#1. From a cannon
"Sure thing - what position am I interviewing him for?"
"Your job."
Happiness is watching it happen to the boss that wanted to get rid of you...
A place where I was, they brought in someone known to be a hatchet man. He identified and laid off some 25% of the people, then created a new org chart, his own name somewhere in the upper echelon. The next week, when he attempted to come into the office, his card-key had been disabled, and when he buzzed security, they showed up with his stuff boxed up and a court order to stay away from the business.
The very first time I saw it, it looked like a perp walk, but there was no shame in it since it happened to everyone.
Eventually you didn't even notice the security.
Decided to wait at the coffee pot and fire the one who came by first.
*Groan* Sally showed up.
Tried to be diplomatic so I said, "Sally, I'm afraid I either have to lay you or Jack off."
She gave me the strangest reply.
I had a boss that went on vacation .The very next day his boss came in and told everyone that "Jim " had been fired and introduced us to his replacement.
Two weeks later Jim walks in on Monday morning ,nobody had bothered to mention it to him .So I was the one that had to him "I thought you were let go" He ran off to his bosses office and then stormed out ,never to be seen again.
A little off topic I have heard the best why are you late for work story.
A divorced guy I worked with bought what was really a very nice house but in a terrible neighborhood.His thinking was he is almost never home and he bought the place for a pittance.
Well one day he came out to go to work and found a police car in front of his house with crime scene tape around his car ,It turns out a junkie had sat down next to his car shot himself up and died leaning against the rear fender of his car with a needle still stuck in his arm.
He wanted to get a broom and knock the guy over so he could go to work but the cop wouldn't let him until the coroner came.
So he had to call the boss and say to him "Boss I'm gonna be late cause there's a dead junkie on my car"
At another job, after the death of a dear coworker, an upper management guy who had feuded with my boss and the deceased coworker, unceremoniously showed up one day while we were still grieving and tried to boot us out. Our customers were aghast. I was given the option, which I had to take, I needed to keep working, of training my replacement. Luckily, she got pregnant, and I had extra time to find new work during her leave, and train her assistant, all the while working with the 'new' boss, a man who knew he was putting me out of work, whose kids attended school with my son. And by the way, my replacement was dumb as a board. She just did not get what she was supposed to be doing, 'their' customers often came to me, which ticked off the new boss and he then hired the assistant whom I trained, luckily she caught on more quickly.
Chicago Blackhwaks slid a note under Coach Billy Reay's door.
bttt
Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch....
When I was just starting out in the private sector, the guy who ran the mainframe got canned. While he was cleaning out his desk, the manager asked him if he'd train his replacement before the end of the day.
"No. What are you going to do, fire me?"
I worked for a medium sized state depat in Cal. My new boss (I didn't apply) was hired as I subsequently found out, by the director because they were involved in various community activities in Davis.
This guy had no management skills and was trying to micro-manage every division under him. I absorbed it all for my division, to protect the employees so they could get their work done.
My bosses boss called me in and told me that she heard their were some problems with the division chiefs and Don. I said that he was a terrible manager and didn't seem to understand the basic principles of managing high level managers. She said that I should help him because I knew a lot about management and had been successful.
I said: It's not my responsibility to clean up the bad personnel decisions of the director and certainly not my responsibility to train my boss in how to manage me. Lastly, he was so defensive there was no way he would listen to a subordinate about his performance. Got some frowns for awhile. This is typical in civil service. By the way they passed over two other very qualified candidates to hire this brainstorm.
When the next director came in, he transferred the guy to the facility planning office where he sat, since our building plan was not funded. Finally, the guy ran screaming out of the building and ran for city council. Of course!
At a company my mother worked for, a long term employee was leaving for another non-competitive job. My mom bought him a cake, with her own money and got everyone together at lunch for a little send off.
She got fired for it.
I've got a great one!
A friend of mine was fired via e-mail by a husband and wife team. The woman did the note and prepared for it to be sent before they left for a 3 day weekend. The husband in the command team took out girl's e-mail. Unfortunately, he did this before the note was actually sent.
And upon their return on Monday, who should be in the office carrying about her job as though it wa perfectly normal?? You got it! The girl whom they thought they had fired. Complete confusion ensued before the 2 parties were able to piece together what had occurred and when they informed the young lady that she had been fired. She threatened legal action to keep her job.
The bosses sent the girl flowers that said; "When life gives you lemons make lemonade." She quit 2 weeks later.
Who would have thought getting fired could be so funny!
Years ago I worked for a company that went through a chapter 11, as a result they laid off 3/4 of the first level managers and about half of the people that worked for them.
I went from managing one office to managing two AND I had the task of laying off a ton of people who had worked for other managers.
I called one of the field guys that worked for someone I considered a friend and told him that I needed him to come in and bring all of his company tools, the truck etc. His manager called me about 10 minutes later and said "How come YOU'RE bringing "Ted" in". I had to tell him I was laying "Ted" off. He started in asking me why he wasn't laying "Ted" off what with it being his guy and all and then it dawned on him. Crappy way to find out your getting whacked.
The second office I took over, they literally walked the old manager out the front door while I walked in the back door. His seat was still warm. Then I laid off most of the people who worked for him.
Dark, bleak time. Not a good feeling to get rid of dozens of folks because someone else went to the Enron school of accounting. I left a month later, never could get the blood off my hands.