They say that if you love your job, you'll never work a day in your life. This is a saying that should not be taken lightly. It makes a world of difference to have a job that benefits you psychologically as well as financially. Remember what happened to Jack Torrance in The Shining when he had "all work and no play"?
These people came pretty close a similar fate. All it took was one moment for all that disdain and fury to conjure the right motivation to pack up their things and search for more hopeful prospects. Courtesy of potential hirees of Reddit, these are their "I got to get outta this job!" stories.
He Would Have Rather Worked Fast Food
“I was in New Orleans interviewing for a job that required driving a company vehicle 10 hours a day that had valuable specialty equipment. The interview was going great. Then, we got to the part about pay.
‘We can offer you $10 an hour,’ the guy said.
A big smile came over my face and I leaned over to shake his hand. He thought I was agreeing. I was telling him bye. Popeyes pays around $15 an hour here.”
His Career Was Cooked
“I worked in a factory that made large plastic items via filling molds with powder and sending it into a giant industrial oven that heated to 550º F. At the end of the week, I was cleaning said oven. My boss, not knowing I was inside, turned it on.
At the sound of hydraulic doors closing, I dove out of the oven just as they closed and avoided free cremation. I got the heck out of that oven and that company pretty quick. At least they did implement up-to-date safety features because of what happened.”
He Really Needed A “Change”
“I was at work and thought I needed to fart. It turned out to be diarrhea.
I made up an excuse to leave for the rest of the day. I took my shirt off and said I threw up on my shirt because it’s less socially awkward to throw up on a shirt than it is to crap your pants.”
No Food For You!
“I realized the shelter I work for is pocketing donated money, keeping and using donations for themselves first, taking their food, and taking housing products all for their own personal use. I am a cook and I get to see all the food donations we get. About half the staff there will come in daily and pick something up for a snack or claim they ‘forgot’ their lunch and say we have plenty to give out.
Yeah, maybe, but it’s not for your greedy butts.
These people have well paying jobs with plenty of overtime and benefits like health, life, and dental. Yeah, forget that place and forget those people. It sucks for the ones that do have to stay there. I wish I knew who I could report this to, but the people who run the place are the crooked ones, so its hard to know who to talk to.”
“Run Before They Get You, Too”
“Where I work, changes in management are fairly common, and we’re in the middle of another one. Usually it’s just a shuffle from one area to another, adjust, and move on. This time, I don’t think it’s going to end well for me. It’s mostly gut feeling, which has been accurate in the past.
On the concrete side, my division won a few awards this year and has had generally solid performance. Yet, our lead just got fired and my direct boss got passed over as interim lead in favor of a much less experienced person. None of it feels like business as usual, and that’s got my gut saying run before they get you, too.
This company is scary good at avoiding unemployment claims with copious paperwork to establish reasonable cause and a rope to hang yourself with. To my knowledge, we’ve had claims go through from two people in five years. It does happen, just not often. I’m not counting on anything if I get fired. The running is more slow-motion – finish my memoirs, double check the guard schedule, and make sure my dead buddy’s watch is snugly tucked into my rear end.
The search for new hotness is in high gear.”
“When A Big Company Buys A Small Company, I Can See The Writing On The Wall”
“A company I was working at got bought out by another company. They tried to make us sign agreements that we wouldn’t work ‘in the industry’ for two years after working for our company. So, like, I’m not allowed to have a job in my field for two years if they lay me off?
A bunch of us refused to sign it, but nothing happened. Then people in management started getting moved around, and they put someone in charge of me who was really incompetent. When a big company buys a small company with a lot of name recognition, I can see the writing on the wall. I got another job and got the heck out of there.”
This Teacher Felt Abused
“I was a teacher. I had student who was autistic and had a history of violent outbursts. He was put into general education classes with an aide by parental request. The aide didn’t come to school that day, but the special education department still sent him to my class. He had a meltdown because his aide wasn’t there.
He started throwing books and binders at me. As I opened the door to try and get him into the hallway, he punched me in the side of the head. Then, he kicked the security guard in the stomach and ran down the hallway. He was back in my classroom the next day. I had to go to urgent care.
I found out his mom is a principal in the district. I quit teaching after two years of political bull crap in schools.”
Not Too Cool For School
“When my former sales director found out I was thinking about going to school, he called me in his office to give me his employee retention speech. This included looking at me in the eyes and blatantly telling me, ‘Going to college is a mistake.’
I quit that Friday. The first day of school for me was the following week!”
When You’re Dreading The Moment You First Walk In, It’s Time To Leave
“I working my fourth 16-hour day in a row at a call center. I logged onto our system, feeling absolute dread at another day of dealing with the kind of people who don’t know you can book hotel rooms online. My first call came in. It was some lady screaming incomprehensibly in my ear. I immediately hung up, walked out, and never went back.”
(Almost) Working At The “Pyramid”
“I was at a ‘marketing recruitment’ presentation in college. This guy started talking about how we would be able to go to Disneyland and buy Ferraris if we just signed up to his exclusive elite program. We just had to make a small down payment right there in the auditorium. Also, we couldn’t talk about it with friends or family because haters online had damaged the company’s reputation.
It was Amway.”
“She Was Sent To Me At A Time I Needed It Most”
“I had been working the same job for years. I never knew how unhappy it made me. I lost weight, stopped enjoying life, became toxic, and lost people I loved close to me. I was oblivious to this all.
One particularly down day when answering the phone, I opened with, ‘Hello, how can I help?’ A lady answered. English was her second language and, instead of saying ‘How are you?’ she interpreted it as, ‘Are you happy?’ I promptly replied with. ‘No.’
I felt like she was sent to me at a time I needed it most. The universe gave me the ability to self reflect and I did. I passed the call on to my colleague and left for the day. I got home and set things in order to leave my job and go traveling. I had savings due to living with my parents after a relationship fell apart. I toured Australia, New Zealand, and the US on my own. I was not trying to get back to who I was, but to find who I needed to be.
On an interesting side note, I met someone who had an amazing way about them whom I bumped into again three months later on down the line. Once again, at the right time when I needed it most. I’m now healthy and have a joy for life I forgot existed and I love a woman who I better myself for everyday to give something back to others, just like the anonymous lady did for me over the phone. That was my ‘I got to get out of here’ moment. I’ll remember it on my death bed.”
His Boss Was Probably Not The Only One Concerned For His Mental Health
“I told a prior boss that I was leaving because I had an opportunity elsewhere. Boss looked at me and said, ‘I think you need to talk to your therapist to see if you’re making rational decisions right now.’
Well, that was the most rational, best decision I had made in years. GET STUFFED, DUDE.”
They Were Not Very Laid Back For The Kind Of Business They Were In
“Honestly, I absolutely loved part of my last job. The part that I was hired for and actually wanted to do was helping medicinal weed patients find the best medicine to help them live a more comfortable life. I would also take the time to educate patients and, on top of that, worked on behalf of the company on our social media platforms answering questions and all that fun stuff.
Really, I should have stepped away once I started getting more duties and my pay was staying the same, but I was dumb and got excited because I had gotten a $2 raise before my first 6 months of being there. I thought I was doing amazing and this was a reflection of my work and what I could look forward to. About 10 months in, I was not only working the social media and managing the shop, but I was getting asked to work in the gardens.
Cool! It’s a switch up, a break from people and getting to play with plants! Fun!
Except, I was getting asked to do it weekly, with mornings that started at 6 am. Then I worked in the shop until 9 pm.
‘This is valuable experience you’re earning!’ they would tell me. ‘Take an extra hour for your lunch.’
I should have ran then, but the job market sucks where I live, so I sucked it up. Mind you, I started at $10 an hour. At this point, I was at $12 an hour and would get screamed at if I went over on my hours. During this time, the sales/delivery person quit for the edible company this company also owns. Guess who was asked if they could spend a couple hours a week helping with sales calls?
Fine. Whatever. More ‘experience.’
One day, I came in and was asked for my license and personal vehicle information. Now, I knew what they charged for delivery fees. I also knew that by making a delivery for this company, I should have been expecting my gas and time compensated. I live in Colorado. Not only that, but all of the deliveries I was sent on were, at the closest to me, two hours north. One of my deliveries was in Aspen, the other being in Steamboat Springs. If you Google Maps these places and add the other deliveries I had, this amounted to a 19-hour day by the time I got back home. Going to the ‘mountain towns’ got a $25 charge per drop.
I guess I did bad math. I was expecting to come back to quite the bonus to my check for all this extra work. Nope. Nothing. I got backtalk about getting the fuel cost even given to me because $65 dollars seemed high to my freaking boss. That was my ‘I gotta get the heck out’ moment. I hate those people.”
Working For This Family Is Bad Enough, But Living With Them?
“I moved out of my house to be a live-in sitter starting at $10 a day. It started out as $20 a day for three days a week but, due to personal issues, I moved in with my boss, whom I will call ‘F.’ F’s baby daddy, ‘D,’ and her three kids lived with her. I ended up working 18-24 hour shifts for $10 a day. I won’t go into specifics, but there were infestations non-stop – bed bugs, lice, fleas, ticks, and mice. There was a rotation of sleazy friends that would come over, mostly addicts or otherwise. Everyone had a sob story with them. I ended up watching 14 kids for eight hours for $20 at one point. I usually had three sets of kids for eight hours a day. And I lived there. This drove me over the edge.
I slept 23 hours a day, contemplated suicide daily, and just was miserable for months. The final straw was when D went to prison for a driving under the influence charge. D and I had issues in the past. He had broken into the house while I was there working. It was 2 am and it brought me out of a dead sleep. He busted the window, terrified his kids, threatened to assault me, chop my body up, and make sure I was never found. He described all of this in explicit detail. He had done many other things as well, but when he got sent to prison, I was excited.
F started turning her life around and I was realizing that I needed to get out of that crap hole. I kept calling it and I hoped she wouldn’t, but the second he was out of prison, he moved back in. That was the icing on the cake. However, two weeks prior, she wanted to go visit him at his prison two hours away, but refused to allow the kids to see him. She couldn’t find her ID and was convinced I stole it to ‘keep them apart.’
When he was finally released, I left. I gave up on her and a life out there. I was so isolated and alone. It was horrible. I finally had enough self-worth to get off my butt and try to make my own life. She actually tried to call me since. I blocked her number and her on social media. My family still has contact with her. She is bitter and telling her children that I ‘hate’ them and have new friends now.
F is now on her fourth child at 24. She moved to another horrible house in an even worse area in town and still has her on and off abusive relationship with D. I am working on my criminal justice degree, have made healthy relationships, and finally got my first job where I get paid more per hour than I did per day there. I actually make more than she does.”
This Doctor Almost Ended Up In The Hospital
“I’m an ER doctor. I, unfortunately, have to give the terrible news that someone’s family member has died. It really burdens my soul permanently each time. One time, I was in the room telling a family that their child had died. There was about 15 people in the small room. Understandably, they were in grief and shock.
They were wailing and screaming. Some were punching the wall. I quickly realized I was trapped in the room. This was an inner-city Philadelphia family. One guy grabbed my shirt and was screaming, ‘Whyyy!’ in my face. I saw another guy’s six shooter under his belt as he leaned over crying. I literally couldn’t leave because they were all grabbing me and screaming in anger and grief.
Luckily, my security guard, a giant 6’4″, 309 lb. guy, just reached into the room and pulled me out. I was almost torn apart in there. Later that night, that family got revenge on the shooters. Two victims came in from a drive by.”
Crazy Night In The Crazy House
“I am a mental health nurse. An extremely unwell and huge person broke out of the secure unit and proceeded to destroy the ward. There is no tackling without police present and we are not able to hide with other patients. The police came in 20 minutes. It was the longest 20 minutes ever.
Every window was smashed, the fire extinguishers had been emptied, the doors were destroyed, and the office door frame (as in the wall) was cracked from the hits of a chair against it. We can still see where the plaster cracked in the office. Some patients happened to sleep through it, though.”
Give Them Something To Talk About Other Than Race
“I am a female engineer but, to top that, I’m also Hispanic. I was transferring over to a new company site in Long Island, New York. It’s a much smaller office than the one I had worked. My job was cool and majority of the people were great. To be honest, since I started studying engineering, I didn’t notice there being a lack of diversity anywhere and, even if there was, I never felt uncomfortable or disliked. On the contrary, everyone in the industry seems to be color blind or, at least, I felt like that until I started working there.
There were a few select people who always kept coming to my desk pointing out my ethnicity, but nothing to do with work. Sometimes, it felt like they had interest in my culture. Other times, it didn’t. There were a few incidents that happened, which other people reported and I didn’t, and the site VP had to talk to me and ask me what had happened.
I knew I had to get out of there. I felt uncomfortable and sad. Although it didn’t affect my work, it affected my happiness, which sucks. I ended up leaving that company and now work for a cool place. I absolutely love it. I still meet up with some of my coworkers. They’re starting diversity training at that site.”
If She Couldn’t Trust HR, Who Could She Trust?
“I caught my human relations dude talking crap about the emotional meeting we had literally five minutes prior with another manager in a busy hallway. I stopped when I heard my name and looked around. It was coming from around the corner, 10 feet away. I was shocked. I stood there and listened as he laughed about it and thought I should sack up and get over it (the hostile environment and bullying issue I had brought to them).
I turned around and reported it to my manager who, two weeks later, still hadn’t even talked to the HR dude. I had my doubts about their willingness to solve the issue, and prior issues. That night, I put my notice in. Two days before my last day, my manager and his manager cornered me in the back hallway and tried to make me believe that I didn’t hear what I thought I had heard and offered to move me to another facility.
I know what I heard. There was no mistaking that. I’m not the problem that needs to be shuffled off. I might be unemployed at the moment, but I’m not having daily panic attacks because of their dumb stuff.”
Her Passengers Seat Would Never Be The Same
“My last job was at a home health care business. One aspect of my job was taking clients to doctor appointments, using my own car. One of my regular clients soiled himself in my passenger seat. My fabric seat. It was right as we were pulling up to the doctor’s office, so I cleaned him up in the bathroom there before taking him into the waiting room, making him a bit late for his appointment, but I figured he shouldn’t waddle in with his khakis full.
He was furious about being late, and called my supervisor to complain on the spot, who also chewed me out thoroughly. My company also refused to pay anything to get my seat cleaned. I quit the next week, but that seat will never be the same.”
He Was Not With The Right Crowd
“A co-worker invited me to a get-together with his friends. When we showed up, they had chairs facing to a stage. It was only us and a couple of other people there. We sat down in the front row, so I didn’t get to see everyone who showed up after us. After a couple of minutes, a guy walked up to the stage and everyone one started clapping.
I turned around to see that everyone is the the room was bald. That was when I noticed that I was in a white supremacist meeting. I made an excuse so I could leave the room without everyone being suspicious of me because I’m not white. I’m Hispanic. I just happen to look white.”
He Was Forced To Face The Music… Or Lack Thereof
“I taught Chorus and General Music in a teeny tiny podunk school district in Ohio. Basically, if you’re not on the football team, people think you’re gay. A member of the school board (who used to be the football/basketball coach) had a private meeting with me one morning telling me I couldn’t make the chorus concerts mandatory or give them a grade because they were an after school activity. Luckily, most of the kids cared enough to show up anyway. I thought that was an absolutely ridiculous policy geared at suppressing after school music programs.
We also had a policy in which kids would either chose band or chorus in fifth grade with no option to do both. I ended up with all of the kids who wanted nothing to do with music or couldn’t afford an instrument. It was not an environment I felt I could make a program grow within. I also would never see the kids who decided to do band again, unless they quit or the band director didn’t want them, due to the way their schedules worked.
The band director knew this all worked in his favor. Although he was friendly, there was always an unspoken rivalry to fight over the limited number of good music students we had. I left after three years and I teach in an AMAZING district in Maryland that also pays so much better.”