We've all been there, working in a terrible job that makes us dread coming to work every day.
When you've already tried your best to make it work, there's only one way to feel better: by quitting and finding a new job as soon as you can. These people took it one step further and made a real statement against those who mistreated them, going out in the most glorious way possible!
(Content has been edited for clarity)
How Thoughtful Of Them
“I had a coworker who gave the boss a ‘sorry for your loss’ Hallmark card as his two weeks notice.”
31 Flavors Of Justice
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“I quit my job in a pretty epic fashion.
I worked at Baskin Robbins in high school, and the manager was ruthless. She called us employees ‘stupid,’ ‘worthless,’ and other phrases like, ‘too slow to even scoop ice cream.’ It was awful. The workplace was horrible in general, as there were so many hazards, especially in the freezer. We weren’t allowed to throw away expired ice cream because it was a ‘waste of product and money.’ I could go on and on.
I couldn’t go on for moral reasons. So I walked up to her one night and said, ‘I called OSHA on this place, and told every customer that’s come in since I’ve worked here that you sell them expired ice cream. Good riddance.’
She stormed off to call someone, so I walked into the freezer and took a tub of my favorite ice cream and left.
My co-worker and I tried pressing charges after we quit. We kept telling the people that went there what she did. In the long run, we just weren’t that experienced in legal issues (which I feel like is why she only hired high schoolers). I don’t live in the city anymore because I went off to college, but if I do go back (and I can get over the bad memories), I want to go in there and see if anything has changed.
Also, she was the manager AND the owner of that specific Baskin Robbins. It made things more complicated legally.”
All He Did Was Flip A Name Tag
“I quit in an epic way. I had been with the company for over 4 years and had been written up twice for giving smart-alec remarks to people in another department over the years. There was one guy I hated… a real jerk. This guy worked on the main office floor so he didn’t have a private office, but he did keep a name-tag on his desk: we’ll call him Tim Doe.
I knew I was going to quit about 4 months beforehand and 2 guys knew I was leaving. I promised these guys that I would get Tim Doe to flip out before I left, and I did it by simply flipping his name tag the opposite direction. I didn’t vandalize it, steal it or even move it to the left or right – I just rotated it.
At first, I only did it once or twice a day for about a month. But by the last 3 weeks, I was rotating it 5, 6 and even 7 times a day. The people that sat near him knew it was me but they hated the guy too, so they kept their mouths shut. He was so annoyed that he set up a camera. It would have caught me but his co-worker that sat next to him let me know via g-chat. So… I left my office, crawled on my belly behind his desk and rotated it. But what can he do?! Complain to HR?! ‘Hey HR, someone keeps rotating my name-tag’… no. He’d get laughed out of the office.
He was so annoyed he offered $100 to the person who sat next to him if she told him who was doing it — she didn’t. The day before my last day, I stepped it up a notch: I took a piece of paper, wrote ‘Jim Doe’ on it and taped it to his name tag (I didn’t hurt the name tag). The next morning I walk in and his hood is up. There is a note up that I couldn’t read, and he was red in the face (he thought it was me, but couldn’t prove it). At this point, my VP and a director at the company knew I was leaving but they asked if I would stay another 2 days to get things wrapped up.
On my last day, HR called me into their office. They said they had reviewed security cams and knew that the guy rotating the sign was me. The HR lady (who hated me) smiled and said, ‘that was your last strike, we’re going to have to let you go.’ I handed her my official resignation letter, smiled and told her that it was already my last day.
It was awesome.”
He Left Them Speechless
“I was a music major. The plan was to become a composer for movies and TV – the next Danny Elfman. Or, alternatively, a bigshot grunge music rock star. Obviously, neither one panned out. So I had to get a real job.
My first office job was in a call center making outbound market research phone calls. I called IT bosses by day, and homemakers by night.
It was a new office and all the managers were from the other side of the country. They were only there temporarily. They selected the best staff and promoted us. I was now a Monitor. My job was to essentially eavesdrop on phone calls while watching a mirror session of their computer screen, then provide feedback. It sucked.
It became pretty obvious to me that the company was corrupt. Sometimes a staff person was disliked by a manager. ‘Find us a good reason to let them go,’ they’d say to me. Other times, we ran out of sample or pre-screened contact information. So I would Xerox copies of the Yellow Pages and hand them out to staff. That is, after blacking out the ‘DO NOT XEROX THIS AND USE IT TO COLD CALL PEOPLE UNDER SEVERE PENALTY OF FCC LAW’ disclaimer on every page.
We had a growing list of IT directors across the country who we kept calling. These people were perturbed and had told us ‘don’t call me again, or I’ll sue you.’ So we just kept these names on a list. A manually-maintained hard copy list.
But a bright light of hope was right around the corner! IBM had selected our company as the vendor for a long-term global IT survey! Hope and good fortune awaited our corrupt leaders!
Well… not on my watch…
Because I was bored, I would play with the phones while monitoring staff. I discovered that if you unscrewed the cover to the mouthpiece, there was a microphone with a big magnet on the back. This magnet connected to two prongs. If you placed a wipe between the two prongs and the magnet, the phone would continue to function. You could dial, the call would connect, and you could hear the other caller. But they couldn’t hear you. It was a forced hardware-driven mute.
I accepted a new job in a better town, for more money. I was out. I was done. The timing was perfect. It was time to execute.
I spent the better part of a week running a simple exploit on the poorly designed network with my credentials.
Rather than logging in from my own network, I logged in to corporate headquarters. Rather than logging in as a Monitor, I logged in to the Interviewer session. Rather than using my own credentials, I used those of a particularly bothersome senior manager. This wasn’t difficult.
From then on, I simply pretended to be interviewing. I selected the ‘this person is not the right person but they gave us good contact info for the right person’ option.
For the contact info, I entered phone numbers from the ‘don’t call these people because they’ll sue us’ list. Then I entered fake names, inspired by Bart Simpson. Hugh Jass. Harry Cockering. Joe Mumma. And so on. I scheduled appointments for us to contact these people in 2-3 weeks. I did this over hundreds of times.
I then volunteered to work late on a Sunday. ‘I’ll close up the office guys. You go home. I got this.’ I had a dodgy map of the cubicles. We had just installed a brand new fancypants auto-dialing phone system. Too perfect.
I did my hardware trick on the phones, in a manner that looked somewhat patterned but somewhat random. Plus all the backup and spare phones. Somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of all the phones now had a forced hardware mute.
I had the perfect alibi. I was getting married. I skipped the next Monday, then the next Tuesday. I called my boss on Wednesday to tell him that I had found a new job, and I was giving my 2 weeks notice. I needed to take the rest of the week to plan for the wedding. And of course, next week was my honeymoon.
He was perturbed. ‘You’re calling me to give your 2 weeks notice, 2 days late, after skipping 2 days, and you’re telling me you won’t be here the last 2 weeks?’
‘Uh… well, yeah.’
“Can you think of one good reason I shouldn’t fire you right now?”
‘Uuuhhhhh … beeee-cause… You’d have to call corporate headquarters and ask them to ship you a check for me today?’
‘(Sigh)… okay, fine!’
That was the last time I ever spoke to him.
I saw a coworker a few weeks later. ‘Hey, how are things?’ I asked her.
‘Oh, it’s really bad. The phone network stopped working as soon as they installed it. Not every phone, but a lot of them. They couldn’t figure it out. They had technicians in the backroom for days, and they even tried reinstalling it but it still isn’t working. Oh, and we’re getting sued. A bunch of people who told us not to call them said we’re harassing them. IBM is pulling out of the contract.’
So I deliberately used technical exploits to sabotage a corporation with 12 offices in 7 states. I personally bankrupted them.
I’d like to say I did it for noble reasons. They were a bad company.
But the truth is, I did it for the same reason great individuals climb great mountains; I did it because it was there.”
It Doesn’t Go Much Better Than This
“I was a server and had the most disrespectful and outright rude table I had ever seen. They were drinkers, mean, and frequently making personal verbal attacks.
I dumped a pitcher of water on one of the jerks as he got up from his table, coming toward me and telling me off in front of the whole restaurant. Then I told my boss what happened, and that I was done. He saw how the table was acting so he apologized, gave me a hug, and told me he’d give me a good reference for my next job.
This was 8 years ago and I still get congratulated by co-workers when I’m in town and run into them. I’ve met many people that worked there after I left and know the story well.
I get a lot of free drinks in the server community in that town.”
Played Candy Crush While I Did Your Job? This Is What You Get
“I used to work at Comcast and I had aspirations to move up in the company.
I was pretty green to the corporate world, so I thought that helping my supervisor with her job would help move me up. And by ‘help,’ I mean my supervisor made me do her entire job. I ran her meetings, did her scheduling, went through her paperwork, etc. All while she sat at her desk playing Candy Crush on her iPad. I did all of this while working on the phone.
I did this for months until one day I snapped on a customer. Now, I take full responsibility for what I did, but that wasn’t good enough for her. Nope, she had to sit me down and humiliate me in front of the upper management. She made me listen to a recording of my entire screw-up while pausing it every few minutes to say something like ‘How could you?’ I was in tears at the end, and she just used that to show how bad of an employee I am and how good a boss she is for ‘helping’ me learn from my mistakes.
She then pushed for me to receive a Final Notice. If I went out of line one more time for a year, I’d lose my job. I made a decision that she wasn’t going to fire me; I was going to do that for her.
HR was predictably useless, as were my friends in management. Now that I had gone from being an up-and-coming star to a pariah, people didn’t give a crap about me. Except for my supervisor, who still expected me to do her job.
My next few days were filled with a considerable amount of crying. What followed was rage. Endless, white-hot rage.
I didn’t quit. I didn’t give up. Instead, I decided the best revenge was to be successful.
I went back to school to finish my degree. After a while, I was offered an internship, which I took. While I was fighting an uphill battle at Comcast 40 hours a week, doing a part-time internship 20 hours a week, and being a full-time student.
I let my supervisor know this. ‘Sorry Boss,’ I’d say, ‘I can’t do this report for you. I have a final to study for.’
‘Want me to stay late? No can do. My Internship is working me hard, so I want to spend my night off at home doing nothing.’
This went on for that year I was on probation. And during that time, I always kept my sales numbers low. Not low enough to get fired, but just at the point where people could see I wasn’t trying. This affected my commission but it was so worth it. Why?
Three months before my probation was over, I switched to another supervisor. Those last three months upped my effort and my sales figures skyrocketed. Within my first month, my new supervisor saw my numbers double. I had intentionally undercut my commission to make her look bad. The upper management saw how my new supervisor succeeded in one month where my older supervisor failed in nine, and it pleased me to no end that I humiliated her like how she humiliated me.
On the one year anniversary of my probation, I put in my two weeks notice. In my exit interview, I let them know what I did with my life (I omitted the undercutting part) and that I spent the last year becoming a better person, just to spite Comcast. It was glorious.”
That Sandwich Must Have Tasted Like Victory
“Not me but my coworker.
My main boss was on vacation, so her assistant was in charge and on a power trip. Nearly everyone coincidentally ended up coming down with an illness or car troubles, so during one of the shifts, it was just her and this one day. (I was technically in a different department and the assistant had no authority there.)
He wanted to take a lunch break, but she was claiming they were too busy and he’d have to wait until the end of his shift when the next shift showed up. He wasn’t okay with that and told her she needed to make room in the schedule for him to go at a reasonable time. She refused, so he went anyway. He told her, ‘see ya,’ took all his stuff, walked to a nearby deli, ordered a sandwich, walked back, sat himself in front of the giant window that faces the parking lot, and ate it in full view as he waited for his ride to pick him up. I should also mention he was staring at the window the whole time, just daring her to come out and say something.
I guess it’s not all that epic, but she was furious and it was pretty darn funny. She came over to me and was yelling about him, but she really couldn’t do anything about it besides curse and rant.”
They Clean Cars, But The Business Was Dirty
“I was a lot attendant at a Chevy dealership. I was taking a car through the car wash and when the blow dryer came on. I turned the wiper on to dry the windshield like I always do. The wiper gets blown off and cracks the windshield. My boss tells me I’m paying for it and it’s going to be $600.
The next day, I came in and showed him a picture of the sign outside the carwash that stated ‘operator not responsible for damages,’ and argued my case about why I shouldn’t have to pay for it. He told me if I wasn’t going to pay, then I no longer had a job. I said, ‘So is that it then?’ He said, ‘Yeah, you’re fired.’ I took off my work shirt and threw it in his face, said ‘take your shirt back then,’ and stormed off through the dealership without a shirt.
I revved up my car in the parking lot and left. One of my friends sent me the security camera footage.”
Just Let Me Cook In Peace
“Not exactly epic, but I got a lot of satisfaction out of quitting my job as a chef at a nursing home.
I was a chef there for 4 years. In the last year I was there we got a new manager. Prior to this manager, over the course of 3 years, I had only called in sick once. I was late twice: once because of a car accident on my way to work, and once because I overslept for a 6 am work shift. I had never been written up before. I was on great terms with my co-workers and really enjoyed my job. This new manager comes in and at first, he’s friendly. But then he found out I was gay and decided he hated me.
This dude would follow me around during all of my shifts and tell me inappropriate details of his life. This would include how devout he was, how much he hated certain groups of people, how great his romantic life with a WOMAN was, how many friends he had, what his childhood was like, etc. If I told him to stop, I was written up. If I said anything at all, I was written up. If I was silent, I was written up. Anytime I went to HR over the obvious harassment, I was told to suck it up. Well, at the time I was not out of the closet. After a few weeks, this manager outed me to the company.
This made life difficult. It was a conservative retirement home, and they were not keen on homosexuality. Anytime I brought up a complaint against this manager, I was pushed to the wayside. At this time, I left college and needed a full-time job. I bid for the full-time chef’s job. This manager sabotaged it as he did with every full-time bid I placed. I tried to transfer out of the kitchen and go full-time at housekeeping, and he changed a write-up slip for ‘backtalking’ him, aka telling him to stop involving me in his personal life, to a ‘hostility’ write-up. He gloated to me about how I’d never leave the kitchen because of it.
So I started looking for other jobs. During my job hunt, I found an amazing job opportunity. High paying, good pace, benefits, and a fresh start.
I originally loved my old job and didn’t want to leave because, well, I was young and dumb. So I put a final bid for a full-time chef after the two new chefs had quit. Meanwhile, I also accepted the other job offer, knowing this manager would sabotage my bid. The next day, I’m hauled into HR, this manager smugly telling me my job here was over. I sat quietly while my boss and the HR guy gave some ridiculous paperwork about an alleged major screw-up.
I pointed out that I hadn’t even worked that day.
They made excuse after excuse as to why it was my fault. The RP rep tells me he’s sorry to have to let me go. Expecting me to be upset, they all sit there with giant smiles. I shook his hand and politely asked if he still needed my 2 weeks notice, as I had been job hunting and accepted another offer for better pay. His face kinda froze, and my manager looked furious. I went on to thank him and my boss for the 4 years I spent and explained that I enjoyed my time there. I bid for the full-time position because I spent 4 years there. I had a semblance of loyalty to them and would’ve chosen it over this other job offer. But that I was absolutely thrilled to be free to take the other offer. My boss’s face was beet red, the HR rep seemed thoroughly confused, and my manager was absolutely livid.
I shook my boss’s hand and thanked her for her time. I turned to the manager and politely informed him that I had the paperwork proving he lied about his allegations about me on several occasions and that I had proof of him tampering with my time clock. I had documented my missing wages and had proof of him erasing hours I had worked, in addition to demanding I work overtime off the clock. I was turning him into the labor board, and I wished him well. I was so polite it made me sick. But I turned him in.
I got a 2-week vacation, and the labor board did their investigation. They found a slew of evidence of this guy stealing wages from not just me but also other employees. We were all reimbursed for our lost wages. I started my new job and am still here. I love it and couldn’t be happier. He, on the other hand, was fired and last I knew was working at a deli counter.”
Book A Day Off To Write Your Exam? How Dare You!
“My best friend quit her job during a meeting where she was getting told off for missing a shift. She had informed our boss she would miss the shift and tried to find coverage for it, but she needed the day off to write a college exam.
At the same time, I had quit this place due to a workplace injury where my boss was refusing me modified duties or worker’s comp, and I was going through a legal battle. I had quit over the phone when an HR lady was yelling at me because my doctor wouldn’t release my full medical history to her. I yelled at her that this was ridiculous and unacceptable and I quit. I ended up winning the case and getting paid, as well as finding a new job.
However, back to the main plot – my friend is in this meeting room, and she snaps. She yells at everyone in the room about how horrible my boss is and how she brags about being a homewrecker and how unprofessional that is. ‘This whole organization is so messed up, but you’re all too busy slacking off in the backroom to notice,’ she adds before walking out.
What a champ. She’s my hero.”
She Cleaned Them Out
“Our regional manager almost lost it when he found out that our store manager was using ‘hospital-grade’ cleaning products to clean our store, such as hospital-grade soap, disinfectant, etc. Our storage room literally looked like a hospital supply closet, and the manager was seriously obsessed. She even enforced a policy that we had to bake products with a face mask on, and every 30 mins the store had to be completely cleaned and disinfected. We had to wear gloves everywhere in the store, including while using the register, working in the supply room, etc.
Obviously, we would pass our health inspection with flying colors, but the cost of the cleaning supplies was way out of our budget. Not only that, but she hired a nightly cleaning crew to deep clean EVERY NIGHT behind our usual cleaning checklist at the end of the night. Long story short, he fired her for ‘misuse of corporate funds’ and told her to get out.
She left, but the next day – which happened to be our busiest day of the year (the day after Christmas) – we discovered that the locks were all changed and the code to the safe had been changed. After 5 hours of trying to break the safe open, we found that all of the money was gone (we keep $3k in cash). Corporate was chill about it, though, because they said all they had to do was take it out of her salary for the month.”
She Got The Last Word
“I was at a job I hated with a passion. I was gunning for a new job and had one lined up and was just waiting for the call.
I was on my day off, a Friday when I got the call confirming they wanted me to start on Monday. I called my supervisor to inform her of the new job, and she asked when my last day would be.
I replied, ‘Yesterday,’ and hung up the phone.”