"You can't fired me, I quit." are some of the most expensive words you can say. ( I speak from experience here in California. A few years back.)

People who quit do not get unemployment. And they end up taking any job in order to stay housed and fed.

But sometimes you need to leave and they won't fire you because your worst efforts beat those of almost everyone at work. You spend so much time learning how to be a good employee, that all your instincts are wrong when you try to get fired.

Remember the horse Orwell's Animal Farm who worked himself to death? Suppose he had wished to quit instead. The Pigs would not have allowed it. He would need someone to teach him how to be a slacker, or be weird and smelly, or to pick fights or anything that would result in his being fired (and freed).

There are resignation consultants, But how to get fired with out murdering the boss isn't something they are going to help you with.
-- popbottle, Nov 26 2013

boxer Animal farm http://en.wikipedia...r_%28Animal_Farm%29
boxer Animal farm [popbottle, Nov 26 2013]

Wow...what do I say? 7 months, thirty-plus ideas posted here, and you're also my neighbor here in San Diego.

Rough week at work? There's got to be some counselors you could talk to, someplace.
-- normzone, Nov 26 2013


The trick is to get laid off, not fired. If you're fired for cause, you don't get benefits either. Of course, that's not much of a trick, because it turns out in California you pretty much can't fire anyone unless it's A) for one of a few specific reasons and B) you document it really, really well.

As an employer who has had to pay benefits to an employee I fired for gross incompetence, negligence, lying, and insubordination, I speak from bitter experience. Even the fact that the employee admitted, in a recorded hearing, to being paid under the table by another employer subsequent to being fired made no difference.

In other words, you don't need any of this. You can blatantly steal from your workplace, call your boss a cunt, or just stop showing up, and EDD will side with you 100 times out of 100.
-- ytk, Nov 26 2013


Actually, stealing won't get you EDD funds.

"gross incompetence, negligence, lying, and insubordination"

Sometimes in the hiring process warning signs are overlooked. Yes, you do have to do your due diligence, but if you are not then somebody else should be the manager anyway.

"being paid under the table by another employer subsequent to being fired"

You can get fired for a variety of offenses, and still collect EDD funds, but stealing get's you no checks. Short of assaulting employees or stealing, however, the state recognizes that there are as many lame employers as there are lame employees.
-- normzone, Nov 26 2013


I'm just telling you my experience. You can do all of those things, and EDD will still pay out. They don't care if an employee was stealing, unless the employer can provide incontrovertible evidence of the theft. Anything short of a criminal conviction for the theft, and they simply won't believe the employer.

The only way they will accept that an employee was fired for cause is if it documented six ways from Sunday. Provide a written warning to the employee at the time of each incident, including a statement that any further such offenses will lead to termination. Even then they probably won't side with the employer.

//You can get fired for a variety of offenses, and still collect EDD funds, but stealing, unsportsmanlike conduct and being paid by another employer are not among them.//

The employee wasn't fired for being paid by another employer. The employee admitted in a hearing to being employed after being fired by me, but being paid under the table in this new job. The hearing officer was pretty livid when he heard this, and actually yelled at the former employee about it, but nevertheless granted continued benefits on the basis that the subsequent employment couldn't be documented. A transcribed confession to that effect was considered insufficient to deny benefits. Brilliant system, huh?
-- ytk, Nov 26 2013


Just go work for whoever I'm working. They invariably end up laying people off, including me. .....Hmm, bit of coincidence now I come to think of it.
-- not_morrison_rm, Nov 26 2013


The challenge you face is that there is as much lame conduct and deception among employers as there is among employees. The system recognizes this, and is weighted so that the burden of proof is on the employer.
-- normzone, Nov 26 2013


I saw a hidden camera TV game show once where contestants went out, got hired for a job and then the clock started ticking until the employer fired them. It was a bit crap actually.
-- pocmloc, Nov 26 2013


At one job I worked for 15 years, I had a meeting with my boss - I quit and he fired me at the same time, so I asked to be given unemployment compensation and he did. Problem solved.
-- xandram, Nov 26 2013


Yeah, in the appeals process regarding that "fired for cause" thing, it's always entertaining to see who says what. I'm certain that there are employees who get taken down a peg, but all the stories I know involve employers who embarrass themselves on the record.
-- normzone, Nov 26 2013


21Q's advice holds largely true for employers also.
-- calum, Nov 26 2013


Laws may have changed or become better defined since recording technology is now ubiquitous.

I knew somebody who was fired in the early nineties for audiotaping an abusive supervisor, after top management declined to take action. At that time it was not legal to record persons without their consent.

The resulting lawsuit did not go well for the company. They settled out of court after the initial compulsory arbitration per the union contract became embarrassing.
-- normzone, Nov 26 2013



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