13 people who got fired over a single Instagram post

Traci Gauthier, a visual arts high school teacher in Colorado, was canned from her job after it was discovered that she posted a degrading photo of one of her students on Instagram.

According to the DailyMail, Gauthier posted a photo of freshman Phoenix Bowen with the caption: "STEM kids are trying too hard. I don't know him, but I hate him. #pothead #STEM #wannabecool #dorkywhiteboy."

Bowen later responded, "You can't hate me, you don't know me." But things only got worse as Gauthier wrote him back, "I know I don't know you-but I can hate anyone I'd like."

Later the school district found out about it and Gauthier was let go from the school.

Aaron Kwan, the manager of a Delaware restaurant called Padi, was put on indefinite leave after an Instagarm account associated with him was found to have posted multiple posts degrading its customers.

One of the posts had a photo of a receipt with racial slurs, saying, "What do you expect from a last name like that? Sand ni****s will never change #cheap #jew," according to The Huffington Post. The same Instagram account had similar photos with caption that basically had similar racially offensive comments.

Although Kwan denied he was behind any of the posts, he was put on indefinite unpaid leave. The owner of the restaurant, who happens to be Kwan's uncle, said he believes other people may have been involved.

Two Subway employees were fired for posting insensitive photos defiling food and freezing pee at the restaurant on their Instagram accounts, according to the Columbus Dispatch.

One of the photos showed former employee Ian Jett putting his penis on the sandwich bread with the caption, "My name is @ianjett and I will be your sandwich artist today."

Another photo showed a frozen plastic bottle filled with urine, including the caption, "Today at work I froze my pee."

The photos were posted on the account held under another Subway employee, Cameron Boggs.

Both were fired as soon as Subway found out about the photos.

Katie Duke was an emergency room nurse at New York Presbyterian Hospital (and a cast on ABC's medical reality show NY Med) when she decided to share a picture of an empty trauma room.

The photo captured a messy room where a man hit by an NYC subway was treated, with the caption, "#Man vs 6 train."

Soon, she got a call from the hospital, telling her she was fired from the position she had held for 7 years.

But the hospital told her she wasn't getting fired for violating any privacy regulations. "I was told I was being fired for being insensitive," she told ABC News.

Tatiana Kulikova lost her paramedic job after sharing a number of photos posing in front of dying patients in the ambulance.

In some of them, she revealed the faces of the patients and made obscene gestures, with the hashtags, "drunk" and "another moron," according to the Daily Dot.

The photos caused quite an outrage and it didn't take too long for the hospital to fire her.

Former Blue Shield CTO Aaron Kaufman was fired from his job after the company alleged he had spent over $100,000 on personal expenses with the company credit card.

Blue Shield also sued him for fraud, and the legal complaint mentioned "raunchy" Instagram photos by his then-girlfriend, celebrity Tara Reid, for causing "great disturbance" within the company, according to the LA Times.

The complaint alleges that three-fourths of his spending on the corporate card had nothing to do with work, and some of the expenses included night club tabs that went over $1,000.

Erica Rivera, a former NYPD cop, was allegedly fired from her job after posting a photo of her ex-boyfriend who went to prison for nonfatal stabbing.

Rivera said she hadn't talked with her ex-boyfriend in three years. But she was later found to be closely associated with another man with a sketchy criminal record, and eventually, was let go by the NYPD. The NYPD has a policy where officers are prohibited from being involved with people in criminal activity.

In November, Rivera filed a $5 million wrongful termination lawsuit against the NYPD.

A Pittsburgh radio DJ who goes by the name Mike Jax posted an Instagram photo of Freddie Gray, the 25-year old African American whose death triggered a nationwide debate around the use of force by police.

The problem was he also included the arrest record of Gray, with a caption saying, "He was pretty busy before he was unjustly killed at the hands of Baltimore PD."

The radio station he worked for soon suspended him, and Jax released a statement apologizing for the post. "My intention was not to justify Freddie Gray's death. It was to highlight that his arrest record DOES NOT justify his death," he wrote.

A Florida woman named Caitlin Cimeno posted a photo portraying two people dressed up as Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman for Halloween. The reference was to a racially charged legal case: Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder for shooting Martin, who was black. He was acquitted on grounds of self-defense.

The photo soon became a hot topic online and Cimeno eventually had to take it down.

But by the time she did, it was too late, and Rolling Out reports she was fired from her job.

Former UFC champion Jon Jones got in hot water last year after he sent a series of homophobic messages to fans of his Swedish rival Alexander Gustafsson. Some of the comments he made on Instagram include, "U2 are definitely gay" and "Homosexuality is a sin."

But later Jones explained his phone was hacked and it was someone else who had made those comments. He also said the person in charge of his social media accounts was fired from his team.

Fans still seem split on whether Jones is saying the truth, but Jones doesn't seem to worry much, as he said, "No one believes me about it, but it's one of those things where the people who decided to hate me are never going to believe me about it. So I just have to continue to be me."

Wade Groom, an ex-sales clerk at Lacoste's flagship store in Midtown Manhattan, became the brand's top salesperson in just 3 months. In his biggest week, he sold almost $40,000 worth of merchandise, according to the Gothamist.

But that only translated to a salary of $1,500 a week, which wasn't enough for him to support his family in New York City.

Frustrated, Groom took it to Instagram and posted a photo of his paycheck, with the caption: "Paycheck. Still silly to me. Ever since I was a kid I've thought it was completely insane that we have to work all our lives. I still feel that way. Especially when it's only enough to live in a third world apartment with sh---y everything. Which for some reason in NYC is ok. Anywhere else only trailer trash live this way. I'm done with it."

Two weeks later, he received a call from the corporate office who told him that the image somehow made it all the way to company HQ, and that it "infringes our confidentiality agreement," and soon, was fired from his job.

Philipa Quito, a medical assistant from Brooklyn, claims she was fired for posting an Instagram photo of her smoking at home, according to the New York Post.

She told the Post, "I took a picture when I was taking a smoke...Anything I do outside of my job, I have a right to do."

Quito believes the smoking issue was just a "pretense," and the real issue was her asking for additional pay for working overtime. “It was really about her complaining and trying to get paid her proper wages,” her lawyer said.

Her employer denied all allegations, saying, "Ms. Quito was terminated for cause, unrelated to any issues regarding any postings on social media.”

These 13 people got fired over a single tweet!