16 Stupid Moves That Get You Fired

TheLaw.TV had an article recently of the 8 Stupid Moves that Get You Fired.  Two things about this came to mind: 1. What the hell is TheLaw.TV (is it a TV show on the internet?; if so why the article? Why .TV?  NBS, ABC, CBS, FOX, etc. don’t end in .TV); and 2. I’m pretty sure there’s  more than 8 Stupid Moves to get fired!

Here are the 8 Stupid Moves from TheLaw.TV:

1. Being late too often.

2. Stealing from the company. (I’m sure they don’t mean like office supplies – they mean like Stealing-Stealing…)

3. Too man sick days.  (Yep – you get sick days – but companies don’t like when you use them, we just tell you, you should use them – it’s Jedi-mind-tricks, but HRish)

4. Falsifying time card. (My personal favorite is having a ‘friend’ clock out for you later in the day, when you left early. I get to fire both of you!)

5.  That’s not on my Job Description. (I don’t think this one was real but someone at TheLaw.TV needed some more – I know this is fake because the only thing SHRM has truly taught HR Pros in the last 50 years is that one line on the bottom of every Job Description – I don’t even need to write – You know it! “Other duties…”

6. Drinking on the Job. (before noon.)

7.  Sexual Misconduct. 37.8% of people met their spouse at work according to an eHarmony totally legit survey.  In that same survey, but unpublished, were how many people found their ‘next’ spouse at work- at a slightly higher rate of 92.8%)

8.  Surfing Porn. (Nothing says ‘Fire Me’ like boobs at work. On a totally different but same note – I’ve never had to fire a woman for surfing porn at work – that might be a separate post if I could find a HR Pro willing to share a female porn firing story!)

Solid list – but remember the title was ‘Stupid’ – I think they missed a few – here’s the missed ones:

9. Cooking fish in the break room microwave.  (That’s like terrorist bad! You know who you are!)

10. Smoking Pot in Your Car at Lunch When I can see you from my office window. (“Hi (me waving) – I can see you!”)

11.  Wearing white socks with black or brown dress shoes.  (I haven’t fired anyone for this, but I’ve come close.)

12.  Fighting with the boss over some stupid idea you won’t let go of. (But really, we should change up everything we do and become a charity because 50 years of running a profitable company is enough)

13. Taking credit for crap you didn’t do, but people who report to you did. (I would actually go with hanging over firing on this one.)

14.  Asking for a salary increase after you just got a your butt handed to you in your performance review. (Gutsy, but stupid.)

15.  Listening to really weird Pandora mixes at the office in attempt to look cool. (I have to admit I did this back in the day – last year – but it was rap because I wanted to look black, not cool.)

16. Being ‘way’ into anything in an over-the-top way. (Think transmeta-physical yogo ultra-marathoner – I only eat dirt and I’m obsessed with Pokemon. Come on – you’re fired.)

Ok – give me your Stupid Move that will definitely get someone fired!  Hit me in the comments.

11 thoughts on “16 Stupid Moves That Get You Fired

  1. So, what is appropriate Pandora protocol when one’s music tastes differ substantially from the rest of one’s coworkers?

  2. I once worked for a company that had 3 shifts, 7 days a week. We got a tip that several employees had an agreement to rotate sleeping through their shift while the others covered. We reviewed the seldom-used videos and found not only was the story true, but the employees had set up quite a comfy little sleeping nook, complete with pillows and a nice fluffy comforter.

  3. I Had to fire an employee for urinating on the wall of the employee break room, he knew we had surveillance in there but said ” I didn’t think anyone ever watched.” The employee restrooms were a mere 20 feet away. He even asked a female coworker to turn her head unless she wanted to see his penis.

  4. How about getting fired for telling you to fix someone that the boss can’t fix? Essentially for doing the bosses job but not getting the backing or support to do it.

  5. “Wearing white socks with black or brown dress shoes.” ???

    ~ What kind of HR fairy pays attention to dress code?

  6. We lost someone at my last company who “leaked” an internal email about cutting back the number of early dismissals we get per year, complete with a complaint about how unfairly our employees were being treated and what an outrage it was to go from 8 a year to 4. Once the email was posted online, hundreds of mocking comments ensued. And because he posted it from his work computer, he was out of there before lunchtime. These are the things of company lore!

  7. The one that is the flip-side of #13 is throwing your staff under the bus for a stupid move you did after they told you it was a bad idea and you did it anyway.

  8. I had an employee who would leave work on time and go pick up his son from daycare. He would then park in the back and sneak in to punch out to get 1 hour of overtime. He did this once a week. When I fired him I asked him if the extra $18 a week was worth losing his job. He just looked at me and said that when I put it that way it sounded really stupid of him. Um yea ya think!

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