Horror stories of being fired from job, and how long it took to find a new job

I would love to hear other people's horror stories of how they were let go from their previous employments, the reason for their termination and how long before they were hired to their current employment.
Myself: I worked for a big company for several years. During my tenure at my employment, there were numerous personnel changes for my immediate supervisor. I rarely had any problems with most of my supervisors. However, my last supervisor did not have a deep appreciation for the type of work that I did, and was bit of a bully. She and I did not have, what I would say, 'a good working relationship'. But I tried to make the best of the situation as possible. I never complained to her boss, about her condenscending remarks. My annual performance review were all good, no outstanding blemishes on my job performances, received annual pay raise. A couple days after my last performance review and supsequent pay raise, my supervisor approached me saying that someone approached her to say that I was using the internet for personal reasons, and was supposedly making unprofessional comments to several co-workers. She asked me if any of it was true. I was truthful about my personal use of the internet, (mainly because I knew the IT dept. could've checked if I was going online and to where, so it was useless to lie about that.) I did challenge the unprofessional comments. My supervisor gave me a verbal warning on both counts. Apparently, there is a policy against using the internet for personal use which over-time I had forgotten. It wasn't a policy that they hammered into people's heads over and over again like the sexual harrasement policy.
I made the fatal mistake going online a couple days later, again for personal use, (during lunch break).(Note: I never visited any sites that contained pornography at work. I do have standards I do live by.) The next day, my supervisor stormed into my office and handed a printout of a year's worth of internet sites I had visited, and demanded that I write a statement of how long had I been going online, and why. The statement went through various variations, until it met with her approval. She handed the information to HR, and the next day I was fired for violating company policy for internet use. I learned a few weeks later, from friends who called me, and from the job posting of my position, that the real reason behind the firing was that the administration was trimming the budget, and looking at ways they could cut back. I was making a director's salary for a position that was basically a supervisor. The administration figured, my salary was cutting into the company's budget, so they reformatted my position from a director to supervisor, and reduce the pay rate of my position. I saw on job postings that they had reformatted and changed the title of the position from director to supervisor, which confirmed my suspicions and what my friends were saying. I'm sure my supervisor was just relishing the opportunity to fire me. The administration needed a legal reason to lay me off without having to pay unemployment benefits, and I gave it to them. NUMBNUTS!!!:bnghd: I got too comfortable in my position, and assumed too much.
It took me more than 6 months to find a job in my chosen career field. A few recruiters I talked said that being fired was a strike against me for being hired. I perservered, and found a company who took a chance on me. Sufficet, to say, I need to remind myself constantly not to use the internet personal. Word to the wise: Big Brother is watching you.

Now its other people's turn: What dumb mistakes have you made, or what horrible situations happened to you that got you fired from your job. Bad supervisors, coniving co-workers, or stupid mistakes. Let it all out. As my father said, "Lots of people get fired, or are laid off. You need to pull yourself together, broaden your education/skills, learn from your mistakes and move forward."

I have several work related horror stories, but I will share this one.

I was working at this place as a Grain Inspector for an extremely large company. Which btw I was supposed to get officially trained for and tested to get a license, but never did. Some how they fudged the papers, and one day I had a piece of paper saying I was an official grain inspector.

I would work with farmers and truckers. As you can imagine it was seasonal and harvest was very busy. Getting laid off was crappy, but I would get unemployment. Well, when I got back from unemployment my co-worker who worked the days says to me.

"I am tired of using this stick"... Even though we worked for one of the largest companies in the world, we used a broom stick with an office clip on the end to get the bill of ladings (BL) from the truckers/farmers. It was demeaning and just plain ridiculous. Besides, we had to reach out this windows hundreds of times per shift, and it hurt the back.

So I said, hell yeah dude... and threw the stick away and started making the truckers/farmers walk up the rickety cat walk (which they said they would fix, last season) to give us the BL. We also told the office that we needed to do something else. The supervisor in the office gave an idea. he suggested getting a piece of conduit with a weighted string and clip attached to it.

I pretty much laughed in his face. Some of the truckers/farmers started to complain that they had to walk up the stairs. i saw the wind blowing, so i started walking out the door and getting the BL. Soon after the office said the cat walk was unsafe for the truckers to walk up, so we had to go out there and get the BL.

Then my coworker who's wife was the co-owner of the temp agency that they use to hire people, and whom hired me at first, tried to add pressure. But since the cat walk was unsafe, they couldn't send temps out there. So my co-worker, who's idea it was in the first place bent over and took it like a female dog and started using a stick.

I refused to use it an remained walking out and getting the BL. Then my coworker went on vacation for a week. So I offered to cover hos shift, which was five 12 hour shifts. I made the mistake of telling the guy who was in charge of everything that I was tired and there alone.

Well one day, the supervisor and the guy in charge walk in my office and surround me. They tell me. "You are doing it this way: I paused for a moment, and said. Well, you guys have the wrong guy working for you. I put in my two weeks right now. I knew at that moment that if I bent to their corrupt wills, I would be their female dog, and I couldn't live with myself being, I'd also hate my job, and start being a dick to everyone.

So when my coworker got back, i said business as usual huh? he just smirked and acted like he was above it. I took over the office and told every trucker how corrupt the company was. they all said " I know this place sucks". And i quit.

A few months later I went to a party of one of the truckers, who also worked as a Union electrician with one of my friends. i ran into a bunch of the other truckers and they all said " dude we miss you".

So, mistakes I made... trusting my coworker, trying to make a difference at a place that was corrupt and didn't want to change, and getting too involved.

the right things I did. Sticking to my guns, and knowing when to quit.

What, is no one else brave enough to post their stories? I am interested in reading more. Scaredy-cats...