I’m sure you’ve had your share of interesting jobs in the past. I know I have. Some of them I really enjoyed and others not so much. I’m happy that I don’t have any horror stories to tell.
However, that’s not the case for everyone. So when a Redditor asked, “What made you quit a job on the spot?” the responses that came in were quite eye-opening . I’m sharing a few of the stand-outs with you below. Check it out.
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This Slap In The Face
“After working my ass off during the pandemic and being promised an additional bonus, I received a ‘low performance’ review conveniently timed a day before my bonus was to be paid. The low-performance feedback canceled my bonus.
Given all the other [expletive] I was putting up with, I broke and quit. I had a nice month off, and my new job pays significantly more. Never work for people that don’t appreciate you; there are always others that will.”
Amen to that!
This Reprehensible Behavior
“I worked for a very popular amusement park for 10–12 hours a day in 90-degree heat. One day, I passed out on the clock and ended up going to an emergency room to get checked out. I was told by the ER doctor to take at least five days, preferably a week, off. I informed my management of this, gave doctor’s notes, and even went to the company doctor’s office to show my bruises and get a once over.
I was getting calls and messages after two days telling me to come in, or I would face repercussions. I turned in my resignation the day I was supposed to go back to work and never looked back. I’m now working with an amazing company who respects me as a human being and am very vocal about the horrible working conditions at my previous company.”
I can’t even imagine that.
This Restaurant Nightmare
“At 17, I was a young line cook at an upscale Italian restaurant. I was picking everything up so quickly I knew all the stations on the line within 10 months of hiring. I was getting minimum wage (at the time $7.25/hr) and asked for a $1/hr raise to reflect my diverse capabilities. Got denied and asked the chef when I could get it then. She said, ‘You’re too young for a raise, just be happy with minimum wage.'”
In response I said I may have to start looking elsewhere for a job who’ll pay me what I’m worth. She then said, “Don’t you know how expendable cooks are? If you leave I can replace you on the spot”. So I did. A Sunday evening dinner service, very busy, at the height of the night I and my friend who I got hired took off our aprons and walked off the line towards the front door. He came with me in solidarity, plus I was his ride home. Felt good for a day or two, but I’ve never quit that way ever since. Been in the service industry for 23 years now.”
Amazing, huh?
This Crappy Boss
“I had a very stressful job and was expected to answer Slack messages from my boss at any time, or I would be fired. He was in a different time zone so often I would be woken up at 3 a.m. being yelled at to do something. One day in the office, he was talking… about me on Slack and accidentally posted it to a channel I was in. I was killing myself for this guy and he didn’t even appreciate it. I packed up and left, best thing I’ve ever done.”
I love that, ha, ha.
This Shortchanging Situation
“I was hired to do payroll and accounts at a small welding/engineering firm. Entering the timesheets and checking them against rosters and I realized that the tight-arse owner had been shorting employees almost three hours each week by not paying them for toolbox talks and all that stuff. Printed the proof, told the boys in the workshop, and walked straight out. Emailed the resignation from my car.”
I would have done the same thing.
This Nightmare Manager
“I had worked for a cleaning company and I had a total disaster of a person named Tina as my manager for about four months. Tina would work the night shift with a crew and basically did nothing. She would leave the majority of the work for me to do during the day when it was a lot harder to do as I had my own list of duties as well as whatever she left for me from her own list. I was teetering on the edge of quitting but I hadn’t found a replacement when one day I got a call from head office that Tina had quit and for about a month the job was exceptionally better and I effectively was my own boss.
Things were going remarkably smooth for again, about a month when I got a text message from Tina asking me to do a bunch of extra stuff. I called the owner and they told me that Tina had approached them about coming back and that they were rehiring her in her former position and I literally just packed up and walked out about an hour into my shift. I had zero intention of working another minute for that woman and held to it.”
What a nightmare manager, huh?
This Inconsiderate Boss
“I was 16 working part-time on an island in Greece and a guy walked in with a knife and demanded to give him the money from the register. I obviously did it and immediately called my boss. He told me that I was a [coward] and should have stood up for myself so I just left without even replying”
Wow, that’s one considerate boss. I’m being sarcastic, of course.
This Toxic Environment
“Had a job where the people were toxic, the management was mostly toxic, and the other techs made themselves look better by making other techs look bad. I had two guys on my shift who would go behind me during maintenance or repairs and undo stuff I did and call it out over the radio for all to hear, so I started recording myself making the repairs, and when I got called out and showed the video, I was told: ‘You’re not supposed to have your phone out on the floor’ and got [written] up. I walked out with no warning in the middle of the busiest weeks of the year leaving them shorthanded with only two idiots to handle calls.”
Ha, ha, serves them right.
This Childish Behavior
“My older boss didn’t understand how an Excel spreadsheet worked. Fresh out of graduate school, I did some calculations for him as he requested, printed them out, and he proceeded to freak out on me because I didn’t do them by hand. Yelling, he berated me in front of everyone in the office, took my water glass, and threw it against a wall, breaking it to pieces. Then, a coworker looked over my work and said everything was done correctly. I applied for a new job after work that day where I’ve worked for over seven years now. I can deal with lots of garbage but I’m not dealing with a boss that has the emotional capacity of a two-year-old.”
Oh, my!
This Argumentative VP
“I got blamed for something that wasn’t my fault, was in an argument with our VP of marketing because I had the audacity to suggest a solution that would have avoided our problem instead of accepting fault for something I didn’t do. He told me he doesn’t pay me to think, so that was my last day.”
This Shoddy Operation
“I am a physician assistant and took a job at an urgent care. After working there for about a month I noticed some irregularities, such as some medications being expired and sometimes a lack of supplies. I wrote that off as the office manager not being as astute as she should have been and brought it up to the doctor who owned the place. He said he would talk to her and straighten it out. Then one of the medical assistants came to me and said you know this has been going on forever, right? She then said that things would never change and to get used to it because the expired medications had been on the shelf for months and they were told to never throw them out. She then also told me that the autoclave (the machine that sterilizes instruments) was broken and all they did was wash the instruments in soap and water and put them in the autoclave anyway to get them as clean as possible.
That was the end of that. I made out a formal complaint to the state medical board and never showed up again. The state actually came in the very next day and raided the place. They shut him down immediately. They found so many things wrong that not only did they keep the place out of business, they suspended his license. He was also prosecuted on federal charges because he was running a scam for truck driver physical exams.”
Wow, that’s quite unbelievable. So glad this person did something about it.
This Fast Food Fiasco
“I worked at McDonald’s when I was 16. We used to get a free McDouble or hot and spicy with a small fries and drink for our lunch break. One day when I went on break the franchise owner was there and when he noticed I asked for cheese on the Hot and spicy he attempted to make me pay for the whole meal because cheese wasn’t free. I thought he was joking so I laughed and started walking toward the break room until he yelled at me not to walk away from him In front of customers and my coworkers. I couldn’t believe it, this grown-ass successful businessman was hounding a 16-year-old for a slice of cheese. Told him I wasn’t gonna pay, put the food down, and walked out. They tried calling me to come to work that weekend I told them no thanks and never went back.”
Wowza, pretty petty, huh?
This Bait And Switch
“Being hired to sell cars, then in the middle of training, I get pulled aside and told I’m being moved to the lot attendant. That position paid minimum wage and I didn’t even get a chance to be on the sales floor. Left and never went back. I was in my mid-twenties at the time and was trying to find a possible career. Didn’t have time for that [expletive] bait and switch.”
That’s totally unfair. I would have quit, too.
This Constant Harassment
“I was constantly told by my store manager that I would be happier if I lost weight or if I just ‘got over it’ after my grandfather died. One shift, before I even clocked in, the manager told me once again that I needed mental help and to lose weight. I told her that my last day would be that Friday.
She responded with some snarky comment about how she’d find someone better to replace me. I took my store keys out of my apron, tossed them on the desk, said, ‘Actually, I quit now’ and walked out. All of my employees who were on the floor stared at me in confusion as I had just walked into the store three minutes earlier. I immediately called HR to report the whole thing. She was asked to leave the next week.”
Bravo!
This Bold Move
“Went to the toilet before a meeting to negotiate a raise. I heard both directors of the company (small firm, everything ran through them) talking outside the window, saying that they were going to flat-out refuse any offers and ‘make the asshole work overtime to prove his loyalty,’ and ‘he has no prospects anyway, where will he go?'”
Entered the meeting with my signed and printed resignation in hand, slapped it on the table after sitting down, and stood straight back up, saying ‘Meeting over.’ I now work for a successful company, part of a brilliant team, and obtainable progression with a great work-life balance. If you’re being mistreated at a job, overworked, underpaid, whatever it may be: Get your affairs in order and walk.”
Right on!
This Stressful Job
“I worked as hard as I could to unload pallets of merchandise. I always thought I was so damn fast. I studied the process, and I believed I perfected it. EVERY SINGLE DAY, my manager came up to me and told me I needed to be faster. So I did, and the fast pace made me lose a little focus, causing me to break a finger.”
I let management know that I might be a little slower due to my injury, and they straight-up told me, ‘We won’t tolerate any laziness.’ They wrote me up when I didn’t meet their ridiculous standards. So I went home after my shift and never returned. Never called, never formally quit. I just never came back.”
Never sacrifice your own health for a job. It’s not worth it.
This Inconsiderate Treatment
“My grandfather, who I considered like a father, passed away after a long stay in hospital. We were closer than he was with his own kids, and our bond was quite special. I spoke to my manager about getting the day of his funeral off — since I was organizing part of the arrangements and having a day or two of bereavement leave — and he agreed.
The day of the funeral finally came, and the staff started calling me, leaving me messages asking why I wasn’t at my shift. They were telling me, while I was in a suit and hosting family members at the funeral home, that I had to find someone to replace me or would face repercussions. Needless to say, I told them to figure it out and never looked back.”
Wow, I have no words for that.
This Total Abuse
“Once as a teenager at a new job, I got my hand smacked by the owner the first day because I was writing with my left hand. Walked out.”
What? That’s unbelievable. Nobody has a right to touch their employee, much less a slap. What a horrible boss, right?
Oh my goodness.
I honestly can’t believe the awful treatment these people received at work. Here, I thought I had my share of disappointments, but these workplaces took things to the next level, no? What would you have done in any of these situations? Would you have quit, too? I would be so out of there and fast.
