It seems as though people often forget that what they post on social media is not private…
Here, people reveal how a post they made on social media got them fired.
29. How do you get fired from a volunteer position!? Well, here’s how.
I had to fire someone for one. He was a volunteer firefighter and left for a call which I allowed. Fifteen minutes later someone showed me his 5 minute old post of him riding quads saying something along the lines of “sometimes you just need to F off from work”. That put him on a final warning. He then left because he said HIS house was on fire then half an hour later his wife tagged him in a photo of him sitting in a kiddie pool in front of his house.
The funny thing is, in both cases, if he had simply asked to leave early I probably would have said yes.
Shylocv
28. The hospital is not the place for selfies…
I work in a hospital and there was a police shooting in my area a couple of years ago and multiple officers were brought into our ER. One officer was DOA and a number of idiot hospital employees posted condolences on their Facebook pages with the name of the officer before the family was officially informed. If memory serves 7 or 8 employees were rightfully fired for that one.
LilyMe
27. You just can’t win.
I once didn’t get a job since I don’t have Facebook or other social media accounts. Apparently they wanted to see the kind of person I was, and I told them I like my privacy.
Delois2
26. Well, now he’s got unlimited sick days.
A former colleague of mine posted about how he was going to use up all his sick leave then quit.
He posted it at 9am, he was told he had no more job at 11.
stumpyoftheshire
25. Guess they didn’t like their recommendation.
I had to fire an employee for a tweet he wrote about a customer (story continued on the next page…).
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He tweeted “(customer’s full name) would be a great name for a porn star.”
I found out about it when the customer’s lawyer called me the next day threatening action. Turns out the guy worked for the local newspaper and obsessively searched his name on all social media…
sharkwithlaser
24. In general, you should NEVER threaten someone. Period.
Girl on my Facebook worked for the postal service in my town. She posted on Facebook how she wanted to slit her bosses throat. Then, about 5 hours later, she posted another status about how the police showed up at her house and that one of her coworkers had showed her boss the status and she was now fired.
llycat503
23. How can you be that incompetent not once but twice??
I used to work for Geek Squad in college and a coworker was fired when a famous actor came in and she posted on Facebook a lot of his private info. Like full name came into our store and bought this and this and has a black Amex card and stuff he had on his computer… not once but on 2 separate occasions.
showtunesaboutbacon
22. “Pretty easy to let him go after that.”
Former Chipotle manager here- as many of you know, Chipotle gives away free stuff on Halloween. So it’s a mandatory weekend for everyone to work. Well, one of our employees called off that Thursday saying he had swine flu… right.
Of course, he posted pics of his weekend partying on his FB. Upon which he was friends with our kitchen manager, general manager, and district manager.
Per company policy (and common sense) you can’t return to work from serious contagious stuff without a doctor’s note. So he shows back up on Wednesday acting all fine and saying the doc cleared him. Oh, but his mom threw his release note away. Too bad buddy, we need that crap or you can’t work. Since we didn’t know when he would have it, we only gave him one day on the schedule anyway.
So then HIS MOM calls me and asks why he can’t work. I ask her, if she went to a restaurant and found out a cook hadn’t proven he was cleared from having swine flu, would she eat there? She saw my point. But it’s not his fault She threw away the note! They were REMODELLING! I asked, why can’t the doc write a new one? Well, he went on vacation! …couldn’t the receptionist or a P.A. get them something? She huffed and hung up on me.
The next day he puts on FB. “Dear Chipotle and managers: instead of cutting hours on someone, why not grow the balls to fire them outright? Suck my junk.”
Pretty easy to let him go after that…
BridgetteBane
21. Even if it’s not work-related, please keep those personal details to yourself…
Didn’t lose my job, but I watched a friend lose his over a tweet. He tweeted “So getting drunk while delivering pizzas is pretty sweet” one night while he was working. The next morning he tweeted “YO SCREW YOU PAPA JOHNS I don’t need you or your stupid job anyway” or something to that effect. I’ve never laughed so hard in my life.
brholmes_
20. Don’t mess with a person’s dog.
I didn’t lose my job over a Facebook post, but I recently got someone fired because of one I made. I got a call from my parents last weekend that our older dog had been hit and killed by the newspaper delivery driver for their neighborhood. This younger girl was constantly speeding (45+ on a short, residential road) and seen on her phone while driving. Complaints had been made before but apparently no action was taken. The dog was 13 years old and could barely manage to hobble, so it was clearly a case of the driver going too fast and not paying attention. She even had the audacity to cuss at my dad while he was trying to get the dog off the street (story continued on the next page…).
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The newspaper company wasn’t returning calls to my parents regarding the drivers safety and behavior, so I decided to give them a push in the right direction and made a shaming post on their Facebook page. It got attention and went as viral as a local newspapers page can get, and they finally got in contact and terminated the driver’s contract.
FlyingVhee
19. Pretty much everyone is an immigrant.
Guy at my company got sacked for putting a Facebook status along the lines of “f-ng immigrants, I hate them” not realizing both his bosses (also owners of the company) were 2nd generation immigrants. They started the company from scratch and now employ 30 people. They pay for full gym membership, healthcare, and generous pension for all the staff, which he had to say goodbye to when he was fired. How’s that for your “f-ing immigrants”?
Peabob
18. So, you want me to waste MORE of my time on Facebook??
I was once passed over for a job because I barely use Facebook. They straight up told me that they couldn’t trust me because of how little info was on my page.
For future reference, I’m sorry employers that 90% of my Facebook page is related to Starcraft and/or miscellaneous gaming. I’m sorry that I don’t get drunk and post embarrassing photos of things you could fire me over. My personal life is my business and not Facebook’s.
warboy3
17. Why would you post that on Facebook in the first place?
A co-worker of mine was fired recently because he got caught sneaking off work to smoke weed and drink. This moron would post photos of him smoking and drinking on Facebook. The boss found out and predictably fired him on the spot. The best part, this guy was almost 30 years old, and not just some dumb teenager.
BubbaCrosbyGOAT
16. Actually, that’s harassment.
My female friend (18) was DM’d through twitter by the news presenter (37) of our city. He was talking about her beach pictures and how she is really pretty and how they need to get together. She ended up telling him that it’s pretty ridiculous that he’s trying to get with her. He lost his job later that week. He used the weather channels twitter account.
wowhowfun
15. Scarves will get you fired.
I worked for a place that has a gift shop. Inside of this gift shop were the most ugly, unwearable scarves on the face of the planet. I was younger and didn’t really care about the company or any possible consequences.
I started a movement called ‘Scarf Tuesday’. Basically, a few of us (on the clock) would meet up at 9 every Tuesday and wear a scarf for a photo on Facebook. These photos started getting likes and people loved them, so we kept going.
A few months later, I get pulled into my bosses office. On the wall, I kid you not, are at least twenty of the scarf Tuesday pictures WITH THE FACES BLURRED OUT. My boss asks me, to this day, the funniest question I’ve ever been asked:
“What do you see here?” (story continued on the same page…)
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I smiled and told him it looked like employees wearing scarves.
He said he found it “hilarious” but it was unacceptable and he was disappointed. Apparently somebody watching the cameras wasn’t happy and watched us for weeks piling evidence. EVERYBODY (fifteen people at least) had similar meetings in the next few days.
I didn’t get canned right away because we stopped doing Scarf Tuesday, but the retaliation was awful and eventually I was blamed for just about everything that went wrong and got fired.
Looking back at it, it was foolish. I fell into a deep depression for a few months because of being unemployed. It helped me grow into a man though and now I have a full time managerial job making twice as much. I’ll never regret it because it brought me on a path that led to a better life.
WarmSchmidtty
14. They were just trying to help, people!
I got fired from an internship for posting on Reddit before. It was a very small environmental engineering consulting firm. We were doing work on a site that had lead and arsenic contamination on it. The site was very dusty, and if it didn’t rain for a few days the dust would often kick up and blow onto the street next to the site, which happened to be the main road in this semi-smallish town.
Someone mentioned on Reddit, in a totally unrelated way, that they were from this town. I made a mention of the contamination, and told the dude that if he ever saw dust coming off the site that he should contact the engineers which were housed above one of the local bars.
Apparently this guy didn’t really want the site to be redeveloped at all because of the already high congestion in the surrounding roads, and he called and complained and mentioned my post on Reddit.
The company was so small it was obvious it was me who posted it, and I fessed up about what I had said, and immediately deleted the post. Even though I didn’t do anything illegal, or even remotely immoral, I was fired because I was seen as a liability.
Screw that. People deserve to know if the dust they’re breathing in could give them cancer. I moved onto a different field (marine biology) and haven’t even remotely looked back.
yo_maaaan
13. They were just adhering to the LAW.
I was working as a bartender and server for a place. The assistant manager was a petty tyrant and treated the staff like crap. I had made several complaints about him to the general manager and the owner with some of the other staff, but they refused to do anything about it.
So, I was done with this place, and was currently looking for a new job, when one day I was bartending and a very young looking girl came. She hands me her out of state ID, and I can tell that it is fake. I politely tell her that I can’t serve her alcohol, and explain that in this state we don’t legally have to accept out of state IDs, blah blah blah. She was actually very understanding and there was no scene or issue. Her other friends arrive and they move to a table and I informed their server about the fake ID. It is around this time that the assistant manager who had been drinking bloody Mary’s at the bar next door all morning and then napping in the office came over. He then starts telling me that I don’t know what a fake ID looks like and I don’t have the right to refuse service and how stupid I am. He then tells me I have to serve the girl. I inform him that I have the legal right to refuse service, and he cannot force me to.
Anyway, I go home and post on the Facebook about my day, and then include a photo of when I was managing a liquor store holding a shield made out of all the fake IDs we had confiscated in one year. Also a crown. The next day I was called in and let go for refusing to cooperate with management and what have you.
eyesick
12. That is not anywhere near a required skill for the job.
I’ve had one employer refuse to hire me because I didn’t have a Facebook at the time. Wasn’t a HR or social job, it was a fast food joint.
_52hz_
11. Don’t ever post other people’s personal information online.
My mom’s ex boyfriend. He was a waiter at a very elite restaurant and had normally expected very nice tips. Some guy left him a $5 tip for an over $100 bill and he got pissed and posted the customer’s information on Facebook. He got fired the next day.
10. They should NOT have been fired for that!
Worked at Gamestop until 2010. The store was in a mall and parents would always leave their kids in the store and go do their shopping… Sometimes the children would cry, sometimes they’d pee themselves, even had one #2. Parents would get mad at us for not bringing them to the bathroom or start screaming at their kids for not just playing games for a few hours without causing any problems. I tweeted about how the store wasn’t there to babysit children and never really thought about that tweet again.. until – (story continued on the next page…).
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Few months later, same thing. Parent drops kid off in store, leaves. 20 minutes later, an older looking guy is outside the store, on his flip phone, aiming it at the store. He’s creeping me out but I continue offering pointless warranties to customers while waiting for my next break and then, I noticed him walk near the entrance of the store and ask that kid where his parents are. This seemed really fishy and the guy looked beyond suspicious, I was thinking he could be a pedophile and I was right. He gets the kid to go with him, I call up mall security so they could check it out and they caught him before he left the mall.
He was arrested, the kid was crying, asking for his mom.. Who mall security could not reach because as it turns out, she went to some stores outside of the mall area and she didn’t actually come back for another 2 hours, at which point she threatened to sue me, gamestop, the mall,etc. Security guard lady told her that child services were called, they all walked away(That was the last time I saw them.)
Few days later , District Manager (DM) shows up in store and I was fired on the spot because that lady made a complaint, DM found my twitter and informed me that my approach to yesterday’s dilemma & my tweet about how Gamestop isn’t a babysitting service has made them believe that I don’t have the “Gamestop spirit”.
Both the manager and district manager told me I could use them as a reference on my resume though, which was great until they both lost their jobs a few weeks later.
Rebelled
9. Got thrown under the bus for that one.
I worked customer support for a mobile game company. I was honest with a disheartened customer, who had complained that recent changes had made the game pay to win. It had, in truth, been a glitch with an update. I told them as much, assuring them the team would be fixing it in the next update. But then the games profits skyrocketed. The team kept the glitch, and put out a statement describing the change as an intentional one designed to improve the play experience. But there was my name, plastered all over the game forums, claiming the opposite. I technically worked for a separate company that provided support for several studios, but the studio behind this game was our biggest customer. They approached my bosses, furious I jeopardized their cash cow, and demanded I be fired. I promptly became familiar with the underside of the bus, as I was gone within the week.
C1ank
8. Don’t talk crap about other employees, even if you are right.
I was on the job a week at a law firm, and had to ride with one of the employees to the UPS store. She was a terrible driver, and almost wrecked multiple times. I posted on Facebook, “One week on the job and my coworker is trying to kill me; worst driver ever.” The next day I was called into my bosses office with the girl sitting there with an expressionless look on her face, and there was a printout of my post. It was awkward and they fired me on the spot. All of my account information was also set to private, so they figured a way to check my activity.
About40Llamas
7. That’s a ridiculous reason to fire someone.
Someone on my timeline posted an article about Comcast customer service. Someone replied to him saying, “Wow, Comcast actually has customer service? lol!”
Working in customer service myself, I reply (from a personal account that is in no way connected with my job) with the tweet, “Yup, we do. We complain about management as much as you do.”
Comcast did not like that. Despite me having zero personal details on Twitter, they somehow still figured out it was me. I realized after that I had GPS auto-locate on for my tweets, so I suppose they could have looked through that data to figure out where I lived (I checked, it’s clear what house I live in whenever I tweet about being home.)
Anyway, the point is, they linked the account back to me and fired me for suggesting the employees are anything other than 100% happy all day at work. Seriously, that’s almost what they said to me when they fired me. The best I can recall it was: “You said the employees aren’t happy. We can’t have people suggesting the employees are in any way unhappy with management, it makes us look bad as a company. Comcast has worked extremely hard to get the reputation it currently has and things like this will make people see Comcast in a negative light, which is unacceptable.”
They also implied (though did not outright state) they’re letting legal look at it to see if they have a libel case against me. It’s been 5 months and I haven’t heard a damn thing from them, so I assume not.
The weirdest part was, the woman firing me seemed completely unaware the general public hates Comcast.
Joetato
6. Maybe they should be institutionalized too, not just fired.
Joined a games studio alongside a guy who’d just finished his philosophy degree. He felt that the game’s official forums were the best place to discuss whether poor people would be “of as much value as pigs” after a post-apocalyptic event, and if they should be simply slaughtered and eaten. All using his company account, of course.
badguysenator
5. I guess the customer is always right.
A company I worked for had it written into their 7-page contracts that you were not allowed to even reference said company on social media. Anyone in breach would be fired instantly.
There’s a page on Facebook called “We Hate ____” that’s currently one of the world’s biggest corporate-hate pages.
It all started when… (story continued on the next page…).
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It all started when someone working in our call centre posted online about how much the customers suck. Then began something of a war between the staff and customers, customers posting on employees’ walls and vice versa.
The company was/is a major player in it’s market (essentially had a monopoly) and there was a noticeable drop in sales that year.
All in all, around 20 people were fired.
NewRandomHero
4. That’s what google in for, buddy.
Not me, but the company I work for. A prospective employee just passed his interview, and was told that all he needs to do is pass a drug test and a physical and he would start on Monday. The company Facebook guy found the new hire on Facebook and the guy had just posted 20 minutes after the interview, “Crap! Anyone know how to pass a drug test in 24 hours?!”
Bigblockchevy
3. Yeah, best not post your dark fantasies about your place of work online…
I was younger and an idiot. I posted something on Facebook about wanting to go home and play the Sims so I could create [telecommunications store I worked for] on it and then slowly kill off all the customers.
I was working a late night shift in a mall and forgot our new coworker had added me on Facebook days before.
Whaabz
2. That is pure and utter discrimination.
I posted a blog post on MySpace in 2005 that got me discharged from the Army. I indicated I had romantic feelings for a female and that I had acted on those feelings (I am also female). My sergeant suspected I was involved with this woman so she looked me up on MySpace, saw the blog post, and 3 months later, I was discharged for “homosexual conduct”.
RooSong
1. Well, I guess you stuck it to him.
I posted my Facebook status about how big of jerk my boss is…… and accidentally tagged him.
deathTOimmortals