Most of us have worked at least one job we absolutely hated. Be it a bad fast food gig, or working a job with a terrible manager, most know the struggle of wanting to quit their job.
But have you ever walked out on the job? Have you ever just gave up and said I quit!?
Here, Reddit users share their stories of quitting their jobs right on the spot. Warning: some of these stories are very satisfying.
I had a boss a few years back, she started setting out all of these new duties that the job entailed, none of which were in our contracts and which had previously been done by other people who they had just let go on a cost saving effort. We were told we wouldn’t be getting any kind of pay raise for all of the extra work and hours we were gonna start doing (we were paid monthly not hourly).
I basically told her we weren’t gonna stand for it and we were walking out. I got chewed out big time by my parents who said “you just don’t like hard work!” Next day the directors called. I was asked back to do the original job description and the boss was sacked. I felt so vindicated.
WarwickshireBear
I never thought I would do this because my Dad always grilled into me that giving your two weeks notice was the proper thing to do. And then, I worked in a call center.
I just wasn’t emotionally able to handle the job. Getting screamed at, sworn at, hung up on, etc was too much. Having to hit sales goals by the end of the week was very stressful for me. Break times would fly by and getting reprimanded for going 1 second over (because they recorded clock in and out times on your computer) added even more stress to the job. Having no time to even think after taking call after call was just a headache in itself.
One day, after getting a string of crappy calls, I turned off my computer and left. I never looked back. The feeling of walking out of that place was one of pure happiness and joy that I have seldom felt since. I have no regrets.
LuluBelle91
The CEO of the company I work at once made a one day only offer of $2000 to any employees that quit that day to weed out people who didn’t “really want to be there.” 50-60 people quit.
Joel_Hirschorrn
When I was a teenager I had been telling my cafe boss for months that I need to take a week off during winter to see family up north. I did everything by the book, literally there was a book they had to sign off requested time and I wrote it 3 months in advance and HE SIGNED IT. Then time comes to go and he tells me that something happened and he’ll need me to find people to cover the shift. I told him “that is you job as manager and I did mine”. I went and I came back he wanted me to sign some warning paper for corporate. I looked at him, said “I appreciate you as a person but this is one of the most unprofessional management styles I have ever seen” I left then and there.
ObLaDi
I worked at McDonald’s after high school for roughly a year while figuring out what I wanted to do with my life.
I had a manager who was in his late thirties and was obnoxious. He berated newly hired teenagers for being ‘too’ slow literally on their first days working, proudly proclaimed he went to burger college (I guess McD has that?) in the states (this was in Sweden). He constantly kept ‘reminding’ us we should be thankful for getting the chance to work at McDonald’s and that we had no right to complain about working conditions. We were basically forced to clock out when there were no customers or we’d get to do things such as scrub the garbage compressor/clean the empty garbage bins in the trash rooms (those huge ones that restaurants have).
Roughly one year in I was working the register. There was this tiny clock that began counting once you started taking an order.
No order was supposed to take more than 47 seconds if the items were available. From the beginning of the order to the end of the transaction. It works for smaller orders but I had an order for a family of seven which took me slightly more than two minutes. The manager pulls me to the fryers and loudly proclaims I need to stop ‘slacking’ and hurry up. I tell him I’m working as fast as I can and he says it’s not fast enough. I basically say ‘whatever’ and walk back toward the register and he proclaims ‘if you don’t like it find someplace else to work’.
At this point, I’ve had it. I walk to the office of the shift leader and ask for a resignation form, fill it out and hand it to him on the way back to the register. I finished my shift and he pulled me aside saying I had an attitude problem and that I didn’t need to finish my last four weeks that I had legal right to. I finish them anyway because money.
Two weeks later I found out he got fired after he raged at my 15 year old replacement on her first day, swearing at her and calling her “stupid” after she couldn’t keep up in a rush.
Her parents called the owners who had received numerous complaints earlier and chose to let him go.
Dingan
This was 10 years ago. I worked in a small office and there was only two of us. I worked with a terrible narcissistic woman. She was so controlling. Like to the point of trying to control how I lived my life.
One day it just got to be too much. I picked up my purse and walked out. I got an email a few days later. She wanted to know what she did that made me dislike her so much.
givemydamndogabone
When I was 17 I worked fast food. I got in a car accident on my way to work the day after Halloween and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. My mom called my manager. He then told all my co-workers that I was lying and just hungover or drunk. I stayed on for 2 weeks while not working by doctors orders. I stewed on it for those 2 weeks. About 15 minutes before my first shift back, I called and quit.
InThisHouse19
I was selling security alarms door-to-door in a 100% commission job.
A full suit was required on a daily basis, to look professional.
One day, there was a storm, hours of torrential rain. We still had to go door to door.
I was unknowingly assigned to a council estate, where none of the residents owned their own property, and thus couldn’t have house alarms installed.
I rang my manager to inform him of this, and to relocate me elsewhere. After an hour of standing in the rain, earning no money, when he still hadn’t come to collect me, I rang him to say that my clothes are completely soaked and that I’m going to get the bus home.
He arrived shortly after that, and said to me:
“If you go home now, don’t bother coming back tomorrow.”
I replied:
“That’s fine.”
VonPosen
Not prompted, but kindly suggested to do so. I’ve got some health issues, and had been commuting 90 minutes each way for work. My general manager and HR rep pulled me aside and basically said, “you’ve worked here a long time, and we love you and know you just want to work hard, but your health, and work, and the commute are really taking a toll on you. We think today should be your last day here.” They helped set me up for the company’s medical leave assistance program, and that was it.
It’s been a month now, I’ve seen several doctors, been declared officially disabled, and have my disability application in the works. Now I’m working on other social programs I might be able to get help from. Things are still rough, but better, and I’ve got a lot of family support.
owls_n_bees
Working in a call center, having to sell phone contracts to people who just… didn’t need them. It was a student job and it paid super well. Like, 50% more than any other job I’d ever had up to that point. Afterwards it was clear why, even students need to be bribed into selling their soul…
The point that made me quit was my first successful sale. This old lady, who I clearly overwhelmed with my call who basically said yes to the bullshit contract because I sounded nice and she didn’t know any better. The manager was listening in, and after I had hung up he cheered loudly and got the tables around me to celebrate this great achievement. I felt so, so dirty. Omg. That poor lady. So I basically got up, asked to speak my manager alone and went “Yeah, that ain’t for me, but thanks.”
QueenOfCrystals
I worked at a big retailer for exactly a week and a half. I was hired to work in the back room as a stocker/car loader. The dude who hired me was incredibly sweet and gracious and understanding. I was a student at the time with a chaotic schedule. He reassured me that they could work with my availability and also that I would get top of the line safety equipment and training. Then I met my manager.
Manager was an angry 30 year old who clearly resented running the back room of this retailer. She quickly told me that my schedule was what she said it was. Then she had me watch a video of the CFO telling me how this company was a “young, hip company” with “young, hip, fashion conscious customers.” Then she informed me that this was the extent of my training, took me to an empty back room, and ordered me to put a refrigerator on a 15 foot high shelf with only a ladder and my own ingenuity. When I asked her if there wasn’t some sort of equipment to assist in this endeavor, she scoffed, replied “Remember, you asked me for a job”, and left me alone.
Sadly, I did not quit there. I remained on for days after which:
– Manager nicknamed me “creepy” because I was so quiet and she therefore didn’t know which shelves I was working in, even though I worked where she told me to.
– Manager allowed all her friends from other departments to bunk off in the back room while on the clock.
– Manager repeatedly asked me to work unpaid, illegal overtime.
– Manager accused me of changing her typed schedule so I could make my classes.
Final straw was the day she forgot I was in the shelves and she brought a bunch of her friends back to hide from their manager near where I was. Because I am “creepy” they didn’t realize I could hear them as they casually discussed sexually assaulting another manager to teach them a lesson about being so hard on them. Once they left I went straight to HR to file a complaint. I was promptly informed that all complaints had to go through our managers. “But I’m reporting my manager.” I said “She threatened another manager.” HR lady blinked and again informed me that all complaints had to go through my manager.
I left without saying a word more to anyone, blocked their number, and avoided that wing of the mall. I still curse out that store every time I drive past it.
lilsmudge
My previous job. I was in a sales slump for over a month. Boss calls me into the office and brow-beats me for fifteen minutes, asking me why they should allow me to keep working there. The gem that broke me was “we are losing money by keeping you here”.
Quit later that day. Little did he know that I had an extremely productive job interview earlier that day, I ended up getting that job, and I’m happier, healthier, and richer than before.
DammitPantera
After myself and 2 other people counted out the money after a shift and all made sure it was right the manager said the till was short and we were all expected to pay it back. This is illegal where I live and would have put us at less than minimum wage. I told the manager this and she said that the others had agreed to pay and I wasn’t being fair to them so I quit.
I’m pretty sure she was just trying to get money out of teenagers who don’t know any better.
Raichu7
It was my third day being a bank teller. I was called into my bosses’ office for “performance issues.” Confused since it was my third day, I went in and was told that a manager reported me for complimenting a coworker on her computer skills.
They told me that compliments really just show I am insecure about my own abilities and are not allowed in the office. I told them that I believe in a positive work environment where people compliment and encourage each other, and I was quitting right then.
Also in the same meeting, they disclosed that 75 cents was “missing” on my first day but was later found. They assumed I stole it, then replaced it, and were going to write me up. Umm…if I were to steal, I would have stolen a lot more than 75 cents.
gouwbadgers
Twice a year they would close the store for a week to do a store wide inventory. Manager was complaining I wasn’t going fast enough, I had been working for the company longing than she had. I took off my apron, tossed it at her and jumped down off the loafing dock AMD didn’t look back.
degjo
I used to work in a call centre for a bank and we always had to deal with rude and irate customers but one guy was just being mean for the sake of it. He would ask me a question then immediately interrupt my answer. He would mock how much money I made compared to him. I disconnected the call, said very loudly “F THIS” and stormed out.
Got to the corridor and realized my bag with my car keys was still at my desk. I had to walk back in pathetically and get it. A colleague I got along well with stopped me and took me to the break area and calmed me down by explaining no customer is worth being jobless for. He’s still a close friend.
kitjen
I did this at the first job I had back when I was in high school. I went in on my day off to pick up a paycheck. As soon as I show up I get pulled into the office and reprimanded for sleeping in the job all the time. The whole time I’m confused as to when I would have been sleeping on the job.
I worked retail so there was never really any time to sleep on the job; if the store had no customers than there’s always stuff to clean and restock. The only time I would sleep was if I took a nap on my hour lunch break.
Anyhow I grab my check and hop in the car to drive home. I’m about a mile away from work when I decide I don’t need this in my life, and head back to work to tell them that.
I went in, told the manager I quit, went home, and found another job within the next week.
BlueberryInYourNose
In under 24hrs. Thursday, the boss told me he (actually a consultant) didn’t trust my work (as a computer programmer), so he “sent me home” and said he’d be in touch. I walked across the street to a Snelling & Snelling office and immediately got a tentative job offer, followed by a phone interview Friday. I got the job Friday, and a 40% increase in pay. I called the [former] boss and resigned. For you geeks, he was concerned about us using “make” as a software development tool. The consultant had never heard of it.
wpurple
During college then university I worked at a blockbuster. For several years it was a good job. I had good managers who weren’t lazy and treated staff well.
Then just as I was finishing up university a new manager and regional manager was bought in. This was as blockbuster was truly circling the drain. Their solution was to cut corners. Change prices for every product every other week. Change deals every week. Oh and they stopped paying minimum wage staff any overtime yet still expected them to work the hours and get the tasks done… for free.
No that wasn’t happening. Not for minimum wage students who were about to graduate.
So I used to open the shop at 10am as it opened at 10am. They used to pay us from 9.30am, so I used to come in then and get all the morning jobs done before opening. They started only paying me from 10am, I arrived at 10am.
One day I arrived at 10am. My regional manager was sitting outside and went CRAZY at me. I told him to screw off, tossed him my keys and went back home.
Raider1987
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Some of the answers have been edited for clarity.