How to Get Fired in 5 Days

Jan Janson was an expert at everything. He could read computer dumps in his sleep (and often did), produced perfect code, was always ahead of his deadline and magically produced wonderful cafe latte from the office coffee machine. He was popular with the girls, admired by the men and a perfect candidate for management. That was before he decided to get fired and  leave for a better position with the competition. It is not easy to get fired when you are the perfect employee but Janson went at it with a vengeance. He was well aware that if he quit on his own accord he wouldn’t be eligable for severence pay. Janson had a master plan to get sacked within a single work week.

Day One

The preparation: Jan was the last to leave on Friday night.  Before checking out he went to the cafeteria and unplugged the fridge, saving several kilobytes of  energy. On the way home he stopped off at the local pet shop where he purchased seven  large, black, striped, rather frightening, though harmless snakes. From there he went to Satan’s T – a store that deals specifically in t-shirts you could wear to premiers of Friday the 13th. At home he changed his ring-tone to a piece by a Gothic Group called Septic Flesh. He was ready.

Arriving at work earlier than usual he ignored the stench coming from the cafeteria. Instead of his usual work clothes he wore a t-shirt with a picture of a chainsaw victim and a pair of black jeans with decorated with several bloody stains.  As usual he brought  the boss’s secretary a cup of coffee topped with skin milk from  a carton he found in the fridge. He noted that on his way home he should send flowers to the hospital to make her feel better.  At about 10:00 the fun started. He counted more than fifteen fellow colleagues screaming while standing on top of their desks as the snakes mated. It was quite a sight.

Day Two

For the second day Jan picked out a sweet t-shirt with a real photo of the  execution of Darryl M. Durr. Arriving really early, he used an electric saw he had borrowed from Home Depot to cut through the legs of several dozen chairs around the office. Then he proceeded to remove at least thirty  wires that connect  the  monitors to the computers, throwing them down the garbage  chute. Before leaving the building in order to purchase a well earned latte at the Starbucks opposite, he gave his best smile to the surveillance cameras. Little to no work was achieved that day.

Day Three

Changing his fashion mode, Jan arrived at work wearing a t-shirt featuring a nude picture of Queen Elizabeth (Matthew, his boss was born in North East London and proud of it).

Sitting down at his desk, It took only seven minutes for him to hack into the system that controlled the music in the elevators and replace it with Black Sabbath and Metallica. For good measure he meddled with the central copy machine software causing it to produce  a minimum of 200 copies at a time.  By noon everyone on the floor was whispering behind his back and refusing to look him in the eyes.

Day Four

An intense morning.  Before anyone came in, Jan went around the floor glueing the tops of all available markers and pens so that it was impossible to open them. For good measure he  left an invisible streak of glue down the sides of each writing apparatus.  At 9:30 sharp  3 microwave ovens exploded simultaneously, (Never try boiling an egg wrapped in aluminium foil) causing  the whole floor to be evacuated. A reporter who curiously appeared on the scene, later reported about the new Hitech dance rage involving  outrageous hand movements coordinated with writing apparatus.

Day Five – D Day

Everyone on the floor logged on to  their computers only to find that they were now working for the Anisidscut Prevueilen Software Company, situated in Ammakandakara India, and must relocate within a month.  All the phones had been carefully spiced with crushed garlic to make conversations a 3D experience, someone had rearranged the keys on each and every keyboard to his own liking, and the sandwiches that had been left in the fridge (which was now working again) had fanged tooth marks in them.

Hundreds of  candidates for Jan’s job, answering the ad he had posted on Craig’s List, filled the isles, anxious to grab the job that promised $250,000 a year plus benefits and use of the company yacht.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t till after lunch that  Janson was finally escorted into Matthew’s office.