Lamest employment let go excuse you ever got.

If the bean counters can't even count..., yeah, that was pretty lame.

I only got fired once.

It was during high school, and I was working after school at a concrete plant bending rebar, knocking concrete slag off of cast structures, etc.

The old man that started the plant lived above it in a nice house, and his two boys ran it. Well, the old man took a liking to me, pulled me out of the concrete yard, and had me cutting his grass, pulling weeds, trimming hedges, etc. around his house. Way easier work. Plus half the time we'd stand around shooting the sh*t and I'd be getting paid for it.

His two boys didn't like that one bit. How dare me make friends with their Daddy?

One day I went to work as usual, back out in the concrete field. It was close to 100° and high humidity. The only source of water was a hose on the outside of the shop. About every 30 minutes I'd go up there and guzzle water. I was sweating it out pretty fast. Well, on about the fourth trip, one of his brat spoiled sons came out, told me I was taking too many breaks, and fired me on the spot.

Try on for size as a screwy reason why I got canned from an engineering consultant firm on New Years Eve back in 1992:

The president of the small firm was a Czech that relocated to USA after the "Czech Spring" in '68. His command of English was incredibly terrible, hence his nickname by all that knew him was "Ivan the Terrible". Little did I know when I joined his firm after returning from Desert Storm, that he had a "revolving door" for hiring & booting engineers.....He also hated anyone that had any military experience. Also screamer and floor stomping (like a spoiled child....TANTRUMS...I swear to God) during the dreaded Monday morning firm meetings.

Anyway, I hate to see what he pays the NYS Labor Dept. for unemployment insurance premiums! Anyhow, this guy liked to live extremely high on the hog (to keep up with the "Jones" in his ritzy Clifton Park NY neighborhood, of course!), so to speak, and had the best of everything...houses, trips abroad every 3 or 4 months, vehicles, boats of all types jewelry (for both he, his wife and 2 spoiled brat kids), you name it, including a very heavy drinking, cocaine and crack habit....even snorting the chit in his office and on business trips. You should have seen his erratic driving while under the influence....a very dangerous driver. Sometimes while sitting in the passenger seat on a business-related trip I wished I was wearing a parachute strapped onto my back so I could just "bailout", especially when he was passing a logging truck on a winding 2-lane Adirondack Mountains highway (NYS Rte. 73 near Lake Placid) with oncoming traffic, nearly killing us in the process! The guy is a very very materialistic man. His blond-bombshell Czech Trophy Wife was just as bad.

His excuse for letting me go: He didn't need my services any longer and couldn't afford my salary because he needed to buy a new Chevy Suburban (FULLY loaded to the gills) to replace he 6 month old Ford Eddie Bauer Bronco (fully loaded of course), buy a new cigar power boat for use on Mirror Lake in Lake Placid, buy a new 32-foot ocean rated sail boat to dock at a Long Island marina, upgrade his LI summer vacation home, build a 12,000 square foot addition to his already 10,000 SF vacation home located high above and overlooking Lake Placid (he got the land from the land developer for nadda as part of his Professional Services contract to design the ritzy subdivision he had that house in)!!!!! UNF*CKINGBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!!! Crummies! What an *asshole!

tcmtech, I'm so sorry to hear about your job loss....I feel for you & know your pain and suffering. Been there and one it a few times because of **sswipe bosses......both times the bosses were foreign-born, and I swear I will never work for another non-USA born boss the remainder of my life! They try to circumvent the labor laws in this country and think they can get away with it repeatedly! Not on my watch, and both jerky boys paid for it dearly w/ the labor dept and in court!! hehehehe It was SWEET...as PAYBACK IS A B*TCH!!!!!!!!!

Not really experiencing any pain and suffering to be honest being I had strong suspicions that this was coming for a while now being what was proposed at the beginning of my employment had what appeared to me as severe holes in the returns Vs operating costs ratio right from the get go. If 3/4+ of your work comes from fixing your own equipment billing yourself for it really does not add up to any profit but the operating expences are still very real just the same.

Since my first job many years ago I have developed a solid, and apparently well founded, reason to never ever trust employers so I have always kept a substantial fall back net in place to keep the cash flow coming. I didn't go for almost 6 years of being self employed without knowing how to budget my money or resources!

For me this job was a fun learning experience and all around fun and I hold no real grudges against them. The pay was good the hours where tolerable and the coworkers good as well.

I just have to say BS about the 'We don't play politics or hide things here' bit I got at the hiring meeting though. That and the 'We will be investing a considerable mount of money into your training as well' part. Zero formal training, and half a uniform was what I had at the end. At least the half a uniform is five pairs of FR Carhart pants three tee shirts and two hooded sweaters!

Sorry to hear that, but glad you're prepared. Good luck with hunt!

Its okay. I have a chance to talk with a few of my coworkers now and last Monday (and Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday) poo hit the fan big time due to my dismissal!

Apparently getting rid of the on site service tech for reasons this lame in a company that has a large percentage of its rental department income coming from machines that are rented out to... you guessed it, remote on site locations didn't sit well with everyone else who now has to deal with those customers that can no longer get their machines fixed right away plus the remaining service techs, who did not want my job in the first place, that now have to leave the comfy warm shop to go to said places.

Strangely enough my service truck is still sitting exactly where I left the day I was let go. Oh well its not my problem anymore and I have been really appreciating the free time I have had since!!!