People Share Their Craziest 'Everyone Quit In Unison' Experiences
Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash

Everyone has wild stories from their workplace.

But the stories that tend to instantly grab people's attention are those about instances which led people to quit.

Be it low pay, unsafe working conditions, or abusive bosses or managers, hearing what finally led someone to leave a job is always fascinating.

But how about moments where not one person, but multiple people, if not the entire staff, all banded together and left?

Far-fetched as it may seem, there have indeed been occasions where an entire workforce was so over their conditions, that they all gave their notice in unison.


Redditor RealSlicy was curious to hear some of these stories, resulting in their taking to Reddit to ask:

"What happened at work that made everyone quit at once?"

Unsafe conditions

"I worked at a bread manufacturing plant."

"This happened in the bagging area."

"A worker tripped and somehow the way he landed his hand slipped underneath the machine guard and into a chain."

"Cut off his arm just below the elbow."

"The supervisor insisted we just wipe off the machine with a towel and continue running the rest of the already baked product."

"Twelve out of sixteen including myself quit."

"I found out later the manager fired that supervisor that day."- Bignona

Horrible Bosses

"Three of us, the engineers, quit the same week and without any discussion between ourselves."

"Man in charge was an insufferable, insulting tw*t."

"This led to the head office losing faith and the whole subsidiary being sold off."- PicardTangoAlpha

"I worked at a dispensary for a few months, the owner was a really bitter older lady in her 60s."

"The owner was extremely sexist and hated all of the male employees, that included me."

"She would constantly dog on me and all of my male coworkers."

"We had to wear aprons, I had to keep my hair in pony tail, and she would constantly call us dirty bums and losers, etc."

"When she would get in fights with her husband or just have a bad day she would come in the shop and start yelling at everyone."

" I was the manager and after I quit she lost it completely, and tried to not pay anyone."

"Everyone quit that day and her business went under, best feeling I’ve ever had."- Sl33PYH3AD_

Placing Blame on the Wrong People

"Company did a survey of employee happiness."

"It had super limited answers."

"We filled it out and tried to explain that, internally, our team was doing well and we were happy but just about everyone had problems with two other employees outside the team who were bullies in important positions."

"The company asked us instead what 'we' could do better so the bullies don't bully."

"Over half the team quit within a month which is unheard of at that company and our team was/is a corner stone of the entire business."- Butterbubblebutt

Bribery

"Manager kept pitching Amway to us on breaks and then cut hours of those that didn't sign up under him."

"We worked in retail at the mall."- rayrayrayray

Total lack of sympathy

"Worked in a call centre offering free public transport brochures to people living in a city."

"The place was poorly managed, it was contracted out by the local government and only cared about numbers."

"Early during one shift a spate of bombings on public transport killed a load of people around the city."

"After a few calls of getting abuse from people aghast we were trying to get their details to send them bus/train timetables etc, we collectively stopped making calls."

"We assumed management would pause the project for that week at least, maybe longer, out of respect for what had happened.

"Our manager put her foot down and told us we must continue calling that morning, and as we were only on temporary contracts anyone who refused may face being replaced, then she stormed off."

"The entire team quit on the spot, we just got up and left without speaking to her again."

"We called up the work agency to let them know and they did not blame us."

"We were all replaced but the local government office heard what had happened and pulled the plug on the contract with that call centre within a month."- Husper

No or late payment.

"Not my work, but close friends."

"Restaurant owner wasn't paying his staff and checks kept bouncing."

"So one night, they all said 'f*ck this', closed up shop together and left."

"Owner got ran out of town after Social Media and reg media took over."

"He closed down both of his places, the second also had a staff walk out the week prior to the first and sold the buildings."

Since people keep asking, this was in MD."

"And the 'second place' was his second restaurant, Indian place, that had kitchen staff walk out a week prior, but the walk out didn't close the restaurant."

"He closed it and sold it after his first restaurant was shuttered."

"Good riddance." - Reddit

Other priorities

"One of my first jobs was as a dishwasher at a local steakhouse which was always really busy as it overlooked the waterfalls of the the local river."

"My 3rd or 4th day working the whole kitchen staff just didn't show up."

"Except for me."

"Boss grabbed me and taught me how to cook as we went."

"Not only had I never cooked before, this was a Friday night and I was missing a concert, so I was kind of angry about that."

"Probably not the culinary experience some of the customers expected that night, but I tried my best."

"Then, after we closed I had to stick around for another 4 hours to wash dishes.'

"Turns out everybody went to the concert."

"This was almost 40 years ago.'

"Still mad."- MadonnaBinLaden

Wrongful Demotion

"I had a manager at a thrift store that I won’t name."

"She was the type of woman that genuinely cared about her employees."

"She gave us a break if we were having a rough time, or if it was serious she sent us home, and she NEVER questioned if you needed to call out."

"Even if you just said you were having a depressive episode it was ALWAYS 'I understand I’ll try to find someone to cover, and if not one person down won’t end the world'."

"Anyways this thrift store sent their higher ups in from corporate one day and I guess they didn’t like how the store was being run."

"We genuinely always got our work done as a store, we just lived in a crummy area and the customers would wreck the store a lot."

"Anyways they ended up demoting the manager and putting in this brown nose woman who was the type to write you up when you were 2 minutes late from your break."

"About 35 people worked at that location and I’m not joking about 20 quit in the span of 3-5 days."

"They had to consider closing the location because they were so short staffed."- PriorAgreeable8103

Fed Up With Beurocracy

"Late 90s Pizza Hut."

"The manager got fired for putting too much topping on pizzas."

"Corporate had just adopted this ultra-strict regime of making the cooks weigh every topping on every pizza, which took forever and slowed everyone down during busy times."

"He didn't enforce the rules and so they canned him."

"Most of the cooks quit with him in solidarity."

"He was a cool guy who got me my job there."- ToBlayyyve·

Willful Ignorance

"Vaccine mandates was the straw that broke the camels back, but just mask mandates caused a 1/3 to bounce."- basically_anyone

Selling Out

"We got sold to franchise owners."

"They had no respect for what they were doing."

"Wanted us to sell moldy food."

"When one of us put in their notice, the owners literally called her and said 'you need to turn in your keys tonight'."

"It would be a shame if something happened to the store.”

"UMM, WHAT?"

"After about two months, all of us had either gone back to a corporate store or left the company altogether."- ugfuglio69420

Another Casualty Of The Pandemic

"Covid, new managers, short staff."- Wesmom2021

Knew Their Self-Worth

"This is my brother’s story."

"Several years ago he worked as a team lead for a company that was toxic AF."

"Overworked the staff and cut corners on the products."

"Not long after he started there he was already job hunting but not finding anything so he was sticking it out."

"One day they reduced the department by 2/3."

"My brother and the ones kept on staff watched their former coworkers clean out their desks smiling because they were out of hell, with severance."

"Those left behind were going to be stuck with about four peoples’ worth of work to each team member."

"My brother typed up a resignation letter to hand in at the next instance of abuse."

"He didn’t have to wait long."

"The next day the manager and VP called him into a meeting and cussed him out and yelled at him for not being a true leader and told him he better get his worthless team in line."

"Did this in earshot of said team btw."

“'You’re absolutely right', my brother said. 'I’m going to be the leader my team needs starting now'.”

"He pulled his resignation out of his back pocket, threw it on the table, and walked out."

"His remaining teammates all got up and walked out with him and left the manager and VP with no engineers at all in the company."

"As you can imagine the company didn’t last long after that."- AgentCarmichael20

Sometimes, when at a loss of how to handle things, the best thing to do is just get up and leave.

Though, one does hope those that chose to skip work for a concert weren't planning on going back to work the next day.