Managers Share Why Their New Hires Quit Day One

All before 8am...

My uncle retired and, after some time had went by, he decided to get a part time job at a bait store for some extra spending money.

The afternoon boss told him to be there at 8am, but when he showed up at 7:45am and knocked on the door to be let in, the morning boss told him that he was 15 minutes late. The guy started to get in his case about how he was expected to be there a half hour before his shift to straighten up and restock shelves.

My uncle told him he could take his job and shove it up his butt. He was back on the road by 7:48. LetsChewThis

Terrible Twos.... 

I used to work in a really small grocery store that usually only had one manager and one cashier in the store at all times. I had put up my 2 weeks notice and prior to leaving trained up the new manager to take my place. The next day after I left from what I was told the manager quit 2 hrs into their first solo shift leaving the poor cashier behind who had been there even less time than the new manager. GreatFork

Peek a boo...

The fastest was the one who was a no-show their first day. It's all good, about 8 months later they contacted us to say they were ready to come to work. hatchet338

I'm not even joking here... I worked in sales and had a guy start with us, no call no showed his second day. He never answered so we just figured he quit. 4 months later he calls and asks if he can still have the job, because on his way home from his first day he got in an accident and was in a coma! He called us 3 days after he woke up. JoeTheImpaler

Multi-tasker...

I once needed a new graphic designer in my unit so I (as was procedure) told HR what I needed and they came back in a couple weeks with someone they had hired. He met us all, sat down and was . . . very confused. He was an accountant, not a graphic designer. They had hired him as an accountant, and asked him lots of accounting questions. Nothing at all do do with the position. HR was called, he left with them. I never saw him again. I hope they kept him on as an accountant! tatsukunwork

Fast & the Furious... 

Hired a delivery driver, construction materials. First day he had a 26 foot box truck and three stops in the Frederick Md market, about 2 hours from our warehouse. He leaves at 7:00 AM and is back at 11:30 AM. I see him and say 'wow, that was really fast.' He says he's going to get some cigarettes and will be right back in. Gets in his car and leaves, we open the truck and everything is still there, exactly as loaded. He doesn't answer his phone and never comes back. We never found out what happened.

For the next 6 months, anytime anyone in the warehouse was having a bad day, they'd say 'I'm going to get cigarettes.'Mean_Cup_of_Joe

Identity issues...

I worked at a prison, we had a woman come in get hired, for her first day which is where we start the finger print scan to upload data to the feds, and do your physical and TB test, she had gone down and not come back after 3-4 hours, we called down to see what was up, Turns out she was wanted two states over for identity theft, and was now being housed at intake. ICUMTARANTULAS

The Spanish angle... 

The first day. I worked at a phone store in a very Hispanic neighborhood. He claimed to be fluent in Spanish in the interview (I probably should have verified that). He learned pretty quickly that he'd really need the Spanish, so he got super stressed and stormed off. I later found out he took a $900 camo galaxy s5 with him when he left. koreamax

Snooze button.... 

I used to manage a grocery store. We had to come in at 6 AM to start throwing the loads and getting the store ready for the day. Had a new hire come in 5 minutes late on her first day, at 6:05, just to give me her locker key and tell me it she has never woken up this early in her life and that she can't do the job. ak47ra1der

Too Hot to Handle...

15 minutes. I hired someone to work in a manufacturing plant. We did a tour of how hot the floor would be during the interview. No problem.

First day at work, he walked out after 15 minutes of work because it was "too hot." choocheu

Sounds like it would be an effective passive vetting to have someone wait in a chair in a "hot" area for 30 minutes before scooping them up for an interview. RollinThundaga

A Quick Upgrade...

We hired a girl for a live-on job (I worked on an university campus). She was hired, drove down like 3 - 4 hours, began her first day, apparently got some other offers that were closer to home, realized she made a huge mistake, packed her stuff and was gone that evening. gatesoffire1178

Snoozefest... 

When I worked at Target as a GSTL I had a new hire come in, work 30 mins ask for a smoke break since it was slow and never came back. I called her cell an hour later, and she answered, "s**t was boring you know." That was it. We sent her a check for her time, which she came in and cashed at the guest services desk. She later did a porn, which was terrible for the record. greeed

Lovely attitude...

We hired a front desk girl and when she discovered we had HIV patients, she quit before she "had to check one in."

How she got through the hiring process without realizing that an HIV clinic in fact has HIV patients is beyond me. Nikki-is-sweet

It's truly terrifying how ignorant people are of things they don't understand. I worked for a non-profit health agency that cut it's teeth on the HIV population but has since branched out into general medical clients as well. I never once felt unsafe around any of the clients I came into contact with. Most of them were pretty cool people, even if they did look more sickly than others maybe. But not all of them did. Many you would have no reason to even suspect. Lobo9498

Hello HR? Try again...

I had a new hire that left just after signing the i9 form and just before starting her computer training. So maybe 1 hour in?

Anyway my HR assistant didn't file the termination paperwork correctly (supposed to send a certified letter) and a year later the employee successfully sued for unemployment because we never gave her a schedule so she didn't know when to come in next. snarksneeze

Keep your $20! 

I worked 4 hours as a cold calling telemarketer. Never went back, never picked up my check for the work. The managers were the scummiest people I ever met and I was literally the only person on shift who was sober. Everyone else, managers included, was on something.

I appreciate everyone trying to help me get the money I never got. I didn't want it. I was about 19, doing summer work, and I sure don't need it now. But again, thanks all. Seriously, it was like $20. Commander_Ivanova

This isn't my idea of fun!

OK DEF I was not this guy's manager but when I was a second-year surgery resident a new intern came on July 1, per usual. His story was that he had already finished a pediatric residency, which meant that for him, residency time could be over and he could go work as a pediatrician if he wanted. However, apparently his father was some sort of famous pediatric surgeon and his plan was to now become a general surgeon, and ultimately to become a pediatric surgeon (after further future Fellowship training). He was put on call the very first night. The next day I was told that around midnight, he went to the charge nurse asked "are you in charge around here?" And when she said yes he silently handed him her pager and walked out never to be seen again. I guessed he had enough of residency and certainly didn't want to be an intern again. Epic. supertucci

Father Knows best...

My dad quit a construction job in the late 70s on his first day.

He was late high school or so and his employer did property restoration after natural disasters. The supervisor told him and another kid to go into the basement and fortify the foundation or the structural beams without proper safety precautions. Dad told him no. Supervisor threatened a firing. Dad took the firing. GuidanceInTheDark

I was senior tech at a datacenter. Boss asked me to run a cable overhead over 100 feet by myself, which would require dozens of trips up and down ladders, and no one else there to help me should I fall. I told him no, unless he got someone to help me. He never did, and it never got done. With two people it would have been an easy and short job, too. Didn't quit or get fired over it; boss couldn't afford to lose me, and HR wouldn't have let it fly since I just told him I needed help. WardenWolf

Get your own grenadine... 

Oh God - I was the employee and this happened recently.

A local restaurant/catering company was hiring for banquet servers and bartenders. I worked a day job, but needed the extra money and figured this was the perfect opportunity.

I showed up to my shift at 3 o'clock, and the event manager is showing me around the building. It was absolutely disgusting. I mean I already knew the bar was kind of on its way out, but I had no idea it was this bad. Slowly I start to realize I'm the only person that is working this event. Not a huge deal - I have a ton of experience in banquets, its not that hard. Then the woman lets me know its a party of 130 people for a bat mitvah.

Uh, I'm sorry, what? You expect me to set up and work an entire event for 130 alone? Nothing was done, I had to set up tables, buffet tables, and bar in 3 hours. She also has to go to another event right then and leaves me alone to set up. I was literally almost in tears and the host shows up with 30 kids about an hour early. I honestly almost walked out right then, but I felt awful for the little girl who was having the party.

The event went about as awfully as you expect. The bar had no fruit/or certain mixers and I had to be my own barback. I also had to take bar breaks to work the buffet stations and bus tables. I made about $20 in tips and was covered in food and grenadine.

The breaking point was 5 little kids b**ching at me for not having any grenadine left. I walked up to the event manager and said "sorry I can't take it, I don't need this job and I've been here for 8 hours without a single break. I'm leaving." To be fair, it was the end of the event and 11 o'clock but she would have to break down alone, or with staff from the bar.

I actually left and did feel bad , but who the hell thinks its ok to have 1 person work a large event?!?!? I also still haven't gotten paid despite numerous requests. F**k that place. Atd9856

McDonald's? Burger King maybe!

Once I worked a temp job at a salmon canning factory for a week or two. We got a couple of new temps one day, a girl in her early twenties and a creepy Somalian guy who could've been 25 or 40. Somalian guy spends all day trying to hit on this girl, asking her if she will be his girlfriend within a couple of hours. He then begged her to go on a date with him to McDonald's on our lunch break. I guess he followed her to her car at lunch and started harassing her. She drove off and never came back. There's some real scumbags out there and I feel terrible that women have to put up with people like that. GraveSalami

Cleanliness is next to Godliness... 

This is a great one because it was not a low-tier position. I was working at a pharma-manufacturing facility and we were hiring a new HR manager.

She got the job, shown her office, basically "this desk is not clean enough" and that was that- she left. sj_raptor

Are you serious? skimulant

Yes. It was quite the joke for a few weeks after that. It just was so ridiculous. sj_raptor

All Hands on the deck for the Lunch rush!

I was a supervisor at a grocery store a few years back. A guy I knew from high school got a job at my store and a McDonald's at the same time. He told me that at the end of the month he would quit the job he liked less. The next day he quit from my store.

I asked him why he wasn't waiting a month like he planned. Turns out, on his first day at McDonald's, all of the other people on his shift including the manager went out back to smoke and left him running the whole store alone for a couple of hours during the lunch rush.

The owner found out, and fired everyone except him, and promoted him to manager. On his first day. He decided he didn't want to bag groceries after that. I didn't blame him. darth_ravage

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