As a teenager I worked at a national pizza chain. One day a month was “customer appreciation day.” Basically, instead of making pizzas as they were ordered, we just cranked them out all day and sold them for super cheap to walk-in customers.
It was chaos.
The promotion was crazy popular and on top of taking regular orders, we just had to keep making as many walk-in pizzas as possible. The oven in the center of the room had a conveyer belt. Pizza went in one end, and by the time it came out the other it was cooked. But if you failed to catch it in time while you were handling a million other things, it would just fall on the floor and make an enormous mess.
Every time we did this, there would come a moment when I stared blankly out the window and fantasized about just leaving. Just walking right out the door and never looking back.
The people in these Reddit stories did what I didn’t have the courage to do: they just. Quit. Here’s why.
1. Cut me some slack
I had a very stressful job and was expected to answer Slack messages from my boss at any time, or I would be fired. He was in a different time zone so often I would be woken up at 3 am being yelled at to do something.
One day in the office, he was talking s**t about me on Slack and accidentally posted it to a channel I was in. I was killing myself for this guy and he didn’t even appreciate it.
I packed up and left, best thing I’ve ever done.
– desert_nole
2. The straw that broke the camel’s back
Not on the spot, but I was passed over for a promotion for a role I’d been doing unofficially for six months. There was no official position for it when I started doing it; it was one of the manager’s responsibilities and they “delegated” it to me. Honestly I was happy to do it and I was frequently praised for how efficient and thorough I was doing it.
So when an official position opened up to do it full-time, I seemed like the obvious choice. A bunch of my coworkers didn’t even apply for it because they told me they didn’t think there was any point since I was obviously getting the job.
They gave it to a guy that worked in a different department and had no experience using the complicated system required for that job.
Then the manager asked me to train him in it. Except I wasn’t really “asked.” I was told in a way that sounded like it was asking. We called it being “voluntold.”
I refused. I said to the manager “if I’m not good enough to get the job, I’m not good enough to teach someone else how to do it.”
The manager then accused me “throwing a temper tantrum.” I quit about a week later. Honestly that wasn’t the only reason. That was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. Even the other managers couldn’t believe he said that.
– adpqook
3. Serve your probation
Total opposite but it’s still a good story imo. I worked at a very dysfunctional family owned company.
They put me on probation because the family member(my boss) in charge of IT convinced everyone else he was a genius and could do no wrong, so whenever something happened bad related to IT he’d just blame his underlings and everyone in power agreed with him.
A few weeks later when I got the dream job I have now, I said in the exit interview one of the main reasons I was leaving was because I was tired of being on probation for 3+ months. They’d actually taken me off probation but never told me.
I still would’ve left regardless, but the fact that they never got around to saying “hey were not about to fire you” blows my mind.
– Mercutio199
4. Sweet freedom
My first job in high school was washing dishes at a pub, I got it so I could buy my gf a necklace that she wanted as a Christmas present.
Come NYE they decided to put one person on dishes for a packed evening, I was quickly inundated. Close at 10pm and at 11pm I’m still doing dishes and this fat b**ch chef is watching me laughing about how “I’m not gonna be able to spend the new year moment with my little girlfriend”.
I just said “I just remembered I don’t need to do this” and walked out of that place and never went back.
I’ll never know that freedom again haha.
– Holocaustco
5. Anyone but Tina
I had worked for a cleaning company and I had a total disaster of a person named Tina as my manager for about 4 months.
Tina would work the night shift with a crew and basically did nothing. She would leave the majority the work for me to do during the day when it was a lot harder to do as I had my own list of duties as well as whatever she left for me from her own list. I was teetering on the edge of quitting but I hadn’t found a replacement when one day I got a call from head office that Tina had quit and for about a month the job was exceptionally better and I effectively was my own boss.
Things were going remarkably smooth for again, about a month when I got a text message from Tina asking me to do a bunch of extra stuff. I called the owner and they told me that Tina had approached them about coming back and that they were rehiring her in her former position and I literally just packed up and walked out about an hour into my shift. I had zero intention of working another minute for that women and held to it.
– TerrapinRecordings
6. Pure corruption
The debt relief law firm I worked for stole $19,000.00 in incentives for a young family that was in distress and losing their home.
It was soaked up in bogus attorney fees and high-fived about in the office.
– scooty-boots
7. The big short
I was hired to do payroll and accounts at a small welding/engineering firm. Entering the timesheets and checking them against rosters and I realised that the tight-a**e owner had been shorting employees almost 3 hours each week by not paying them for toolbox talks and all that stuff.
Printed the proof, told the boys in the workshop, and walked straight out.
Emailed the resignation from my car.
– Fish_in_a_Chicken
8. The ultimate quitting line
I work underground and it isn’t for everybody, terrible environment and what not.
This particular individual starting working and after a few weeks decided that it wasn’t for him. Bad conditions and hostile supervisor.
He approached the boss at the morning meeting and told him that he wasn’t going underground and that he was quitting. The boss told him that he had to give him 2 weeks notice and without missing a beat the guy replied: “for the next 2 weeks you’re gonna notice that I’m not here”, turned around, packed his shit and left.
Was never heard from again.
– Numerhasit
9. Know your rights
I worked for a placement agency at a manufacturing facility.
I had worked 7 of my 8 hour day when one of the supervisors came by to ask anyone on the crew I was on if they would stay for another 4 hours. We all looked at each other and politely declined. They came back one more time to ask and again, we declined. Then they came back and demanded that one of us stay behind for the 4 hour shift or ALL of us were going to be written up for attendance.
This p**sed everyone off but because we were work placement instead of employees, we were unsure who to talk to. Some of the other crew told the supervisor they can’t because they have to pick up their kids, etc. When the supervisor left, the crew had multiple people saying they can’t get written up again or they would lose their job. I had scheduled a dinner with my in-laws so I called the husband and told him the situation and that I would stay. Told the crew, I’ll stay – don’t worry. Told the supervisor, got put on another crew that had work for 1 hour but was required to stay for the full 4 hours.
Next day, I called the main office and explained the situation. They said they had a representative onsite due to this manufacturer being such a large client. Called the onsite representative, and explained the situation. Was told they “have a lot of attendance issues”. Again, explained I had never had attendance issues and everyone on my crew was threatened with being written up for not staying 4 hours AFTER their scheduled shift. Onsite representative still defended the actions of the supervisor and threw attitude at me.
Fine, I don’t need you – I quit. And that’s the story of how I learned about my workers rights and workplace harassment!
– Darielas44
10. The upsell
Had a job about 10 years ago doing tech support for an ISP for a week. The pay was minimum wage + bonuses you earned for selling people stuff. And by stuff I mean terrible, overpriced services that you can get online for free.
I was still in the phase of training where I had a supervisor listening in on my calls and after a call, he told me I should have paused to try and sell him some sh**ty antivirus service before I fixed his problem.
Handed in my headset right there. Felt so skeevy when people call you for help and you have to turn into a telemarketer.
– ElToberino
11. That’s like $3.50/hour
When I was 16, I was a bus boy off the books. Made $250 a week working 35 hours a week because they paid per day as opposed to per hour.
Manager comes to me and says they’re restructuring how the pay scale is and said he wanted me to work less days, same amount of hours but for half the pay.
I made him repeat to me his plan and once he confirmed it I said give me money for the week because I’m leaving.
– dirty_dan_4563
12. See you in court
I worked for t-mobile store (authorized reseller, not an actual dealer).
One week, I had an amazing week (sold 55 phones, brand new activations on a business account with 55 high end phones at that time). When I got my next check, they said my paperwork was not in order and thus they couldn’t pay me.
As a side note, they always told us to make copies of all paperwork in case this happened so you can show it to the manager and get it resolved within a day.
I went over my back up paperwork with my boss, he said everything looked to be in order and he would have the office cut me a check. I went to the office, and they told me it was still not in order. I immediately gave them my store key and quit on the spot.
I did go through collections and they did settle before I took them to court.
The company did go out of business after a few years because they tried that with many other employees and eventually lead to an investigation by the government (according to an old coworker I bumped into years later).
– Jim105
13. The bait and switch
Being hired to sell cars, then in the middle of training I get pulled aside and told I’m being moved to lot attendant.
That position paid minimum wage and I didn’t even get a chance to be on the sales floor.
Left and never went back.
I was in my mid twenties at the time and was trying to find a possible career. Didn’t have time for that bulls**t bait and switch.
– BurghFinsFan
14. No sympathy
I got mugged on a delivery for dominos, and came back to the shop crying and panicked, had my phone, wallet, and pizza taken, told my manager what happened.
“Anon, are you hurt?”
“No, but I lost my phone and wallet, I need to call the police”
“No time for that, here’s your next delivery.” (It was like 2 blocks from where I was just mugged)
I just went home, the police never really did much to get my phone and wallet back, not like they could.
– Minimum_Reputation48
15. Getting dumped
I was working for a financial company in socal for about a month at the time. It was a little stuffy, but otherwise ok.
Until my manager came over asked why I took so long in the bathroom. Literally, 5 minutes to take a dump. He mentioned something about having to count it as a break and me being more careful in the future or something.
I laughed, handed him my badge and left.
– m0rhg
Yeah, I think I would have walked out too.
What’s your big quitting story?
Tell us in the comments.