I was waiting tables at an upscale steakhouse, and the company culture was absolute garbage. The owner, “Gary,” was constantly throwing tantrums and screaming at everyone, and we all HATED him. He’d line us all up before every shift just to berate us and yell how lucky we were that he’d hired us, because we were all bad at our jobs and no one else would ever have us. Stuff like that. The only reason anyone ever stuck around was because the money was good due to the high ticket prices and solid customer base, as well as the fact that there weren’t many other employment options for fine dining service in the area. In addition to being a massive prick, Gary was also a cheap jerk There was this 6-foot tall dessert cooler in the kitchen that had a broken door, and he put off fixing it for months because he didn’t want to spend the money, so it was just sort of hanging on its hinge and you had to be really careful opening it. Inevitably, during the height of a Saturday night rush, it fell completely off and hit one of the servers, hard. So she’s laying there on the kitchen floor, bleeding from a serious-looking wound on her head, and Gary is standing over her and SCREAMING down at her: “Way to go - just BRILLIANT. What the hell am I supposed to do now? It’s the middle of the rush, you’ve got a full section, and no one’s going to be able to pick up your tables because everyone who works here is useless and incompetent! You should have been more careful!”

I’d seen a lot from him, but this was the hard line, and I made a decision right then that I was out. So when I got home that night, I typed up a letter to Gary, telling him exactly why I was quitting and leaving no detail out when it came to his tantrums, his verbal mistreatment, and the hazards in the workplace that he wouldn’t address. I printed out 30 copies, went in early for my opening shift the following day (midafternoon - the place was only open for dinner) and hid them all over the restaurant where guests would find them: in the menus, under the napkins on the tables, in between paper towels in the restrooms, etc.

Some were in really obscure places, so that they wouldn’t be found right away and would keep popping up randomly - surprise! - allowing my legacy to live on. Then, instead of working my shift, I left before the pre-shift lineup. Fast forward to a couple days later, when a coworker reached out and shared with me the beautiful details of Gary’s head almost exploding with rage when he found out about the letters. A couple tables read them and walked out before ordering. People in the dining room could hear him screaming from the kitchen. Apparently they were still finding letters weeks later, and every time one surfaced, the vein in Gary’s forehead would pop out and he’d disappear into his office and slam the door. It remains one of my proudest moments, and my only regret is that I couldn’t be a fly on the wall, watching this all unfold.

I worked an engineering contract for a while. They were pretty open ended, like a lot were, with a vague (but not binding) length specified. Kind of like: "This contract is expected to be for 12 months, but it is at will of the employer, and could end earlier or be extended further." But for those that do that kind of work, usually they stick to the vague timelines, and a lot of well performing contractors get extended.

Anyway... one day our team of 10 (all contractors, managed by one full time employee) let 3 of the contractors go. (And they had ME do it!!! Technically I was running that team, but... I was a contractor too, and not in charge of any firing like that.) So they were told "this is your last day" at 4pm. Me and another contractor asked our sponsor "hey - how come we didn't give those guys any notice?" He said brightly "that's why we hire contractors! So we can cut them loose at a moments notice whenever we want to!" We didn't love that answer. Also - it was a weird thing to say to two other contractors... He basically told us we'd get no notice and be let go instantly someday.

Anyway, long story short, that other contractor was a VERY sharp guy. He started interviewing, and got another job. He told me about it (and I didn't tell anyone else). It started in a few weeks. He just kept right on working the contract job, and was right in the middle of a bunch of work that only he understood. At 5pm on his last day he just stood up, grabbed his laptop/mouse/docking-station, walked to our sponsors desk and set them down. He just said brightly "hey, thanks for everything, this is my last day!" The guy said "wait, you're leaving?" and he just said "yes, thanks!" and walked out. That was it. (He did also hit 'send' on a more official 'last day' email at the same time too.) It was really funny, his work was half done, he didn't answer any calls or questions about it, and it took us like a month to figure it all out and get that project back on track. If the sponsor hadn't been SO delighted about being able to fire contractors at any second, that guy would definitely have given a nice two week notice and worked to have a smooth handoff of his work.

So earlier today a coworker was walking round with a can asking for spare change donations. From what I can see from the label (I realized afterwards he was likely obscuring the full label on purpose), its a kid's charity. Okay, cool. He gets to my desk and i do have some loose change so i dig it out of my purse. As he holds the can out and i put the change in, i now see the full label and notice its not a kid's charity, its an anti abortion foundation. I am quite fiercely pro choice. Maybe I gave about thirty cents (I held the rest of the change in my palm once I realized what it was) but it was the clear deception that pissed me off. And I know a good bunch of my other co-workers tend not to ask details about donations, so he got a lot of mindless donations. So, I pulled out my phone and made a nice donation to my state's local abortion fund, and they let you do it in honor of someone, so i wrote "In honor of (jerk coworker's name) who thinks he can pull one over on busy office people." Suddenly Monday doesn't seem so bad.