I think we have all been there. We want to quit so badly, but we don’t. There’s never been a better time to know your worth and stand up for yourself. Content edited for clarity.
The Last Paycheck
“I was employed by a company where I was allowed to take six weeks (30 days) of PTO per calendar year. Normally, the company allowed employees to carry two weeks of PTO forward to the next year for each year of service. So if you use four weeks’ PTO and carry the remaining two weeks forward, next year you have eight weeks of PTO and can carry up to four weeks forward (2 weeks for each of your 2 years’ employment). In my case, because my role required 24×7 on-call availability during the times when I would have chosen to take a vacation, I had an agreement that I could carry forward all of my unused vacation time, which averaged about five weeks per year.
After five years with the company, I had almost 30 weeks of accrued vacation time, and the CEO was getting twitchy about the numbers.
At this point, I was informed that my mother was suffering from Alzheimer’s or some other undetermined form of dementia. My father already had a number of illnesses and had recently been diagnosed with cancer. Neither of them was able to serve as the guardian, medical advocate, or caretaker for the other, and as the only surviving child I felt that I had to take on the duty. So, in a meeting where my CEO informed me that I would need to use the vacation time I had accrued, I explained my parents’ situation and advised that I wanted to take a paid leave of absence, effective as soon as we could arrange a stand-in for my role, for 6 months, which would leave me with a little less than 4 weeks vacation time.
The CEO refused, despite his previous comments, saying that it would take several months to arrange a suitable replacement. So I resigned on the spot and sent him my resignation letter, along with a copy of my employment contract highlighting a section the CEO wouldn’t be able to argue with no matter how badly he wanted to.
The section stated I was required to give 4 weeks’ notice, and that employees above a certain pay grade who resigned would be put on gardening leave for the duration of their notice period (effectively, being told to go home, put your feet up, and be available for former colleagues to ask questions during office hours). I left my company laptop and mobile with him before leaving the office, made sure the HR rep had my personal telephone contact number for any questions and was out of the office, and gone less than 10 minutes after my leave of absence was denied. Then I was on a plane to go and look after my parents the next morning.
The last pay cheque I got was very fat indeed, given that it included 30 weeks’ salary and bonuses in compensation for the vacation time that I had earned but not used.”
Drastic Times, Drastic Measures
“I went through a series of horrendous events prior to this one – general stress, a family murder, a relationship breakup where I basically became homeless in doing so, and then my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. This was all in a 7-month period. Through it all, I went to work.
I finally got some money together and asked for 3 months off to go to the country my mom lived in as it was on the other side of the world.
Three months might sound like a lot but it was a company that regularly allowed up to 12 months off for a career break. I went in to see the boss.
‘We can’t give you 3 months off. The best we can do is 3 weeks,’ he told me.
‘It’s not enough, I need a proper break. I’ve been through a lot, I’ve not taken a break, I want to go spend time with my mom,’ I said desperately.
‘We can’t give you the three months,’ he said without sympathy.
‘I’ve worked here for 5 years, which is about 4 years longer than most stay here,’ I tried to reason with him.
‘We can give you 3 weeks,’ he said, not budging.
I knew it was time to do something drastic.
‘Okay. I quit,’ I stated.
He sputtered, ‘You can’t do that, you need to work out your notice period.’
There was no way I would be doing any more work for them, ‘Too bad, see you.’
I walked out. Two days later I get a call asking me to reconsider. I simply said no.
Then they asked me to go in and clean out my desk. I said no.
I went to see my mom, spent a few months with her and I don’t regret it, not even for a second.”
That’s What I Thought
‘I’ll never forget when my brother told me what his boss had told him that day, ‘What’s more important to you? Your job or your daughter?’
He worked for years as a chef for a husband and wife who owned two local restaurants. For context, my brother had a really rough time in his late teens and 20s and had my niece when he was still quite young. He decided he had to be a better man for her and went back to school to get a degree in his 30s. He took a job at the restaurant for flexible hours.
He worked like a dog for them for years at both of their locations while still attending school full-time. After he graduated he continued to work for them while he planned out how to get a job with his new degree and pay off the loans he had taken. For seven years, even while in school, my brother reported to work at the drop of a hat if they needed him. He would go in to prep the kitchen then go to class only to head over to their second restaurant to close the kitchen. He did whatever they needed him to do to get that paycheck. When he was passed up for the manager position he was angry and hurt and yet still continued to go in and work his ass off. This man is one of the hardest workers I know.
The day that his daughter was graduating from 6th grade he had made it very clear to his bosses that he would not be able to work that day. They agreed and it was all set. Three other members of the kitchen staff were all from the same family and unfortunately, they had a death in the family that week. All three would need the weekend off to attend the funeral. Normally, my brother would have stepped in and run the whole thing himself and his bosses were counting on that. He refused to work the day of his daughter’s graduation. He told them he would stay all day to prep the day before and would work the entire weekend but that they would have to pull someone from the other location to cover graduation day.
His bosses were furious. How could you do this to us? It’s a huge weekend! All of the local schools were having graduation ceremonies and the day was set to be a monster in terms of customers.
He never told me exactly how the conversation went but I do know that it ended with the wife uttering the words, ‘What’s more important to you? Your job or your daughter?
My brother looked her dead in the eye and said, ‘My daughter will always come before you. I quit,’ and walked out.
Later he got a call from the husband begging him to reconsider. I know the conversation went something like this:
Boss: I am so sorry she said that. She should have never said that to you! We think of our entire staff as family and you are extremely valuable to us. Please come back.
Brother: What’s my daughter’s name? I’ve worked for you for seven years. Tell me her name.
Boss:…….dead silence
Brother: Yeah that’s what I thought.
Click. He hung up the phone and never heard from them again. He got another job a few weeks later, it was a temp position in a brand-new field. He was offered full-time and promotion to management after 11 days of work.”
The Price Of Respect
“I was called and notified our special needs child was dying and would be dead in less than an hour. I called the men together, letting each one know what and where I was on each machine. I left as the company was in good hands. Every box was checked and there was no reason I shouldn’t be able to head out to be with my kid.
On my way out the door, my supervisor saw me, he mentioned it was not my break time and I better get back to work. I told him what was happening, but he refused to give me leave. He had to tell my back as I was leaving that when I returned I would written up or fired.
I returned, and nothing happened except he was being extra mean with assignments. He was especially cruel with the work that could not be finished in 8 hours but could not be left for the next day. Even though no serious action had been taken against me, the situation had left a bitter taste. This manager and company had no respect or care for me. I started considering options I hadn’t looked into thinking I wouldn’t need to. But I would not stand for this treatment.
A Japanese company had been trying to hire me for years, actually decades. We came to an agreement of duties, insurance, perks, and suchlike. There was no decision after that, it was obvious what I had to do. So, I gave my two weeks’ notice. The company bosses scrambled. I was offered a double salary. I wanted to laugh in their face. It was as if they had put a price on my child’s life. What was the right salary to make it okay that I couldn’t be there to say goodbye? I thanked HR and said no.
After a year at the new company, our son had pneumonia and sepsis. I used my vacation and sick time as I sat by our son’s side in quarantine. After I had used up all of my paid time off, I went back to work. My manager asked if our son was okay.
‘No, he is not, but I have no more personal time. I need to be here,’ I told him honestly.
He told me not to return until he was well.
A few more weeks passed, and I went back to work. My manager stopped me before I even sat at my desk. This time i went more like; ‘Is your son okay?’ ‘Yes, he is at home.’ But then not too long after; ‘Is your son okay?’ ‘Not yet, but we are hoping he is close to getting fully well.’
‘Go home, be with your son, and do not return until your son is okay,’ he replied sternly.
Two weeks later, my son had made a full recovery and I was back at work. The company paid all my expenses and did not touch any of my personal or sick time. I never looked back to the first company.”
Nice Try
“I left BigLaw when I had kids, eventually finding my way into a much smaller firm with much more reasonable fee targets. I was able to mostly ignore work on the weekends, and my boss (the owner of the firm) trusted me and gave me space if I needed it. Things went so well in that department that I was told I was being moved into a different department that was having trouble hiring externally. I wasn’t thrilled, but I was willing to give it a shot.
I quickly discovered the new department was having trouble hiring because the director had no sense of boundaries. He would make unreasonable requests and give conflicting instructions. I typically handle unreasonable deadlines by showing what’s on my plate and how long each will take, and asking what can be shifted later to prioritize this new thing. A decent boss would have either told me what to deprioritize or would say I should carry on and pick up the new task when I’m finished. This new director couldn’t do that. He kept asking me to do all of it simultaneously, for the original deadline. If this was genuinely urgent work I would have been willing to make a plan, but it really wasn’t.
The final straw came when I told him my husband was hospitalized and that I would be completely unavailable after hours due to having to manage our children alone. We had another of those conversations where I told him my plan for the day, he asked me to add something, and I said, ‘No problem; which of my original tasks can I push to tomorrow?’
Just like every time before, he said, ‘None of them,’ then added, ”Tomorrow is another day’ is a very dangerous philosophy in our line of work.’
That saying sums up my whole approach to my work (pace yourself, plan properly, work carefully with deep focus, then go home and don’t take the work with you), and that is when I realized we would never work well together. He then asked the whole team to work over the weekend to tackle something that had become urgent because he hadn’t gotten to it in good time (while the rest of the team had been chasing him daily for instructions). Yes, while knowing my husband was hospitalized.
I think he should have smelled a mutiny when not one team member actually did the work that weekend. Within the week I was putting out CVs, within two weeks I had an interview, and before the month was up I had a job offer for a lower-pressure, higher-paid role somewhere else.”
Find Someone Else
“This was during a meeting where a supervisor called me in to reprimand me for taking prearranged paid time off to see my neurosurgeon after a fall. I have a complicated spinal situation and frequent fractures of my childhood-radiated vertebrae. The neurosurgeon, who had taken care of me my whole life, wanted to evaluate me and to do that I had to travel a few hours. The day off was necessary.
Although she was one of two supervisors who signed off on the PTO, and although I had everything stable enough to handle the single day without me, a few things had come up that she didn’t like having to deal with herself while I was gone. She wanted me to know how displeased she was. I can’t remember what it was exactly- probably someone from Administration asked for a report and she didn’t have someone handy to immediately slap one into her hand as she was used to. I wouldn’t have described our office as ‘toxic’ back then, but I think I would now.
Among her issues was the fact that I was not going to a neurosurgeon there at the hospital. When I worked there, it was an open secret that some employees looked up coworkers’ notes and test results. So, even if my neurosurgeon had been in the hospital network, I would have had my tests done at another location. But above all I was loyal to this surgeon, who had put no small effort into keeping me alive and ambulatory, so no I was not going to start over with someone who didn’t know me just so she could have me for an hour of work that day and potentially read my radiology reports.
During our argument, which is what it was (things had been tense and I was unhappy there) she finally told me that she didn’t believe that I had or had ever had spinal cord cancer. That sort of ignorance of a medical professional was too much for me; I was in shock. I couldn’t figure out why she’d say such a thing, but it was the final straw. I began drafting my resignation immediately. I’ve lived through too much to be accused of inventing it all to have a day off.
I’ve never regretted leaving, and I’m sure they didn’t miss me. At least, not after they found someone else to supply the reports.”
Just Say No
“I will always remember how I left my first ever job. I started when I was 15 on minimum wage working one evening a week, all day Saturday, and a half day Sunday at a supermarket. I did that for two years while I was still in school, it was horrific. I couldn’t do my homework on a Thursday night if it was in for Friday morning because I had to be at work. I used to play Sunday league rugby and loved it, but I couldn’t have a weekend job and train on a Saturday and play on a Sunday. The only way I could fit the required minimum hours this store asked of you was to use my only free days, the weekend. I wasn’t about to work 3–4 nights a week so I quit playing.
It was the worst two years of my life working the tills at this supermarket.
I was a kid so didn’t have much knowledge about how to change my situation so I just did it. I really disliked the boredom of working on the tills for such long days on the weekend and hated Thursdays with studying all day and the knowledge I would have to be at work that evening. I used to dream about working shifts and then waking up and pulling an eight-hour day on a Saturday.
I eventually put in a request to change to another department, but nothing came of it. I did this a couple more times and still nothing. They even had a yearly review program where they asked how things were going and, as a result of this conversation, recommended I applied to split my time over a couple of other departments. Nothing happened. As I said, I didn’t really know how to empower myself or know my value so didn’t know how to or if I could follow up any more than I had already.
Other times they would randomly check items we had on us we had paid for when we were in the staff or locker room. I was some totally inoffensive 15-year-old child, scared of everything really. I forgot my receipt for some flowers I bought for my girlfriend and a manager called me up on it. Security had to provide footage of me paying for it to prove I hadn’t stolen some £4 roses. I just put up with it until one day I had enough and finally felt like I could stand up for myself.
We were supposed to offer to pack everyone’s bags as they came through, it was company policy. Everyone used to say ‘no thanks’ and I would often zone out because of the tedium of non-stop beeping items through and just not offer. I would say I forgot, but I just could not be bothered. My mind was dulled from two years at those tills.
One Saturday near the end of my shift a manager positioned herself near my till and I thought nothing of it. After a little while when there was a break in customers she came over and told me I was being given a written warning for not following company policy. I had a two-week family holiday booked the following day so I wrote my two-week notice on a bit of scrap paper at my till, handed it to the duty manager’s station, and walked out never to return as an employee.
It was the best feeling I have ever had.”