10 Dumbest Mistakes That Got Normal People FIRED

10 Dumbest Mistakes That Got Normal People FIRED

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re exploring the most foolish, dumbest, and bizarre errors that non-famous people have made, either through poor judgment, carelessness, or thoughtless behavior, which resulted in them being fired.

Asking Students for Dating Advice

Alongside juggling multiple jobs, such as being an actor and a substitute teacher, Cassandre Fiering also had two potential boyfriends in 2013. However, rather than speak to her friends about the dilemma, she told her 4th-grade students at the Eastchester, New York, school where she worked. Weirdly, the kids actually gave Fiering solid advice and even offered to role-play, with them portraying Fiering and her pretending to be each of her prospective boyfriends. While Fiering described the conversation as “G-Rating,” she allegedly suggested to the kids to toilet paper the boyfriends' houses and dress up as demons to scare the men. Following an investigation by the school, Fiering was fired for the inappropriate lesson in 2014.

Admitting Crimes Online

It’s pretty much common sense that if you commit a crime, it’s not a good plan to brag about it online. Police officers know this. Well, except Cathryn Lafitte, apparently. In 2011, the Dallas, Texas, cop bragged on her Facebook account about injuring a Plano hospital worker by throwing a boot at them, “Jerry Springer style.” While the employee didn’t press criminal charges, Lafitte was suspended by the police and eventually fired for the attack. In response, Lafitte issued a complaint with the Ethics Advisory Commission that her bosses had ignored her mental health struggles. In 2022, life got worse for Lafitte when she was charged with murdering her neighbor, who’d been feuding with the former cop about a necklace.

Letting Celebrities Fly

Back in the day, kids could go and hang out in a plane’s cockpit with the pilots. However, nowadays, it’s well understood that it’s no longer possible to visit…unless you’re famous, apparently. Flying from Cancún to Mexico City on a passenger plane in 2014, Mexican celebrities Esmeralda Ugalde and Samadhi Zendejas were able to get inside the cockpit, wear the pilot’s hat, and sit at the controls. The famous duo uploaded photos of the experience online, only to quickly delete them when the backlash came. Ugalde and Zendejas tried to claim they only went into the cockpit when the plane was grounded. However, the pilot admitted they were flying at the time! Unsurprisingly, he was fired for allowing this to happen.

Photographing a Kitchen Haircut

If you worked at a restaurant and saw a ridiculous health violation, would you choose A: inform the local Health Department, or B: send photos of it to your friends on social media? If you selected the latter, then you’d be in the same boat as Jennifer Legear. While working at a Taco Bell in Kokomo, Indiana, she found her shift manager giving the general manager a haircut in the kitchen, three feet from where the food is made. Legear took a photo and sent it to friends on Snapchat, where one recipient uploaded the image on Facebook, making it go viral. Due to sharing the photo, Legear was fired. However, the Health Department was informed about the incident and investigated the restaurant.

The Secret Blog

For several months, an anonymous person was running a blog called “Queen of the Sky,” where the writer provided a semi-fictional account of their life as a cabin crew member. Several months later, the creator posted images of herself, and Ellen Simonetti’s identity was easily discovered. After all, not only was she wearing Delta Air Lines attire, but her face was also clearly in shot. In response, the company fired Simonetti for the photos in her uniform. However, the former Sky Queen issued a lawsuit against Delta for discrimination, claiming male bloggers hadn’t received the same treatment. In the end, the case was settled out of court. Simonetti went on to be an activist for blogging rights.

Reply All Blunder

In 2024, San Francisco's District Attorney Brooke Jenkins sent an office-wide invitation about an anti-discrimination meeting. Rather than getting a typical response from employee Jovan Thomas, he was seemingly asking her what color underwear she was wearing, which was sent to everyone receiving the invitation after he clicked “reply all.” Despite sending an apology moments later once he saw what he’d done, he was understandably fired. However, Thomas then issued a lawsuit against the DA’s office for defamation, and he’d struggled to find work since. He claimed that he was meant to email that weird message to a friend as a joke between them, but accidentally sent it in response to the invitation.

Dangerous Dancing

Every so often, an internet trend oozes into the mainstream and, for a brief time, takes over everything for better or worse. In 2013, it was the Harlem Shake dance craze, causing people to film themselves dancing, even at work and school. While most videos were fine and caused no issues, it was a different story when workers at Agnew Mine in Australia took part. Recording the clip underground, a group of miners wearing safety gear danced in front of a camera. However, Barminco, the company that owned the mine, was livid, deeming this dance stunt a health and safety issue. Up to 15 people were fired, which included the dancers and those who watched them record.

Aggressive Emailing

We’ve all pored over emails before sending, wondering if the tone or the paragraph of exclamation points might make us appear too hostile to colleagues. Well, in 2007, Vicki Walker, an accountant in New Zealand, had no such worries. After her two years of employment at ProCare Health, she reportedly expressed her point by writing an all-caps, bold, and red text when sending an email about a claim deadline to other workers. However, due to the other workers finding the message confrontational and for causing “disharmony in the workplace,” Walker was fired. However, she took the company to court for unfair dismissal. In 2009, Walker won her case, earning her 17,000 New Zealand dollars, around 11,600 USD, at the time.

Patient Mocking

99.99% of the time, medical staff are a treasure and make the scary experience of getting treatment so much nicer. Yet then there are some of the workers at Sansum Clinic in Santa Barbara, California, who fell into the 0.01%. In 2025, a group of employees uploaded a video of themselves on TikTok, appearing to mock a patient for leaving bodily fluids on a paper towel that was covering a treatment room's exam table. The clinic’s owner, Sutter Health, was livid as the video spread across the internet, leading to backlash from viewers. Deeming the post as disrespectful and violating their policies, the company fired those involved in the video, which was around eight employees.

Winning Remorselessly

When coaching a sports team, you, of course, want to win. Yet there comes a point when a score gets so lopsided that it’s embarrassing for everyone involved and those watching. In 2009, that happened when the girls’ basketball team at Covenant School in Dallas, Texas, destroyed Dallas Academy, a school for students with learning difficulties, 100 to zero. The higher-ups at the Covenant School called the win “shameful” as they believed it went against the facility’s Christian policies. When the winning coach, Micah Grimes, was contacted by reporters, he sent an email stating that he disagreed with his boss's assessment and refused to apologize for the absurd scoreline. Shortly after, he was fired.

Have you ever been fired for a dumb mistake or know someone who was? Let us know below!