5 Common Reasons People Get Fired and How to Easily Avoid Them

Getting fired is clearly not a pleasant event. In fact, it can be a terrible experience for your ego to come back from and, in some cases, it can be also very embarrassing. Sometimes, it may even not be your fault, but you’ll still have to carry the shame and the reputation that will follow you everywhere. Of course, at least until you reclaim your name.

Unfortunately, getting fired is a black spot on anyone’s resume, something that could sabotage your future chances of getting a perfect job. Therefore, we’re presenting you 5 most common reasons why people get fired and what you can do to make sure you actively avoid them.

Stealing equipment from the company

You may ask yourself “why would someone do something like this?” as it’s obvious that at some point, sooner or later, you will be caught, and it won’t be nice when it happens. You see, if the equipment is getting broke too often or if you regularly lose things or sneak tea bags and other belongings of the company for your own use at home, someone will notice.

Now, of course, taking an occasional pen or some post-its from work won’t bring you any trouble. But usually, taking what is not yours from the workplace is a thing that many companies consider offensive and they surely don’t want to work with such a person.

The best way to avoid all this trouble is to ask if you can bring some tea or a pen back home. As long as you’re not too needy and asking for free things every day, everything should be fine. Or, it would be better to save up the money and buy all those things for yourself, so you won’t have to steal them from your workplace, right?

Lying to your boss or to a client

This is not about hiding personal things from your boss. Everyone has its personal things which are nobody’s business to know. But there is a big difference when you take a sick day off because you had terrible insomnia and telling your boss that someone in your family died so you can go in a short trip somewhere, isn’t it?

Things like this always rise to the surface, and when they do, you’ll be wishing you could disappear. Maybe you will be forgiven the first time you get caught, but once your boss realizes that this is a habit of yours, things will get nasty quickly.

As bad it can be to lie to your boss, it can be just as bad to lie an important client. I know you may be thinking that you’re saving yourself from trouble with a small lie, but you’ll just make the situation worse.

So, you’d better be genuine with yourself and with the people around you. Truth is appreciated even if sometimes nobody wants to hear of face it. Expressing and fighting for the truth is the right thing to do, especially if you want to keep your job for as long as possible.

Harassing or bullying someone at work

There is a bully in every social atmosphere you encounter throughout your life: school, college, work, and even in the family. As in every place should be and in most of the cases it is, sexual harassment and bullying a coworker is absolutely intolerable and will certainly get you fired eventually.

Now, you don’t have to punch a coworker to get fired. It is enough to constantly bring shame to the same colleague or colleagues or pulling nasty pranks on them. That should be enough for your boss to take a drastic measure.

HR managers advise, “Making someone having a hard time coming to work is a behavior that must be changed or controlled if you want to keep your job. Try to avoid people who you think you might have a fight with. Even if you encounter them, maintain your full focus on your job.”

Poor performance at work

Having a bad day or time at work can happen to anyone from time to time. This is how we function. We have good times and bad times. The only difference between us, people, lies in the way we handle our bad days, our bad thoughts, and our bad moods.

If you don’t usually perform very well on your good days, then your bad days may bring along trouble. Speaking from experience, when I was experiencing my “bad days,” I kept delaying my deadlines and the quality of my work wasn’t as high as it was expected. Unfortunately, I got myself fired.

If you want to keep yourself out of trouble during rough times, you have to work on your motivation. Create some achievable goals and reward yourself whenever you achieve them or punish yourself otherwise. Even your boss can have a bad period, so if you don’t screw things up and keep things normal (not extraordinary) he will understand your situation.

Always showing up late

Nobody likes lazy people who are not able to keep their word and be on time when they’re supposed to. So, what makes you think your boss would like to have such an employee? As well, if you keep calling sick or keep taking personal days regularly you won’t be worth keeping around.

There are rules for a reason, and no, they’re not meant to be broken as teenagers might say. The rules are there to make sure the company is working well, and the progression rate rises rather than lowers.

Therefore, you’d better use your sick and personal days for emergencies, for the times you can really use them. In addition, you should wake up early to make sure you arrive on time. Take into consideration that you might miss the bus or there might be an accident on the road. Preparing ahead will spare you all the trouble.

Getting fired is not a good or pleasant experience for neither of parties, except if your boss hated you, or vice versa, of course. Usually, managers try to offer one employee as many chances as possible, but if you don’t revise your behavior and keep bringing down the company, don’t expect things to become easy.

It’s your job to sweeten up the situation. Remember… you’re not only doing it for them, you’re doing it for yourself. You’re improving so you can advance in your career and achieve your goals.

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