20 People Who Taught Us a Lesson on How to Quit a Bad Job

Work is a place where one spends a considerable amount of time during the day. A good work environment makes it a more pleasant experience, but on many occasions, the reality is not as we would like it to be. A boss who refuses to pay what is due or a manager who is unable to grant a day’s leave due to the death of a close family member: there are situations that can get on any employee’s nerves.

At Now I’ve Seen Everything we found several stories of people who decided to take a huge step by leaving jobs where they didn’t feel comfortable.

• After working non-stop, I was promised an additional bonus. I received a “low performance” review conveniently timed a day before my bonus was to be paid. The low performance feedback canceled my bonus. Given all the other bad things I was putting up with, I broke and quit. I had a nice month off and my new job pays significantly more. Never work for people that don’t appreciate you, there are always others that will. © grasshenge / Reddit
• My grandfather, who I considered as a father, passed away after a long stay in hospital. We were closer than he was with his own kids, and our bond was quite special. I spoke to my manager about getting the day of his funeral off, since I was organizing part of the arrangements, and having a day or two of bereavement leave, and he agreed. The day of the funeral finally comes and the staff start calling me, leaving me messages asking why I’m not at my shift, and telling me, while I’m in a suit hosting family members at the funeral home, that I have to find someone to replace me or face repercussions. Needless to say, I told them to figure it out, and never looked back. © Cavalleria-rusticana / Reddit
• Back in 1998 I was selling computers over the phones. People were not quite ordering online yet. Anyway, it was so easy. I was making close to $100k a year because of how the commission structure was. I was living in Austin as a 23-year-old. So one day my manager asks me to train a new team of salespeople because I was one of the top sellers on the floor every month. I turned this group into the best sales team. My crew of 8 were all in the top 20 every week and were doing great. After 2 months, I show up on a Monday and none of the salespeople are there except my team and a bunch of other new faces I hadn’t seen before. Turns out the company didn’t like paying commissions and health insurance and 401ks, so they fired all the salespeople and replaced them with “Temp” workers making $12 an hour. So I decided to quit. © Raspberries-Are-Evil / Reddit

• I worked for a bakery. The owner’s son comes in, walks past the counter and into the bathroom. He comes out a few minutes later without acknowledging me or my coworker, gets into his car, and drives away. We both looked at each other then opened the door only to find this guy had literally s#it all over the toilet seat and the toilet paper holder. I called the owner, told her what happened and she told me, “Deal with it.” So I asked my coworker if she wanted to clean it up because I wasn’t going to. She declined and I told her I was walking out. She did as well. We locked up the store and told the owner we quit but would reconsider staying if her son came back to clean up his own mess. She yelled and berated us for 20 seconds before I said goodbye and hung up. © Edge80 / Reddit
• I worked for a store that sells phones. 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 backup 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 which eventually lead to an investigation by the government. © Jim105 / Reddit
• At 17, I was a young line cook at an upscale Italian restaurant. I was picking everything up so quickly I knew all the stations on the line within 10 months of hiring. I was getting minimum wage (at the time $7.25/hr) and asked for a $1/hr raise to reflect my diverse capabilities. Got denied and asked the chef when I could get it then. She said, “You’re too young for a raise, just be happy with minimum wage.” In response, I said I may have to start looking elsewhere for a job that’ll pay me what I’m worth. She then said, “Don’t you know how expendable cooks are? If you leave I can replace you on the spot.” So I did. A Sunday evening dinner service, very busy, at the height of the night, me and my friend who I got hired took off our aprons and walked off the line towards the front door. © LonnieJaw748 / Reddit

• Worked as a cashier in a local shop. One night 2 guys came at me with knives trying to get in the till. I just walked away and said have at it as it wasn’t worth the minimum wage to get into it with a couple of guys waving knives at me. After they ran out of the store I picked up my mobile and called the police then called the store manager. The next day, the district manager meets me as I turn up for my shift the very next day, her first words were it was very unprofessional of me to be on my phone while at work. I laughed at her and told her she could take this as my notice, and walked out. © Voidsleets / Reddit
• I got mugged on a delivery for a pizza restaurant, 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. © Minimum_Reputation48 / Reddit
• 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#it 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 / Reddit

• I worked at a burguer restaurant when I was 16. We used to get a free burger with small fries and a drink for our lunch break. One day when I went on break, the franchise owner was there and when he noticed I asked for cheese on the burger he attempted to make me pay for the whole meal because cheese wasn’t free. I thought he was joking so I laughed and started walking towards the break room until he yelled at me not to walk away from him in front of customers and my coworkers. I couldn’t believe it, this full-grown adult successful businessman was hounding at a 16-year-old for a slice of cheese. Told him I wasn’t gonna pay, put the food down, and walked out. They tried calling me to come to work that weekend I told them no thanks and never went back. © _nino / Reddit

• This happened to my wife. She was at work when her mom called to say my wife’s grandma had died. My wife, sobbing, told her manager that she needed to go home. The manager said, “If you leave now, don’t bother coming back.” My wife took off her work apron, handed it to the manager, and said “I’ll come by for my final paycheck.” The manager had the nerve to call and pester her at home: “So you’re not covering your shift tomorrow?” No, Frank. © GummyKibble / Reddit
• 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 badly 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. © Mercutio199 / Reddit

• I was asked to lie to parents and cover up a kid failing (in elementary school) by support staff. When I confronted the principal about it, he said that she was just doing her job and I was not a team player for not doing so. So I explained the situation. Same response, I should have helped in covering it up. As soon as the kids went home, I started emptying my desk. © GiveMeFalseHope / Reddit
• I worked as a manager in this really awesome cafe/bar, totally relaxed vibe, local artwork on the walls. Fast forward 3 years and the owner became pregnant with twins and decided that she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, so she sold the place to a young guy who purchased it as a gift for his fiancée. It soon became apparent that he did this because she couldn’t actually hold down a job due to even the most simplest of tasks being entirely beyond her. It took me FOUR WEEKS to teach her how to use the coffee machine. Later she announced that they were going to be redecorating so we would either have to take a week off unpaid or use our holiday time. Came back a week later and we totally didn’t recognize the place, she informed us that she could run the place without us so she cut out our hours. Not gonna lie, I was fuming, so I took my apron off, placed my keys on the counter, and said that as we didn’t have a contract I didn’t have to give any notice that I quit. Then promptly walked out and never went back again. The place closed down within 3 months. © Justmeandmygirls / Reddit
• I had a boss scream, “This is a dictatorship and I’m the dictator” in a meeting while slamming his fist on the desk. © Eclectic211 / Reddit

What inconvenience has been intolerable enough to make you quit a job?