There is no worse feeling in the world than getting overworked, underpaid and under-appreciated. There is no better feeling that telling those a rude boss to take this job and shove it! These are some of the most satisfying stories anyone will ever read about people quitting.
The underdogs have their moments, the downtrodden get satisfaction! Most importantly, bad bosses get their long overdue comeuppance! Enjoy, these are epic moments! Content has been edited for clarity.
Maybe The Most Obnoxious Manager Ever!
“I quit a photography studio that was inside a larger discount store.
They were shady as heck. Like, not ordering customer’s images so they could get them to come in for another session to try to get them to buy other stuff.
My regional manager was a total witch and would make fun of employees behind their backs. One girl she called horse/mule/donkey because she had large teeth. One girl she nicknamed ‘Easy Beth’ because her outfits were more revealing than the manager liked, etc… I’m sure I had a name, too. She was terrible and I hated her.
The company also sucked and would clock us out automatically, even if we were still working. There was NO overtime, even though you were expected to work it. And if you did over 40 hours, they’d split it so you’d only get 40 one week and then 40 the next.
So one day (a Thursday), I have a lady come in looking for invitations she had ordered for her kid’s birthday party. They are nowhere. I call the awful manager who says, ‘Oh, I didn’t like her, so I didn’t order them.’ Now, I’ve had enough of this place and had a job lined up that was going to start in two weeks. So I tell the lady what the awful manager said and gave her corporate’s number.
She called them, in front of me, and they basically played dumb. While she’s on hold, they call me and begin to cuss me out about how I told the customer this/that/everything. They said that I’d be docked pay for this. I laughed, said, ‘Forget it, this isn’t worth it,’ and told the girl on the phone that I was quitting.
I gave the lady some free gift cards for her troubles, shut the store down and left.
The awful manager gave my cell phone number out to all employees to have them prank me. She also tried calling me several times, left some threatening voicemails about how she would ruin me and my career. Still waiting on that.
Ended up going to see a friend that weekend and it was like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I slept for 12 hours that Saturday.”
An Impossible Schedule Was A Breaking Point
“I was working a job at a Hollywood Video for fun. I had just been let go from a dot com with a cushy severance and was taking it easy for a while and had decided to go back to doing something fun to get me out of the house. So, Hollywood Video it was!
I got paid one step up from minimum (something like $7.30/hour) but I could rent all of the DVDs I wanted free (3 at a time) and got an employee discount on all of the previously viewed movies I wanted. So to me it was a sweet deal, the work wasn’t hard and it paid for what few bills I had at the time so I wouldn’t eat my savings away.
In any case, I didn’t need the job. But I liked it and I was good at it. The manager saw this and within two weeks I had a key to the door for opening and closing shifts. Again fine, it wasn’t rocket science and I enjoyed talking to people about movies.
Then I was assigned closing on Friday nights (midnight) and opening on Saturday mornings (8 AM). It was miserable and after two weeks, I was done. I couldn’t do it any more, it was too exhausting. I looked at the schedule and saw that I was scheduled for the back-to-back again and called the manager to tell her I couldn’t do back-to-backs anymore. She said ok she would change the schedule. Two days later, nothing. I called her back, she said she couldn’t find anyone to change and that if I could please work this last one she would make sure the schedule was changed the following week. Fine, I would do it once more but this is the last time, I really can’t keep doing this.
That week goes by and the following weeks schedule comes out. I’m scheduled for it again. I called the manager and told her I couldn’t work it. She tells me that it is what I am schedule for and she has no one else to work it. I tell her she needs to find someone else and hang up. I am livid at this point but I hear nothing back and nothing changes on the schedule.
That Thursday, I am working my shift and the manager comes in. I tell her to choose either Friday night or Saturday morning and that in no uncertain terms am I working both shifts again. I reminded her of her promise. She looks at me and says, ‘You will work what you are scheduled, there’s no one else to take those shifts, you are it.’ I am ticked at this point. I start slamming DVDs around as I check them in, slamming my cash drawer closed. I am just livid. She makes the comment without looking up from what she was doing, ‘You don’t have to slam everything around pouting.’
That was it, I literally stopped what I was doing, stood still, took the store keys out of my pocket, dropped them on the counter and walked out as she asked where I was going. Hours of unanswered calls later, she finally stopped trying.
It sucked because it was a fun job at the time but if the management starts to take that kind of attitude towards their employees, I’m done. I felt bad for the other employees but hope that she had to work those shifts herself.”
The Manager Was A Real Clown
“Relayed to me by one of my buddies:
Way back when we were still in high school, my friend’s coworker was getting fed up with the supermarket they worked in. It was a few towns over, in a not so nice area, and was right off the highway, so that made it super busy with a lot of out of town commuters. He was going away to college and hated management.
On his last day, a woman walks up to his line and tries to brow beat him into taking a bunch of expired coupons. He tells her he needs to check with his supervisor and slowly pulls out a Jack-in-the-box (the toy, not the restaurant) from under his till and methodically places it on the scanner and just starts cranking the thing. When it finally pops, he looks her in the eye and just says, ‘Yeah, my manager said no.’
She flipped out and screamed for a manager while he just cracks up, takes off his smock and walks out.”
Take This Job And Shove It
“Didn’t happen to me but I got to watch this happen.
I went into a Taco John’s and ordered a super burrito with no tomatoes or black olives, to go. They weren’t super busy but there were a couple of orders ahead of mine.
So I’m standing near the counter watching them put items together and I see that they have started on my burrito. The cook loads it up with everything and wraps it up. He has it in his right hand and reaches up with his left to clear out the order on the monitor. He stops for a moment when he realizes that he messed up by putting everything on the burrito. He is facing me and he turns around and fires a 100 mph fast-ball burrito against the back wall. He walks into the back room, takes off his Taco Johns shirt, puts on a T-shirt, grabs his smokes and his drink and heads out the back door.
30 seconds later, the girl running the drive-thru wants to know where Brian is. I pointed him out to her as by now he is walking across the parking lot toward downtown. I told her that I think Brian gave his notice. She says a few choice words and wants to know what I ordered.
Way to give it the man, Brian!”
Dropping A Glitter Bomb
Kaylee Brendel/Shutterstock.com
“I worked for the most insane, chauvinistic chef ever in his ‘fine dining’ restaurant. I was just a grunt, which was unfortunate, given my training.
This man tried to be Gordon Ramsay in that he always screamed at us, except it was never for any good reason. He would smoke weed in the kitchen and then dip and double dip breadsticks in all of the sauces. He was disgusting, but I really needed the work at the time.
One time, I had a UTI. For the uninitiated, a urinary tract infection is literally e.coli bacteria in your urinary tract. The doctor told me to take a couple days while the antibiotics kicked in, because despite proper hygiene, anything can happen.
I brought in my doctor’s note and the prick of a chef berated me, threaten to fire me, and said he wanted march down to the clinic and tell the doctor to eff himself. That was enough for me.
When I went back, I was armed with a pocket full of glitter and rage. Worked as normal, but the second he got in my face, I reached into my pocket and ever so gently blew a large handful of glitter into his face, smiled sweetly, said I quit and left. It was satisfying.”
Gary The Quitter
“I was working as a field manager for a company that had a small team. They had recently hired two new guys who were fairly green to the industry but not totally brain-dead.
One guy, let’s call him Gary, is kind of quiet, and kept his head down. I had a distinct feeling that he didn’t like me, because as his direct supervisor it was up to me to train him up. Granted, I wasn’t the best teacher, as I was somewhat blunt and direct, but never insulting or demeaning.
It’s a slow week, and we’re cleaning up our warehouse. The five of us are all knocking it out so we can get out early, but Gary is kind of slacking off. Since he’s not really putting much effort in, I ask ,’Hey Gary, can you run the garbage out?’ So he loads up the truck and heads out to the dumpsters behind the building (we had a lot of trash), but leaves behind the cardboard. I think he’s making two runs, to kind of stretch out the workload, right?
He comes back, but doesn’t no return to take the cardboard. ‘Yo Gary – can you also do the cardboard?’ He gets angry, storms out to the office, and screams about me being a prick to him to the bosses.
Important note, I did not know this. I figured he was going to hit the bathroom.
I walk into the office about five minutes later to hear him complaining about how I’m a prick. The people he’s telling this to look at me over his shoulder, and I realize that he’s talking mad smack about me. He realizes it, turns around, and it’s a classic ‘whoops!’
So my one boss tells Gary that I am his supervisor and while he may not like me, he has to at least do as I ask, provided it’s within reason. Taking garbage and cardboard out is part of our regular duties, and we all take care of it. Gary gets insanely ticked, starts screaming about how we’re all just buddy buddy, and quits. He removes his keys from his belt and literally THROWS THEM at my boss, and storms out, cursing.
We’re all in shock and I’m feeling kinda bashful.
Gary comes back in five minutes later and asks for the keys, because his own car and house keys were still attached.
Once he gets them, he says ‘eff you’ to all of us, and storms back out.
So epic. To this day, still my favorite of all time quitting stories.”
She Knew Immediately That She Should Quit
“This happened in the Dallas office of a well established company with a new CEO.
The new CEO writes an all-company email with some sort of harmless ‘inspirational’ messaging about how we are going to crush it and do well, etc… Nothing to get worked up about.
A woman in accounting, who was mild mannered and a hardcore Christian Texas lady, does a ‘reply-all’ that says something like: ‘Like we believe a word that pompous man has to say.’
She had been with the company for 15 years and came in super early to do the books, so by the time most people got to work, it had already happened. But people there at the time said that her reply-all went out, she made a loud (for her) squeak when she realized her mistake, calmly got an empty box from the mailroom, packed up her desk, walked out to her car without saying a word to anyone, and drove away.
She was never seen again.”
He Was Fighting An Impossible Battle
“I was a janitor at an elementary school.
I worked there for several years and was popular with the 1st grade teachers. At one point, I had to move to a different shift so I could work another job, so I swapped with another janitor that the 2nd grade teachers liked. It made them mad, I suppose, and they filed complaints about my cleaning and I often got called into the office. I was doing my job, but they wanted their other guy back. They were even being rude to me to my face.
After several months of this, I get called to the office. My supervisor says, ‘One more incident and I’m going to write you up.’
I was calm and said, ‘That’s ok, I’d like to put my 2 weeks in.’
He looked shocked and said, ‘Uh, don’t you need some time to think about this?’
I said ‘I have. Their opinion of me isn’t going to change, and I rather save us some time.’
The look on his face was priceless. It was nice being able to quit like a calm reasonable person. In conclusion, I went back to school and got a much better job I enjoy.”
Karma Comes Back On The Owners
“I worked at a place for a year and a half that was similar to Subway, but little more ‘healthier’ in the sense of also having salads, wraps, smoothies, etc… The owners also had a sister store that I would sometimes fill-in for, if needed,. I found out that their new-hires were making $1 an hour more than I was, so I went to the owners for a measly $1 raise, and was told ‘no’ and some story about ‘things being tight right now,’ which was bull because the owners already took their 3rd vacation for the year.
I asked for a few days off, I got another job, and when I came back, I gave them 1 week’s notice (they were so ticked!)
But here’s the good part of the story:
A few months before I left, they hired a new manager and I’d help him with counting out the register and doing cash-drops to the bank after we closed. Well after I left and he was the only one handling all that, he started pocketing the cash to supplement his gambling habit and ended taking over $4,000 before they caught on to what he was doing. The owners also had to settle-up with the food distributers since he skipped out on paying them and they eventually quit delivering, so there went some more money out the door. Since they were too cheap to do a background test when they hired this manager, they found out that he had an extensive record and even did time in prison for arson. There was also no way of them recovering that money because their lawyer said it would cost them more to go after it .
And that’s the story of how refusing a freaking measly dollar an hour raise cost a restaurant thousands.”
He Cost Them Millions
“My job told me since they fired the other supervisor I was just going to have to do his job from now on. My original job was insane and now they expected me to double that, with no additional compensation.
It got old really fast and we had a seriously busy day and I decided I was done, I let $1,000,000+ of shipments sit in a trailer back in the corner and and told all my guys thanks for the hard work, our day is done. I quit that day and the next day I got a call with them freaking out about all the money they lost, I just hung up on the boss and never looked back.”
Quitting On The Busiest Day Of The Year
“I worked in a grocery store for several years. The last year and a half, it was like they stopped bothering to try and train anyone else to do anything ‘extra,’ because it was just expected that I could handle it.
On top of being a cashier, I was expected to cover the store’s coffee bar while the morning person went to lunch, take grocery orders over the phone, getting the grocery orders together, stock the shelves, train new cashiers… you get the idea.
More than once, I either was given my break at the last possible minute (in one case, literally an hour before I was scheduled to leave), or, because I was at the coffee bar all day (because the person scheduled there called out), I was just sent home early since there was no one to relieve me (because the managers didn’t want to be back there for a whole half hour). No extra pay for all that. Just an occasional ‘good job,’ followed by more work.
I was eventually given an opportunity to leave, with a safety net– the better half and I were buying a house well away from the store, and he gave me permission to quit whenever I wanted. Finances were good enough to where I could be out of work for a while.
I wanted to make it hurt, though. Years of being treated like a slave made me bitter.
I gave my two weeks notice knowing that my last day would be right before the Mardi Gras weekend, when they would need all hands on deck. Especially since the store was near a major parade route. For those not familiar, basically the later half of the week and weekend leading up to Mardi Gras in new Orleans, the parades really start ramping up in frequency. And no, during that time, they did not bother training anyone else to do that extra stuff. The best part is that they were likely blissfully unaware of just how badly they were wrecked until the new schedule came out that same day, and they didn’t have anyone else to do all that extra stuff that they relied on me for.
Things there got even worse, and as of last year (according to the former coworker I ran into), there’s one person handling most of what I used to. Oh yes, and they’ve thrown in new technology to make things more complicated. As I understand, the Mardi Gras weekend (and the actual day of Fat Tuesday) was a nightmare, seeing as how I was one of the fastest and most reliable workers.”
Black Friday Chaos Is Too Much To Deal With
“I worked for Best Buy back in the early 2000s, before Geek Squad, as one of their computer techs while in college. The job itself wasn’t horrible, but it was super boring because anything past a simple upgrade was sent out to some depot, so I wasn’t very invested in the job. On top of that, they never got around to ordering my work shirts, so I just walked around in a black polo I already owned instead of a black Best Buy polo.
You’d think that was a hint that they didn’t care about their employees, but then came all the issues with scheduling. I had a very rigid and predictable school schedule: 8 am to 3:30 pm every day. I told my boss when he hired me about it, and he said it wasn’t an issue. However, they kept scheduling me for noon to 8 pm or some weird stuff that conflicted with my schedule at college. After the first few times of ‘Where have you been?!’ it kinda became a running joke and I realized maybe a better job was a good idea.
Cue the biggest shopping day of the year: Black Friday. The store was set to open at some ungodly early hour like 3 am, so they wanted everyone at the store at 2 am to get ready. I drag my butt in, and an hour later, total chaos breaks loose. Customers being rude, coworkers being grumpy, and the store manager being rude to everyone. It sucked, I was tired, and we quickly figured out that there was no intent on giving any breaks even though we were scheduled enough hours to legally require one.
5 am rolls around and coworkers are getting angry at management for no breaks and started treating customers like trash. The manager comes over and starts yelling, so I take off my name tag, throw it on the counter and tell him I quit, right in front of the computer department staff and customers and grab my coat and start walking out. He yells after me, ‘YOU HAVE TO TURN IN YOUR SHIRT RIGHT NOW!’ to which I turn around and yell back ‘I’VE BEEN HERE THREE MONTHS AND YOU NEVER GOT ME A SHIRT!’
Petty, but man, that felt good.”
They Treated Him Like Dirt For Weeks
“I had a position that was a year’s contract. The year was coming up and I decided that I did not want to continue past the end date , so I told my boss (a complete moron) that I wasn’t going to renew my contract. This was six weeks before the contract ended.
Starting from that day, I was person non-grata in the office. I wasn’t CC’d on any e-mails, not invited to any staff meeting, they had a ‘team building’ event outside the office one day but didn’t tell me. I showed up for work and no one was there in my department, because they were all out ‘team building.’ I spent the whole day just reading a book and surfing the web.
On my final day, it was about 1 pm and I was saying good-bye to people in other departments. The boss comes down and says, ‘We need you in the office NOW!’
I used the phone to call someone and they said that they had planned a goodbye party for me! After six weeks of being treated like dirt, they wanted to make themselves feel good by giving me a cake.
I said no way – and snuck up to my desk (already cleaned out) and walked out the front door, got in my car and drove home.
Turns out they started paging me for about 30 minutes, then realized that I was gone and the boss got ticked.
She decided NOT to send out my record of employment so I can collect unemployment insurance. I sent an e-mail to her boss, her boss’ boss and the CEO explaining what she did and they had three days to get me my record of employment and if it did not arrive with my final paycheck, I would file a complaint with the government and see where it goes. It arrived via FedEx the next day and she was fired two months later.”