Ever feel like there's more to life than that 9-5 desk job or 4-Midnight kitchen shift? These employees sure did. They did not want to put up with anymore every day struggles, and decided to move on to bigger and brighter futures. Whether it was management, coworkers, or the work itself, these people had had enough, and these stories reveal every soul-crushing moment that made them finally realize it was time to go. Often times, it was in the middle of the workday! Content has been edited for clarity.
Those Aren’t Supposed To Go In There!
“I was working at a can warehouse that did its own recycling. This meant I had to dump a bunch of empties into a giant can crusher.
It was wet, it was dirty, it smelled awful, but the worst part was that people would often throw out used needles with their empties. We had ‘protective gloves’ to protect us but they were useless and only used to cover the companies behind in case something happened.
I had a couple of near misses with needles but never actually got pricked. Until one day when the inevitable finally happened and I pricked myself pretty bad on a needle. It went straight through the gloves like it was nothing and was literally hanging in me.
I told my manager and he said to get back to work and it wasn’t a big deal. He even denied me taking the rest of the day off so I could get it checked out.
So I told him to shove it and just left.”
Literally Turning His Back On Them
“I was Director of Database Operations at a large corporation. I’d had my job for a week when they fired the guy that hired me. Great start.
I stuck it out, but the CTO was a guy who obviously did not like me. Nothing I did was good enough.
One day, he called me into a spur-of-the-moment meeting. It was a database consultant, me, and the CTO. The CTO starts talking about what we need to do in my department. I was prepared because I had been working on planning from day one and I started laying out what I thought we needed to do.
The CTO physically turns his back to me and starts asking the consultant who had been in the building all of 15 minutes what he thought we should do.
I got up and said, ‘Well, it’s obvious you don’t need me in this meeting’ and I walked out.
As I’m walking out of the room, the CTO starts literally screaming at me, ‘DON’T YOU WALK AWAY FROM ME! YOU GET BACK IN HERE RIGHT NOW!’
Yeah, how about no?
I went to HR, quit, and told them the reason why.
Two days later, HR called me and asked me to come in for a meeting. They said if I wasn’t comfortable coming to the office, they would meet me anywhere I said. I told them I was fine coming into the office.
I went in and they offered me 3 months severance pay. I think they were afraid I was going to sue them for the way I was treated. I wasn’t, but I took the money and never looked back.
That CTO was out within 2 months.”
Walmart Woes
“My first job was as a cart pusher at Walmart. I was a teenager and believed that if I worked hard, they’d promote me and move me to a job inside. I showed up everyday and worked my tail off. After about 3 months, they promoted a guy who had started after me and who was known to be a slacker. When I asked the manager why I didn’t get moved inside first, he said ‘You’re the only one who’s dependable out there.’ It took a while to let that sink in, but once it did, I went back and told him I quit and handed in my badge. He said, ‘If you just walk out with no notice, they’ll never hire you back!’ I just laughed and told him that was fine by me.”
Coffee Shop Conundrum
“I was a coffee shop barista at a small neighborhood shop, the kind where I would have a drink ready for a regular before they even got to the counter. The owners wanted to move, so they sold the shop to a completely clueless imbecile that used his wife’s retirement money to fund ‘his dream’ of owning his own business. The man couldn’t tell the difference between a latte and a mocha if his life depended on it. He probably would have smelled a bag of rabbit poop if I told him it was coffee beans. During a particularly busy morning, I suggested to boss man that he should move his personal belongings from the largest table in our space, after watching three large groups enter the shop, see there were no tables available, and leave. Boss man freaked out on me, telling me that I have no idea how to run a coffee business, and to never tell him what to do. This was on the floor, in front of a full house of customers. I said nothing, just turned to get my coat, and left. He went out of business very shortly after.”
This Butcher Decided It Was Time To Cut It Out
“I was working as a butcher at a ‘high end’ shop. Specialty sausages, all natural meats, exotic deli section, stuff like that. On top of the usual terrible parts of working as a butcher (hard work, low pay, annoying customers, weird hours), the place never had their equipment serviced, never had their knives sharpened, sold frozen hormone-fed beef as ‘all natural’ complete with an ‘all natural’ price, recycled expired (and by expired I mean green meat) into their hot bar food, forced the butcher staff to work in the deli which led to customer complaints from the blood all over our arms and aprons. This job paid just fifty cents over minimum wage. One Sunday the owner came back into the cutting room and started berating me for cutting new steaks to replace some old ones in the case that were obviously not going to sell as they were starting to get crusty. He screamed in Polish until he was red in the face, threw his hat on the (bloody) ground and stormed out. I waited until it got really busy, told him to eff himself, and left.”
Scatter-Brained Owner Forgot Something Crucial
“A friend and I both worked for a man who was selling precious gemstones on eBay. We worked from his home and our job was to weigh the stones, measure their dimensions, grade their quality, fill out a description form, match them with photos he had taken, and post them on eBay. We also were given a list every day of stones that needed to be shipped, and we had to find the correct stone, package it, and get it mailed.
This guy was selling 25-50 gemstones a day, which meant we were handling a ton of stones. This guy was also super unorganized and scatter-brained, which meant that he would often misplace things, confuse stones, or lose them altogether…and he would somehow always believe that it was my fault.
He was constantly telling me to make sure I did things in a very specific way, and then a few weeks later he would ask me why the heck I was doing them the way I was doing them, and he never believed me when I said I was doing it how he told me to do it.
My (male) friend learned through chatting with the guy that because he had been through a nasty divorce, he was extremely mistrusting of women. I was left wondering why he had kept me around for so long if he thought I was messing things up so badly, but I loved learning about different types of gemstones and working with them was fascinating to me.
The final straw came while he was out of the country on a mining expedition and had left my friend and I to run things. While he was gone, we were in constant contact with his gemstone cutter via e-mail, as the cutter was also the one who was compiling the lists of addresses where stones needed to be shipped.
While he was away, the owner had an e-mail chain going with the cutter, and at one point the thread contained information that I needed, so the cutter forwarded the chain to me. Earlier in the e-mail chain, the owner had ranted to the cutter that he was positive that I was stealing gemstones from him.
That was it for me. I immediately saw red. I am extremely honest when it comes to things that don’t belong to me, and I will not put up with being called a thief. I composed an e-mail that said as much, sent it to both the owner and the cutter, apologized to my friend for bailing, and left. Walked right out and never looked back. The owner never apologized to me, but if we run into each other in town now, he is friendly towards me.
It was a unique experience, that’s for sure.”
Walking Out On The Most Important Meal Of The Day
“I was the weekend breakfast cook at a chain restaurant while in high school. I was completely unqualified for the job but they needed help and I needed a job. It was a two person job but after my first week, the other breakfast cook quit. I toughed it out for a few weekends without him and when I asked about another cook, Donna (the manager) said we’d save some overhead just having me cook and she’d come help when it got busy.
She never helped.
Fast forward two weekends later and I’m working and have like 20 tickets on the board. At least 20 eggs going and probably 10 pancakes and 10 French toast orders. I was struggling super hard to keep up so I shouted for Donna multiple times and she just sat on her butt in the office. So finally the waitresses start complaining and Donna walks herself out of the office to help. I was in such a hurry I was plating orders on the wrong plates just to get them out. Donna sees this and is enraged.
She takes one of the orders that was up under the heat lamp and throws it against the wall, breaking the plate and splattering food everywhere. She then turns to me and screams something like, ‘What the heck is wrong with you,’ and starts to belittle me for how behind I was. It was at that moment right there that I untied my apron dropped it on the floor and said I quit.
She fell all over herself apologizing and asking me to stay to help her get orders out. I just walked right out of the kitchen into the dining area and headed for the door. She started screaming, ‘You can’t quit! Don’t you dare quit!’ in front of a packed house. The entire place went quiet and I kept walking. She started screaming about me not leaving with my work shirt on, so I took it off in the middle of the restaurant and dropped it on the floor. She shouted something and I turned around and simply said I would never eat at this restaurant after working in the kitchen, it’s disgusting. I walked shirtless to my car and as I pulled out for the last time, I saw a good stream of customers leaving. Three months later, the restaurant burned down, I don’t remember why but I heard it was Donna’s fault. If you’re reading this, eff you Donna and eff the Naugatuck Friendlies.”
No Job, Or No Job AND Jail Time?
“I was working in a tire shop at the time. A guy that I had trained got promoted above me because of reasons that I can’t comprehend. So one day I’m changing tires and he starts screaming at me, telling me I’m doing this and that the wrong way. I’m like first of all, no. Second, I taught him how to do this, so don’t go trying to tell me how to do it.
He grabbed me by the shoulder and spun me around so he could yell in my face. He’s nose to nose with me, poking me in the chest, telling me I’m lazy, I’m a piece of dirt, I’m this, I’m that, etc. I still had the tire bar in my hand and I started seeing red. I had the sense to know that either I walk out of here right now and I’m out of a job, or I brain this jerk-wad with the tire bar, and then I’m out of a job AND I go to jail.
I pushed him off of me and dropped the tire bar, walked up front and handed my manager my fob for the time clock and my tool pouch. Gave old dude a not-so friendly goodbye on my way out the door.”
Oh, I’m The One Who Isn’t Dependable?
“After being ill for over a decade when I went job hunting, I found that employers looked at my track record and just ignored me. I had applied for 2 months to every job available, so I decided to volunteer at a charity shop to show willingness and get some experience. My manager at first seemed nice, but the place was very short staffed. So before I knew it, I was doing 9-5 six days a week and was always on the shop floor serving customers. She would sit upstairs sifting through donations and take the best items home to sell on eBay. She kept the profits as the items never appeared in the books. When I asked her about this, she complained about her wages. Then after a series of shoplifting incidents in the store, she told me she expected me to restrain and stop all suspected shoplifters. I told her no I wouldn’t, as the thieves doing the stealing worked in groups and I could get hurt. The final straw was when I finally got a job interview somewhere else after 4 months of volunteering here. I asked her if she would be a reference as I had no other job experience and she said she didn’t know me well enough and I wasn’t dependable. Good riddance lady.”
Pasta With A Side Of Hostility
“I worked at an Italian restaurant, everyone who worked there was very professional and loved their jobs…at first. The owner was a total moron who couldn’t run a restaurant to save his life. One night it starts to get very busy and we start to restrict the amount of new tables we are serving so we can keep service to a high standard and so our chefs can keep up. The owner is having none of that and orders us to make even more space in the back for more customers. We end up with about 60 customers between two chefs and three waiters. We can handle 30 at most on any other day, on top of any takeout pizza orders we also do.
We start taking orders, we can’t reach enough tables in time, we can’t get drinks out quickly, the kitchen collapses almost right away from having to prepare hundreds of dishes simultaneously. The boss and his mates take up two tables and start ordering tons of food and being loud and unpleasant. I start reaching my breaking point from complaints, stress, and frustration. The boss eventually realized the whole restaurant is collapsing when guests start leaving after not getting starters for an hour. One of his friends calls us up to order a pizza and is rude and difficult on the phone, so I asked him to call us back when he decided what to get. Boss storms over to me and demands to know why I’m being rude on the phone. He threatened to hit me if I do it again, so I turn around and go clean dishes in a fury in the back because if boss hits me out front, all heck would break loose and the restaurant would likely be ruined forever. After an hour of angry glass drying, I tell the head chef/manager I’m leaving and walk out.
The restaurant is dying a slow death because they can’t keep any good waiters. I wonder why?”
Pretty Sure Working That Many Hours In A Week Is Illegal
“I was working a factory job, refurbishing computers. We were working 2 hours a day of mandatory overtime and Saturdays as well. It got to the point that we had no life outside of work because of the 10 hour days during the week, plus Saturday. When you figure lunch into that, it’s actually 10 and a half hour days and with the commute to and from, welp.
This went on for over three months. I was exhausted and burned out. We asked for an extra break because 10 hours and two breaks plus one lunch is rough. We were told no because it hurt the work flow. I only had one day a week honestly for stuff like grocery shopping and what have you and on that one day off, I didn’t want to do anything.
Add to this, it was only the production floor that was on overtime. Shipping and Receiving wasn’t, so after the refurbed computers were processed, they sat on the line until the next work day when Shipping and Receiving was there to do their jobs. So there was nowhere to put these computers other than on the conveyor system, which was at 100% capacity, and we were not allowed to put processed computers anywhere else. Not on the floor, not on an empty pallet, and slowing down because there was no room for more computers wasn’t an option.
Then we were told in a midday meeting that the entire reason for the overtime was competition. One branch was doing it and producing some awesome numbers so we were doing it to compete. There was no demand, it was ego. We were all completely ticked off. Then the next thing hit. Starting that day, security finished their upgrades and now you had three tries at the security gate getting to the break room. Fail and go to the back of the line where you would then be given the wand. I have two steel plates in my right arm and hardware holding them in place. I never got through security without the wand, most of the guards knew why and just let me through anyways. Now that wasn’t allowed. On top of that, we had to clock out before going through security. So on a 30 minute lunch I was going to have to clock out, fail security, go to the back of the line, get wanded and THEN hope I had enough time remaining to eat. And when figuring in breaks, I was never going to be able to take a break because there would be no way I could get through security in enough time. And break began when you walked away from your work station, not when you entered the break room.
So I asked about those of us with steel plates and if there would be an exception made for us. ‘No’ was the answer. It was too much effort on their part to make an exception for a small minority.
We dismissed for lunch and I had to clock out, go through security, go to the back of the line, get the wand. Explained to them why I had trouble, showed them the surgical scars, again, and they said ‘These are the new rules.’ I hung up my badge as we were all supposed to do. I said my good byes to my coworkers who were already done with their lunches by the time I got through security, got in my car and left.”
Where Did Everybody Go?
“This was about 2 months ago.
My company had fallen into complete chaos. We acquired a new company and launched a new product line. Everyone was running around and we were stretched pretty thin. My boss transferred to the new office 1,000 miles away. He left me and one other guy behind. No clue what was going on. He never spoke to us, never gave us direction or tasks.
His boss was a VP and was on the road almost exclusively.
For about 6 months or so I did almost zero work. I was finishing up a masters degree at night and applying for new jobs. I spent my work days on reddit, at the gym, answering a few emails, listening to podcasts, doing homework and whatever else kept me busy. No one ever spoke to me about my job or performance. At first I was worried, but after a month of doing nothing productive, it felt like a game to see what I could get away with.
I finally landed a ‘dream job’ (what even is that?) that paid a lot more and was in an industry I wanted to explore. I took the offer. I sent an email to my boss asking for him to call me or set up a meeting. Three days of no response. I sent a second email that CC’d HR and his boss giving my notice. No response.
I showed up on Monday, slipped a letter of resignation under the door of HR (who also was never around) and packed up my desk. Waited until noon, HR still hadn’t showed up, so I just left.
No one ever called me, emailed me, or asked ANY questions. It was really bizarre. I got my last pay check and some official notices in the mail signaling that I had left their company.
For reference, I was a design engineer at this company making $65K. So it’s not like I was minimum wage. It was also a smaller company, about 60 employees.”
Someone Else Made The Mistake, But He Had To Pay For It
“I was 18 and about 6 months into my job. I was basically putting hinges on a wide array of different windows ranging from normal residential house windows to big windows that go in high rise buildings.
I got a strange order for a very rarely used set of hinges on my screen, for about 20 big sized steel windows in the production line. I went to my manager to confirm that the order was correct. He confirmed it.
5 hours later, about 5 minutes before I was about to clock out after a 12 hour shift, my manager sprints out of his office in a panic. The hinges were the wrong ones, whoever wrote the order into the systems had messed up and he, the manager, had messed up, too.
I was told that if any of those windows actually get sent out of the workshop, I get $40 deducted per window (potentially $800 in total). Cue me scrambling like crazy, I even ran out of the workshop to stop a lorry from leaving with 10 of the windows. I unloaded them myself because the loaders/unloaders had gone home for the day. I then worked an extra 3 hours (unpaid) to correct the mistake, which I hadn’t even caused.
Payday rolls round 2 weeks later and I’m deducted $400 from my pay check because ‘technically 10 windows had left the workshop.’ I walked out right away, despite my manager begging me to stay and saying he would try and get the deduction reduced to $200. No forget you, and forget that company. I spent 3 hours, unpaid, correcting someone else’s mistake, just to still loose around 35% of my pay.
This same company would fire people 4 weeks before Christmas (building industry slows down in winter) and then rehire them when the demand picked up again in the summer. This was very much a moment that changed my life and made me go back to school. It’s been a long 3 years but if all goes well I should be studying International Business at a top 100 University starting in September.”
Best Buy, Worst Management
“I applied at a local Best Buy.
I got hired and the on-boarding process had no manager involvement at all. They sent me to the back and had me watch training videos for two days straight. I had to ask employees who weren’t managers what I needed to do next because the managers were too busy to be bothered.
The third day I showed up and they tried to send me to the back for more training videos and an hour in, I got off the computer, walked into HR and handed them the blue shirt because, surprise, a manager was nowhere to be found.”