We've all worked a job that's made us miserable. Because it's so hard to land a job nowadays, we often turn a blind eye to the things that peeve us, just so we can remain employed. However, there are just some things that will push us over the edge, whether it's a horrible boss, unsatisfactory workplace conditions or an insufficient wage.
The following stories were submitted by people all over the world who couldn't take their jobs anymore and raged quit on the spot. If you've ever had to deal with unreasonable situations at your place of work, you'll definitely relate to these frustrating tales.
Don't forget to check the comment section below the article for more interesting stories!
#1 Family Over Everything, Always
I was working at a restaurant that was, to put it bluntly, atrocious. The place was almost always empty apart from the owner's friends who would make it their life’s mission to be incredibly rude to myself and other staff members. Somehow I stuck it out for 6 months. The final straw came at Christmas when I wanted to travel back home to spend time with my family (as my grandmother was sick at the time), and their response was "You have to decide what’s more important, your job or your family." I told them that was the dumbest question I’d ever heard and walked out.
#2 Different Priorities
I once had a manager at Panera Bread who would constantly be complaining about how the high school employees' schedules were so tight. I quit the job in my senior year when I was also enrolled in college courses and had basically no free time. She rolled her eyes when I handed in my two-week notice and said something like: "I don't understand why you're all like this, when I was in school I worked full time."
#3 The Last Straw
I worked at a Red Lobster for a few years in college. Didn't really have any complaints; it was what it was. Right after graduating, I moved to another town and was able to transfer to one near my new location. Worst experience of my life. The management was horrible and the location was in a relatively upscale part of town, so there were MUCH better alternatives for seafood and the customers were always snobby.
We were required to be in 15 minutes prior to the start of our shift for a pre-shift meeting and change over and stuff. Thing is, you couldn't clock in until five minutes before your scheduled start time. Like every other bad company, Darden, the then-owner of Red Lobster, wanted to run skeleton crews to save money so we were always scrambling. I'd often come in and would already have seated tables waiting for me. The host manager's mentality was, "Well, they need to be here 15 minutes early anyway so if they can seat them 15 minutes early. Nothing seemed to ever clarify why this was wrong on many levels.
One day, I came in and already had a seated table. I went over and greeted them immediately. They were reasonably upset. I quickly went to the bar to ask them to make some drinks (I couldn't enter them in the system since I couldn't clock in yet). While I was waiting for the drinks, I was venting to a fellow server about it and mentioned. "If they seat me again before I can even clock in, I'm done." Well before I could even finish the sentence, they had seated me again.
I told the servers on that shift that it was nice to have worked with them and I made sure to let BOTH tables know they were seated in a section that didn't even have a server yet because the company didn't want to pay for a full staff and that they should dine at restaurants that actually cared about them having a good experience. I walked out with no regrets and I'll never give Darden a dime of my money ever again.
#4 Overnight Nightmare
I worked an overnight job. During the holiday season, we took all the overtime we could get —working 18- to 20-hour days, working after only having four hours off, whatever. It was all legal in the state I live in, and it's not critical or cerebral work so there was no harm—we were basically just lumps of flesh in a uniform. That was fine for a few months—I bought a bunch of extra stuff with it. But I got burned out after about four or five months straight of it, so I just started turning it down.
Then, the manager started making it mandatory. I told him no and appealed to his manager to somehow get the mandatory overtime revoked for a while. Then, suddenly one day, I arrived to work to the other overnight guys being moved elsewhere and I was left to pick up their slack. I texted the manager immediately and told him I couldn't do it. He stated that it was mandatory and if I didn't do it, I'd no longer have the job. He'd do me a "favor" this one time and move the other overnight guys back so I wouldn't have to stay over. They were legitimately shocked when I didn't show up the next night, or ever again.
#5 Insensitive To Injury
This happened two weeks ago. I was going out with some friends and I tore my ACL. I told my boss I couldn’t come in for a while because of this ( I’m a chef so there was no way I could work with a torn ACL) however my boss failed to understand that and said that if I didn’t come in the next day I would be let go. I quit on the spot.
#6 A Bad Company All-Around
There were a couple of things building up to the last straw. Mainly, I was the supervisor of my crew, but the boss was "getting around to the paperwork" that would confirm my title change and pay raise for 3 months. Also, I was supposed to get full medical benefits, but the day I quit, the benefits were "in the mail" for seven months. The last straw was when the company had approaching deadlines and the scumbag management staff was getting desperate, they kept cutting out everyone's breaks and harassing people out of filing first-aid reports.
Someone in my crew was starting to get heat rash, but the boss was standing in the shade glaring us down so we wouldn't take breaks. After my co-worker collapsed, I stopped everything and ran to her side to help. The boss came up and said: "Oh, heatstroke? Take five minutes, get water, then get back to work." I exploded and told him he was bad as a manager as he was a person. I helped my coworker gather her things and I gathered mine, then I drove her to the hospital and I never went back.
I immediately filed a safety breach report with WorkSafeBC telling them of every safety rule they broke. And since then, I heard that two others quit. The company is under investigation, and another co-worker asked me to support him in filing a discrimination lawsuit against the company.
#7 Dirty Sales
I worked an inbound cold transfer sales job. You get utility customers from across the USA randomly transferred to get a "confirmation number," but it was mostly to upsell for cable services. I hated it—I would always get pressured to sign up the caller for Dish Network even though no one ever wanted it. One day, my supervisor sat next to me and listened to every call I was doing.
He questioned why I didn't sell an 80-year-old woman AT&T U-verse Triple Play, even when she said she didn't own a computer and just used an antenna. He freaked out. I gave him a blank stare and continued to take calls for the rest of the day, ignoring everything he said. He stormed around while I got 0 sells. I grabbed my phone charger, took my lunch, and never come back.
#8 Bigtime Bias
I was with this firm for one year. An opening in the firm came up and our group was told that we were all going to be given an aptitude test. Whoever scored the highest would get that position that opened. I scored the highest by a significant margin over the next highest score. The position was given to that person and not to me. I asked why and was told that it was because I'm of Japanese descent and management had little faith that I would be loyal to the company. I saw bias in action and saw little future for myself with this company.
#9 The Worst Kind Of Scam
I worked as one of those super annoying face-to-face fundraiser people. You know, those people who will stand in your way and use every trick in the book to shame you into sending them money every month so they can continue their "scam." Well... I did the one-day training, got sent out in the morning, then quit after two hours. I found out soon after how the money is really spent for the most part. Now, I just ignore them as good as possible and warn my friends not to work for them.
#10 Walmart Is Ruthless
I worked at Walmart for maybe a month as a night stocker. They were uncompassionate towards their employees and treated them terribly. They assigned tasks with a time limit that was impossible to accomplish unless you refused to take your break. One night, I started to repeatedly throw up my stomach acids and wanted to go home. They told me to try to finish the night first. I got my mom and used her as a witness when I quit like, ten minutes later.
#11 The Boss's Creepy Husband
I worked at a small, family-owned restaurant for over a year. All I did was wash dishes. The owner hated me and always made my shift miserable because her creepy husband loved being around me. He would always talk to me and she accused me of hooking up with him more than once. My last straw was her calling me a degrading word in front of not just my coworkers, but also some customers. I was 15.
#12 Movie Theatre Antics
I worked at a movie theater in my hometown all throughout high school. When I moved for college, I was able to transfer to a theater owned by the same company in my college town. The management at the new theater was absolutely terrible. They were demeaning to the staff, to the point where they would fire people for not selling rewards cards.
At one point, they scheduled a mandatory, all-hands meeting with less than one week's notice—at 7 a.m. on a Sunday, by the way. Some of my coworkers were falling asleep. To wake them up, our managers made us stand up, do five jumping jacks, and sit back down. They did this every time someone fell asleep during the three-hour meeting. After around the fourth or fifth time, I decided I'd had enough.
My manager singled me out, asking why I refused to participate. I replied: "We're not children, don't treat us like we are." I was 20 at the time. My manager replied by suspending me for a month, right there, in front of everyone. I promptly replied, "I'll just quit" and never went back. No regrets.
#13 Incorrect Blame
I worked at a gas station deli. Right before I went in for my shift, my mom called me to tell me my sister had been rushed to the hospital and that I needed to go there to be with the family. I called my manager and they told me to find someone to cover my shift. I called a few people and one person said they would come in to cover for me. I called the manager back and let them know and they said it was okay.
I came in two days later for my next shift and the manager started flipping out on me, saying how I screwed them over because I didn't show up for my shift. I proceeded to remind them that I had to go to the hospital for my sister and that I was able to get someone to cover my shift. She then proceeded to tell me how that person didn't show up and therefore it was all my fault. I was like, "Are you kidding me? I had a family emergency. Screw you and screw this place!" I walked out the door and proceeded to screw them over one more time.
#14 Written Up For Attending A Funeral
I told three out of four managers that my grandma had passed away so I wouldn’t be able to make it to my shift the next day. I also left a note for the fourth manager and asked everyone to let him know. During the funeral, I got a call from the fourth manager asking where I was. I called him back, explained the situation, and he said okay. When I went to work the next day, they handed me a paper saying I’d been written up for doing an improper call out. I handed the paperback and just left.
#15 A Rejected Second Chance
I was 18 and working at a movie theatre concession stand on a very busy day. My coworkers made themselves busy doing things that didn’t need to be done, like checking for toilet paper or organizing candy. One lady got extremely nasty with me because I didn’t butter the middle of her popcorn. She was literally screaming at me for it. I looked and saw one of my coworkers just watching me and laughing as they pretended to clean the ticket booth window. I logged out of the POS, walked out of the concession stand, slammed the door behind me, told the customer she was being a complete witch and walked out. I never went back despite them willing to forgive me because this wasn’t my usual behavior.
#16 Illegal Gender Roles
I worked at a theater and the manager made ALL of the girls concessionists and all of the boys ushers. Three of my guy friends worked there with me, and they went home HOURS before I did each night, because we had to wait until after the last showing to start cleaning up. I asked the manager if I could be an usher instead and he said no.
#17 Christmas Conflicts
I was working 12 hour days, for weeks on end. The day before Christmas, they came in and told us that even though the company gave everyone the day after Christmas off, my line still had to come in. I literally turned away from the meeting, grabbed my gear, and walked right out of the door.
#18 Fighting The Good Fight
I worked at an animal shelter. I loved my boss, manager, everyone that worked there were like family to me. But the board of directors kept messing with us, cutting our budgets and hiring people without our knowledge. One day, when I was off, my boss arranged a walkout to complain to the county executive about the unfair behavior of the board and the mistreatment of our staff, which included EXTREMELY racist remarks towards our manager.
All of the animals were taken care of before the walkout, and they were only gone for an hour. We thought things were finally going to get better, but ten days later, the board of directors came in and fired my boss. Most of the staff quit and walked out with him. I wish I did too. Within the next month, the new management totally neglected the place—the cats were not getting their medications or the right food, and a massive ringworm outbreak resulted.
They had to open a new building just for the cats that needed to be quarantined, and the remaining original staff was thrown into the mess to supervise the new buildings ourselves. It just kept getting worse, spreading around the shelter like a wildfire. New management had no idea how to handle it, and one day, a couple of veterinarians came into our building and put down three cats. They actually had to restrain us from the room they were euthanizing in, and after that I sat in the break room and refused to work for the rest of the day, just crying with my other coworkers instead. I went home that day and never showed back up. I now volunteer with an amazing organization with my old boss and other staff members, still rescuing animals and doing all that we can.
#19 Pushy Boss
When I first moved to NYC, I got a bartending job at a pub in Williamsburg. The manager was always MIA and the staff was usually left to fend for themselves. One weekend, a huge blizzard hit the city. I had made it in to work when the city declared a state of emergency and started shutting down the trains. I called my manager to tell them the trains were shutting down. The staff also wanted to leave and catch the last trains home before it was too late.
He said no to all of us. At this point, the snow was getting deep enough to make opening the front door difficult. I texted my manager that we were leaving. The next morning, the manager texted to say that we were opening for brunch despite all the trains being shut down. I told him I couldn’t make it in so he said he would pick me up in his car. I gave him a fake address, turned off my phone, went back to bed and found a new job later that week.
#20 Shady Business
I got a job re-locating large fully grown trees. The shop workers were talking this company up while I was doing my orientation, saying this place was legit. The first week, we tore down an old house. All of the drywall—which was technically toxic because of how old it was—was supposed to be removed for a fee by the dump. Instead, they dug a ditch on a customer's house and buried the drywall on their land when they weren't home.
I was then asked to change crews. Todd was the boss of this crew, and he was a jerk. He was a 35-year-old man with an 18-year-old girlfriend. His favorite thing to do was brag about her and call everyone names. On my first day with him, he called me a loser because I had an RHCP sticker on my car. I was hired as a laborer, but he still made me drive an excavator. I had never used one before, but luckily I got the hang of it after a day or two. I was trying to get it in between two houses that were pretty close together, taking my time. He yelled at me to hurry. I got out of the excavator, threw the key in the middle of the ditch, got in my car and left.
#21 Salad Woes
I had a job in a salad plant. I was there for two weeks, just coring lettuce. I'd stand in front of a conveyor belt, eight hours a day, pick up the lettuce, slam it, pull the core, put it down, then repeat. One really sweet lady had been there for 10 years. She got called into the office and was gone for about half an hour. She said, "I won't be here tomorrow. I got promoted!" I asked what she'd be doing. "Cabbage!" I wished her well, but I dropped all my stuff and walked out. I feel bad not telling anyone I was quitting, but I was young and, well, I didn't want to end up like her. Had I stayed, I might be up to carrots by now. I sometimes wonder how my life might be different had I stayed, and in those moments I celebrate every decision I've ever made.
#22 Pool Job
At my very first pool job, I lasted about two and a half years. It was just one mess after another. In two and a half years, we had gone through eight different bosses. By the time I was 17, I was in the top five most senior staff at the facility. Out of all the ridiculous things that happened, the last straw was when they made me go do a chemical run when the pool ran out of bleach. My boss came to me and told me to take my car (not a company car, my personal car) and drive to the grocery store to buy some bleach. They wouldn't pay me back for gas or the time it took me to drive to the store. I went to my locker, grabbed all my stuff, packed it into my car and left. I didn't get the bleach, I just went home. I handed in my resignation later that day.
#23 Unreasonably Ungrateful
Inbound call center. My sales stats went up because I reversed the order of two upsell paragraphs. My boss told me to just read the script. I handed in my notice. Not really a rage-quit, but definitely a spontaneous one.
#24 Spanish Not Allowed
I had a survey call center job. If you got someone on the line who only spoke Spanish, you were supposed to say, "Someone with call you back in Spanish." In English! After getting the umpteenth inevitable "Que?" I repeated the message in Spanish, which I used to speak reasonably well (my Mom spoke it.) I got penalized. I quit as soon as I got my paycheck that Friday.
#25 Fixing What's Not Broken
The new director of the orchestra I’ve played in for 11 years decided she was going to reaudition around a third of the group, most of whom had been playing with the ensemble longer than me. When she announced that, I walked out of the rehearsal, dropped my music with the librarian, and left that witch without a principal violinist for the last concert of her inaugural season. How dare she ruin something that was already good, to begin with.
#26 Training Drama
I was about 22, working at a call center for Sprint. There was a three-week training class before you got out into the workspace. I was in the last week of training and I needed the afternoon off to go to a funeral. I was miles ahead of where people needed to be at that point, it was training for idiots who didn't know what a cell phone was. I got told I couldn't have the afternoon off, but if I did go I would have to restart my training on Monday and do it all over again. I walked right out told them to mail me my last check.
#27 Food Safety First
I worked in an independent cafe as the lone chef. The hours were good, I had free reign with the menu, and quality of produce that came in was second to none. Unfortunately, the owner had misplaced aspirations towards being a chef and instead of hiring help, he ran the kitchen himself on my day off. After repeated conversations about food safety and his apparent lack of care for customers well-being, I came in after my day off to find a single breast of chicken cling-filmed together with ready-to-eat ham. I told him this wasn't safe and if he continued to violate food safety, I'd walk. He told me to serve the ham.
#28 Stick It To The Man
I was 16, and my manager straight up told me I was a “screw-up.” I told him that I’d rather be a screw-up than the assistant manager of a grocery store in my 50s. I threw my apron at him and walked out. This entire exchange happened in front of the entire cashier and bagger staff, and based on texts I got from multiple people as the day progressed, the manager was thoroughly upset and embarrassed.
#29 One Suffers, All Suffer
I worked at a pizza place when I was like, 19. I did the deliveries and also cleaned the kitchen when there were no deliveries. After a few months of thoroughly hating my life, they tried to write me up for the register being short. I had never even touched the register, because we just gave cash to the person working it after delivering food, then took our tip. Even after telling them I hadn't touched the register, they still wanted to write me up. I refused to sign the damn paper. They said: "Somebody messed up or took the money, so we're covering all the bases and writing up everyone." They then said that if I didn't sign, I would be fired. I took off my work shirt, tossed it to the manager and said bye. Never came back.
#30 No Sympathy
I worked as a tour guide at a birthing center for a couple of weeks when I first started grad school. My dad was terminally ill at the time and, as soon as I was hired, I let my manager know I was anticipating a funeral. He passed away at 2 a.m. and I contacted my manager to let them know that I wouldn’t be working for the next week or so. She texted me back saying, “So sorry for your loss, but I really need you to be at work today.” I texted her back saying I wouldn’t be there. Then, I quit soon after. I didn’t want to work for a company that would make someone work on the same day their parent passed away. No regrets.
Public Domain Pictures
#31 The Ruthless World Of Cake Decorating
I was a new cake decorator in a grocery store bakery. My store manager cussed me out on the sales floor in front of customers, my manager, and his assistant. I had begged for help and additional training because his assistant intentionally wasn't training me properly. I also didn't have a coworker to share the work with and the assistant manager refused to help me with anything. I mentioned during his diatribe that I had asked for proper training and he rolled his eyes, saying that this was an issue of my personality. I finished my shift and told my manager I was never coming back. He understood.
#32 Give Respect To Get It
An HOUR after the restaurant closed, I had already taken the dishwasher apart and sanitized it for the night. That's when two waitresses brought back bus trays that they "forgot about." They were FULL of dirty dishes. I took the bus trays but told them as kindly as possible to be a little more watchful of the time. My manager stomped back to my station and told me to shut up and do my job. I told her to wash the dishes herself. I then threw my apron in her face and walked out. They called and begged me to come back the next day. They offered a raise and promotion. I accepted an offer at a different restaurant instead.
#33 Unheeded Warning
I wouldn't call it rage, but I quit a job when it became clear to me that the task at hand couldn't be delivered on time, and my management refused to consider the three alternative plans I presented. They had six months and two million dollars to deliver a ground control station for RPV. They held a completely unrealistic belief that they could do it all in-house. I advocated starting from a Mac, a NeXT or a Sun workstation, but they wanted to build their own custom computer system to control it. Six months later, they had blown the budget, failed to deliver, and lost the customer irrevocably.
#34 A Quarter Raise
My husband worked for three years for a major bank that doesn't exist anymore in their transportation department. He got told how great he was and how well he was doing, even as the morale was super low. Then, his review came up, and they had been hinting at a raise for quite a while. They ended up offering him 25 cents an hour. He looked at them, got up and drove home. He walked in the door and said: "You might get mad at me but..."
I didn't get mad.
#35 Hard Work, No Payoff
I quit FedEx. I was a package handler and spent my shifts loading and unloading semitrailers. In the interview process, I was thoroughly convinced I could have a solid career in FedEx. In the month I was there, I worked alongside some crazy hard workers who were impressive. At some point, I realized that I wouldn't be promoting fast since they would obviously promote before me. Then I realized that the best guy they had in this warehouse had been there for over five years and he still had the same position I did! I said to myself, screw that, and bounced. That man had been working way too hard to not receive a promotion.
#36 A Lazy Boss
My lazy boss got in at 9 a.m. and left at 3 p.m. every single day. I got in at 4:30 a.m. and usually didn’t leave until 6 p.m. I had to leave at 5 p.m. one day, so when he called the office after 5 p.m., I wasn’t there. The next morning he came in all ticked off and told me he expected me to be in the office next time he called. I told him if he wanted to know what was going on, he’d have to be there himself because I quit. He ended up getting fired a year later. I’m not shocked.
#37 No Raise, No More Employee
I was due for my yearly raise. I’d had perfect attendance and proper sales figures. Each year near Christmas, they would mass hire seasonal help and I was one of the local trainers for different locations. While training them, I wasn’t placed in a position to make my own sales, as I was training and shadowing the new people.
Review time came and they cited low sales as the reason I wouldn’t be given the raise, although the regional manager had already said this wouldn’t be the case for trainers. I was told they would re-evaluate after 60 days. I would be training for at least 45 more days. I made a call to another job prospect, told I could start the next week, walked out of the break room and slapped my key on the counter before walking out. Best decision I ever made.
#38 No Place For Harassment
I reported a director for harassing me in front of clients and other bosses. I was told afterward that I had been demoted. I quit on the spot. I then got a lawyer and sued them as they deserved. I used the money I won to go to paralegal school.
#39 Breakless Shift
During a 13-hour shift, the manager wouldn't let me take a single break and the customers were extra terrible all day. This was at a restaurant. I left that night and never went back.
#40 A Petty Quit
I used to work as a lifeguard. I injured my shoulder and was in a sling, but they still forced me to come into work, threatening to fire me If I didn’t. I had to guard a pool being unable to swim because MY ARM WAS IN A SLING. I did the pettiest thing possible—I sent in my resignation late at night, right before my morning shift. Hope they have fun finding a replacement!
#41 The Child Calls
My wife was about to give birth. I took the job as a temp thing and was only there for three weeks (I had just moved to the city). I worked there while I continued to look for an office job in engineering. The super called to let me know my wife was having contractions and that her water broke. My boss told me to get to work since the baby wouldn't be born until later anyways. I immediately said, "No, I'm driving my wife to the hospital now. I quit!" 10 days later, I found a job, and I have been employed here for four years now.
#42 Underpaid, Vacationless And Miserable
My boss telling me the company can't afford to give me a significant raise (after fighting for one for years). Then, the next day, I see him pull into work with a brand new F350 with dual rear wheels. The final straw was when I found out he bought it to haul his brand new, giant 5th-wheel camper to take his family on vacations... Something I could never dream of doing with my family because my salary was so terrible.
#43 The Dangerous Tenant
My boss sent me to drop off one too many warning letters to a certain tenant. The guy literally threatened to end me, the messenger. I guess the fact that the boss's name was on the letter makes no difference if you read at a second-grade level. Anyway, he threatened my life. I figured minimum wage wasn't worth having to worry about that type of stuff. I walked into the boss's office with the coworker who witnessed it and told her I quit. She asked if I would stay if she just evicted him and I said nope. It'll just be worse, and they'll still know where I work. Besides, after a whole year of threatening them with eviction, she was not going to do that now.
#44 Drama In The Band
I was in a small gig band about two to three years ago. Almost everybody I worked with didn’t try or didn’t show up. I felt like I was the only one having fun. I asked them, “Do you guys even like playing music anymore?” to which they replied, “I guess not. ” I thought in my head, “Why the heck are we even here then?” Eventually, I just said screw it and quit. Last I ever heard from them.
#45 Think Outside The Box
My boss asked me to think outside the box regarding a project that was so outside the box already that it wasn't even legal in 49 states.
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