Firstly I wasn't fired or let go, I just hated my job so left! Many years ago I was a Catering Manager in a very large unit that employed 100’s of staff (white collar/blue collar and manufacturing operatives) and operated 24 hrs a day 7 days a week. I worked Mon-Fri, my hours were approx 7am until 3pm. On my shift we did breakfast, lunch and served snacks throughout also. There were two off shifts who basically did a mirror image of what we did but at strange times of the night, eg breakfast at 11pm etc. I hadn't planned what was about to unfold but it all seemed to fit nicely into place over what happened to be the last few days of my employ!

My Head Chef on the same shift as me got another job and they wanted him to start almost immediately, so me being the good manager agreed that he could leave at the end of the week (Fri). But what I didn't know was that my one of my Head Chefs on the off shifts also got another job but decided to not give me any notice and was not going to come into work on the Friday! I kept this all this information to myself as I had a plan😂. Friday was always a busy day, lots to do for not only that day but also plan for the weekend and the following week. Some suppliers had their usual phone calls that day, and commented that it was an unusually large order (bread/pastries/milk) whilst others were dismayed to either get very small orders or no order at all (butcher/fish/dry goods etc). I wiped the stock sheets on the computer, wiped the daily/weekly/monthly cash/credit sales! And no planning was done for the following week at all, just for good measure!

I left the office on Friday at 3pm along with my Head Chef knowing an enormous amount of shite was going to hit the fan in a couple of hours, when the off shift started with no Head Chef, very little food and nothing organised for the weekend or the following week!

I did hear through the grapevine that it was a massive shit storm for a few days and my name was cursed rather a lot for along time afterwards! I was just glad it happened at the end of the month and my salary was already in the bank, I probably lost a few days holiday pay I can't really remember. My ex wife, kids and I went away for the weekend and had a great relaxing time and on the Monday morning I set myself up as self employed and did a lot of consultancy work and never looked back, except with a wry smile now and again.

I’ve left out of this brief story the reasons why I felt like I did in this job but you'll just have to believe me that they really did deserve everything they got and more!