23 Employees Share the Last Straw That Finally Made Them Quit Their Jobs

We've all worked a job that we hated at one point or another, and the majority of us probably stayed in it a lot longer than we wanted to. Maybe you've been in a situation where you tried being upbeat about a job or maybe you even broke your back to please a boss or employer who never gave you the recognition you deserved.

So you start to fantasize about the ways you'd quit, or how you'd tell off everyone who screwed you over and made your life a living hell.Whether or not you acted upon that fantasy is a whole other story, but these are tales from Redditors who actually did walk out on a crumby job, and they're oh so satisfying.

Years ago I worked in a restaurant and it was Christmastime. This place was supposed to function with four waitresses, a busboy, dishwasher, manager, and two cooks.

Only the manager and I showed up. He did the cooking, I took orders, served, bussed tables, washed dishes and so on.

During this I accidentally dropped two bread plates and they broke. Manager says to me "I'll have to take those out of your pay." I told him that was funny, thinking he was joking. He wasn't.

I turned around and grabbed a stack of dinner plates, threw them on the floor and said "take those out of my pay too" and walked out to leave him with the whole mess.

- seagoingcook

Previous workplace gave me a promotion to "Sales Lead." Buried in the fine text was a line that read something to the effect of "if there isn't an actual manager around, you become the manager on duty."

Didn't think anything of it until they conveniently fired my direct manager a week later, didn't replace her, and expected me to do all the work she used to without a promotion or pay raise.

- ScubaScoober

Became a Sales Lead at a pretty popular store for young adults and teens. Despite it being directly against company rules, I was then forced by the store manager to close every single night of the week so the she could get off early to be with her kid. Company policy said that no manager could close more than two nights in a row.

I did it for a month and a half and peaced the $#*! out the moment I got a job offer that offered 36-45 hours a week with a regular schedule and days off.

A friend got promoted to my Sales Lead position a month later  — they did the same thing and didn’t let her go home to see her dying dad and the manager fired her for asking for time off despite closing every night for three months straight. She tried to file unemployment and the store manager reported that she quit so she couldn’t collect. That manager was a piece of $#*!.

- HeyJessa

I used to work at McDonalds (I know). Opening usually involved me at the front counter with a headset on so I could do drive-through orders and handle making coffee / putting orders together / taking money at the front from the little old people that came in at the crack of dawn every morning. We would also have a manager who was there to be important and one person in the kitchen. We're a small rural town so usually this is fine but we were on kind of a major highway so sometimes it would get busy out of nowhere.

Depending on the manager the amount of help we had would vary wildly. One morning we got super busy and I started cracking under the pressure. I'm a fantastic multi-tasker but my drive-through line was backing up since I was trying to juggle them and all the walk-in folks from my front registers and when it gets packed...well, it's fun. I glance around trying to find my manager for help. I see him on one of our cameras -- he's outside smoking a cigarette around the side of the building. Mind you, this is like his third trip out to smoke this morning. I'm absolutely dying trying to get caught up. Customers are being passive aggressive saying they will come behind the counter and get their own coffee and stuff. I have people yelling at me in my headset from the drive through. I end up having to remove the headset just to try to get the frontline sorted. I start making progress with the front but I basically had to sacrifice the drive-through customers for two minutes.

Apparently the cars outside start yelling at my manager and interrupt his smoke break so he comes in, sees me with my headset off and goes berserk. He's like "WHOS TAKING THE DRIVE-THRU ORDERS?" I'm in the middle of trying to get a fresh pot of coffee going so I sort of auto-respond "No one. Hang on." as I continue to dash around behind our counter to grab a fruit & yogurt parfait for an order. He basically gets in my way and starts giving me  $#*! . Loudly, talking to me like I'm a dog. I point to the camera and yell, loudly enough to disrupt the entire inside of the restaurant. "I'm these two registers, first window, second window, and I'm bagging. I'm like FOUR PEOPLE and you're out behind the building not doing  $#*! !"

His eyes go wide. I can tell he knows I'm holding on by my last thread. He's sighs. And he's like "You're in a ton of trouble but we can talk about this later." No.  $#*!  him. I'm done. I'm all riled up from random customers yelling at me. I toss him the headset. "You want to give me  $#*!  for not being able to run like four stations with no support? Run five. I'll watch." I remove my name badge.

He went to say something to me. I turn away, facing the one girl working in the kitchen who is watching this all play out. I remember telling her "I'm so sorry." and then I dropped my name badge, toss my hat on the counter, grab a water cup, put on (and zip) my jacket so my uniform is covered up. I go to the drink fountain, fill my water cup, and then I go sit on the far side of the seating area and watch him go down in flames. He ends up ALSO taking off the headset and picking up the phone so he can spam call the whole workforce one by one trying to call for help. It's like 5AM so no one is going to accept a call from their work number. About ten minutes into his struggle he ends up very loudly pleading with me to come back from behind the counter. I can't even see him on the other side of the sea of people swarming the counter at this point.

I call back "I need a smoke first!" and I go outside.

I don't smoke. I've never smoked. I drive home.

He ended up losing his job.

- PuppetShowJustice

Worked at a mall retail store in college for a couple years. When I was just a lowly peasant the manager was great to work for. Once I became a key holder is when things changed. I learned very quickly why the other key holders didn't last. The manager would make rash decisions that would then be blamed on everyone but her...

Last straw was when the evening shift didn't change out some signage and I get in the next morning having no idea there was new signage to be put out. She came in and berated me about the signage not being updated. I walked in the back dropped my keys off told her I quit and went to walk out. She grabbed me and told me I need to give a written notice and fax it to corporate.

"To whom it may concern,

I MikeOxsbig terminate my employment effective immediately due to manager's inability to properly treat staff."

Faxed it and walked out. She read it after I had already sent it and chased me out berating me more claiming I would never get another retail job in this mall... blah blah blah... Three weeks later I started at another store in that mall and always made it a point to smile and wave at her when I saw her.

- MikeOxsbig

I used to work as a some kind of "aid worker/rescuer" in events with large gathering of people (concerts, festivals, etc)

The boss/owner always put her head down for the clients, and allowed them to exploits us. One of the regular clients was the event manager of a popular stadium. They would ask us to be in the stadium 3 hours prior the event to clean (yup) and stay afterwards to clean (yup). The manager wasn't paying more money for it, but the boss didn't want to lose the client so we just have to do it.

So, there would be events with that took 16 hours to complete, with a menial pay, no food or beverage AND with the client expecting us to do more work for free (note: I've never did that, and always encouraged my partners to leave, it wasn't our job to clean).

But the moment that made me say " $#*!  this  $#*! ", was when the boss called me saying that the client emailed her with a complaint about me. I thought it would be about me and my team always leaving after the job was done and not staying for cleaning, but no: "they told me that they always see you chatting with your partner, and with a smile. They don't want the attendance to see their workers distracted and/or laughing, they want to show that only professionals work with them. So they are asking that you turn down a notch your positive attitude and keep a poker face all the time".

- TheOnewhoFixes

I got hired in a custom fabrication shop as one of their two welders. Boss promises to have me learn a bit of everything (machining, water jet, design) but barely even had me do any welding, on top of being a massive  $#*!  to everyone. Talked  $#*! about us to customers while we were working right next to him. Got hired at a different company thursday evening, other welder quit Friday morning, I quit friday at lunch. Felt real good leaving them up  $#*!  creek.

- weaselsrepic

Job got a VIP contract to vaccinate a bunch of elite clients. they rushed, they brought on some extra nurses barely vetted them and began. Virtually no breaks, and piles of paperwork. They didn’t finish ordering and setting up the computers and there was only one computer to chart on like >100 patients a day. Not all the nurses got their clearance for the computer yet either.

Scariest part was I had to stop someone from reusing a needle that she didn't realize she used on a previous patient. She told me she only primed it(pushed the air out) but i told her without alarming the patient that it was not “suitable.”

I told her to go away and cleaned up her area, vaccinated the patient and never went back. I was already sick of them only thinking about the bottom line.

- MySoftBlack $#*! 

I asked month in advance for time off during a Friday. I was approved. The fateful Friday came around and everybody I worked with (four of us) we're also approved for time off (We all had the same event to attend). The manager calls me the night before and tells me that I need to come in. I told him I had already made the plans and that I was approved months ago with emails to show for it. He responded by telling me if I didn't show I'd be fired. I just didn't go.  $#*!  you Jason.

- OnePunchCon

I got hired at K-mart to work in sporting goods. Was told to wear the traditional black pants and red polo.

Day 1 — "Sorry, we can't train you for sporting goods today, we need you to help unload trucks."

It's summer in SC. It's 100 degrees and 80 percent humidity. I'm wearing black pants and a thick polo. No change of clothes.

End of Day — "Sorry about today. We'll start training you tomorrow. Come to work in uniform again."

Day 2 — same thing

Day 3 — same thing

Day 4 — same thing

Day 5 — same thing

Day 6 — same thing

Day 7 — I came in on my day off to quit.

If I wasn't dumb and 17 I probably would have just wised up and brought a change of clothes. I didn't mind unloading the truck, although the sweat drenched clothes weren't ideal. The real reason I quit was the obvious lack of planning and management.

- Semlohwerd

I was the IT department for a small company. A few times I would go to the owners' places and work on their computers there (setup VPNs back to the office, etc).

Didn't take long for that to morph into "come over tonight, my teenage daughter has an essay due and the printer isn't working" and "little Johnny got his computer loaded with viruses again. Come fix it". I didn't get paid extra for the house calls.

When I finally said " $#*!  it I quit" they wouldn't accept my resignation (as though they had a choice) so I wrote a bridge burning letter detailing why I was leaving. House calls was the only point in the letter that they took issue with.

Edit:

This exploded.

I actually just remembered the part that threw me over the top (house calls were annoying but this....)

This was almost 20 years ago. We ran a lot of promotions and collected a lot of information about retailers. (One of the company's main assets is this thorough list of small independent retailers in our market segment. We had more and better data than Google at the time). We started a new arm of the company which was only peripherally related to this. In order to get the word out, they wanted to contact this list.

Things like MailChimp didn't exist yet and many of the retailers didn't have email — we contacted them via fax. So I was asked to write a spamming program. The privacy policy under which we collected the retailer data explicitly forbade us from using the data in this way. One of the owners was also the legal counsel. He said do it anyway. Shady business be shady.

This all came to a head around the same time as the house calls. I did write the spam bot, but I did not document any of it before I left so hopefully they never figured out how to use it.

- RubertVonRubens

I quit after working for four hours at a sushi restaurant. I asked where the bathroom was and I was told "we don't really get bathroom breaks." I left right then and never came back. It was pretty sad the manager said he understood and wasn't mad at all.

- magicthelathering

For the second year in a row the big meeting with the CEO went

"And we hit 150 percent of our targets this year. No pay raises for anyone."

- ReallyHadToFixThat

I was hired for a college to run their office where students got hands on work in the field. When I discovered that they were ripping off students hours, I started providing students copies of their hours and telling them to keep a notebook with the copies for their records. See the students were on a contract that if they didn’t graduate by the date estimated for completion, students were required to pay $200 every additional week it took to complete among suspensions (which in turn went against contract graduation date). They also asked me to falsify report of students absences to suspend them even though I had documented proof the student was in class. I decided to leave that job but not before telling students to report them to the state board and providing statements for the lawyer who the students gathered to represent their case.

- DubbMcLuvin8885

Ooooh boy strap in.

I used to work at IHOP as a server, our manager was wildly incompetent. She would leave with the manager card (which was the only way to correct an order, refund something etc.) she was spiteful and stupid, a deadly combination. So I was poor, and had a raggedy pair of the non-slip shoes you’re supposed to wear in food service. I also had a pair of doc marten work shoes that were slip/oil/electric proof. Same color and all. She made a big stink about me not wearing the correct shoes, I explained they were on their last leg, and that even though the docs were technically not regulation, that they fit the criteria. They even said it on the sole. So she threatens to fire me over these  $#*! ing shoes and I cave and wear the  $#*! ty shoes to work. Saturday night, packed to the gills. Not a seat in the house. Halfway into my nightmare understaffed shift, as I’m carrying an appetizer sampler and a tray of drinks to a table, the sole rips from the upper and I TRIP AND SPILL THE WHOLE  $#*! ING SAMPLER ON THE TABLE. Ranch. Honey mustard. Marinara. 4 dr peppers. All over me and a couple. Face and all. I freak out and apologize, explain I’ll comp the food and and go to find the manager. Guess who went home? With that almighty card you need to void checks or discount them. I also had about 5 other tables suffering who saw all this happen. I call her, she’s at home. Lives 15 mins away. I told her not to bother, asked her how she could be so  $#*! ing stupid to go home with the card for the 10000th time,screamed about the damn shoes etc. and told her to go  $#*! herself. Took my tips out of the cash I had, told all my customers their meals were on the house, and stripped down to my underwear right there in the parking lot. Walked to my car and changed my clothes. Never looked back.

- behindler

HR dude calls on Friday at 6 p.m.: "Hey, I'm really sorry, the insurance company won't cover you until you're an employee for 60 days"

Me: "That's... a shame. Since you promised that you'd cover me and children right away, that you'd arrange the 60 days going to not apply to me, and I told you that was a condition for me accepting this job. Also, my son's surgery is literally on Monday, in two days."

And he was shocked shocked that I quit the next week, just totally livid that I gave a week's notice. "You know this means you'll never work here again" yeah Jorge that's the  $#*!ing point

- discogravy

I was five minutes late and was chewed out because of this, but they were so keen to forget that I filled in for them the previous day because someone quit on the spot. I too quit on the spot.

- EmuSounds

I wrote this before on another post but it fits here too.

I used to work nights as a cashier at a deli/convenient store. Pretty chill job. The manager who worked during the day quit so my boss asked me to switch and handle manager's responsibilities. I said sure, with a pay raise. He assured me it would only be for a week. So I said fine I'll do you the favor. So now, I would work 6am-4pm during the week and 6am-11:30pm during the weekends. The new times also involved A LOT more work. I would literally be running the entire store myself including orders, deliveries, inventory, a bunch of other things that I was not getting paid to do. Should also note that my boss didn't even know how to work the register, let alone anything else that needed to be done.

Well that week turned into a month. I went back into his office (which was a supply closet with a computer in it) to discuss a pay raise and he asked to take me out to dinner to discuss it. I said no. Told him he had another week to find someone. Next week goes by and it's a Friday. I go up to him and ask him for either a raise or some sort of bonus for all that I've done. He asks about dinner again and I say no. He then says no to the raise or bonus.

So I told him I quit. He can show up tomorrow & Sunday 6am-11:30pm because I won't be there. I'm telling this to the man who doesn't know how to open the register. I walk away and go back to the register.

He comes up to me 10 minutes later, opens his wallet, and pulls out a $100 bill and gives it to me as my "bonus." I take it, put it in my purse and say "Thank you! I'm still quitting though." The look on his face was amazing. An hour later, I pay myself for the week and left.

- aantonio1194

I’ve worked in retail part-time since I was 16. In my first job they started introducing a “punishment” system for when team members didn’t make their target.

Thankfully it never happened to me, but one day a manager posted on our staff Facebook page a video of them throwing a bucket of water over an employee who didn’t make his target, purely for everyone else to laugh at. This didn’t happen with any of the other “punishments”.

He had worked there 10 years. He was a stockroom member so wouldn’t even be on the shop floor to make the targets set for him as all targets for every member were sales-based (even if you weren’t a sales member, because if it was busy there was a chance you would have to go on the shop floor and help).

He had taken off his shoes and placed them to the side so they didn’t get wet. He did this because he had to get 2 buses to and from work every day.

That was my official “ $#*!  this” moment and quit after that.

- [deleted]

When I was 14, I wanted a summer job with my best friend. We went to the fast food shop at the beachside. It was quite popular since it was the only fast food around. We get there on a Friday afternoon and we meet the owner. 50-something man with a big belly from probably the fast food he serves. Tells us we can get there the next morning and people would show us around.

We get there at 9 a.m. like he told us and there was no one. First employees arrive at 10.30 to open. They have no idea we were supposed to work. They tried to help us the most they could but they were cashier with no training for the food stuff. Both their "cooks" left that week and the owner was doing all the work.

We finish our first day without any trouble, slow day overall.

Sunday arrive and we are not prepared for the sheer number of customer. We still have about no idea how to cook the food and how the equipment worked. Owner arrive with a bunch of his friends. We were swamped with people but he shoved them around a bit and asked us to do "6 hot dogs, 6 fries and 6 diet cokes and fast". We knew it was for him so we told people to wait and we finished their order.

Not 30 seconds after the owner comes back behind the counter and begin to tell us we are  $#*! at our job and that the fries were not cooked enough and that we messed the condiments on the hot dogs.

Mind you, there were a lot of customers waiting for their food at that point and they were all looking at us getting yelled at by the owner.

I look to my friend, he looked at me and we both knew what to do. We took our aprons off and told him to  $#*!  off. We left him with all the orders right there and then, never went back there. They closed down about 2 years after.

- jewishpinoy

I had worked at a university for 23 years. There were over 7,700 staff and I think I had met half of them by then. Working as a Senior Field IT Tech, was awesome for the first 20 years. They were very flexible and I had lots of side gigs. In the end the bean counters came in and made things more efficient by outsourcing many tasks. Usually they were the “fun things." The last year was very repetitive and mundane. Lots of problems that we couldn’t fix because they were "someone else’s problem." One day I came in and attempted to resolve seven different problems; and I was shut down on each because they each had their own team of people who’s responsibility it was. I said, “ $#*!  this; what do you need me for....” went straight to HR to quit.

Belinda, the HR Manager, was not you typical cliched type. I’d fixed her PC before and knew her. She said, "Don’t quit today, take the weekend, wait until Monday, and see how you feel then." I took her advice, temporarily retracting my signed resignation, and went home.

On Monday the largest round of redundancies were announced in the university’s long history, because of the Enterprise Bargaining Agreement, the payouts were incredible. My accountant when he saw how much was being offered, suggested they had made a mistake, and called on my behalf to check if it was correct. (It was). Effectively two years salary (after tax).

I would have missed out if Belinda had accepted my resignation.

- mattesse

I was working at a company for only a few months when things started to get bad. I had direct deposit set up and I was away on vacation when payday came around. My paycheck didn't drop in my bank account. OK, interesting. I texted a co-worker and the boss said that the new assistant forget to "approve it." 

This happened for the next three pay periods. I had to go to my boss every payday to try and get her to cut my check. Some days she would leave early and tell us she totally "forgot." That following Monday, she comes in and is showing off a new car she bought over the weekend. Right there I told her I will not be coming back into work and I would like my final pay. I didn't say "$#*!  this, I quit" but I sure as hell should have!!! No way was I even going to give her the decency of two weeks notice, either.

Who the hell buys a new car when you're struggling to pay your employees????? Arggh still gets me mad! lol

- tastefulblue

Company promised a retreat in Banff because we hit our sales targets. Two weeks before the trip, they say it's been cancelled, with no plans to pay us out for the pooled bonus that would have went towards that trip. On the weekend of the trip, a manager posts a photo of her and other managers in Banff. But oh no, it wasn't work related! They said it was for a manager's birthday (even though one of the managers that went absolutely hates the one who was allegedly celebrating the birthday). Quit shortly after. 

-  stumbleupondingo