17. Pointing Fingers
As a commercial construction Superintendent, I couldn't get the support needed from our project managers. I was thrown under the bus for several deficiencies that I had pointed out earlier in the project—all of which were ignored.
My 30 years of experience meant nothing against their 3-5 years in the industry.
I was tasked with developing a safety program that was never enforced or followed, as well. Three sites were nailed by OSHA. I got the blame for that as well.
One evening, on a whim, I decided I'd had enough. I was done—and I was going to make them pay.
I restored my work laptop, tablet, and phone to factory settings.
The next morning, I removed all of my belongings from the site trailer. I then locked it up, sent them a "goodbye and thank you very much" message, and tossed the keys into a retention pond.
I got a call four hours later from the company I now work for, and eight days later, I had moved to a new state for twice the salary and a lot less stress.
Flickr, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
18. That's Life
My mom was in the final stages of cancer. During that time, I wanted to be around my parents as much as possible. I tried to ask for leave using the FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act) but the sheriff and chief basically said, "That’s life", and declined the leave plan.
I quit and found another job and was able to have a good final six months with her before she passed.
19. Short Notice
Before my shift started, I walked into my boss's office and told him, "I quit".
He asked, "You're giving your two weeks' notice"?
I said, looking at my watch, "I'm giving my ten minutes' notice".
20. Successful Move
After being interviewed and offered a new job, I handed in my two-week notice the following morning (I worked 11 pm-7 am).
The general manager tried to compete with the new job and I simply laughed in his face. I told him that in order for me to even consider staying, he would have to give me a $9/hr raise, paid time off, and health insurance. He made a hateful comment, so I took my notice and changed the final date to the current date and told him to have fun working seven nights a week.
The new job was a lateral move, meaning it was the same exact job, same hours, but just with a better company. I'm still with this company, have had 12 raises, and just celebrated 10 years, with management having food delivered to me every night for a week.
21. A Polished Farewell
I worked at a stupid fake French cafe where the manager was an idiot. He made a point of giving me the lousiest jobs just to show that he was in charge.
One day, he pulled me off the floor—where I earned tips as a server—and made me polish silver for hours. He kept throwing every second piece back at me, and telling me to do it over. He kept saying, "Missed a spot".
So I walked out—and kept the apron. I kept the beautiful black apron with the embroidered logo and still wear it to this day, whenever I cook.
I also invoiced the owner for my outstanding pay and informed him that his manager was not up for the job. The owner begged me to reconsider but I told him nope.
Freepik, Drazen Zigic
22. A Good Ride
I took the taxi home after being wrongfully dismissed. I then tipped the taxi driver $250 on company expense.
23. Karma Is Funny That Way
I once had a boss who treated me terribly. He and his wife owned a restaurant together.
One day, when he was yelling at me while I was getting the bar ready, I saw him put his password into his phone. It was "space, period, space".
We all knew there was something going on between him and another employee. Several months later, after he wouldn't give me three days off when my niece succumbed to SIDS, I walked out. Then I decided to ruin his life. I bought a $30 burner phone and texted his wife his password.
They got divorced, she kept the steakhouse, and he's had two failed attempts at opening any establishment since then. I make more money than him now and he lives in the crappy apartments down the road from me.
24. Truth Revealed
My old boss, who was one of the best managers I had ever worked with, quit. He was driven out by his boss, who hated me.
This guy demoted me, and when the company laid off EVERYONE else who knew my product, I insisted that he restore me to my previous status or I'd quit. He did, but he wasn't happy about it.
Eventually, he demoted me again and that's when I found another job. During my exit interview with HR, I spoke at length about how he royally messed up the department and fired many excellent people who were now working for the competition.
A few months later, he was escorted to the door and told never to return. Apparently, the company took a good, long look at him and discovered that he had been holding his meetings with his subordinate managers in a local bar and would sometimes never return to the office.
I don't know whether my discussions with HR had anything to do with their review of his performance, but I'd like to think so.
25. Don't Look Back
The manager told me that the company I worked for owned me and that I had better do what they said or face consequences.
This took place in a meeting with other employees present. I walked out of the store right then and there with the manager screaming at me to get back to work.
26. All Gone Down Hill
I was in line for a promotion after my old supervisor was fired for ethics issues. However, the boss decided to open the requisition, interview, and hire a person all within the two days I was off.
But it gets worse.
Since the person they hired had no experience in my department or field, I was expected to train my new supervisor, and the other new people they also hired.
I did none of that. Instead, I quit and gave my two weeks' notice. I didn't explain a single thing to anyone in those 10 days before I had left.
Supposedly, it took almost half a year to get close to where they were before this all went down.
27. The Final Straw
In high school, I made $8 an hour working in a horrible fast-food joint. The new manager that the corporate owner brought in thought that he was God himself. Nothing was ever good enough. Nobody could ever meet his standards yet he could do no wrong.
If you were on his "good side", you would be spared and he’d overlook your "laziness". The dude was a low-key perv who let the young female high school teens come in late, leave early, and get breaks in exchange for hugs.
My final straw was when he literally stormed at me and called me into his office one day. "Why were you just standing around instead of working"?
I told him that I was waiting for the fries to finish and it had maybe 30 seconds left on the timer.
"You use that time to restock!!!!"
30 seconds?? Like, yeah, lemme just pull a Superman and restock the whole kitchen in 30 seconds.
I told him I was going to college in the fall and couldn’t work between the hours of 10 am to 2 pm. I must’ve told him maybe three to four times. When the following week’s schedule came out, he had me scheduled for Monday through Friday 9-5.
When I told him that I had specially told him that I'd be unavailable during those hours, he gorilla ripped the schedule off the wall and reposted the new one. I went from having a full schedule to 6-10 am on a Sunday.
When the day finally came, I never showed up. I got a call from him at 4 pm, acting all mighty. Heck with that guy. I told him I quit and he retorted, "You cannot use me as a reference"! Wasn't planning on it!
28. Shoddiest By Far
This was by far the shoddiest job I had ever had—long hours, a lot of crunch, and a lot of travel with no company vehicle.
For each job site I had to visit, I'd get about 20 different phone numbers for each person I was communicating with. I had these contacts stored on my company phone, where all the phone numbers were synched up to my personal email account. At some point, management decided that my job was redundant and laid me off without notice and without severance. He didn't realize how much he needed me—but I was ready to show him.
The first thing I did was wipe my company phone clean before handing it back. A few days later, they called me asking where all the contact information was stored".
Sorry, I don't work for you anymore".
29. That's A Wrap
I worked the overnight shift at a gas station/convenience store. It was pretty busy for a small town right off a major highway.
The manager who hired me was great and I enjoyed working for her. When she left, she was replaced by an absolutely horrible, bitter manager. We instantly did not get along. But she was so much worse than I even realized.
One night I was six minutes late, which was a very rare occurrence for me. Her little sidekick tattled on me on his break. She then called the store and went off on me.
Since I worked alone overnight until 7 am, I waited for about an hour after the berating phone call and for a moment when the store was empty. Then I hit the emergency stop for the pumps, locked the front doors, counted my drawer very slowly and carefully for the cameras (so they couldn't accuse me of stealing), left a note saying "I quit" in the drawer, and closed the register back up.
Then I got on the store phone and called the district manager and left a voicemail explaining exactly why I quit and what the nasty manager was up to. I then went to the breakers, shut off the outside lights and most of the inside ones to make the place look like it was closed, and left out the side door which would lock behind me. I got in my car and left.
My quitting in this manner cost the store about $1,500-$2,000 in sales that night.
30. Drastic Cuts
In my senior year of high school, I worked at IHOP. When my direct supervisor left, the general manager took over the scheduling responsibilities. Well, he didn't like me or my two friends who also worked there. So when he posted the new schedule and drastically cut our hours all three of us walked out and quit at the same time.
He had to fill four or five weekday shifts and cover all of our weekend hours because we all worked the weekend morning rush.
31. No Defense
After I quit, the company withheld $8,000 in pay and hired a lawyer to defend their actions. I hired a law student and we beat them into submission. Take that!
32. Too Late
I scheduled a vacation with three extra days to go on a once-in-a-lifetime trip. My boss rejected my vacation request. I thought about it for a couple of hours and even contemplated quitting but held back. I had a better idea. Then I went into his office and told him, "I'm taking the trip no matter what".
The next morning, my boss met me at Human Resources and gave me a formal written warning. I responded by giving him my two-week notice. They apologized and tried to convince me not to leave but it was too late.
33. Devious Boss
A while back, I quit my job because the boss wouldn't give me time off for a vacation that I had planned nine months in advance. He ended up blacklisting me and gave me horrible references, which kept me from getting any jobs for about a year afterward.
When I found out that he was doing this, I called him out on it. That guy was a nasty human being.
34. I Don't Work Here Anymore
I worked as a mechanic for a commuter airline. The boss wanted me to sign off on a plane preflight inspection. I refused to sign off because the plane was not airworthy. He told me that if I wished to continue working there, then I’d better sign. I was the wrong guy to try that on.
My response to him was, "Then I guess I don’t work here anymore". I then picked up my toolbox and left.
Flickr, Official U.S. Navy Page
35. This Isn't Allowed
I reported the boss to the Inspection department. He was employing more trainees than the legislation allows for a company this size. He was making them work like full-time paid workers, with basically no formation at all.
He got controlled and fined a big amount of money, and had to pay the previous trainee that had worked for him. His company closed for bankruptcy after that.
Sweet justice.
36. Didn't Even Notice
I was an outside salesman who worked hours away from the house. After realizing that my boss wasn't paying me the full commission I was owed, I moved myself and my wife to Europe.
It took four months for him to realize that I was gone.
37. Best Christmas Present
When I worked as a waiter, my manager was always giving us an unwarranted amount of malarkey. She was always rude to us in front of customers, very quick to put us down, and never said thank you for anything.
It was nearing Christmas, and I had just been offered employment by a different company in a role that I actually wanted to pursue with my degree. Then on Christmas Eve, one of the busiest nights of the year, my boss called me incompetent in front of several customers and claimed that she was the only one capable of doing anything in the place.
I turned around and said to her, "If you think you're so good and don't need me, you can shove your job". I then walked out mid-shift. It was one of the most liberating things I've ever done.
What made it better was that I had received a tax reimbursement a few days before so I didn't really need the money I had lost either.
That was a good day.
38. Priceless Reaction
I did home delivery for a furniture company and being one of the more reliable employees, I was always scheduled to work Saturdays. We always had at least one driver call out, so I always ended up with an overloaded truck and a 16-18 hour work day.
My boss would often tell us in meetings that if we thought we could do better, we were wrong and that we would be fired if we were caught applying to competitors. I wished I had recorded him, as that was unlawful.
I ended up getting a better-paying job with a moving company, so rather than give two weeks' notice, I simply showed up on Saturday morning with my uniforms stuffed into two trash bags. I dropped them in front of his desk and told him, "I don't work here anymore", and walked out to cheers from several other drivers. I felt bad that they'd have extra work to do, but it was worth it to see the look on my boss' face.
39. Ladder Of Un-Success
When I was 19, I worked in the deli of a grocery store. I hated my boss. She was a spineless nag who loved to embarrass her least favorite employees in front of customers and managers.
The store held a contest for their employees. Whoever got the most deli tray orders would win a $100 gift card—yeah, woohoo—ladder of success.
One day after she was done condemning me for something, she told me to go answer the phone. I picked it up and it was a lady who wanted 200 fruit/meat/cheese trays ready in a couple of weeks. I couldn't help but laugh.
Well, my boss hated giving me that gift card. When I went to pick it up on my day off, she said "I need you to come in tonight and close". I said that I would but then never showed up. In two days, I had 40 missed calls asking if I was going to show up for work! On top of that, I wasn't the one who had to make those trays. Apparently, a few other people also quit and someone told me she got stuck making most of the trays herself.
40. Burning Bridges
I worked at nights part-time for a gaming cafe. During the day, I worked a regular job elsewhere.
At the launch Call of Duty: Black Ops, I told my boss way in advance that if he was planning on a midnight launch (not selling the game, just having a play party or tournament) that I wasn't going to be available after midnight. He said that it was no problem and that he wasn't going to do anything anyway. Cool beans.
At 11:55 pm, the phone rang and the jerk of a boss was telling me to get down to GameStop ASAP and start handing out flyers for the store, and after that to go back and re-open so we could have a tournament until 3 or 4 am. I reminded him that I had told him that I was only available until midnight. He screamed, "GET THE HECK DOWN HERE"! "No problem", I told him. "I'll be right there".
When I got to the store, I locked up and went home. When I woke up, there were a dozen voicemails that I promptly deleted. The next day, I walked in and handed my key over to the associate who was working.
The awkward part is that my day job is right next door to the cafe. I see the owner almost every day and he would glare at me but wouldn't dare say anything. I also get to call over there a lot to complain about the noise.
41. Do It Yourself
I administered a regional data center, which meant that I single-handedly kept over $100k in revenue flowing every month with no Help Desk, and engineers who were too busy billing out their own blocks to help me. After a little more than a year of going way beyond what I was being paid for, I put in my resignation. I basically stated that I was overworked and needed help if they wanted me to stay. I got a 20% raise, which most people would be thankful for. I didn't want the money, I wanted a staff who I could delegate the tier 1 and 2 stuff to.
I called in sick on a Monday—not really sick, just feeling stressed and crushed under the anxiety of trying to juggle all my projects.
My manager emailed me and said that he really needed me in the office, someone he could rely on in the data center. That did it. The next morning, I cleaned my desk and deleted any personal stuff I had saved. I walked out without saying a word. I went back to my apartment, emailed the bosses and said that I was done, and that they were free to find somebody more reliable.
Within a month my manager quit because he started digging into everything that I had on my plate, and realized that he couldn't or wouldn't do it either.
Over the next six months, they tried to get me to come back three times. I politely declined and started a consulting company with an engineer who had also quit.
Sometimes burning that bridge is necessary.
42. Brutal Announcement
When I was a manager, I was running the floor while another manager was letting an employee go. He was supposed to be watching him to make sure he didn't do anything crazy, but stepped away for a second to call down to say he was bringing him downstairs.
Just then, the employee snuck down the back staircase and into a small office downstairs that had access to a phone. He used the phone to get on the PA system to tell the manager to "suck his balls".
Needless to say, I had to give a lot of discounts to upset customers that day.
Freepik, wayhomestudio
43. A Dismal Approval
I booked a day off work almost a month in advance, which got approved. Then shortly after, I handed in my two weeks' notice. My boss decided to schedule me in for the day I had asked off.
I tried to get others to cover me for that day, which many were happy to do, but the boss said that it had to be my shift.
After finding multiple solutions he wasn’t happy with, I said, "Look, it’s the last day of my last week, I’m not gonna be there that day". He said, "Okay", then updated the schedule and removed all of my remaining shifts.
Freepik,freepik
44. Let's Go
I worked hard over the course of a year to get all my former co-workers I cared about new jobs.
45. Red-Eyed And Outta There
I spent five years working 12-hour rotating night shifts as a security guard in a booth at a factory. It was miserable. I had another job lined up in an office on the following Monday morning.
I knew that my boss—a wannabe cop douchebag—would be coming in at 5:30 am in a mobile patrol car to check in and use the washroom. So I spent the entire night Jamaican hot boxing the bathroom, and smoked my entire supply.
When the boss showed up, I was red-eyed as heck. I simply blew smoke into his face and told him that he could finish the shift himself. I laughed like a maniac then rode my bike home.
46. Enough Is Enough
I worked in the warehouse of Office Depot and planned on quitting for two months.
I finally had enough and put in my two weeks—two weeks before the Back To School sale was starting.
I talked to several of my co-workers who ended up working 88 hours the first week I quit and 70 the next.
47. What A Move
When I worked in retail, on her last day, my former boss typed out a three-page email of grievances, and proceeded to email it to the entire company—that's to every other store, every corporate employee, all the way up to the CEO. After she sent it, she clocked out, and left.
It was truly a fantastic time for me. I was only halfway through my shift at the time but spent the remainder of the day fielding all manner of congratulatory/concerned calls from other stores.
Corporate then proceeded to lock down both the registers as they went through Outlook and tried to remove the email from our system.
48. Joke's On You
I quit Blockbuster because my manager was unbelievably immature and extremely patronizing, and malicious.
Two weeks after I had quit, more than half of the Blockbuster stores shut down (here in the UK), including the one I worked at.
I now have a better job in every aspect. The irony is that my manager came in and applied for the open manager job here. She didn't get it.
49. Epic Departure
On his last night at the restaurant he worked at, my friend waited for the deep fryers to cool down before putting popcorn in them. The next morning, after someone turned them on, they would start popping and making a huge mess everywhere. It was pretty epic.
Flickr, Marco Verch Professional Photographer
50. It Pays To Know
When I was 21, I worked in reception at a tattoo studio. The owner was an absolute imbecile but we all put up with it because there were not many opportunities in our area of work.
He would often try to short-change people, paying in cash and just randomly coming up with "tax" deductions from it. Being in the UK, PAYE applies.
But he didn't know one key detail about me: I had worked in payroll for three years before working in PAYE, so I knew he was lying.
I had access to petty cash, so I ordered some wage packets and a stamp with the company name and logo. Every week, I would write down the figures that he paid us and his "tax" amounts, stamp it with the company stamp, and take it home.
One day, after planning it all out, I stood up to him when he was shouting at everyone, knowing that I'd probably be fired on the spot. Before he had the chance to do so, I told him that he could "stick his freaking job"—man, that felt great.
On my way out, I told him that I would be back in one week for my P45. His partner tried to lie to me, saying I didn’t need a P45 because I didn’t pay "enough tax".
Well, it was then that I sweetly pointed out that I had in fact worked in payroll before and that she needed to provide a P45 or I would report them to the Tax Office. The look on her face was priceless.
In the end, I took all of my "payslips" along with a letter I had prepared on company letterhead which confirmed my employment dates. I took them to the Tax Office and innocently queried about the tax amounts because I thought they might have been incorrect.
With an investigation and my help, they took him for a lot of money. He lost his business and his house and he ended up living in a trailer.
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