Man Drunk at Bar Gets Fired After Boss Calls Him on His Day Off

A Story of Drunken Work and Unfair Termination

There are times when your boss will call you and ask if you can work extra hours, and if you are able, it can be a good way to earn more money. But what would you do if your boss called and demanded that you come in for an extra shift, but you had been drinking heavily, and even after you told him that, he still said to come in to work? That is exactly what happened to the guy in this story, and he decided to show up to work drunk since that’s what his boss said to do. Let’s see how the story plays out.

The Job and the Rotation

A few years ago, I worked at a kiosk in a local shopping center (mall for Americans) that applied phone protectors to phones. These protectors were absolute garbage for the price they were asking, so I wasn’t all that keen about aggressively pushing the product. My supervisor, who was a friend of a friend, we’ll call him Alex, was tasked with writing up a work rotation every Monday for the next week. People needed their time off, which was important because I had asked Alex if I could have four days off but make up for them later as I was planning to go on holiday and propose to my fiancée.

Alex spoke with everyone else to make sure they were okay working more days in a row if it meant that they got more days off as I caught up on my hours. An important note is that Alex would have to send the rotation to the owner of the company, Randy, for verification and an hour check, as legally we weren’t allowed to work over a certain amount of hours. Randy accepted the hours and the fact that I had days off but made up for them right after I got back, which I did agree to, but it was absolutely miserable because I was working from 9 AM to 5 PM doing double shifts to make up the hours I had lost.

The Weekend and the Call

This does sound miserable. Also, I was working in high temperatures, with heat guns on full blast, wearing a black hoodie (as it was part of the uniform), and nothing to drink or eat because it was against the rules to eat or drink at the kiosk. Looking back on it, I wasn’t even allowed to have lunch during that week.

Along comes the weekend, and all of our (my fiancée and my) close friends want to go out drinking to celebrate the engagement. Considering the bad week of work I had, I was down. It gets to about 3 AM, and I’ve been drinking heavily since around 7 PM. I receive a phone call from Randy demanding that I work the next day, which means I would have worked more hours than I was legally allowed to do. It wasn’t even on the rotation.

I explain to Randy that I’m extremely drunk and in no fit state to be going into work. Randy then tells me he doesn’t care how drunk I am and if I keep drinking, he just wants me at the kiosk at 9 AM. I continue drinking throughout the night because I wasn’t in the right mindset to be making smart decisions, but I remember clearly that Randy wants me at the kiosk for 9 AM.

The Morning and the Confrontation

I get to the kiosk at 9 and Alex is already there with everything set up and can see that I’m clearly drunk. He sits me down while he calls Randy asking why I’m telling Alex that I’m meant to be there at 9 AM (which I just kept muttering). Why is he mad? He is the one who said to come in. Randy is furious that I turned up for work drunk and basically demands that I’m fired immediately, which Alex refuses to do, because I technically hadn’t done anything wrong.

Next day, I walk up to the kiosk and Randy is there and fires me on the spot for yesterday, which he actually wasn’t allowed to do because all I had done was fulfill his request. I ended up with a huge payoff because, as it turns out, you cannot fire someone for following orders (provided you haven’t broken the law). He told me to come in, even if I was drunk, so why is he upset that I followed the directives?