Sometimes we reach a point where enough is just enough. No amount of money is worth putting up with some of the
Forget two weeks notice or decorum, nothing is worth the agony for one more minute. So, you quit. And wow if it doesn't feel great afterward! That's exactly happened with these people. They reached their breaking point and took off, giving the metaphorical finger to everyone on their way out.
A Crashing Plane Sours The Deal
“I was doing a ‘check ride’ to get hired as a pilot for one of the companies that flies advertising banners up and down the beach, etc.
Because the banner is a huge drag on the plane, they fly at full power all day and, as a result, the planes were tired pieces of junk.
As we waited to take off, a plane came in to pick up a banner (by using, basically, a big hook to snag a rope strung between two upright poles). We watched as he hooked it, attempted to fly away, then crashed and burned while we watched. We taxied over, but there was nothing to do.
The check pilot went to handle things and I nope’d out and politely declined their offer to return for another check ride.”
Jerking Him Around
“When I was freshly graduated from college with a B.S. in psychology, the recession was in full swing. I took a job working for a massive tech company. I was doing tech support for their advertising software. I was miserable. I’d get screamed at, called names, and I’d have to review smut sites and sketchy stuff to make sure it fit the advertising guidelines. After about six months, I found another job. The pay was the same. The drive was much shorter. Parking was free and I would have been happy.
I gave my notice at my tech support job.
‘Oh, no!’ they said. ‘We have a position that’s perfect for you! We know that you love web analytics and you’re really good at them. We want to promote to you to our analytics expert! We just need you to get certified!’
Young and dumb, I believed them. I turned down my other job offer in order to pursue that position.
It’s a tale as old as time: a couple of months of jumping through hoops to get that promotion and they didn’t give it to me. I was furious and, of course, still miserable with my job. After those two months of hard work, misery, and studying to become certified, they told me I didn’t get the job. I rage-walked out of work that day. I rage-walked almost 10 miles.”
Getting Away From A Wimpy Boss
“Once when I was fresh out of undergrad, I got an internship at a small ad agency. I was stoked because, in the city I was in, these were hard to come by. As time went on, I realized I was their glorified office manager but, hey, interns are interns and I was making $10 an hour. However, around the 2 month mark, I realized the work was fairly dull and the boss ran the place a little bit too much like an old boys club.
Then one day, I got an email from him asking me to come in early. When I arrived, he told me he was going to fire the head copywriter and he needed me to act as security and make sure she doesn’t take any company files. So I stood there, a 5’3″, 22-year-old girl thinking, What the heck? I told him I was pretty uncomfortable with that and he said, ‘I get it, but it’s part of the life.’ So I was completely stuck. Considering it was just me and him in the office, I reluctantly agreed.
He went in to her office when she arrived, fired her, then slinked out of the office and said to me, ‘Okay, you’re up,’ and, coincidentally, ‘takes a call’ in his office with the door closed. I proceeded to stand at the door of this woman’s office as she furiously packed up her items. She was understandably ticked at me and let me know as I tried to stand there awkwardly, trying to enforce that she didn’t get on the computer before leaving.
She left, telling me to go eff myself (I mean, fair), and the boss ‘finished up his call’ and came out to ask me if she took her key with her. I told him I was honestly not sure. It was a pretty hard situation to navigate without any prior training. He told me it was important for me to make sure I got her key, though he didn’t mention that at the start, but he’d let it go this time.
He was genuinely surprised when I turned in my notice the next week.”
He Hated The Idea From The Start
“Not exactly an ‘epic’ story, but recently I had a job interview that I just rage quit and walked out of.
It was billed as a regular interview, but was a group interview with the other people vying for the job, so right away I had doubts about the whole thing. I originally thought I had a chance when I saw I was pretty much one of two smartly dressed with previous retail experience… but then this older guy who had relocated halfway across the world gave an absolutely amazing presentation, significantly better than everyone else in the room combined.
The interviewer jokingly said, ‘We might as well give you the job now.’ Granted this was maybe 10 minutes into a 2-hour interview and they made it clear there was only one position available at the start. So, I just walked out, saying, ‘I’m off,’ and did not even bother to thank them for their time.
Group interviews are literally the worst possible thing in the world and there’s no way I’m waiting for a convenient time to exit when they haven’t given me so much as the bare minimum of respect.”
Asking Way To Much On Her Last Night
“The last night of work at my previous job.
There are usually two hostesses. If it’s not busy, they will send the non-cashier home. The cashier is the one who closes and is usually there until late. They knew I was coming from my new job to finish out my two weeks and had to be at work early the next morning. What did they do? They sent home the cashier hostess and expected me to work the closing shift! I was done.
This wasn’t the first time they had pulled this stunt. I looked at my manager and said that, ‘No, I was not cashiering,’ and I needed to be out of there as earlier as possible and that they could find somebody else. The manager could cashier if need be, but he was being a weasel that night. I stood my ground, at that point not even caring if they put me on a no-hire list.
The supervisor ended up cashiering and as soon as they said I could go I was out of that place like a bat out of you know where and have never looked back.”
He Stood His Ground And He Quit
Koldunova Anna/Shutterstock.com
“When I was 18, I had worked for Domino’s for at least two years by that time. I was a day manager and it was summertime. Our general manager wanted to save money so he didn’t turn on the air conditioning in the building. With an oven blasting at over 400 and the outside temperature being well over 90, it was over 100 in the store.
Our general manager arrived at the store around 5 p.m. By this time, the store temperature (we had a wall thermometer) was 108. We had customers sitting outside while waiting for pizza! We also had a morbidly obese (350-400 pounds) driver who was having heart palpitations and an elderly driver who was extremely uncomfortable. I asked him to turn on the air, pointing at the melting cheese and unsafe temperature of our ingredients. I showed him the customers sitting outside and the drivers about the fall over and he still refused.
So I told him if he didn’t care about his employees, customers, and product I would quit. He said he wouldn’t turn it down so I took off my apron, threw it on his desk and quit.”
Taking Care Of Kids Is A Brutal Job
“A few years ago, I worked at a daycare in the toddler room. I loved kids and thought it would be a great fit for me. I was wrong.
The day that I said, ‘Forget this, I’m out,’ was the worst day at any job I have ever had. To start with, they called me at 5 a.m. to let me know they needed me to come in on my day off. I had slept about 2 hours that night but they really ‘needed’ me, so I went in. I was the only person in the toddler room from 6 a.m. until 3 p.m. There were, about, 25 kids in there.
That’s very illegal here, but there wasn’t much I could do, except try to keep the biters away from the other kids (that didn’t work) and try not to crap myself. At one point, I was trying to change a child’s diaper and she kicked me right in the mouth and bit me. The same child also ripped out a chunk of my hair when I picked her up to put her in ‘time out.’ Another child started pushing every other kid down and stepping on their legs.
By the time my ‘lunch replacement’ showed up, I was done. I went out to my car for lunch and never went back.”
Not Working Even One More Shift
“A coworker was running late to a shift at Subway.
I worked the morning and two afternoon people were scheduled to come in and relieve me. One showed up and the other was still running late. I texted him to ask him where he was and I got a picture sent back of him smoking out of a glass pipe and a message saying, ‘Yeah! Doin’ crank!’
I told my co-worker who was on shift that he needed a ride, so I drove out to his place and knocked on his door. I heard a loud bang from inside. I had no clue what it was, whether it was a weapon or not. I called the manager and he said, ‘Well, I need you to work his shift then.’
I just said, ‘Nope,’ hung up, and went home.
It turned out that the bang was him knocking over a piece of furniture because me knocking on the door scared him. He lost his job.”
He Wasn’t Going To Be Their Prop
“In ’95-’96 I worked at K-mart for a few months as a second job. It was only 20-25 hours a week, but management started offering 40 hours to anyone that wanted it. Of course I, going through a divorce, got the extra hours.
But something felt off by it. We were between seasons, no extra business, and management didn’t try to get any extra work out of us.
Then, one day, they announced that they were going bankrupt and planning to close stores. I had the ‘ah-ha’ moment, and quit on the spot. They were fluffing the labor numbers to show hemorrhaging to get more money from whoever was dumb enough to buy the company.
That company turned out to be Sears.”
He Didn’t Even Last A Week!
“My first day delivering pizzas for a very big chain with a publicly well-known CEO/Founder.
I was told to come in at 8 a.m. (2 hours before open) because we had to deliver to the CEO, hosting an event at the local Ritz. We had two cater 250 pizzas in 4 cars. It was at least two trips, and it was my first day. It was absolutely pouring. I didn’t have a uniform. I didn’t know where I was going or who I was meeting at the hotel. I just kept driving around and around, lost, until I finally was told where to go. Three hours later, I was soaked, off the clock, and untrained. I was told I would be greatly rewarded for my help.
Our manager came in after the job with cookies from the shop next door. I was never tipped. I didn’t get paid overtime. I. Didn’t. Get. Tipped. By. The. CEO.
Either the store manager kept the tip for himself or our CEO was a monster.
Six days later someone rear ended me, and I quit that day.”
With No Power, Should Come No Responsibility
“I worked at a McDonalds for a few years, most of which were in lower management. After an ownership change and a ton of other nonsense, I was ready to be done.
I got to work one morning to open the store and, an hour in, I had three people call off. Another hour in and two more no-showed. Plus, there was a gas smell coming from the kitchen. I called my boss and told him what was going on. He hung up on me. He DID call maintenance to check on the smell, so that got fixed, but I was still extremely short staffed, running the front half of the store alone.
During a lull between the early coffee drinkers and the breakfast rush, I was talking to my drive-thru person and basically said, ‘The boss is gonna come in late as usual, and the first thing he is going to do is yell at me for being understaffed and I’m gonna walk.’ She laughed.
Eventually, I had all of the no-shows in and working and the store was running more smoothly. My shift was to be done in an hour and, to nobody’s surprise, my boss was two hours late. He finally showed up and the first thing he did was yell at me for being understaffed. Clearly, it was my fault that people called out. Not only was I not allowed to have employee’s phone numbers to call them to help, but there was no time for me to call anyone even if I could.
So, I handed him my keys and left. I turned my phone off for a week and once I turned it back on, I had a ton of missed calls and messages from him and his supervisor. All the stages of grief were laid out in front of me. But, I didn’t care. I was free.”
He Got Them All To Quit
“I worked at a pizza place getting paid $7.25 (minimum wage) and our general manager left.
Corporate sent a manager from another state and the main training person for the company to our store. He pretty much came in and yelled at us for doing everything wrong, even though that was what we were previously taught by all of the other managers. It got bad enough that he made us use a ruler to measure the width of the crust on the dough we had just flattened and if it wasn’t, we had to throw it out and do it again. That was pretty much my breaking point.
I kept working there hoping it would get better, but it didn’t. The next day, my friend who worked there with me got in trouble for washing the dishes wrong. But he never told him how to do it right, so we are convinced that there wasn’t actually anything wrong with his way of doing it. That same day, I got in trouble again. This time, it was because my white undershirt, that you could barely see poking out of the front of my collar shirt, was the wrong color.
After a couple days of random bull crap like that, two friends and I all quit at the same time. We were their best workers and it royally messed them up for a while.”
A Boxing Match Was The End
“I worked at a family owned restaurant once where everyone got along well, but you needed thick skin cause we all gave each other a lot crap.
One day, two guys got to smack talking and challenged each other to a boxing match. The manager caught wind and decided he was gonna sanction the entire thing, even provide the gloves. The assistant manager was appointed as the ref, so you can see what kind of place this was. I was asked if I wanted to spectate because I was on good terms with everyone involved. I was assured there would be, like, 5 people there max, plus the fighters.
Two months later, the fighters had their time to train and word had time to spread so, lo and behold, the crowd for the fight was something like 20-plus people, mostly people who worked there.
The venue/time for this fight was at a park around the corner from the restaurant, at midnight. The fight actually went off without a hitch. Both guys were gassed after the second round and it looked like we wouldn’t be seeing any knockouts despite both fighters hyping up their K.O. potential.
This was where things went wrong. The third round started, they traded blows, the bell rang – Oops. One guy threw a late punch after the bell. No big deal, the fighters were cool and everyone stood around talking. When, suddenly, I saw someone I didn’t know punch the fighter who threw the late hit, and they both went down. I instantly made my way out of the area, but I could hear lots of screaming and a LOUD hissing noise. I didn’t even look back.
It turned out that the sucker-puncher had a can of bear mace on him and wildly sprayed everyone in the vicinity so he and his friends could beat down the one fighter.
The manager who sanctioned the whole thing got the worst of it and had to go to the hospital for emergency treatment on his eyes.
I decided it was time to move on, right then and there.”
Dueling Managers
“I had nothing but trouble with the managers at the deli I worked at for months – a sit down deli where you order at a counter and we bring it out to you. I was supposed to be a delivery driver, but then they started putting me places I’d never trained for, then had me train with people who didn’t know English, while they bad talked everyone but those in their little clique.
But what made me throw my apron down in the middle of the shift was two things. During the busiest shift we had, they put me on the line, where I’d worked ONCE before. At the beginning of an unexpected rush, management sent everyone home because it was their scheduled time. It was mine also, but for some reason I had to stay. Then, they took off. One took a break, eating with his underaged girlfriend, and the other hid in the office.
Now I did OK on my own, but the completed orders were waiting at the end of the line and they sent the runner home. So I asked the cashier to do it while she wasn’t helping other customers, and she just made that horrible tsk tsk sound with her tongue and teeth and said it wasn’t her job. So I went to do it myself because, at that point, customers were complaining over the counter at me.
The manager who was eating with his child bride stopped me and pointed at the line, saying that there were far too many orders. He said someone else would bring the orders. He never specified who, so I assumed it would be him, and I went back to work on the line.
A few minutes later, the other manager in the office leaned her head out and screamed at me from the office to start taking food out. There was a lot, so I did take an order out, only to immediately get stopped by the manager on the floor, who had already been with his girlfriend on break far longer than is allowed, and got yelled at again for not doing what he told me earlier. He also definitely was able to hear the other manager.
So I went back and repeated the story again, staying on the line while orders piled up and the cashier texted on her phone. Only, this time, the manager came out of the office onto the line screaming. I told her I wasn’t gonna get screamed at by them for telling me the opposite of the other.
At that point, the guy on the floor came out and, standing literally on the other side of me while the other manager was still complaining, started yelling the opposite of what the lady manager was yelling, as she was yelling too. So I just calmly set my apron down and yelled out to the customers that I apologize for the wait on everything, if their order was before this number it’s here, ready. Sorry, for making you pick it up, if its after, I’m sorry but ask for a refund I guess, the main office number is on this sign, have a nice day.
The store manager called me after I didn’t come in to my shift the next day saying he wouldn’t fire me if i apologized to the other managers. I hung up then reported all of them to corporate, as did a few customers I’m sure.
Last I heard, the store manager has his own franchise, the male is now its store manager, and the lady is the store manager of another store. So, so much for that I guess.”
A Boss Won’t Give Her Time To Help Her Sick Mother
“While my mother was battling cancer, I would miss some work here and there to get her to appointments and pick up medication, etc… Most appointments were set around my schedule to make it easier for me.
The owner knew about this and, at first, he said not to worry about it. It was all good.
It was a salary job but I never abused the situation. Often times, I would stay late or work a few hours on the weekend to catch up if anything was behind or super important.
After a couple months, I got a phone call and he said he was tired of me coming in late and missing hours.
I reminded him of what is going on and he did not back off, so I quit right then with no notice. Forget that.
Luckily, I didn’t really need that job. It was just for extra money.”