One Reddit user wanted to talk to folks who've gotten to live the dream, so they asked:
What's your "Fck this, I quit!" story?
Come, let the heroes tell their tales.
Industrial Drilling
I fractured my orbital socket in an industrial drilling accident. Another employee lost focus at the wrong time was supposed to wait for a hand signal and didn't. We had been working over 90 days straight of 13-14 hour shifts and living in crappy motel a 45 min drive from out work site. We were supposed to be on a rotation were we didn't work more than 3 weeks at a time. It was a close call and could have been a lot worse. I'm glad I "saw it coming" and had time to at least try and get out of the way.
I got sent away after a night in the ER while the rest of that crew continued to work. After spending 2 or 3 days at home the boss called to say that he "needed me in Alaska" in 2 days and that my flight was already booked. Told him I quit right on the spot.
Plot Twist
Was getting screamed at in a meeting by some marketing jerk that was literally demanding my technical group perform magic on a completely unrealistic time schedule with almost no resources. Literally screaming at me in front of about 8 of my peers, calling me incompetent, "just do your job"....all of that.
I stood up, said I refuse to be talked to like that, and left the meeting. Normally if you just get up and leave these types of meetings, you're fired. Boss scheduled a meeting with me later in the afternoon after hearing about it. Figured I'd be walked out and was absolutely ready .. was told they fired the marketing guy.
That was going to be my "eff it, I quit" moment - but the company kept me on and fired the other guy. Pretty happy, it's been a solid place to work ever since.
Thanks, Mom
GiphyMy mom had an 'I quit' moment so she could see me. I was studying overseas and my parents booked a trip to come out at the end of the school term, bringing along my 2 siblings - 1 who lived away from home, the other about to start college.
It was a month long trip, with lots of pre-paid flights, trains, hotels plus it would likely be the last big trip we all took together. Obviously, both my parents requested and secured approved PTO months in advance. It was the month of June - typical summer vacation.
A couple days before the trip was to happen, my mom's boss hands her an assignment. Mom hands it back, saying she can't take it on as she has a month long vacation about to start. (My folks don't believe in hyperbole, but trip of a lifetime would be a fair description). Boss says, oh yea, sorry, you can't take vacation anymore. Mom says if you cancel my PTO, I quit. Boss, blank stare.
Mom handed in her notice and left. We had an amazing trip. She got a new job on return.
Better Than Falling Asleep At The Wheel
I was a truck driver working a regional route that required me working nights. So basically I would drive all through the night, deliver a load, sleep through the day, and take a load back to my original place the next night.
The thing is, sleeping during the day at a warehouse where yard dogs (the guys that move trailers around the lot of the warehouse with little tractor deals) were constantly moving stuff around, knocking into my truck, and often times literally waking me up to move my truck.
I was barely getting any sleep and the only time I had to ever get a good nights rest was during the weekend.
So driving to my first delivery, I told my manager I'm taking an extra day off because I'm exhausted and I have to get a few days of sleep. I was literally getting maybe 3-4 hours of solid sleep a day and energy drinks were worthless at this point. They gave me the go ahead, I dropped my delivery, slept as best as I could at the warehouse and picked up the load to take back with a message from my managers telling me to have a good weekend and rest up.
When I was about an hour and half away from my destination, after driving all night for about 8 hours reaching pure exhaustion, I get a message saying "never mind We need you to work this weekend"
Mind you, I know this stuff happens and you sometimes have to pick up the slack of other employees at times. Things happen, I get it and 99% of the time I'm all for helping out other employees and my managers if they need it.
But this was about the third time this happened. I haven't had a good nights sleep in 3 weeks at this point and I kept trying to call my managers or anyone who would answer me, but it was the weekend and no one would respond to their messages or phone calls. I was literally being ignored and I just snapped.
Luckily, the demand for truckers is massive. I mean I get texts non stop asking if I'm in the market because a company needs drivers. I haven't even been in the industry for two years currently and my phone still gets blown up with calls and texts asking if I want to drive again.
So literally all I did was call one of the numbers that would contact me constantly and immediately was hired after 5 minutes of talking on the phone. Sent in a message saying I quit and good luck.
Funny enough THEN they started responding to my messages and tried calling me.
I know it was probably a dick move and I normally would never do that, but I just broke and could not take it anymore.
"Mandatory Non-Paid Vacation"
My first job... I was assigned to a specific area, and I thought I was doing my job well. One Monday, I was pulled in to the office and asked why (whatever thing it was, I don't remember) hasn't been done for the last two weeks. I replied i wasn't aware it was part of my duties. My supervisor said he was putting me on a "mandatory non-paid vacation" for two weeks. No warning, no explanation on why I all of a sudden had to do work for a different department. So I said "don't worry about it, I quit."
It was a lousy job anyway, I was only getting paid 18 hours a week but was doing more than that! Sixteen and stupid, I guess!
Forced
I worked for a group home. We had a difficult group of residents, but the company made things so much worse.
Every resident was 14-22 years old. They had moderate mental development delays (65-75 IQ range), they all had a psychiatric disorder (from severe ADHD to schizophrenia), and they had also all been convicted of a violent sexual crime.
I worked 3rd shift. My normal hours were 10:30pm to 9am. Four days a week.
About six months into working there, they did a massive layoff.
They went down to bare minimum staff to student ratio each shift, with nobody extra to call in if needed. That meant if someone called out, a person on the previous shift was forced to stay.
It got to the point, where I was being forced 3 out of 4 shifts per week. And not just a few hours. I was working 10:30 pm to around 4:30 pm the next day, and still having to come in for my following shift. I had an hour commute each way.
So I'd get home at 5:30 pm from a 16 hour shift, and have to leave the house again four hours later.
Managed that for about a month. Then one morning I was told last minute I was being forced. Told them I was done and walked out.
That month took a huge toll on my mental health. Swear it took me like a year to recover.
In Training
GiphyA little Greek Restaurant I worked at early in high school.
Got hired, and spent the first two days cleaning everything the owner and son were to lazy to clean. Years worth of old grease in the deep fryer's interior, mold in the fridges, stains in the bathrooms etc. Just fcking gross.
I asked about payday on the end of the second day and it went something like this:
"So, how does payday work here? Is it weekly, bi-weekly, what?"
"You are on training, if we like the job you do we will hire you with pay".
Confused, I ask "So you're saying that you're not going to pay me for cleaning years worth of mold, grease, and bathroom stains?"
"No, you will be paid for work once your training is done"
"Oh! Ok. F*ck this, I quit"
How Was Your Weekend
After taking a few days off work while my father was having a brain tumor removed (and still checking emails and attending conference calls from the hospital) my boss gave me a new project.
She gave me a Monday morning deadline for a project that would take 6-8 days to complete - on a Thursday afternoon. I worked 16 hours a day to get it done. When we met on Monday she asked how my weekend was: "I worked all weekend." Then she asked if I got to visit my dad in the hospital "No, I didn't get a chance because i worked all weekend."
A couple weeks later she pulled me into a meting and said "I feel like you were resentful because you had to work and I feel like I was really good when your dad was sick, maybe you're just tired. Are you tired?"
She'd also make comments when I would leave the office on time - not early, on time. "It's great that you just get up and go when your day is over, like I have to go because I have a daughter, but you don't have any kids and you still just leave at the end of the day"
um yeah, i don't live here. i don't go home and sit in a dark room counting the hours until i get to come back here. i'm also not curing cancer, nothing we do here matters to anyone outside of here. i give you 100% when i'm here, but when my day is done, it's done.
I no longer work there.
Tire-d
I worked for a big chain tire store in a very rich part of town for a while. I was overqualified for the job, but its what was hiring. One day I get a call saying another tech got fired for failing a pee test.
I get in and our lead tech comes in with a torn bicep and has to be gone for a few months.
So I'm now the most knowledgeable person in the shop, taking on a ton of extra duties and extra hours. So working 60+hrs a week as the only tech with ANY diagnostic abilities I ask for a raise/promotion. That's not what happened.
Instead, the guy that was hired on a week earlier, was an amazing tire buster but couldn't do any mechanical repair past changing an air filter, got a double promotion and a dollar per hour raise.
Put in my notice on the spot.
- xJD88x
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Bait And Switch
Got a summer job while I was in high school at a place that made fibreglass tanks. I was told I'd be doing grounds keeping and yard work. Figured I'd scored an easy gig of bombing around on a ride-on mower and whatnot.
NOPE.
The first day I show up, in a t shirt and jeans, I was told the yard equipment 'wasn't 'ready'. So they had me cut raw fibreglass for 8 hours with an exacto-knife and no ppe. Being a dumb kid who didn't know any better, I didn't immediately quit and did this for three more days. At least after the first day I'd brought my own gloves and long sleeve shirt.
On day three they were doing tank coatings. So about ten feet away from me are two dudes in full PPE. We're talking coveralls, rubber gloves, glasses, face shields, and respirators. Ten feet away from me. In a poorly ventilated room. Spraying the exterior of a tank with presumably fibreglass coating.
I only made it a few hours before having to go to the bathroom to puke. I was told to quit being a p*ssy and go back out on the floor. That's when I, fortunately, had a moment of not being a stupid kid and said "I quit" and walked home.
Both parents were mad when I told them I'd quit. Joke's on them though because a few years later that company killed two dudes. A guy asphyxiated while working inside one of the tanks and the person that tried to rescue him also ended up dying. Whole place got shut down permanently.
Google?
Joined a call center with the obvious shady pay structure. They said the calls are inbound so I thought hey that's not too bad then. Turns out the inbound calls were generated by their robocall system indirectly implying that they were google but never saying so and we were directed to use some dubious answer if someone asked 'Are you google?'
After getting yelled at and cussed out and constantly getting people who had been called many times before and were clearly irate, I just got up and left in the middle of the day.
I also complained to google that these guys were pretending to be google. And these guys were scared of getting complaints like that.
Donut Strep
Had a super s****y job at a donut shop. I was promised a raise, which I never received.
We always worked alone at the shop, so I never got to know anyone else, never got their phone numbers. Yet the non-written policy was that you would find someone to cover your shifts.
One day, I woke up and knew immediately that I had strep throat. Went to the doctor and he confirmed that it was strep, and it was really bad. Worst I have ever had it. So knowing that I was contagious for at least 2 days, and knowing that I shouldn't be around people or food, and am not even able to speak, I texted my boss.
I didn't have a shift scheduled until the next day. Told her I won't be in for at least a week because of my strep. She told me I will have to find someone to cover my shifts. I told her that's not possible because I don't have anyone's number, I can't speak, and in all honesty was in so much pain I just wanted to pass out. She told me that if I cannot find someone to cover, I will have to come in. And if I don't come in I won't have a job. I replied with "cool, guess I don't have a job then"
I returned my gear 2 weeks later once I had recovered. Never spoke again
- [reddit]
Denial
Office Space GIF by 20th Century Fox Home EntertainmentGiphyKinda long, sorry. I was a manager at a company where the executives were ineffective. I worked 60 hours a week most of the time and had to do all of my director's duties because he didn't understand our systems. The work environment was also pretty hostile and passive aggressive.
People cried on the job daily in other departments, slightly less in mine. Managers and staff would snap at other departments the same way the executives did because of the stress. I tried to take care of my department and make sure they weren't being abused or taken advantage of.
I had three days leave for a death in the family, but had to work every day from home and the funeral itself. It was especially vexing because it was to re-do the same thing every day that my boss would just forget to complete and need done again the next day. I brought this to his attention, as well as all the other issues, and he said he would try to do better. Months went by and it got worse.
Finally, our team sat down with him and told him things needed to change. I told him that the environment was more hostile and aggressive than ever and the team agreed. He told me that was my perception and we needed an attitude change, then left for a meeting (which I had provided him the data for). I cleared out my desk and left, quit with HR.
For me the kicker is that he kept assigning me tasks and insisted that I was still working there for days. Never been more relieved to quit in my life.
Leaving For School
My old boss had been emotionally/mentally manipulative to the staff. There was a high turnover rate and it always came back to them. It came to the point where we staff members were wondering how they weren't reported (we worked at a daycare). I'd been there for 2.5 years and can honestly say it was like a roller coaster.
What got me to quit was the fact that I was being yelled and told off for things that had nothing to do with my work and had to do with another staff member. By the end of it I had enough and was getting very annoyed by the situation and decided I'll go back to school. I got accepted to a college program and gave in my 2 weeks.
I asked if I could tell the parents that I'll be leaving and they told me that it wouldn't be appropriate.
At that moment I knew that I really didn't care.
So I told the other staff this they said 'Yeh no, this won't do' and proceeded tell everyone that I was leaving for school and the parents and staff members gave me gifts. My boss, on the other hand, ignored my existence and I gave zero fcks about it :)
Nights Crying Over Physics And Algebra
I have struggled for 3 years of my high school getting academic awards and working to attend a recognition event. This semester, I found myself doing great, making A's, and getting that recognition.
Until the pandemic, which made the school discard all the scores since we're "repeating from scratch after the lockdown."
I lost hope. My restless nights crying over physics and algebra were wasted. I feel so unmotivated now and that made me say "Fck this, I quit!"
When Basic Sanitation "Wasn't Important"
When I was a young teenager, the only job that would hire kids under 16 was dishwashing and food-prepping at a local restaurant. I started to get irked when I realized they made their pizza sauce from scratch by sticking THEIR ENTIRE BARE ARM into the bin so they could squeeze the tomato chunks away. I had to do this several times, and got grossed out thinking about arm hair and skin cells even though I washed it. First strike.
One busy Friday night, the mostly toothless crackhead-looking chef lost the nicotine gum she had been chewing. We never found it. Could be in someone's colon to this day. Second strike.
Finally, 3 months into the job, one of the workers came over with their big tub of barbecue sauce. It was Sweet Baby Ray's in a container similar to a milk jug, a LOT of barbecue sauce. This woman, I swear on my life, sets it down in front of me and says, "I've been working here for 9 months, and I've never seen anyone wash this. So you probably should." I open it, and there's thick LAYERS of hardened, crusty barbecue coating the inside. I had to use a little tool that resembled a toothbrush, but with wire bristles, to scrape it off. The blokes had been refilling it for months without rinsing it out. Took me almost an hour to fully clean, and I got in trouble for falling behind in dishes by doing something "that wasn't important." Third strike, I was outta there.
I quit after the boss called me into his safe room to lecture me about arguing with my coworkers that it was disgusting and should've been done a long time ago.
Save The Wood, Ignore The Injury
I accepted a job for minimum wage at a sawmill.
Spent the morning there running the timber through the mill without gloves and hearing protection. Neither was offered by the company. During the half hour lunch break I couldn't get my ears to stop ringing.
Went back to work, started working again and injured my hand. I started bleeding (just a little) and got a but of blood on a piece of lumber. The boss was right there and started walking over right away.
I was explaining that I wasn't really hurt, but he walked right past my hand and examined the wood. During the afternoon break I got in my car and went home. Never got paid for that.
3 Weeks
I was working for a landscaping company and had to be there really early every day. Started on a Monday. We were supposed to get paid every week. Thursday morning was supposed to be payday; but not for me because they held the first week.
Thursday morning came around and the supervisor came out to the job site and told the other guys on the crew that they weren't going to get paid again. They complained that they hadn't been paid in 3 weeks.
Before the supervisor even finished his argument I walked over to my car and went home. Didn't even say goodbye. Got a check for that 6 weeks later.
It Changed Overnight
I had a good job with a local theater, but it went under from mismanagement so I grabbed the first job I could find - retail at a pet store. Didn't pay well, but it hired, so it was better than nothing.
I grew up on a farm, had worked retail before, I'm good with register, and I believe in giving my job my best, so I quickly became the store leader's favorite out of a sea of teenagers trying to have a fun part time job.
Worked there for two years with 0 problems. Loved my job, loved my coworkers, still didn't pay much and it was a 30min commute, but I had no other social life in the area aside from my wife, so I had no problem staying.
All of a sudden my store leader was transferred after another store's manager walked out. Normally, another manager I liked would have been promoted - but as this was unexpected he had just been promoted elsewhere, and they had to get the 3rd in command manager to become the store leader.
Third in command is someone who is hyper-dedicated to his job. Hospitals wish their doctors cared as much as this retail monkey.
Everything went from a fun and casual atmosphere to working on a chain gang over night. Everyone hated him, everyone complained, and shit rapidly escalated as we found he had a horrible temper. He wrote up an 80 year old for coming in 5 minutes late after church, broke our only store phone in a rage after someone lost the other one, broke his own watch throwing it at an employee, etc.
Somehow I avoided his wrath for months, until the old manager asked if I could transfer stores to work with him again. I told him I would think about it, but I liked my coworkers and they asked me not to go. Few days later, after I've told my new manager I probably won't take the offer, my wife drops me off at work.
I text her, telling her when to pick me up, and my new manager comes into the BREAK ROOM to yell at me for being on my phone on the clock. I apologize. Hours later I'm responding to my wife saying she'll come for me, in a back room, and he bursts in to yell at me again. Turns out he had spent the entire day following me around to make sure I didn't text again.
Told him mid-scream I would be transferring. He spent the next two weeks begging me to stay, but I stuck it out and went to the new store.
Made new friends at the new store. Got a promotion a YEAR LATER, because it turns out the d-bag manager had written me up without telling me and I couldn't get promoted for a year over it.
Pretty much all of my old coworkers have left now, and he apparently made another manager cry hysterically and quit on the spot so I'm damn glad I transferred.