Chris Wahl
Quitting a job is usually a well-thought-out process, right? You line up a new gig, maybe stash away some savings, and then, with a mix of dread and relief, you hand in that two-week notice. But let’s be real – sometimes you can’t take another second of your boss’s nonsense or that never-ending pile of work, and you decide to make a dramatic exit right then and there.
We’ve all had those moments where we daydream about telling our boss exactly what we think and walking out the door. Well, some brave souls have actually done it. They hit their breaking point and thought, “Enough is enough!” and quit their jobs on the spot. Curious about what it takes to make someone abandon ship so abruptly? Thanks to a Reddit thread asking just that, here is a compilation of the juiciest stories where people shared their epic tales of instant job quitting. Get ready to laugh, gasp, and maybe even get inspired by these wild tales of quitting on the spot!
1. 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 kids went home, I started emptying my desk…
2. Worked at a restaurant as a server. We’d just catered a large wedding reception. The owner’s wife was chatting with the wedding party all night and occasionally getting the drinks. At the end of the night she said she’s taking “her share” of the tips since she helped so much. I say fine even though that’s illegal in our state. An hour and a half after the party ends the restaurant is still a mess and the owners wife is just standing around talking while I was supposed to clean up. It was almost midnight and I’d worked my other job earlier that day. I walked out without saying a word. They ended up giving me all of my tips on my last check.
3. 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.
4. 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 s**t and left. Was never heard from again.
5. Worked for a privately owned bakery for exactly 1 week. The owners son comes in, walks passed 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 literally s**t all over the toilet seat and the toilet paper holder. I called the owner, told her what happened and she said to “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.
6. 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 shitty 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
7. My grand-father, who I considered like 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.
8. Getting repremandid for not pushing a patient into getting a dental procedure he didn’t need or want.
9. I was getting married.
10. Asked for a raise and was told okay. Next morning (Friday) I was told by the same person who agreed with the raise that I should put a few more years in and then we’ll talk again. Locked my tool box at the end of the day and called a tow truck to pick it up. Shop manager was shocked that next Monday to find an empty spot where my tools were and couldn’t understand why I left.
11. Began working at a persian restaurant in the kitchen. I overcooked a steak slightly, the owner came back threw a plate at us then a hot meat skewer before storming off to his office. I dropped my apron grabbed my bag and told him I was leaving. His response was “okay at the end of the night you can go” My response was “clearly you don’t understand. I’m leaving right now, here’s my parking pass, I’ll expect my cheque in the mail”.
12. 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.
13. I used to work at a chicken joint and one day I accidentally threw away some tongs. By the time I realized it I had already bagged and threw away the trash. My supervisor had a meltdown and said that those tongs cost like $80 to the restaurant and demanded I go into the dumpster, open up every bag, and find it or otherwise he’d write me up. It was midsummer and a day before trash pick up so I was up to my knees in trash bags. I lost my balance and accidentally punctured a bag catching my footing and had gravy and sauce explode on the side of my pants. I climbed out, handed him the tongs, and my hat, and walked off and never went there again.
14. 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 b******t bait and switch.
15. Worked in a call centre in the UK and was phoning people about buying porcelain cats on the day of the London bombings (07/07/05). A man that I rang told me he was waiting for his daughter to call to tell him she was OK and that it was immoral that I was ringing when so many people were waiting to hear from family. I couldn’t argue with that and walked out after that call.
16. Pumping gas in the late 70’s when the customer could just reset the pump to zero with a flick of a switch, my boss docked me $16 for being short for the week (was paid $3.75/hr), I handed her the keys and wished her a nice shift pumping gas on a Friday night on her own. Joined the military after that, learned electronics and now have a career in networking making the big bucks!
17. My first job was Pizza Hut. There was a ghetto area we kept black listing for robbing drivers and the management kept unblacklisting it.
18. As a journalist I was once told to pretend to be a doctor to get access to people who had been hospitalised in a terrorist attack to get quotes from them. Resigned on the spot and never worked as a journalist again from that day to this.
19. “When my job kept wanting to treat me like a full-time employee, having me order supplies, staying late on truck days until it was done. Yet, when I asked about moving to full-time ($5 extra an hour and I’d get 15 more hours a week), they told me they couldn’t. So, I quit.”
20. 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 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 in work. I laughed at her and told her she could take this as my notice and walked out. I never had a problem with being held up but the sheer gall of that got me.
21. “I was renting an apartment with my wife, and our toilet backed up and started overflowing. Couldn’t get ahold of the landlord or the on-call plumber. Called into work before my shift that morning and told them what was happening and that I wouldn’t be in that morning but would call to see how the afternoon went. Finally got a plumber in and got everything cleaned up and made it in for the afternoon. Got sat down for a fifteen-minute talking to about how work should be my biggest priority and everything else should come second.”
22. Once as a teenager at a new job I got my hand smacked by the owner the first day because I was writing with my left hand. Walked out.
23. Walk into first shift at Applebee’s wearing a full black uniform. The button down shirt has a thin strip of gray on the inside of the cuff. Boss notices the gray. Says I am not in uniform and I need to leave. Once I got home I called in and told them I quit. Saved myself inhuman amounts of pedantry.
24. I worked for an attorney. I was 7 months pregnant. I was supposed to be a secretary but instead I was constantly being sent out as a process server. In July. At the end of my 3 months (August) I was supposed to get a raise and she said that she couldn’t give me a raise. The day she said that, I left at lunch and never went back. She was an awful person and the guy I replaced told me that he felt sorry for me on my first day as he was leaving. I should have left that day.
25. I’m gay but at the time wasn’t very open about it. Was placed with a crew of guys that made homophobic comments all day long. It wasn’t anything personal towards me, but it would not have been healthy to stay in that situation long term.
26. Going to the toilet pre-meeting to negotiate a raise I heard both directors of the company (small firm, everything ran through them) talking outside the window that they were going to flat out refuse any offers and “make the a*****e work overtime to prove his loyalty” and “he has no prospects anyway, where will he go?”.
27. I worked at Walmart for a short time. I worked as hard as I possibly could to unload their pallets of merchandise. I always thought I was so damn fast, I studied the process and I believed I perfected it. EVERY SINGLE DAY my manager came up to me and told me I needed to be faster. So I did, and the fast pace made me lose a little focus, causing me to break a finger. I let management know that I might be a little slower due to my injury and they straight up told me “we won’t tolerate any laziness” and wrote me up when I didn’t meet their ridiculous standards. So I went home after my shift, and never returned. Never called, never formally quit. I just never came back. F**k Walmart.
28. I get a job at a restaurant, first day I show up and the heat is broken in the dead of winter. It was like 35 degrees. I ask the cooks if it’s always like this, and they say yes. I walked immediately.
29. It was Thanksgiving day at Kmart (I was a teenager) and I had been working non stop for 5 hours because of all the “good deals”. I had a drink under my register and I took one drink of it. The assistant manager looked at me but didn’t say anything. Ten minutes later it was time for my much needed 30 minute lunch. I proceeded to ask for coverage for my break and the assistant manager told me I didn’t get a lunch since I took a drink of my sprite. I then proceeded to tell her too bad and walked away and got all of my stuff out of my locker and started walking out to the parking lot. Then the store managers all rushed out begging me to come back and work and apologized. They said I could take my lunch. They even had the assistant manager (pathetically) apologize to me. I think she got in big trouble because she never treated me like a b***h anymore.
30. A few years back my wife’s health started to deteriorate. She was in constant pain and really struggling. It was a big change for both of us and I had to leave work often to take her to the doctor. One day my boss says she needs to give me less hours as I’m missing shifts. I accepted that and was willing to work with her on it. Then she said “I mean, you don’t have to leave every time your wife hurts her little finger.”
31. I got blamed for something that wasn’t my fault, was in an argument with our VP or marketing because I had the audacity to suggest a solution that would have avoided our problem instead of accepting fault for something I didn’t do. He told me he doesn’t pay me to think, so that was my last day.
32. I was 16 working part time in an island in Greece and a guy walked in with a knife and demanded to give him the money from the register. I obviously did it and immediately called my boss. He told me that I was a pu**y and should have stood up for myself so I just left without even replying.
33. Started working for a drive-thru pizza place famous for $5 single topping larges. When I started, they said shorts can be worn. Five months go by, and I walk into work that day to find the manager changed overnight. New manager, whom I only just met, said I had to find khaki pants ASAP. I told her I could do that after payday next week because my last $8 was going toward diapers for my 5-month-old. She said that wasn’t acceptable and that I had to obtain khaki pants immediately. I reiterated that I was unable to until payday next week. She said the same garbage again, so I quit on the spot.
34. 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.
35. Selling vacuum cleaners . They expected me to hard sell to an old man with dementia who didn’t have carpets . F*** that.
