A former Walmart employee has shared a tale of the embarrassing reason he got fired when he was a teenager—accidentally letting a TV get stolen from right under his nose.
In a recent TikTok video that’s been viewed more than 88,000 times as of Friday, creator AJ Baron (@theajbaron) recounted his less-than-harmonious experience working as a Walmart associate who spent most of his days lugging around televisions.
“Honestly at 18, I was getting taken advantage of,” Baron said, showing a photo of himself pulling seven TVs stacked up on a pallet.
@theajbaron How walmart fired me at 18 #ajbaron #storytime #firstjob #fired #walmart #greenscreen @AJ Baron ♬ original sound – AJ Baron
Baron said one day when it was the end of his shift and he was exhausted, a man came in looking to buy a large television. So, Baron said he went to the back and brought the TV up to the front to complete the nearly $400 sale. A few days later, a manager comes to him and shows him security footage revealing the transaction did not go as smoothly as Baron remembered.
“Instead of putting the original cash back I just put the change in one hand and the cash in one hand, and I gave it all back to him,” he said. “So, this guy literally walked home with a free TV. And the TV was like $400, this was not a baby TV. To this day, I have no idea why I did that. Obviously, it was an accident. I didn’t know the guy. They ended up firing me.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Baron via Instagram direct message and Walmart via media contact form. According to HR Digest, some of the top reasons why employees may get fired is because of performance, misconduct, or breach of company policies.
Commenters on Baron’s post poked fun at the story, while also sharing their own unique tales of unexpectedly receiving, or giving, items for free.
“That happened to my sister but she didn’t get a free tv she got AirPods,” one person said.
“I’ve done this before at Dairy Queen,” another person shared. “Someone paid with cash and for some reason I blanked and gave them their money and their change back.”
Some couldn’t believe Baron was fired over his mistake.
“Why didn’t they make you pay/take it out of your check??!! That’s crazy to me,” a commenter inquired.
