Your first day at work is probably going to be a mix of very different but equally powerful emotions. Excitement because you’re starting a new chapter in your life. Anxiety because you’re not quite sure what to expect. And a dash of stress to round things off—because you want to leave the best first impression possible. Both on your boss and all of your new coworkers.

Alas! Starting a new job doesn’t always go as planned. Redditor u/Mr__Roomba sparked an interesting discussion online after asking folks to share their very worst first days on the job. And the stories range from deeply demotivating to downright awful, with a dash of bizarre hilarity sprinkled on top. Read on to see just how unlucky some people have been.

#1

True story.

**I got mugged on my first night as a pizza delivery guy.**

It was my second delivery of the night. I parked the car, and had to walk a little bit to get to the apartment building. During that walk, two guys came up, hit me in the head several times, shoved me down, and took the money bag and the pizza and ran.

I went back to the pizza shop and quit on the spot.

The pizza shop owners sent me to the emergency room to get checked out, they paid for the bill, they made sure I got home safe and sound. So they were great.

Image credits: whomp1970

#2

got hired on as a prep cook at a longhorn steakhouse as a second job to make some money before i moved. started in december. during orientation the general manager said “if you’re early you’re on time, if you’re on time you’re late, and if you’re late you don’t deserve a job.” fair enough, i usually arrive at least 15 minutes early to anything, work included. my first actual day of work i get dropped off at 7:45 for an 8:00 am shift. it’s like 30 degrees out, starting to snow. 8 rolls around and nobody else shows up. 8:10 nobody. finally 8:20 rolls around and the other two prep cooks show up. i asked them what the deal was and they said the GM was always late. then at 8:30 the GM finally shows up to unlock the doors to let us in. i looked at him and said “if you’re early you’re on time, if you’re on time you’re late, and if you’re late….” and just gave him this look. he told me it wasn’t gonna work out so i walked 2 miles home in the snow. was probably a good thing honestly

Image credits: agentmichaelscarn6

#3

I was hired as a party host for a children's playland. I was the only adult who was allowed in the playground area so half of it was coaxing children out when their time was up. The slide was wet, and the lower half of the ball pit was socks and diapers. We had staff meals from the on site cafe and mid afternoon we realized everyone had food poisoning when the character in the large fluffy suit vomited in the head of the costume. And I had to guide them out, with vomit pouring out of the mesh face hole.

I stayed another week after that and the next person in the character suit vomited because of the smell already in the head. They then chemically cleaned the head, and the next person to wear it vomited then passed out from the fumes and I had to drag an unconscious 6ft rodent from a room of screaming and crying kids.

Like it or not, first impressions really do matter. Especially in a workplace setting. And that goes for both new employees and managers alike! A good first impression means that you’re someone who’s memorable and will stand out from the crowd. You should strive to find a balance between being professional and friendly.

‘Indeed’ notes that you want to be remembered if you have ambitions to rise to a leadership position. Ideally, you want to appear confident, charismatic, intelligent, and empathetic—no matter how small the interactions with your coworkers or clients. In short, you want to show off your positive (potentially) managerial qualities, no matter how much of a greenhorn you might be.

#4

My first job was at a new buffet in a small town when I was 14. They mass hired everyone that showed up to the interview.

I was supposed to be a dish washer but when I got there for training they handed me a ladder and told me to install the dry wall ceiling tiles in the kitchen. I, obviously, had no idea what I was doing and had a tile fall on my back, which caused me to slip off the ladder and fall on the ground.

The owner was upset that a 14 year old kid couldn't do the non-dishwashing task correctly and chewed me out and sent me home and to never come back. I had to pester them for months to get my ~$6.50 for the hour I was there. Shockingly, they went under in just a few months.

Image credits: DrGingeyy

#5

Dairy Queen queen I was 17.

The layout was such that I had to repeatedly walk past the grill where the floor was so covered in grease that it was like trying to walk across oiled ice...super dangerous because if you slipped, you were likely to hit the grill. I got yelled at for mentioning that the floor needed to be cleaned (I even offered to do it but was told no).

I was scheduled for an 8 hour shift, so by law, I got a 20 minute unpaid lunch break, which I was made to take about 45 minutes into my shift. I got yelled at for asking if I could please take my break closer to the middle of my shift.

I was left alone as the only cashier and ice cream preparer, even though I hadn't even been told what everything on the menu was yet, let alone how to make it. I kept getting yelled at for not knowing when I went to the back (past the slip-n-slide of death) to ask for help.

About 3 hours in, I was absolutely certain this would be a horrible place to work, so I told the owner that it was dangerous there, I was being yelled at by the manager for not knowing how to make things I had never even heard of, and the job was a bad fit for me so I was quitting and leaving.

He told me it was unacceptable that I wasn't giving two weeks notice and yelled at me about it until I cried.

It's been over 20 years, and I've never set foot in a Dairy Queen again.

Image credits: Leelluu

#6

In the first few months of the pandemic, I got hired at a dog daycare and the owner told me I’d be making $9/hour as their receptionist. I go in to fill out the paperwork and she tells me that she actually filled the receptionist position, but she has a dog handler position open for $8/hour. I was hurting for money, so I accepted it. She told me I’d start right away - literally on the spot. She didn’t tell me that before coming in, so I wasn’t wearing proper clothes for it (capri pants) and she berated me for it and said next time I do it, I’ll get written up.

As she was showing me around, I realized the entire play area for the dogs was inside. There were no outside areas for the dogs to run, and as a result, the whole place smelled like dog waste.

She then threw me in a gated area alone with a pack of large dogs without any formal (or informal) training. One dog was pretty aggressive and kept trying to bite me. She’d yell at it from the other side of the gate, and all that would do was get the dogs riled up. I’m not scared of dogs but I was scared that day. She yelled at me for not being assertive enough with the dogs, but I didn’t know the dogs personalities yet and I didn’t want to start a fight between them or get attacked. The dog that was trying to bite me kept picking fights with other dogs and she got mad at me for telling the dog “no.”

After my shift was over, I never went back. I had an interview at Target the next day and got hired there at $15/hour.

Image credits: toothpastenachos

Appearances are very important when it comes to leaving those lasting initial impressions. You want to take the time to really focus on your appearance—from your clothes to your hygiene—and body language. Try to maintain eye contact, smile lots, and exude confidence through your body language.

For instance, you wouldn’t want to keep your hands in your pockets or cross your arms while you’re hunched over and looking beyond scared. Be in control of your posture, slow down your movements, and actively listen to your new colleagues before speaking.

#7

When I arrived on the first day, there was an eviction notice on the door and a cop looking for the business owners. Bullets dodged, that day!

Image credits: Upper-Job5130

#8

This wasnt a bad first day but sure was funny. New job site building a reststop for parks Canada. My boss and i are just surveying the site when he slips on a slope and slides down into a bog. Hes down there on all fours soaking wet and muddy and i dont want to help in case i fall in too. Searching for aomthing to say i muster out uh did you mean to do that? He replies ofcourse i didnt f*****g mean to do that god damm it. He crawls out, says well ive had enough for today, how about you? And im like ya sure we can call it a day. We drove three hours to have a look at the site for ten minutes and three hours back home. The ride was pretty quiet when he says, did you f*****g mean to do that, you f*****g guy! We dont work together anymore but he was an absolute gem of a guy, still consider him a friend.

Image credits: TheRealBradGoodman

#9

I was a supervisor in a technical support department for "professional" support, but was one day unceremoniously moved to "personal" support. (The former was expensive and for IT and experienced clients. The latter for regular home users.)

When I arrived in my new department, they were short 3 supervisors, so I was assigned all 3 teams, and the place was like Lord of the Flies. I was given a printout of schedules and names, with no way to find the people. I started tracking them down to find that nearly 1/3 of them had left the company, but previous supervisors didn't notify HR/payroll, there were no files on what people were trained on, nothing.

End of the day my new boss asked how things were, and I told him people needed to be fired. He laughed, and said, "We're understaffed already."

I replied, "No, I mean the other supervisors who aren't doing any job I can identify, and you for letting it get like this."

Things with him were a bit touchy after that.

Image credits: SurlyJason

‘Insider’ suggests using your first day to be proactive. Introduce yourself to others and get to know your coworkers. The extra effort is going to be well worth it throughout your career, but you may need to go outside your comfort zone if you’re naturally a shy individual. Those connections are going to come in handy when you inevitably find yourself in a tough situation. 

Though it’s important to ‘click’ with everyone at the company, don’t feel like you have to pretend like you’re someone you’re not. Be professional, but be yourself. Avoid creating the impression that you’re trying too hard to get everyone to like you. People admire authenticity, not pretence.

#10

My first day as a medic was terrible. We got a call from a babysitter, she turned her back for what she said was a minute and the little guy she was watching fell into the pool. We got there and she was doing CPR, we took over and I don't know how but we got that little guy to start breathing again. We got him ready to transport to the hospital and my partner decided I should get some experience so he left me in the back of the ambulance with the kid. Everything was going well until it wasn't. We chatted a bit and things seemed okay. Then he looked at me, said my name and just flat lined. I did everything I could. S**t still hurts today when I think about it. Messed me up for a good while, got all of August off and got set up with a therapist. Being a medic can either be the greatest job in the world or the absolute worst. I wish I was still a medic sometimes.

#11

Not my first day but my second. I had just hired on at a steel fabrication plant. My boss gave me a broom and told me to keep the sidewalks clean, keep my head up, watch what everyone is doing and stay out of their f*****g way. Its dangerous working with this heavy steel and we don't want you to get hurt your first week out here. It was about 7am. Around 8am a stack of steel fell over trapping another employee and I had to hear him scream bloody murder for about 3hrs while they worked to get the steel beams off of him. He lived. It crushed his pelvis, I worked there for 2 years, he never was able to come back to work.

Image credits: housebird350

#12

First day at work, a library. I’m 18 years old, I look like I’m 12. My very first patron comes storming up and I ask, “Hi! How can I help—“ and he starts cursing up a storm at me because his card had been deactivated a few days before.

“And I want to know why and I want to know now!”

“I… this is my first day here, let me get someone for you…”

His whole attitude changed and I guess he thought I was like a baby library page or something because I’m sure I looked like I had just witnessed Jesus curb-stomp a puppy.

It was a weird way to start a new job. Then I got chastised for not know what had happened last week at a job I didn’t work at.

Image credits: RuyiJade

#13

First day working as a chemist in a quality control lab. The person training me told me “just so you know every single person in this department has had to go on medical leave for a stress related illness between their first and second year on the job.” That definitely happened to me.

From there it only went downhill. I toured the warehouse and there were pallets of raw materials stacked so high and improperly they were leaning toward the walkway. There was a struggling rat on a glue trap and the warehouse guy said at least it isn’t squeaking anymore. Their walk in cold storage had liquid leaking out the door.

I went to lunch and it was like a scene out of “mean girls.” I was told I couldn’t sit at certain tables and wound up eating by myself. Someone stole the cupcakes out of my lunch bag too.

I realized I made a horrible mistake but I really needed the job and the money, plus the market was bad so I stuck it out for 19 months. The place is currently in the process of shutting down and will be closed by the end of the year, so they eventually got what was coming to them.

#14

My boyfriend of five years decided that a Monday at lunchtime was the perfect time to break up with me via text message. While I can't say the breakup was a complete surprise I really, really wish he had done it on the weekend when I could have private time to deal with it. He also could have had the balls to do so in person but, hey, that's asking a lot from him.

So, first day at a new job. I'm a teacher and it was a new school but in the same city. Morning was introductions. Everyone was lovely, happy, smiling and so was I. Then I sit down to eat lunch and my phone dings. Well, you can imagine what that was like. I hid in the bathroom a while trying to keep it together because the afternoon was the opening ceremony.

The whole ceremony takes about two hours with speeches, intros, information, video, taking pictures etc. All the teachers and I had to stand on a stage and give short introductions in front of 700ish children, their parents, school officials etc. So I was sitting on the sidelines trying not to cry or vomit or let my emotions be obvious. Probably didn't succeed. Then had to get up on stage in front of well over 1500 people and keep it together long enough to give my little intro about looking forward to the new year blah blah.

I could finally leave after the ceremony and bawled the whole way home.


Edit: Thank you all for your kind words. This happened many years ago but it still stings. It's amazingly cathartic to let it out though.

Calling him a Person Of Senselesness fits pretty well. I can't call him an a*****e, because he wasn't. But he was perhaps cowardly and didn't consider the emotional toll his actions would take.

In the follow-up talks he admitted that he'd known I wasn't The One from the start but he still thought I was a great person, fun, we got along etc. and decided Fake It Till You Make It was a great relationship strategy. Yeah. That's a stab to the gut, knowing someone was pretending to be happy with you. Those cuts run deep too, and affected my later relationship. How can I believe my new partner loves me? My ex said he loved me, and it was a lie. How can I believe my new partner sees a future with me? My ex said he did, and that was a lie.

If anyone out there is just not feeling it with a partner but can't think of a *good* reason to break up, please, just break up. They deserve someone who doesn't have to talk themselves into loving them. Yeah, they'll be sad, but every day you let them live a lie it will be even worse when you finally break up and pull the rug out from under them.

Image credits: FourCatsAndCounting

#15

Back when I was in college, I started working at a certain sort of call-center.

My first day was emotional hell, and not just for me.

See, this wasn't a sales gig in the traditional sense: I had been hired to be a "talent scout" for an incredibly shady organization that was trying to hoodwink unsuspecting parents into purchasing "acting and modeling lessons" for their kids. My job involved calling people, enthusiastically reciting a script, then booking marks into "one of our last remaining slots." The children and their parents would arrive on a weekend, go through a fake audition (complete with fake casting agents), and then be instructed to call a given number on Monday morning.

That number would connect people right back to the call-center.

Hopeful "applicants" be told that the "casting agent" had *loved* the child's audition, but that said child needed some additional training before they were ready for the screen. Parents would then be suckered into paying thousands of dollars for twelve days' worth of completely worthless classes... and if a kid missed even one session, they would be summarily expelled (unless their guardians paid even more money to reinstate them).

Anyway, I started working on a Wednesday. By that evening, I was feeling physically sick, and I was kept awake by guilt-ridden nightmares. I struggled through Thursday, then quit on Friday morning.

Had I stayed any longer, I'm sure that my soul would have withered and died.

**TL;DR: I could only handle three days as a call-center con-artist.**

#16

I work at a gas station and I accidentally hit the button that emergency stops all the gas pumps my first day lmao

Image credits: rieixee

#17

Happened in the Navy on my fourth ship.

I had to fly to meet the ship on deployment. Flew from Virginia to Spain. Everyone left the plane to refuel it on the tarmac. We boarded after refueling. Turns out too much fuel, had to deboard everyone to remove fuel. Several hours delay.

Don’t remember where it landed next, but it was delayed there too. All said and dine, we were supposed to land in Bahrain around 11pm local time after flying halfway around the world. Didn’t get there until about 3:30am.

Upon arrival, turned out the ship didn’t bother to send anyone to pick up the 60+ sailors who were transferring to the ship - most of which were 18-19 year old men and women straight out of boot camp. I was the senior person there, so made a phone call to the person in charge of picking us up. He said to wait where we were and someone would be there at 6am. After a very quick conversation, the guy agreed to send someone there right away.

A half hour later someone shows up with a clipboard, a list, and hotel keys. Turns out everyone had a room already reserved except for me. After a few more phone calls, I found out that the ship wanted me to fly out as soon as possible. So I had to wait in the hangar until the flight departed about 6 hours later. By this time, I had been traveling for well over 24 consecutive hours.

Flew out to the ship on my first and only COD flight (carrier onboard delivery). Guy in front of me threw up in the floor and got it all over my shoes. Made me sick. I almost threw up too, but managed to hold it in.

Plane landed. Went to the hangar bay to pick up my bags. Normally, when transferring to a new ship they assign a sponsor to help with the move. Normally the sponsor is there to meet the newly reporting person to get off in the right foot and help carry bags. I had a sponsor, but they didn’t meet me in the hangar bay. Not a big deal. I’d been on an aircraft carrier before and knew my way around. So I carried my bags down to the office where I knew I would be working, only to be met with a “Who are you? Oh, we weren’t expecting you.” Okay, definitely not a good first impression.

As an officer, my sleeping arrangement on ships was a stateroom (kind of like a smaller, crappier version of a college dorm room). After traveling for forever, I just wanted to go to sleep. Since they weren’t expecting me, they didn’t have a stateroom for me. So I waited several more hours until I could finally get a bed and get some sleep sometime on Thursday afternoon.

After a few hours of sleep, I was awoken to the sound of talking and running water. Turns out the communal bathroom right next to my stateroom had a clogged toilet, which resulted in an overflow of s**t water into my room, soaking everything that was in the floor.

That marked the end of my first day. The rest of the time onboard got worse from there.

Turns out that after waking up around lunch I’m Friday after a few hours of broken sleep. I found out that the ship was pulling right back into the same port I had flown out of 12 hours earlier.

#18

Wasn’t my experience, but the experience of someone else i’ve heard:

He went to work at an ice cream shop for his first job at 16. He was filling out the application when the manager told him to forget the application and go ahead and come behind the counter and start working. They had him start by making waffle cones, and he did that for 6 hours.

Afterward, when they were sending him home for the day, they said “we’ll call you”. He wasn’t actually hired. They had him work for 6 hours without pay and without hiring him. When he tried calling the next few days to see if he’d gotten the job or if they’d pay him for those 6 hours, they didn’t answer. He decided to drive to the location a couple days later and they were closed. Permanently. They shut down literally the day after they had him work those 6 hours. They knew they were shutting down and didn’t tell him.

When he finally did get ahold of that manager, and voiced his complaint about making him work without pay, she told him “well you don’t always get what you want”.

#19

I got hired at an insurance place. I was told business casual so my first day I was wearing Chinos and a sweater. I was still filling out paperwork when someone came in and told me I needed to go home and change. It was a half hours drive each way at the time but I was broke so I did it. Quit a few months later. Horrible place.

Image credits: TRIGMILLION

#20

My MIL was buying a restaurant and asked me to go work there for a day and take a look see. She gives me the name, I look it up, then show up at 6 am. The ladies working seemed a bit confused but they let me in and put me to work. Two hours later, one of them comes to me and says "We think you're supposed to be at the OTHER Charlie Ann's" There were two unrelated restaurants five miles apart with the same name. Later she tried to hire me, lol.

#21

My first day at Menards, a home improvement store typically in the Midwest, they give you this little introduction. I was 5 months pregnant and was having really severe nausea and pain, and was just trying to get through the first day the best I could. They spoke about how their turn over rate was over 50% and it was a goal to get it down.

My second day, I told them I had a doctors appointment well before and when I told them I needed to leave for the appointment, they told me I would be written up for leaving early. I told them to go ahead, it was an appointment for my baby and I wasn’t going to miss it.

My third day, I showed up and they told me that since I missed 2 hours of a shift, they had to suspend me. I told them to eat a d**k, handed them my badge and apron, and left.

Never f*****g work at menards.

#22

First corporate job. We had these large metal coffee urns in the break room on the floor. You put the grounds in the cup thing and hit a button because they were piped into the water line.

What I did not know was that it would run a cycle for each button push, I pushed it twice in a row and left for it to brew. When I came back it had doubled up and overflowed and there was coffee everywhere. Day one.

Image credits: captain_trainwreck

#23

I did an internship at a geotechnical engineering firm one summer and after my initial orientation they had me drive out to meet some one on a coring job. It was way out in the sticks on a hot day, maybe 101 or higher. The place was out in the mountains on a massive piece of private property, like over 10k acres, it was a collection of wineries. We do the job and they wanted me to leave early to avoid overtime on my first day so they told me to drive home on my own and gave me some very basic directions on how to get out of this maze of mountains. The only real direction I was given was when you get to Y intersection go down not up, I leave, get to a Y intersection and go down. I guess it was a different Y intersection. I realized pretty quickly I went the wrong way but couldn’t turn around because I was on a tight unpaved mountain road that was too narrow to turn around. I drive a few miles try to turn around in a larger spot and get the truck stuck. No one knew where I was and I had no cell service and no water and it was probably 5 plus miles back to the job site. I started walking because I thought I heard a road and sure enough there was a rarely used public road not far from me. Eventually I sat on a log and considered the real possibility I might not make it back, I was starting to get disorientated due to exhaustion and dehydration. I collapsed on the side of the road eventually until some one drove down the road and saw me, they picked me up and dropped me off and the nearest gas station where I got some water and called my boss. The next day I had to go with a bunch of trucks to get my truck back. They didn’t fire me either

#24

It wasn’t her first day at the job it it was her first day covering my office. I told her whatever she does do NOT pull the panic button (unless it’s a reason to panic) of course she randomly decides to pull it in the middle of the day- doesn’t answer when the company calls for the code so of course it prompts the police to show up. It’s a psychiatrist office so many of the patients have issues with police for various reasons causing patients to get upset and panic, doctors to get mad and the police to be annoyed because they are questioning her and she’s acting stupid. When I got back to work they told me that she thought I said pull the button to make the computer work better. The button is not connected to or near the computer whatsoever.

#25

I was working in a hog slaughterhouse when I was 18 years old. Clean up duty was the job I was given, so it was my duty to dump all the scrap bins from each work station. All these scraps ended up in a big pit with an auger at the bottom to grind and into a slop and send off to a rendering plant which turned this product into even more unspeakable things (pet food, animal feed etc). I was the last to go for lunch since I was to clean/dump scraps from each station before heading off. Last thing to dump was a massive wheel barrow (about 5 times the size of a regular yard work wheel barrow) full of pigs heads. There was a drain hole in the floor, me rushing to dump, hits the drain and about 60 heads fly all on the floor. So I spent my lunch collecting the heads back into the barrow. Needless to say I went for a bathroom break, got changed, cleaned up and f****d off out of there. Keep my pay, I said. Ha!

#26

Dishwasher at a small breakfast place when I was 14. Didnt tell me I had to supply my own gloves and the dishwasher was right at the egress of the breakfast bar so I had to constantly keeping hopping out of the way of the waitstaff as they came back to grab plates. No sink, just a soapy bucket of water and a industrial dishwasher that was more akin to an autoclave than your regular dishwasher. each time i opened it steam would come pouring out - I was sweating my a*s off. I burned my hand so bad the first time I grabbed a plate out of there. And the special for my first day was beer battered shrimp. they were floating around in the bucket and sticking to my arms.

#27

In a care home for elderly people, just finished national service and needed a job until starting at college. No skills required.

Turned up for an evening shift and was told what to do. One of the people living there was the same age as my mum; 50-ish, and looked rather like my mum. She had pretty advanced MS, and needed help with everything. On her table was a picture of her kids, who never came and visited her. They were my age

The kicker: She loved it when one of the helpers had time to smoke a cigarette with her and watch TV, so I did that and was told by the other helper she was very happy. Her MS was not affecting her mentally, so she was just sitting there bored out of her mind, hoping for someone to help her smoke a cigarette and laugh about some stupid TV show.

I noped the f**k out of that job, and kind of regret it now.

Ekstra kicker for laughs: I got MS 6 years later....

#28

On my co-worker's first day we had a staff meeting and the janitor of the building had found a puppy on the side of the road. She'd put it in a box in the meeting room until her shift was over so she could take it home. Everyone was fawning over the puppy before the meeting and then we started the meeting with the box in the middle of the table. About 3 minutes in we heard the puppy give a death rattle and then it died.

#29

Oh man.

Virgin Megastore - when those were still a thing. I applied not really expecting a call because it was a giant mall store and that's just kind of how it went.

Manager calls me a week after I applied. Asked me to come into an interview. I told him I was sick as a dog. I had the flu, chills, puking, aches... the whole nine yards. He was enthusiast and asked me to come in anyway. I needed the money badly and the mall was only down the street. He insisted I come in. Whatever, if we can make it quick.

I go in for the interview. It's a group interview. He failed to mention this. I'm doing my best to keep my distance from everyone while he asked the standard mall employer/corporate questions. "Why do you want to work here? How passionate about music/media are you? What does Virgin Megastore mean to *you*? Why do you want to join *our* family.

Me: Ugh. Man. Either give me the job or don't but I need to go rest.

Manager: Nah, c'mon! We're going to do a floor tour!

Me: I don't have that in me. I need to go.

Manager: Well, if you stay and last a whole shift, you're hired! C'mon, let's hit the floor!

Me: vomits

Manager:

Me:

Me: I'm going home.

They never called me again. But I was paid for the interview. All 40 mins of it.

#30

I've got 2 but both jobs ended up being great and I worked there for a year plus

1. I worked at a flower shop in high school. The gal training me and I found this pink plastic gun thing. Obvi not a real gun but we barely touched the trigger and all of a sudden we were coughing and our eyes were watering. We had to leave the room and close up the shop early... It was some kind of pepper or bear spray.
2. Job in college was a group home for elderly women with mental disabilities. Since I was new I didn't know how to de-escalate situations yet. One woman had the mental capacity equivalent to a 3-year-old and tantrums were common. She had a tantrum my first day and not knowing how to deal I made it worse. Went outside to chill out and when I felt better to come back in the lady saw and ran to the door to CHOKE me and keep me out. No one else was around... I went to the other door to get in. Obvi I'm alive, but damn that was a night.

Image credits: CrocusSativus

#31

I worked in a Kmart and the first day I saw a bulletin regarding a secret shopper who approached an associate stocking shelves and asked for assistance. He told her to f**k off. Yeah, I realized that morale at that store was nonexistent.

#32

I took a temp job from an agency while I was looking for a permanent position. I showed up and was told they forgot to cancel the request for a temp, but let me work for the day anyway. They had me go through resumes for the people they were going to permanently hire into the position I was there for.

Icing on the cake was that I had bought new shoes the day before, and made an a*s of myself several times tripping in front of everyone in the office. They probably wouldn’t have kept me anyway.

#33

I got a temp job at an office going through files and shredding old documents. What they didn't tell me until I got there was that the shredder was actually a leaf shredder located on a loading dock. So, in my nice first day at work clothes I loaded a hand cart with paper boxes, trekked through the hot Texas sun in August to this unairconditioned loading dock and fed paper into this leaf shredder, back and forth several times.

#34

Bought new shoes for my first work day, hurt like hell the whole day.

In the evening I finally got out of them, all toes were bleeding and the nails from the big toes were completly blue.

Took 2 years for the nail to grow it all out.

#35

Got a job at Wal-Mart and on the first day the manager told me to ask another manager to set me up on training videos. When I asked the other manager I got yelled at because she "didn't have time for me"

#36

I was being trained on how to clean cages for Pet Smart before the store opens. First day. Manager hands me one of the Russian dwarf hamsters to hold. Hamster jumped out of my hand and hit the floor. Her eye popped out. Not all the way but still bulging out of socket in bizarre way. I was crying and saying sorry over and over and the manager LAUGHED at me and said "don't worry! It's just a hamster!".....

#37

Oh my first day, they told me any PTO hours that I take must be made up within the quarter. Got it, so I don’t actually get PTO. I started looking for a new job the next day.

#38

I unknowingly took a dump next to my boss. We both had pretty nasty shits, and when we got out of the stalls things were awkward for a bit.

We now laugh about it every now and then.

#39

Decades ago, I rolled into California, penniless and in need. I applied many places including the local McDonald's as I needed money immediately. While at the interview, the manager said they didn't hire guys with long hair. Being a guy with long hair, I told him I understood his position, thanked him for his time, and excused myself so he could get back to it.

About a week later I get a call from him telling me they'd look past it and would like to hire me. Great! I get to eat again! Trouble is, I didn't have any razors. All I had was a clipper that gets pretty close, slightly more than stubble, but definitely not beard hair. I show up, and the _owner_ is there.

I have met some pricks in my life but _this_ guy deserves whatever stroke he gets. He sees me coming up from the underground freezer (some McDonald's keep them underground. It's a goddamn liability but whatcha gonna do?) and just lights me the f**k up about EVERYTHING. He's literally screaming at me on my first day about very light face fuzz, saying that I "asked" them to make and exception for my long hair and now this! I asked for NO exceptions. I excused myself. They called ME. I try to explain my circumstances to him, that I literally have nothing in the world, and in front of everyone he shoves a $20 bill at me and tells me to go next door and get a razor. The manager, meanwhile, who previously had been personable and nice, was suddenly taking this fatherly tone with me, saying things like "Look, I can't hold your hand. You have to do the hard work!"

I. Did. D**K. for work in that store from that day on. He ran that place like f*****g Auschwitz. He would yell at the elderly cashiers up front, in front of CUSTOMERS. He never mailed me my taxes. "Well, if you send me the money I'll send you the forms". So I sicked the IRS on him. I hope they buried his a*s. Probably not but I'll take any catharsis I can. 20 f*****g years later and I still hate that piece of s**t. I hope if he still lives he's in tremendous pain and all his dogs died of leprosy. Piece of s**t.

#40

Worked at a grocery store, specifically in the deli/"fresh" foods dept. Showed up at the wrong store (they didn't specify which location so I went to the "training" store). After I figure out that I'm in the wrong place, I go to my correct store - they even called to tell my store that I'd be late due to their own fault. I get to my location and the boss is a fuckn shithead. Rude, argumentative and regarding me like I showed up late on purpose...not as if I'd been given wrong instructions. She treated me like a little kid trying to shirk work, when I was in my 30s and hired on a full time and needed the job badly.

Boss never quit riding my a*s, only gave me 1 day off a week because I was "so good with the customers" but she never really complimented me or gave me a raise. So many people hated her and I saw a customer give her a serious tongue lashing one day. I quit less than a year in and the store manager quit the next damn month.

Last time I saw my old supe, she was behind the deli at a diff location. She's so bad they keep shifting her around the state until retirement. F**k her, she's a twat.

#41

My first day working at a new hospital I was getting a tour near the ER when a psych patient jumped out of the bathroom as I was walking by, slapped me hard across the face and yelled the "N" word at me before running out the exit in her gowns. Yes, I still work here.

#42

Walked in as a web developer and sat down expecting to get things setup. "Our Blackberry server isn't working, and neither is our Intranet site, can you take a look?" Ended up walking the network guy through moving the website to a different server because something in the IIS config borked. It was day 2 before I finally got my own network signon.

#43

Long time ago when i was working in hospitality, on my first day (trial) I had an order for a tea, I managed to take the wrong coaster and didnt notice. The tables were pretty low to the ground and as I was going down to the table, I managed to spill the boiling water all over myself and the customer. It didnt help that the woman was a regular customer coming in every day, but somehow I got the job.

#44

None of mine were particularly bad except the normal "I don't know what I'm doing or who any of these people are" type things. Instead I'll give one from my wife:

My wife (girlfriend at the time) and I used to live in a small house in a small town and while we were out there she worked at this grocery store chain in our state (and I think a couple others). She worked in the deli there but it was such a small store they didn't really have much to it. It was actually more of deli/bakery that they just combined. Years went by and we decided to move back closer to the bigger city and she was able to transfer to a store close to where we were moving.

They had told the new store that she has had years of deli experience but what they didn't seem to discuss was the fact that the old store's deli didn't have half of the stuff a regular big store had. My wife showed up for her first day and saw that their deli had a full lunchmeat counter with the slicers and scales, which her old store did NOT have. She had absolutely no experience with slicing lunchmeat and actually barely dealt with customers at the old store at all. She told them this numerous times when she got there but they didn't listen. They basically just threw her on the counter and told her to start calling numbers. She tried her best but of course the other workers started getting frustrated when she asked constant questions, still not listening to the fact that she didn't have any experience in this area. All they heard is that she had years of deli experience.

That was her first and only day at that store. She was able to close the store well enough because she had experience cleaning up and mopping and such but after that she didn't dare put herself through that again and I don't blame her. It was a big struggle for her to find another job because back then NO ONE was hiring but we did what we had to do. I understand the miscommunication in the transfer but I don't understand why they couldn't have listened to her when she said they didn't have the deli counter at her old store. The company wasn't really great about that kind of stuff though. I actually worked for the same company but a different store and I wasn't exactly happy there either.

#45

Back in 2011, got a construction job as a roofer. 10$ an hour, cash, and the biggest rule was "you are fired the second you hit the ground." Meaning, if you fall off the roof, you never worked for me. 10am the boss is drunk and backs his truck up into a wall on a clients property. Stupid me stuck around for like 2 years.

#46

The HR guy said "That's all we've got for you today." Everyone in orientation was then introduced to their new boss. My new boss was on vacation. I asked the HR guy, he said "I don't know, go home?" So I did. Got a call. I guess someone else had gotten my boss's boss, and this big wig was going to walk me through everything. He was disappointed that I went home.

#47

My very first job was working for a grocery store as a bag boy and cart gopher. The very first day they rushed me through the onboarding process because they wanted me to hurry up and get to work. Why? It was hailing outside and no one wanted to get carts so they figured they'd let the 16 year old new hire do it. Spent the entire night outside in the hail getting carts.

Worked there for a month and quit. That store was ran by incompetent a******s and closed a few years later.

#48

Was very sick - high fever & congestion - before my first day. A day before I wrote to HR asking to postpone my start date by two days. They said no. So I came very sick to work, shook everyone's hands (while warning them I'm sick!). I don't remember much from that day, just that it was very, very unpleasant.

Not sure why HR would say no to such a request. I think they were afraid I'd be interviewing for another company? Which I could still do. Anyway, it sucks to start a job, which is already a stressful thing, when you are also very sick, not to mention, there's the risk of spreading whatever I had to the rest of the company - I literally met everyone on that day.

#49

I had community service at a library once, I had to call people about books they wanted to order that have come in. The very first call i made, the woman who ordered the book was in tears, someone close to her died.

They had given me a script to work with, but nothing on the script said anything about death. So now I'm just trying to make them feel better, anything they ask I'm just saying "yes, yes, of course we can do that." Then it comes out that this is my first day, she she says, "ok, can I talk to someone in charge to confirm you can do everything you said you could?"

I wasn't in the room for the confirmation, but holy c**p i wasn't ready.

#50

Uncle got me a job working at his friend's warehouse where they made dresses. I walk in there, with zero experience whatsoever, and the owner says to me "So your uncle told me that you're really smart. I'm looking for someone to take over my business."

I did not go back a second day.