I interviewed for and was subsequently offered a job as a guide for a tour company when I was younger.
They told me what to expect and gave me a book of materials to memorize for the tour. The book was huge, and sitting down with it, I started doing the math.
How long would it take me to memorize and practice all this? How many hours a day would I actually be working, including the commute in and out of downtown every day? And how much did they say this all paid?
I quickly came to the realization that the time-to-pay ratio was not going to be worth it and quit before I’d even technically started. That’s the fastest I’ve ever walked out.
What made you quit a job on the spot?
byu/Sketch99 inAskReddit
But Reddit has some different tales, many of which put mine to shame for the sheer audacity. Some highlights for you…
1. 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
2. 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
3. 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 s**t and left.
Was never heard from again.
– Numerhasit
4. 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
5. 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
6. 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
7. 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
8. 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
9. 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
10. 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
11. 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
12. 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
13. 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
14. 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
15. 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
16. Dude, you’re gettin’ a Dell
Back in 1998 I was working for Dell 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 bc of how the commission structure was. living in Austin as a 23 year old.
So one day my manager asks me to train a new team of sales people because I was one of the top sellers on the floor every month.
I turned this group into the most bada** sales team. My crew of 8 were all in the top 20 every week and were kicking a**.
After 2 months, I show up on a Monday and none of the sales people are there except my team and a bunch of other new faces I hadn’t seen before.
Turns out Dell didn’t like paying commissions and health insurance and 401ks, so they fired all the sale’s and replaced them with “Temp” workers making $12 an hour. My entire team was the first group of temp works. I was not aware of this. They were told they had to “prove themselves” and be converted to “full time” with benefits. They were never going to do it.
I told them they can all go f**k themselves and quit. I heard that week they cleaned house and everyone, even managers who told me what was happening were gone and all replaced by temp hourly people.
– Raspberries-Are-Evil
17. Scenes from an Italian restaurant
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 who’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 I and my friend who I got hired took off our aprons and walked off the line towards the front door. He came with me in solidarity, plus I was his ride home.
Felt good for a day or two, but I’ve never quit that way ever since. Been in the service industry for 23 years now.
– LonnieJaw748
18. I’m the band guy (duh)
I worked as a manager in this really awesome cafe/bar, my interview was basically drinking a bottle of wine with the owner whilst chatting. Totally relaxed vibe, local artwork on the walls (which she sold for no commission), indie music as background noise so you could still have a conversation etc.
One of the guys who worked there was in a band and would often go on tour, and she always made sure his job was waiting for him when he got back.
Fast forward 3 years and she became pregnant with twins and decided that she wanted to be a sahm so she sold the place to a young guy who purchased it as a gift for his fiancée.
A nice gift, no? But 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 teacher her how to use the coffee machine, she spent the evening shifts giving freebies to her mates and she totally gave up on using the panini machine.
After finally mastering the coffee machine, 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. Everyone was forced to use the holiday time.
Came back a week later and we totally didn’t recognise the place, it now had white walls with huge TVs blaring out dance music (in a space that only had 12 tables) so loud that we couldn’t hear what anyone was saying. We checked the rotas and I had lost 10hrs a week but the band guy had lost 20hrs.
Naturally we asked wtf?! And she informed us that she could run the place without us so cut out hours. We asked if they could delay the new rotas by a month to give us chance to find extra work elsewhere (I was ok as I had a second job that begged me to be full time, but band guy didn’t).
She said that as we didn’t have contract with her, she didn’t have to give us any notice.
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
19. Here’s a tip: don’t
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.
– KayTheMadScientist
20. Generating trouble
Not quite on the spot, but the manager was telling the new hires (which included me) how he beat the c**p out of someone for some reason that I cannot recall. Apparently the court case had been dragging on for quite some time. Alrighty. Little crazy, but what manager is completely sane?
Then a few weeks later a hurricane comes through. Pretty bad, my house only lost power for a day. But most of my coworkers lost power for at least two weeks. So we eventually go back to work and the manager is telling us the harrowing story of how he managed to find a generator when a hurricane is coming. I’ll spare you the details, but it’s pretty much impossible to find a generator if a hurricane is about to hit.
So this nutcase is trying to install this generator at his house and sees someone driving by, eyeballing his generator. (Or so he imagines). Like any completely normal person, the manager pulls out a gun and fires a few rounds into the air, to “scare them off”. (I can only imagine what the poor person driving by thought when he saw this a**hole pull out a gun and start shooting). In response to the gunshots his neighbor comes running over (why has no one called the cops yet????) to see if everything is ok. My manager tells him that someone is trying to steal his generator and if it goes missing, he’s going to hold the neighbor responsible.
At this point in the story, my mouth is hanging open and I’m like WTF did I just listen to. This man is…insane. Why is the neighbor responsible for his generator??? None of this makes sense! I slowly noped out of that job. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he ending up murdering all of his co-workers one day in a fit of rage.
– whocares023
21. “School reasons”
My first job was working as a dish washer at a seafood place. I wasn’t *hired* as a dishwasher, I was supposed to be a busser, they just shoved me on the washer and left me there.
One of the other employees there was an elderly man who worked alongside his wife and grandson. Every day he would find an excuse to walk up close to me and put his hand on my a**. He was a 70 year old man, and I was a 16 year old boy.
I should have reported him, but i doubted anyone would have believed me since he’d been there for years and I had only been working for a month. I just called the manager, told her I had to quit for “school reasons” and never looked back.
– cannedcream
22. Think again
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.
– sonheungwin
23. Sabotage
Had a job where the people were toxic, the management was mostly toxic, and the other techs made themselves look better by making other techs look bad.
I had 2 guys on my shift who would go behind me during maintenance or repairs and undo stuff I did and call it out over the radio for all to hear, so I started recording myself making the repairs, and when I got called out and showed the video, I was told “you’re not supposed to have your phone out on the floor” and got wrote up.
I walked out with no warning in the middle of the busiest weeks of the year leaving them shorthanded with only 2 idiots to handle calls.
– Jack_ov_most_trades
24. Drug dealers
I am a physician assistant and took a job at an urgent care.
After working there for about a month I noticed some irregularities, such as some medications being expired and sometimes a lack of supplies. I wrote that off as the office manager not being as astute as she should have been and brought it up to the doctor who owned the place. He said he would talk to her and straighten it out.
Then one of the medical assistants came to me and said you know this has been going on forever, right? She then said that things would never change and to get used to it because the expired medications had been on the shelf for months and they were told to never throw them out. She then also told me that the auto clave (the machine that sterilizes instruments) was broken and all they did was wash the instruments in soap and water and put them in the auto clave anyway to get them as clean as possible.
That was the end of that. I made out a formal complaint to the state medical board and never showed up again.
The state actually came in the very next day and raided the place. They shut him down immediately. They found so many things wrong that not only did they keep the place out of business, they suspended his license. He was also prosecuted on federal charges because he was running a scam for truck driver physical exams.
– dragonfly_for_life
25. It’s just a wedding
I was getting married.
I had a temp job, and told them on my first day that I needed a weekend off in a couple of months for my wedding. I reminded them every couple of weeks, had it on the calendar, and even reminded them that Monday.
That weekend came, and I was on the schedule. I told my boss that I needed it off for my wedding, and she said, “You’re just a kid, can’t you move it? We really need the parts.” Admittedly, I was 21 marrying my 19 year old girlfriend, but yeah.
I laughed at her and left. We were scheduled Saturday and Sunday, two “attendance points” and you’re fired, so I assumed that I’d be job hunting on Monday after my wedding.
I went to another temp agency on Monday and had a job lined up for Monday evening. On Tuesday, the temp job called and asked if I was coming back. I told that person (the temp agency lady) what they’d done to me, she was upset that they’d done that, tried to get me to go back, but I liked the new job and stayed there.
– DifficultMinute
26. Have you had your break today?
I worked at McDonald’s when I was 16.
We used to get a free McDouble or hot and spicy with a small fries and 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 Hot and spicy 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 grown a** successful business man was hounding at 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
27. Always read the contract
Walked in to the interview, everything went well, accepted the job offer.
Went to the front desk to do the paperwork and noticed that the contract had a different pay amount, and that I would be “interning” for the first month for $100/week. I asked first about the amount difference, was told “oh, this the standard contract, it just hasn’t been updated for your specific offer.” I told them they’d need to edit and initial the changes before I would sign. “Oh…that’s not how things work here.”
I thanked them for their time and left without signing anything. They called me back on the day I was supposed to have started asking where I was. I told them because didn’t sign the contract, I was never an employee….hooo boy that was a fun call.
– CowboyFleeborg
28. “Laziness”
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 d**n 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.
– tvcky69
29. Rich kid syndrome
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.
– Edge80
30. You got served
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.
– Iwantbubbles
Sometimes, the greatest triumph you can have is to quit.
What’s the fastest you’ve left a job?
Tell us in the comments.
