare butt between a pair of nicely tanned legs. Apparently their conference wasn’t completed yet.
One of my all-time favorites was the employee who called from the Bahamas because he’d had to take an emergency flight out the previous night. It turned out this married employees “emergency” was his pregnant girfriend’s emergency divorce from her husband.
You see, although I actually do have some morals, I don’t really tend to push my own morals on other people… well, except maybe one of them. I’m usually a pretty understanding boss, but I hate like hell when an employee blatantly lies to me. I would certainly much rather somebody would just ask for a couple of days or hours off upfront than to make up some bullshit excuse, or see them get caught with their pants down. That way, the employee can still get their groove on and I get to keep the illusion that I’m actually still in charge.
Oh, by the way, HR allowed the tanned legs to keep her job after she filed sexual harassment charges. Her conferences are now enjoyed by a much larger group since her promotion. There was talk of affixing a plaque to the conference table, but I don’t know if that ever came to anything, and we never got to review the actual security video tapes. The last I heard, Mr. Barebutt was working in some Cafe in Alaska.