Article created by: Viktorija Ošikaitė
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. Scrol down to see just how unlucky some people have been.
Bored Panda got in touch with workplace expert Lynn Taylor who shed some light on the importance of first impressions at work and shared some practical tips on how to leave a positive impact at a new company. “The phrase, ‘You only get one chance to make a first impression,’ certainly applies to the first few days at work. And that can be daunting for anyone,” she told us. Taylor is the author of the book ‘Tame Your Terrible Office Tyrant’ and the founder of a popular blog on Psychology Today. Read on for our full interview with the expert.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
I work at a gas station and I accidentally hit the button that emergency stops all the gas pumps my first day lmao
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.
0 Comments