Exactly ^^^ Here's how it went down in my case; it's so bad. ... The dude played in a rock band in his free time. He had a show up in LA (we're in San Diego) on a "school night". The next day, Wednesday morning, he showed up to an 8am meeting looking like shit. He said that he got zero sleep the previous night. He played the show up in LA, packed up his gear (he was a drummer), then drove back to San Diego, got home around 6am, unpacked and drove straight to the office.

No big deal, the meeting was boring, as usual, until a director from another group jokingly commented to our director, my boss, something like, "Gosh, your staff looks like hell. You must be working them to death." It was just a light-hearted, lame joke; got a chuckle in the room. After the meeting, I was pulled into my boss' office where he told me he was sooo embarrassed by the other director's comment. He was really mad. My boss was new to being a director and he felt as the other director was throwing shade on him, implying he doesn't know how to manage a staff, therefore he doesn't deserve to be a director. And everyone in the meeting was laughing, so they all must've agreed. So my boss told me to get rid of the rock-band guy. I rebutted, saying the fact that rock-band guy stayed up all night, and drove straight to work, showed that he was dedicated, and that he (my boss) was such a great director, cultivating a culture of hard work and dedication. My boss wasn't buying, and told me exactly how to manage him out: stop giving him work.

So yeah, it had absolutely nothing to do with his work. It was all because some dude got butt-hurt by a lame comment in a meeting.