Having one terrible job in your life feels like a rite of passage. Whether it be a first job you get as a teenager, a career-starting job right out of college, or a late-career switch that doesn’t pan out, it’s something many of us deal with.
How we leave that job , though, can vary. When someone on Reddit asked ‘What made you quit a job on the spot?’, people came in and told their tales of walking out of terrible positions, letting us all who didn’t do that live vicariously through them.
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Can’t get no appreciation.
“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 am being yelled at to do something. One day in the office, he was talking [expletive] 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.”
If you can’t stand the heat…
“I get a job at a restaurant, first day I show up and the heat is broken in the dead of winter. It was like 35 degrees [Fahrenheit]. I ask the cooks if it’s always like this, and they say yes. I walked immediately.”
Let’s (not) talk again later.
“Asked for a raise and was told okay. Next morning (Friday) I was told by the same person who agreed with the raise that I should put a few more years in and then we’ll talk again. Locked my tool box at the end of the day and called a tow truck to pick it up. Shop manager was shocked that next Monday to find a empty spot where my tools were and couldn’t understand why I left.”
A high opinion of himself.
“I had a boss scream this is a dictatorship and I’m the dictator in a meeting while slamming his fist on the desk.”
When someone pointed out how pathetic that was, the commenter returned with, “Yup grabbed my stuff and rolled out, dude can keep his sad little kingdom.”
Wrongful celebrations.
“The debt relief law firm I worked for stole $19,000.00 in incentives for a young family that was in distress and losing their home. It was soaked up in bogus attorney fees and [my coworkers] high-fived about in the office.”
Let’s just end it there.
“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.”
Caught red-handed.
“I had 2 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 wrote up. I walked out with no warning in the middle of the busiest weeks of the year […].”
Exposing the truth.
“I was hired to do payroll and accounts at a small welding/engineering firm. Entering the timesheets and checking them against rosters and I realised that the tight-arse owner had been shorting employees almost 3 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.”
Saving lives.
“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. […] one of the medical assistants came to me and said you know this has been going on forever, right? She then said […] the expired medications had been on the shelf for months and they were told to never throw them out. […] 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 [it] down immediately.”
Just not worth it.
“I was getting married. I had a temp job, and told them on my first day that I needed a weekend off in a couple of months for my wedding. I reminded them every couple of weeks, had it on the calendar, and even reminded them that Monday. That weekend came, and I was on the schedule. I told my boss that I needed it off for my wedding, and she said, ‘You’re just a kid, can’t you move it? We really need the parts.’ […] I laughed at her and left. “
Come again?
“When I was 16, I was a bus boy off the books. Made $250 a week working 35 hours a week because they paid per day as opposed to per hour. Manager comes to me and says they’re restructuring how the pay scale is and said he wanted me to work less days, same amount of hours but for half the pay. I made him repeat to me his plan and once he confirmed it I said give me money for the week because I’m leaving.”
Respecting clients.
“Getting [reprimanded] for not pushing a patient into getting a dental procedure he didn’t need or want.”
Someone who read this reply was extremely grateful, “As a guy who broke his jaw horribly 20 years ago and had to have extensive dental work done; THANK YOU! After the dentist who put my mouth back together retired, I had a hell of a time finding a dentist who didn’t look at the X rays of my teeth and see dollar signs.”
Just one little edit.
“Walked in to the interview, everything went well, accepted the job offer. Went to the front desk to do the paperwork and noticed that the contract had a different pay amount, and that I would be ‘interning’ for the first month for $100/week. I asked first about the amount difference, was told ‘oh, this the standard contract, it just hasn’t been updated for your specific offer.’ I told them they’d need to edit and initial the changes before I would sign. ‘Oh…that’s not how things work here.’ I thanked them for their time and left without signing anything.”
Some added calcium.
“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 towards the break room until he yelled at me not to walk away from him In front of customers and my coworkers. […] Told him I wasn’t [gonna] pay, put the food down and walked out.”
Archaic behavior.
“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.”
There are still people who care about dominant hands? What year is it?
A sudden realization.
“My first job in high school was washing dishes at a pub, I got it so I could buy my gf a necklace that she wanted as a Christmas present. Come NYE they decided to put one person on dishes for a packed evening, I was quickly inundated. [A] chef is watching me laughing about how ‘I’m not gonna be able to spend the new year moment with my little girlfriend’. I just said ‘I just remembered I don’t need to do this’ and walked out of that place and never went back.”
Working too hard.
“I worked at Walmart for a short time. I worked as hard as I possibly could to unload their pallets of merchandise. […] 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’ […]. So I went home after my shift, and never returned.”
Down to the minute.
“I was working for a financial company in SoCal for about a month at the time. […] Until my manager came over asked why I took so long in the bathroom. Literally, 5 minutes […] He mentioned something about having to count it as a break and me being more careful in the future or something. I laughed, handed him my badge and left.”
The greatest one-liner.
“I work underground and it isn’t for everybody, terrible environment and what not. This particular individual starting working and after a few weeks decided that it wasn’t for him. […] He approached the boss at the morning meeting and told him that he wasn’t going underground and that he was quitting. The boss told him that he had to give him 2 weeks notice and without missing a beat the guy replied: ‘for the next 2 weeks you’re gonna notice that I’m not here’, turned around, packed his [expletive] and left. Was never heard from again.”
There’s just no time.
“I got mugged on a delivery for Domino’s, and came back to the shop crying and panicked, had my phone, wallet, and pizza taken, told my manager what happened. ‘Anon, are you hurt?’ ‘No, but I lost my phone and wallet, I need to call the police’ ‘No time for that, here’s your next delivery.’ (It was like 2 blocks from where I was just mugged). I just went home.”
