You Are Fired

"You Are Fired" is the phrase you hear when you lose your job in the workplace for reasons other than quitting. Can involve being fired or laid off.

For discipline or punishments outside the workplace, see Innocent punishment for when this happens to an individual who didn't do it, or Downwards Funnel when they did do it or it affects the entire city, nation or world. If this is a recurring joke in a show, that's "Jetson, You're Fired!". Examples about impeachment belong in Impeached from Office. A lighter phrase for this trope is "I'm going to have to let you go". When a Super Evil character is terminated with prejudice, that's a Villains' Coup. A firing that is both metaphorical *and* literal is a Termination by Cannon. Not to be confused with You Are Benched (the sports equivalent of Confined to Your Room) or You Are Expelled (expulsions from school in fiction).

People get fired all the time, so please only list fictional examples and the notable firings.

This trope is also rarely if ever seen in preschool shows, due to the fact that it'd be too bleak if someone gets fired on them. This is why this trope is usually reserved for shows aimed at older children, or at an adult audience.

As some spoilers are present, it's also recommended to experience some of the below shows/games/movies before reading the rest of this page.

Now has a page that plays with the trope.

The following examples have their own page:

* Anime and manga
* Videogames
* Nickelodeon
* Fox animation
* Disney (excluding Fox cartoons)
* Cartoon Network
* Corus networks
* The Internet

## Examples

* Captain Hero fires his "sidekick" in one episode of *Drawn Together*.
* Jim gets fired from his job in one episode of *Code Lyoko*. Though it gets restored the next episode thanks to Jeremy activating the reset button.
* From the live-action *Cat in the Hat* film, a guy gets fired *just for shaking one's hand*.
* Vince McMahon often tells wrestlers he plans on firing that "You're fired!". Of course, this never sticks.
	+ Speaking of the WWE, in *WWE Slam City*, this extends to *all* superstars. Given it's a cartoon, though, The Finisher really *did* mention they were fired from WWE altogether.
* *Dennis & Gnasher*: Dennis' father once got fired from his job at the "paper clip and rubber band" factory.
* *The Amazing World of Gumball* shows that this can even happen to people just after they get hired. In one episode, Richard tries to get a job, but gets a pink slip before even getting to start, and is thus fired.
	+ In another episode Richard is fired from his job as a pizza delivery guy for eating the pizza he was supposed to deliver. Good thing, too, as him having a job turns out to destroy Elmore.
* In the 2005 film adaptation of *Charlie and the Chocolate Factory*, Mr. Bucket is fired; since the toothpaste company avoids From Rags to Bankruptcy in this version, the reason given is the rise of toothpaste sales causing the company to get a machine to do Mr. Bucket's old job. Luckily, he's re-hired as a mechanic for the machine by the end of the film (since Roald Dahl did *not* allow *Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator* to be adapted into a theatrical film).
* *Everybody Hates Chris*: Just to show how much people hate Chris, Chris gets fired in one episode.
* Donald Trump's catchphrase in *The Apprentice*. Ironically, not only was he himself fired from NBC during his 2016 presidential campaign, but the catchphrase was turned on him after he lost his re-election bid in 2020.
* Everytime Greg and Rowley try to earn some money, it either ends with this or Confined to Your Room for Rowley.
* In *I Love Lucy*, Lucy is threatened with being fired (keep in mind, this is a CBS sitcom from the 1950s) if chocolates start pouring on the floor. Hilarity ensues.
* In the *South Park* episode "Goobacks", due to immigration from the future, present-day people start losing their jobs, leading to the quote "They took our jobs!" and its many derivatives.
	+ In "Margaritaville", people of South Park lose their jobs with no replacements. Again, see the above quote.
	+ Elements of this trope happen in "Unfulfilled" after a workers' strike shuts down the Amazon plant in South Park.
	+ After Mr. Garrison comes out, he was fired from his teaching job, which today is seen as homophobic.
* In an episode of post-finale *Totally Spies!*, Mandy fires her intern for turning against her. Once the plot of the episode is resolved, though, she promptly re-hires him.
* Can crop up quite often in workcoms. For example, in *The Office (US)*, Andy ended up fired just for saying "no".
* *Miraculous Ladybug*: Though more an example of I Renounce My Position, Hawk Moth temporarily fires his Miraculous to become The Collector in one episode.
	+ Meta example: Symbiosis was fired after "Startrain" due to delays and low-quality animation compared to the rest of the show.
	+ Butler Jean was fired by Chloé in "Despair Bear".
	+ Jagged Stone ends up firing his guitarist Vivica for a petty reason in one episode.
* The entire point of *Burn Notice*. In fact, the pilot has the protagonist discover he was "burned" by the CIA.
* In Mexico, a "Loser Leaves Town" wrestling match *will* result in this for anyone losing this sort of match, as unlike US wrestling promotions where (with WCW's 2001 Loser Leaves Town matches being one of the few exceptions) said wrestler can come back if said promotions feel it's time, Mexico's wrestling circuit doesn't allow people to come back.
* Aya Hirano almost lost her role as Garnet and Lucy due to... reasons we cannot explain here. All we can say is not only was she fired from her music agency, she ended up resigning from her VA agency and joined two new agencies to replace them.
* In the finale movie for *Daria*, Lindy winds up being let go due to her drinking problem. She tries to state that she was fired because her boss didn't really like her, but Quinn knew the truth.
	+ Earlier in the season, Helen threatened a lawsuit that caused a substitute to lose his job, for reasons we cannot specify here.
* Not even Jon Arbuckle is safe from this trope. In one episode of *The Garfield Show*, Jon wins the lottery, tells his boss he quits, and is subsequently told he can't quit and is fired.
* In *Osmosis Jones* (which serves as the pilot to *Ozzy & Drix*), the titular character (better known as Ozzy) is fired from the Immunity Force for accidentally popping a zit on Frank. He's later reinstated after dealing with Thrax.
	+ Also, Phlegmming pretty much fires *himself* from being a sanitation worker (he was reduced to the job in the first place due to his impeachment caused by what happened to Frank).
* Towards the end of *Dead Poets Society*, this happens to John Keating (played by Robin Williams) as a result of encouraging individualism at the elite school Welton.
* In *Crazy People*, the ad executive is fired over offensive and vulgar ads (that, to be fair, said executive didn't want printed in the first place).