When I was a teen working at Canes, I vividly remember management asking a guy to come in on his day off at 8am(mind you, employees normally got there around 930 or so to open) just so they could fire him. He had worked the night before and was looking rough but always eager to pick up an extra shift. All for $6/hr back then. Hope he’s doing well.
Had something similar happen when I was a kid working at a local ice cream and coffee joint. Manager called me in on my day off, I wasn't driving yet and my parents were at work so I rode my bike all the way there just to have them sit me down and fire me. Had to ride my bike all the way home while crying. They closed down within the year, fuck them.
Custard shop for me. Called me 15 minute before I was going to go in for the day. “It’s raining today so we won’t need you to come in. Actually we don’t need you at all, so you’re all set.”
The saddest part, the person calling me was 1 of the 2 assistant managers who were in college. The mid 40s FT Manager woman made the college guy(s) call people to fire them instead of her doing her job.
I think one of the worst was a specialty burger spot. They basically hired a bunch of people on with the intent of weeding out everyone through firing them until they had one or two remaining. I made it through the interview and came in for the training with like 7 other people which took about 4 hours. Got my shirt and everything, the next day they call and are like "We've decided to let you go, we would appreciate if you brought back the shirt." Suffice to say, it's buried in my clothes somewhere. If I were older and wiser I would have demanded they pay me for the 4 hours of my life they wasted.
The shitty boss from the pizza place that I mentioned in a comment elsewhere on this thread hired me and someone else at the same time. She was let go about two weeks later. I was too young and naive at the time to realize that hiring two people and only keeping the best one was his plan from the start. If I'd known that at the time I would have started looking for another job right away.
The ethics of it is questionable at best since it's taking advantage of people who want/need a job to rely on. I really hope they wouldn't do something like that to a parent who was trying to support their family. If I knew a location was doing that, I wouldn't give them business. To be fair, that location was also closed the last time I was in town, not sure when it closed, but it was also a little satisfying.
Agreed, but the standard rule when opening a new restaurant is to hire at least 125-150% of what you think your eventual needed staff level will be. You’ve got to assume you are going to get ghosted by a few, and some just aren’t going to cut it. You’ve never want to go into an opening short-staffed. At first, you just have to throw bodies at opening honeymoon volume, then figure out who’s worth a shit.
Totally different ethics once you’ve got a solid team and established rhythm.
This wasn't a newly opened restaurant though, it was already established for at least a few years and already had a regular staff. They were looking to hire on a couple more people for the on season and again, hired a bunch with the intention of firing most. I've worked at a lot of restaurants, that's the first and only time I came across that tactic.
I worked as a sous chef at a restaurant where they provided me with 3 nice cotton chef coats with sailor knot buttons and my name and title monogramed on them. I quit after 3 months because the chef was an alcoholic who drank on the clock while I did his job. About a week after I quit my checking account was debited about $300. I called my bank and they told me it was a “payroll reversal”. The SOB’s had charged me for the coats by taking the money out of my check retroactively.
I was fired because I refused to work the day before Thanksgiving when I specifically told the manager and the scheduling manager that I had classes, I had a Calc test. They didn't call the college, just assumed I wanted the day off.
Neither of them called me later to fire me. They made my sister, the shift supervisor who also told them I had classes.
Yeah, it was a long time ago. Looking back at being a kid working, I've found most of the managers I worked for were absolute assholes, I feel like they took advantage of the kids working under them because they know most kids don't know better and don't really have the confidence to stand up for themselves. I know not all are like that, but a lot of them are
I got lucky I guess. Got hired on at an Italian place as a dishie at 13, moved to prep at 14, was asst manager at 17. They did give me and the other kid my age there beer and weed tho looking back just WTF
Yeah, back then that seemed to be the best in terms of treating their employees right and I'm sure it's the same (Of course that can vary). We had a local Italian spot that my family would go to since we were kids, right before college my brother and I worked there for a couple years, a lot of the same staff we grew up with were still there. A few years ago I went back while visiting my family, still a lot of the same workers were there. I remember there was a lot of fun amongst the staff, at the end of the night if a dough roll got dropped it became a dough fight, just slinging that shit all over the place. The Christmas parties were great too. The owners were super chill and treated everyone well, if you messed up, the staff would let you know, they could be harsh about it sometimes, but at least they gave you a chance to learn. We have a local spot we go to now with our baby, the owners wife loves him and always takes him to show to the other waiters and the other regulars at the bar, it's like a family there even as a customer. I always joke that he's going to end up working there when he's older, she told me they have quite a few kids working there that started the same way~
I don't understand why people make you come in for the firing, I'd rather get a fucking text than drive somewhere just to be fired.
Like, save me the time and gas money, and if I wake up to that text I can put my last check request in writing and I'm already up and getting ready so let's go look for a new job, or not if I'm really not feeling it I can go back to bed knowing I don't have any obligations for that day at least, it's a shitty day off but it's a day off
A family friend was a regional manager for a convenience store chain. They got him to drive an assistant manager that worked under him across the city tot heir offices so they could fire him. They also gave him instructions not to wait to give him a ride back to the store he worked out of.
My city isn't particularly big, but their plan was basically to abandon this guy on the opposite side of the city.
My boss and I have basically ignored our higher ups orders because of shit like this.
We had a dishwasher that we had to fire due to attendance issues and they wanted us to fire her when she came in for her next shift.
Thing is girl either took like a 1.25 hour bus and we told them this but they insisted. But we weren't going to make her spend money and 2.5 hours just to get fucked. So we called her instead and guess what it worked just fine.
I remember one of my jobs working at a franchise restaurant
My location was going to be made into the "headquarters" in the city. The owners, came in; one of the part owners started in the dishpit when the franchise first started. I was being extra nice that day and greeted them with a handshake.
Fucker didn't even acknowledge that I existed. I was invisible to them.
I basically learned all the stations there and was one of the head prep guys.
I had around 10+ years of experience in kitchens at that point and lowballed my wage just to be hired there in the beginning.
I didn't stay much longer after that, especially when they wouldn't give me a raise for learning all the stations and being one of the fastest, and hardest workers.
Fuck franchises. I work at one now, and they basically cut your hours short almost every shift. I'm only part time there and will never look at it as anything but a second job. The greed and acting like they are above you are on a second level. Disgusting 🤮
real talk - I wouldve given him a ride home then quit myself. f that kind of behavior and lack of not just professionalism but human decency and respect.
I was around 20 and working at IHOP as a waiter, the assistant manager called me one morning asking if I could pick up a shift at 8 (it was 7). I said yes so I quickly showered and got there around 10 past 8.
After my shift was done around 1:30, she asked me to sit down and sign something. She had the audacity to write me up for being late.
I was working the cafe at a hospital one for about a year, with the management telling me they were trying to hire another person the entire time because it was a two-person job. Eventually they sat me down and said basically “hey, you haven’t been keeping up on pre-made snacks and stocking grab-and-go stuff, and we know this is our fault because you’re supposed to have a second person, but we’re going to have to write you up anyway.”
Yeah I went home and emailed the head of dietary and told her I wasn’t coming in tomorrow or ever again. She wouldn’t get there to read the email until about 3 hours after the cafe was supposed to be open lmao.
Funny, how English and my native language are just one letter off each other for words like that. Almost, as if someone conquered Europe a while ago and forgot to take their dictionary home. Bloody Romans...
I'm not condoning anything, but you'd be shocked how quickly an extra large cup of ice can get into every deep fryer at the hands of a determined recently-fired-employee.
I left for a week and came back to like a shit ton of awesome new servers. A few hot messes. I asked “these guys are great! Where did they all come from?” Apparently a beloved regular died and they all asked off for the funeral. No one was given off, told since it wasn’t family this was a bullshit excuse to party or something. They all walked out and went to the funeral, all got fired. We got them and it changed our restaurant for the better for years after.
But I really thought Outback Steakhouse was gonna burn down mysteriously. I mean, it was an open discussion and I thought was gonna have to pretend to have heard none of it in an official statement.
I would fuck with her over the course of the next few years whether it was her car, the store windows, orders. Whatever job she worked, and I would find a way.
When I got fired from my first job, I had to walk a mile to work on my day off first thing in the morning just to get the news. I was so mad all I could do was laugh
I had a GM do that to me too, tried to get me come in on my day off to fire me but waited for me to come in, clock in and set up and then she fired me lmfao skdkflskflfkfk
I basically finished breakfast and my asshole manager (lazy incompetent), who was barely at the sister location I was at terminated me without cause.
That's what I get after 5+ years at the nonprofit, and for running things when he and my supervisor weren't there and could care less about the place.
I still have friends there that I meet from time to time and they tell me how much worse the place has gotten.
Last I heard (about a month ago), they made budget cuts. The asshole HR rep who terminated me, had to terminate his wife as well as 20 other workers. Must be great he life for him knowing that you terminated your wife and had to walk her out the door 😂
I worked at a small family-owned pizza place when I was nineteen or twenty. We went through a period once where they were tweaking the schedule in some very odd ways. One day, the schedule was very weird, with us definitely overstaffed by at least one person. About an hour or two into the day, the police came in and arrested one of the women who worked there. It turned out she'd been stealing from the register nearly every single day that she'd worked there. The weird scheduling was so that the owners could figure out who was stealing through process of elimination. Apparently, after they'd figured out that it was her, they then set up a camera or hired a security agency to watch the counter (they were vague about what they did, exactly) so that there'd be enough evidence to arrest her and then arranged for the cops to come and take her away from work. While beings scheduled to come in just so you can get fired is bad, being scheduled just so you can be arrested is worse. They could have just fired her when they found out, and they could have had her arrested at home on her day off, but obviously they really wanted to have the cops come take her away in front of all of us. The owner was an absolute monster. He was furious a few months later when he found out that she wasn't going to do any jail time.
About 60% of the staff walked out on them a few months after that, myself included. They had to shut down for about a week. I don't really have any sympathy for the woman who was robbing the till every single day, but let's just say that the owner's need to have her arrested in front of us was completely in keeping with how he treated the rest of us most of the time.
I got my first job at Toys R US when I was 16. I was hired during the holidays and was working to save up for this big trip I was going on. After working Thanksgiving, Black Friday AND Christmas at TOYS R US they said that there's a chance they'd keep holiday staff on after the new year. The shift before the new years break they met with everyone individually to let them know if they still had a job. Not a word was said to me. My trip was during the new year and I was excited to come home to a job. The day after performing on the All-American dance team for the Lord Mayor of London and MP's, I was fired on the phone in front of Big Ben from Toys R Us.
my brother used to work for Canes. they made him come in to work during a tropical storm. he literally had a tree branch blocking his car and their response was "pick it up and move it or you're fired". so he moved it, drove in, and they ended up closing 30 minutes later anyways because of bad weather conditions.
they fired him later anyways because he asked for a raise and they figured they could just hire someone cheaper.
Worked at a Hilton. They made the dishwasher come in early for his shift too. They knew he had to walk, far too 5 miles plus. Just to fire him when he got there all sweaty.
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u/R3353Fr4nkl1n Jul 12 '25
When I was a teen working at Canes, I vividly remember management asking a guy to come in on his day off at 8am(mind you, employees normally got there around 930 or so to open) just so they could fire him. He had worked the night before and was looking rough but always eager to pick up an extra shift. All for $6/hr back then. Hope he’s doing well.