Getting Fired For Taking a Slice of Pizza

The contest for the best " Why I got fired" story is continuing over at www.simplyfired.com.  My favorite so far is the guy who says he got fired because he took a piece of pizza out of a conference room.

I had been working for a mortgage company as a developer for 18 months and things were going well. Then, one day I saw that a different group in my company had just finished up a pot-luck and had some pizza left over. I thought they would probably end up throwing it away and I was kind of hungry so I went for it ... I took a slice of pizza.

Apparently the employees who threw this pot luck were planning to take it home and were offended by my action. Now I thought we were all basically on the same team and if someone didn't like what I did they would tell me so and I would apologize and maybe offer to pay for the pizza. These employees ended up telling their manager, who told her vice president about what I did.

The worst part about this is that I wasn't told about any of this until a month after the incident. No warning, no second chance.

I know that I left an impression because to this day my former coworkers refer to unattended pizza as "programmer bait".

What I love about this entire site is not so much the stories but the reaction and feedback the storytellers get. When I read this story I thought it was absolutely ridiculous that anyone would get fired for helping themselves to a slice of pizza.

However, there were plenty who took the point of view that "taking stuff without asking is stealing and stealing is a fireable offense."

Seeing the various reations to this story reminds me how important it is to understand the "values" different employees bring to the workplace. While my value system says taking a slice of pizza from a  conference room is no big deal, it is a big deal to some people.

Understanding the differences that make a difference can mean the success and or failure of a business team.

So for fun, why not order a pizza for your team today  and find out how they would react if someone helped themselves to a slice without asking. You could learn more about your team from that one discussion than you've ever known before.

Oh, the simply fired contest runs through August 26th.