30 Moments In Which People Realized They No Longer Wanted To Work At Their Current Job
Interview With Expert
I bet that at least once, every one of us has wanted to just throw away all the work that needs to be done and leave. We may have become extremely tired of our jobs, experienced rudeness from others, had an excessive workload, our necessary vacation days were declined, or we had another reason. But eventually, most of the time, we come to the realization that perhaps everything was simply a passing fit of anger. But not always. There are moments when quitting is the best decision when we have reached our breaking point and are at a loss for words.
About that, one Reddit user recently started a thread asking people online to share what were their final straws that led them to straight-up rage quit their jobs. So scroll through and, well, maybe feel relieved that your job doesn’t suck that much!
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I was working when I got the call that my partner of 7 years had been in a terrible car accident while visiting family in Florida. He was in the hospital and his mother called me to tell me he wasn't awake yet.
I was obviously devastated and scared out of my mind. Told my coworkers and boss because it was obvious I was panicking and they told me to take the rest of the weekend off so i could deal with things and prepare and clean his apartment for when/if he got back. Specifically, they said to come back Monday and it was a Friday.
Next day I was cleaning up his apartment when I got the call from my boss screaming about why I hadn't come into work that day. I told him that I recalled him telling me to take the weekend off and come back Monday. He said to come to work immediately because they needed me.
Against my better judgment and my emotional state I showed up and clocked in. Boss came up to me, threw the stack of checks down on the counter that had just come in, and told me, "if you do that again youre fired." This was someone who had never yelled at me before, or even dared speak to me in any stern way. Prior to my arrival their store was an absolute mess and I spent all of my free time, what little there was, reorganizing and cleaning and setting up new systems. For some reason, the fact he chose to start speaking to me this way, and demanding my attention *now*, at that time? It just made me snap. A chord was struck and it resonated, *strong*. I got the message clearly. He was one of those bosses who became controlling of any one who became of value to him and his business. The moment you aren't available when they need, or even wanted you to be, they were going to make you feel bad about it so you were afraid to ask for more personal time, or any other leniencies that took you away from work.
I was literally reeling. Saw red. The moment he turned his back I snatched my check, walked out with a full line of customers at the counter and the phone going off with incoming orders and drove off. He blew up my phone all day. Never came back or called back.
Fortunately, he made it home safe and healed up fine. Unfortunately, he passed away on our anniversary a few years later. I regret every moment I passed up to spend time with him over that job, or, any job, for that matter. I know barely anyone is going to read this now that it's buried under a pile of other comments. But it still felt nice to type it out.
I was waiting tables while I was in grad school. I had requested a weekend off far in advance (right after I got my syllabus) because there was a seminar pertinent to a class. Our professor expected to us to go and write a paper. It was a decent chunk of our grade.
The weekend comes up and lo and behold, I’m scheduled doubles Friday through Sunday. I hunt down the manger and say I can’t do that and I’ve given months notice. She pulls the “requests are just requests not guarantees” and I tell her point blank I will fail this class if I don’t go. She shrugged she said “that isn’t my problem”. I told her “is now” and left. Like hell I was going fail a class for my masters degree waiting tables at a f*****g Rainforest Cafe
Love the "not my problem" replies. It will be your problem, it will be >:)
I was a receptionist for a medical software company. Boss refused my request for a single day off to take my teen daughter to get eye surgery. I waited until the first day of her 2 week vacation and put in my notice. Ruined her holiday.
Bored Panda got in touch with Farhan Raja, who is the founder of one of the world’s leading career and interview coaching specialists and a career coach. He kindly agreed to share his professional insights regarding this topic.
To begin with, we asked Farhan to share the key red flags that indicate when an employee should consider quitting their job, and the first one he listed was ‘Your manager is gaslighting you’. He added that many people are bullied by their managers in a subtle and manipulative way.
“The most common being gaslighting, which can have a huge negative impact on your self-esteem and confidence. For example, you’ve completed an amazing piece of work which everyone appreciates yet your manager is still finding faults. You’re constantly being told you’re not working hard enough even though you are.”
Not me, but a colleague once wrote a long stinker of an email, hit send at 10:30am and exited the building immediately. He blind-copied all receivers but sent it to multiple departments of a large multinational I was working at, no one knew who did/didn’t get the email, except for the gasps and OMGs around the office. He was completely disgruntled, and went in on multiple managers, supervisors and various colleagues with absolute venom. It was amazing, still the best work email I’ve ever received and some s**t he called out actually had to be addressed by management, it brought about a lot of positive change. If you’re out there Khalil, that was awesome.
Mine?
I was tired of doing a 3 person job. My boss following me around, calling me at home during meetings when I was sick, talking to me outside the bathroom door was making me crazy.
I came back from vacation one day to find piles & piles of work that other people could have done.
I quit, packed my s**t & left.🖕
Another red flag is lack of respect for personal boundaries. Farhan pointed out that since a job is a profession, maintaining one's professionalism is essential to proper behavior and etiquette at work. If your coworkers are going too far in probing personal matters or making negative comments about your appearance or dressing, then it’s not a healthy work environment to be in.
And finally - blame culture. “If you find that there is a lack of ownership from colleagues, always blaming incomplete work or mistakes on others, it is usually a sign that there is a lack of productivity, where staff are more focused on how to do as little work as possible than be productive,” he emphasized.
Was promised that if I got my accounting degree they would move me to IA so I could get hours towards my CPA.
Worked my a*s off, graduated, and the boss said "Yeeeeeaaaah, were going to move you to Customer Service. Sound good?"
Stayed late that night drafting a company wide "F**k you" email.
Probably shouldn't have done that in hindsight, but some bridges just beg to be burned.
I was promised a promotion once for completing a long, fairly complicated (and not very relevant) computer-based training regimen. Found out about halfway through that there wouldn't be an opening for that promotion anytime soon. My manager wasn't surprised when I stopped wasting my time on the training program, even though he was the one who had offered the promotion.
One very busy night while waitressing, I was standing at a table of 12 in the middle of taking their order when another waitress came up to me and said our boss wanted us in their office that instant. So I leave my full section in the middle of chaos to go see what the problem is. My boss began to chew us both out because the other girl asked if I would switch shifts with her and I had agreed. I didn't say anything but was obviously annoyed because I had just left all my tables thinking there was some sort of emergency. My boss looked at me and asked why I looked mad and I told him "I feel like this could have been sorted out without me, if you didn't want her to leave early you could have just told her no instead of pulling me away from our customers". They said "if you're going to have an attitude get your s**t and leave".
I said ok and went to transfer my tables. I was over it. I had worked there 3 years and the owners were alcoholics that treated us like garbage and spent all the company on themselves instead of getting ingredients to make food or paying their employees. The other waitress came back out and said our boss wanted me back in the office. I went in and they said "put your apron back on, you're not fired". I said "you're both f*****g crazy if you think you can treat people the way you do and expect them to want to work for you" and I walked out. As I was leaving they came out behind me saying I would regret it and was never allowed back if I left. I threw up my middle fingers and kept walking.
Funny part is I let my boyfriend take my car to work that night so I had to walk a mile home and break into my house🤣
I worked for a call center for AT&T. I refused to try and sell a DirectTv package to a woman who was literally bawling her eyes out on the phone because she was having to switch her phone plan to her name instead of her husbands name because he had just died.
Now, speaking about the toxic environment’s impact on a person, the career coach shared that it can actually affect mental health and well-being in many ways. “You take your work problems home and they start having a negative impact on your personal life and family.” He added that you will find family and friends saying that you don’t seem yourself or you find yourself taking your anger and frustration out on loved ones.
Additionally, it can reduce your overall quality of life. “If you're not happy at work, it means that you’re not happy for 1/3 of your day and when you consider that the other 1/3 is sleeping, it actually means half of your day is passing by with you being unhappy and stressed,” Farhan pointed out.
“This continuous persistence of unhappiness and stress can lead to depression or stress-related illnesses caused by a toxic work environment.”
When I was 20, I worked a commission based sales job. The manager hated me for some reason. I genuinely to this day have no idea why. I tried really hard, had a good attitude, and followed all the rules. My sales weren't extraordinary, but I always met my numbers.
My grandmother died about six months into the job. I texted my manager to tell him I'd be taking my three days of bereavement as allowed by the union. I even apologized for the inconvenience, as though I could control my grandmother's death. He called me the day after she died accusing me of lying, saying I was lazy and just wanted the time off. Keep in mind I'd never called out before or even been more than 5 minutes late to a shift. I sent him medical documentation proving she'd had a stroke during the night and passed away. He called me back and said fine, I could have that day off, but he better see me the next day (my third day of union-protected bereavement) or I'd be fired.
Stricken with grief but terrified of losing my job, I drove the two hours back to my apartment from the grandmother's house that night. The next morning I went into work tired and melancholy. He b***hed at me to smile because no one wants to buy cell phones from a sad girl. I plastered on a smile and hit the sales floor. At lunchtime I cried my eyes out in my car. Reapplied my makeup. Went back to work with my fake smile. I was in the middle of helping a customer when he comes bouldering up to the table and starts asking the customer all the same questions I had to see what products they'd be eligible for. The customer was baffled and told him I'd already covered everything and that no further help was necessary. He went on a rant about what a terrible, useless employee I was.
I looked at the customer and deadpan said, "I'm so sorry to leave you with him, but as of this moment, I quit." The manager followed me to the break room, shouting and raving while I gathered my purse, turned in my equipment, and clocked out. He followed me to my car still berating me. Finally that same customer I walked away from came out and physically stood between me and the manager so I could get in my car and drive away. The manager proceeded to call me every day for a week and leave abusive voicemails about me "missing shifts" because he "didn't accept my resignation". He even called me the day of my grandmother's funeral and said now that she'd been cremated, I had no excuse not to come back to work.
F**k AT&T and f**k that douche Jeremy. I hope he eventually got a taste of his own medicine.
Many years ago while working in a manufacturing facility. My boss came into work already pissed off because his wife served him divorce papers.
Saying “good morning” was apparently enough to set him off and he picked up a wrench from the table and threw it at my head.
I ducked…it missed…then I just closed my toolbox and wheeled it to the truck lol
And finally, Farhan says that “If a workplace is toxic I always recommend that you leave, but, and this is a big but! Make sure you have an exit plan. This means you set yourself a target to leave your current job for a new role in the next 3 months.”
“What this does is create a light at the end of the tunnel but also ensures that you take a strategic approach. Your rational mind is in control of the process and not your emotions, so you’re able to move to a bigger and better job rather than any old job just to get away from your current toxic environment,” he notes.
Don’t forget to check out Farhan’s interview coaching website!
I was vomiting in the parking lot every day before walking into my job from stress. Then one day I was kicked in the teeth (literally) by one of the clients and my boss would not let me leave to go to the dentist. I went anyway, was docked pay for my time at the emergency appointment, and then they begged me not to sue. I quit.
Got told by my boss that he doesn't give a s**t if I don't have time to spend with my son. Quit on the spot.
Ugh. This is on the same level of, "Whats more important to you? Your xyz or your job?" I've seen the xyz as school graduation, final exams, partner/parent/sibling had a accident and is in hospital, family time, etc. No job is more important than the most important non job thing to the worker.
And what do you think about these stories? Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation? Share your thoughts below!
This was 20 years ago.
My fiancé had been hospitalized for 16 months after a car accident.
When she passed away my boss would not let me have time off for bereavement because we were not legally married.
The boss told me I should be sleeping at his house because that’s the level of dedication he needed from me. Bye!
Was having a meeting with the boss who was a difficult guy to work with, and he stood up and punched the wall. He wasn't doing it jokingly. He bare knuckled went at the wall of his own office like he was in the gym hitting a punching bag.
I sat there in astonishment for about two seconds, then stood up and left. Cleared out my desk, exited through the back door without a word to anyone.
There's no place for that conduct in the professional world even if the guy does own the company.
I never have, but my favorite example was when a co-worker in student transportation, who had finally gotten a position she wanted after years of suffering through stress in another, was called by management over the summer and told she was being reassigned to the stressful position because no one else wanted to do it. She had fought too long and hard to get what she wanted, and her immediate response was, "Then tell me what I need to do to resign." She did, and she's been at peace with her decision ever since.
When I was driving home and my blood pressure shot through the roof cause somebody was driving the same make, model and color car as the boss.
...obviously that wasn't THE STRAW, just the recognition that there was to be no more straws.
My managers boss did a surprise inspection and my boss wrote me up for doing my job the exact way he trained me. Apparently when he trained me he was cutting corners.
Worked in Retail, sprained my ankle really bad while Ice Skating. Couldn't so much as get out of bed. Had to call in and take 2 days off before I was even able to limp to work. Soon as I got back in, Manager pulled me into his office to SCREAM at me for taking 2 days off. For a physical injury that physically made it so I could not do my job. Threw a cold cup of coffee on him and walked out. My only regret is that the coffee was cold.
At one office job, I quit after the first day because the lady training me would ignore me when our manager wasn't around, and I caught her snooping through my purse when I went to the bathroom.
At another job at a clinic, I quit after a month because they made me do a solo receptionist shift without training me on what I needed to do to open the clinic, and then I got yelled at for not knowing what to do. In front of patients. It was so bad, some of the patients came up to me after and asked if I was ok.
My manager started snapping her fingers in my face, 3 inches away from my eyes saying in a slow drall "youuuu're doinnnng it wroooong, hellloooo that's not how I told you to do iiiit" when I was folding the shirts somewhat slower and less optimally than I was shown (though achieving the same fold-also it was my third week and one of 20 folds I had to learn on that job).
I walked right then and there.
37 years experience in aerospace manufacturing and I was saddled with my 35 year old boss's BFF with zero experience that he hired as a favor. His buddy was a walking disaster and I spent 50% of my time fixing his screw ups. Boss chooses to yell at me for the drop in production and tells me I'm as useless as tits on a boar, then says he ought to write me up or fire me. Told him I'll save him the trouble, "I QUIT, good luck meeting those product delivery dates, you know the ones with penalties for late delivery?"
My boss cursed me because I took a phone message for him, because he was already on a call. Apparently he was eagerly awaiting the call I answered and would have preferred I interrupted him. I threw a pencil at the wall, said “Do I look like a mind reader? Cut me my check; I quit.” He tried hard to backpedal but there had been many, many previous straws.
I’m willing to bet with any other phone call OP would’ve been destroyed for interrupting that first call. Call it a hunch.
Had a sweet schedule working security in a Class A office building. Three swings (2pm to 10pm) and 2 graves (10pm to 6am) per week. My "weekend" was Friday and Saturday. The graves were actually really chill, easy to deal with. I liked them. But only two of them.
Then we get a new security company. All the supervisors are fired and new ones from the new company are brought in. Suddenly I'm working 5 graves. I ask for a change to swing. No dice. They offer to move me to a different site. It's 5 graves again.
I find out my old supervisor is now working as security manager at a local mall. I give him a call and he offers me a job. I took it.
Grabbed my uniform from the old company. Drove to the office. Walked it. dropped my uniform on the director's desk, turned and walked out. Went down to the mall and picked up my new uniform.
Sometimes new management does underhanded $hit like this to get people to quit, but usually it's just gross incompetence.
Godfather's pizza, the manager wouldn't give me my paycheck at 8pm on Sunday because the money might not be in the account yet, but I could pick it up at 9am Monday. This was decades ago, before direct and mobile deposits. THE BANK WOULDN'T BE OPEN UNTIL THE NEXT DAY ANYWAY! All of the paychecks were literally in his hand at that moment.
There were lots of issues before that but that was the final sign that the manager was completely uninterested in reason.
In the next few weeks nearly everyone else quit, then the manager was finally fired.
I was flat out lied to about the position.
It was a management position at a residential mental health facility and I had taken it (leaving a great paying but stressful position) because it wouldn't require travel and was supposed to be much more laid back. On top of many other issues I ended up having to work eight weeks straight without a single day off (even weekends and one holiday) so after a very heated meeting with upper management where one person was flat out lying to cover their own butt, I sent a resignation email from the parking lot.
Mental health facility. Work 8 weeks straight with no days off. Something sounds off with that place lol
Was told I did not have experience to move up. Hired a person with 1/20th of my experience in that position.
Sounds like corporate douche speak for "you are worth more than we want to pay you, so we are going to hire someone under-skilled so we can pay them less"
I was a supervisor of housekeeping at a hotel, every holiday all of management would take off leaving me the highest in charge, I asked for a raise after working a full year of holidays as the only management and was denied the next year on the biggest party day in the city, I set all my employees up with their work and texted the managers a picture of me at the bar partying telling them the hotel might be on fire, I don’t know I quit
Worked at an upscale busy bar a couple years back right after Covid. We were constantly under staffed, over worked, and treated like s**t from management and customers. One Friday night, my manager let the other bartender go early, because he had a crush on her and wanted in her pants. I got overwhelmed by a rush and he started b***hing at me about not being able to handle the bar. I looked at him in the eye (about to REALLY RAGE) and without a word walked to the back into the liquor room, grabbed two bottles of Jameson, put them in my backpack, and walked out the front door. My managers fearful, confused face while asking “where are you going!? What are you doing!?” was absolutely priceless. Best decision I made and I’m not joking lmao.
The owner of the company told me to fire a woman for arriving to work right on time.
It was always something different with him, some ridiculous new rule that he applied retroactively to suit whatever mood he was in on any given day. And that particular morning, he took it as a personal insult and a show of blatant disrespect that his employees didn’t arrive early.
I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t fire this woman, who I didn’t even particularly like, to satisfy this new whim of his. So instead of firing her, I marched into his office and quit myself.
Funnily enough, the woman I wouldn’t fire continued working for him for years. She might even still be there now, twenty-some years later.
Once had a boss that had mood changes like that everyday. He was always listening to music in his office. We found, whatever genre of music he was listening to first thing in the morning, was what mood he was in. If it was Blink 182, it's gonna be a great day. If it was Country music, everything is mostly ok. If it's Heavy metal/Screamo, you're in for an annoying day of rule changes and yellings.
I’m a physician who does procedures. This business was composed of several outpatient offices. Specifically, we did a high volume of peripheral arterial interventions and dialysis access maintenance. We also performed vascular ultrasounds. In the first month, I watched my colleague sign off on numerous ultrasounds that he had not interpreted (only a preliminary from Sonographer). All these were billed for physician interpretation, which is fraud. After that, I started to realize that a large number of our procedures were not indicated. Patient data such as tests, symptoms, labs etc were fabricated and modified to trigger us to say yes to cases. I started noticing a lot of normal angiograms, which didn’t make sense. Then, they pushed us to always perform an intervention, usually atherectomy, because that’s the highest reimbursement, around $20,000. There was inadequate equipment and only one nurse for every procedure (who was also the office manager, billing dept, receptionist). The ultrasound unit was damaged and images sub-diagnostic at best. The EMR was from the early 2000s. Ultrasound and angiogram images were often deleted, tampered with, or swapped between patients so if there was ever an audit… the fraud wouldn’t stand out. Oh, and the angiographic equipment (X-ray, table, etc) hadn’t been inspected or certified for years. I voiced my concerns. Nothing was done. The company existed solely to generate profit, with no regard for patients. I witnessed complications from procedures that didn’t even to happen in the first place. After enough of this, I went to work and suddenly quit at about 2 PM. The company was also already under a corporate integrity agreement. The appropriate regulatory agencies were notified. They’re still business as of today, but it won’t be for long.
Gotta be the U.S., where corrupt politicians ensure the for-profit "healthcare" system gets wealthier while people die.
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Mine was less dramatic. They started shorting my check and giving me the runaround about it. That was the only job that I didn't give notice to. I don't work for free.
My rule number one of being a manager: Be the manager you want to have.
My first real job out of high school was a family owned business. Mom ran it and both sons work for her. I worked in their convenience store. The oldest son, mid to late 30's used to come over from the building he worked in to use the bathroom in the c-store. They had a bathroom in his building. Anyway, he would grab a playboy off the shelf, open it and go sit in the bathroom. He did this many times. One day there was a customer at the magazine display when he went to put the magazine back. He told the customer he found it in the bathroom and they had to keep an eye on me because I would sneak in the bathroom to read dirty magazines. I was horrified! He thought it was funny. They were a terrible family to work for.
Mine was less dramatic. They started shorting my check and giving me the runaround about it. That was the only job that I didn't give notice to. I don't work for free.
My rule number one of being a manager: Be the manager you want to have.
My first real job out of high school was a family owned business. Mom ran it and both sons work for her. I worked in their convenience store. The oldest son, mid to late 30's used to come over from the building he worked in to use the bathroom in the c-store. They had a bathroom in his building. Anyway, he would grab a playboy off the shelf, open it and go sit in the bathroom. He did this many times. One day there was a customer at the magazine display when he went to put the magazine back. He told the customer he found it in the bathroom and they had to keep an eye on me because I would sneak in the bathroom to read dirty magazines. I was horrified! He thought it was funny. They were a terrible family to work for.
