Most of us have to work — like, we have no choice. But if you're fortunate enough you find a job where you both like what you do and the people you work with. Yet, even in the best jobs, there may come a point when we know it's time to move on.
Then there are the jobs where things can get so bad that you have NO choice but to quit. And recently, Reddit user TweedStoner was interested in those situations when they asked: "People who have straight up rage quit a job, what was the final straw? "
The thread got thousands of responses from people who said, "I am out of here" to their bosses. Below are the top and best comments:
1. "I was tired of doing a three-person job. My boss following me around, calling me at home during meetings when I was sick, and talking to me outside the bathroom door was making me stressed out. I returned from vacation one day to find piles and piles of work that other people could have done. I quit, packed my shit and left.🖕"
2. "My manager started snapping her fingers in my face, three inches away from my eyes, saying in a slow drawl, '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 I was achieving the same fold. Also, it was my third week there, and it was one of 20 folds I had to learn on that job. I walked right out then and there."
3. "I worked for a call center for a phone company. I refused to try and sell a cable 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 husband's name because he had just died."
4. "My manager's 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."
5. "I was a receptionist for a medical software company. The boss refused my request to take a single day off to take my teen daughter to get eye surgery. I waited until the first day of her two-week vacation to schedule it and put in my notice. It ruined my daughter's vacation."
6. "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 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' line and I tell her point blank I will fail this class if I don't go. She shrugged and said, 'That isn't my problem.' I told her, 'It is now' and left. Like hell, I wasn't going fail a class that was for my master's degree because I was waiting tables at a f'ing Rainforest Cafe."
7. "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."
8. "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 and it missed…then I just closed my toolbox, wheeled it to the truck, and left, lol."
9. "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."
10. "Worked in retail, and sprained my ankle really bad while ice skating. Couldn't so much as get out of bed. I had to call in and take two days off — after which I was barely even able to limp to work. As soon as I got back in, the manager pulled me into his office to SCREAM at me for taking two days off. For a physical injury that physically made it so I could not do my job. I threw a cold cup of coffee on him and walked out. My only regret is that the coffee was cold."
11. "I was told I did not have the experience to move up. Then they hired a person with 1/20th of my experience for that same position."
12. "I worked at an upscale busy bar a couple of years back — right after COVID. We were constantly understaffed, overworked, and treated like shit from management and customers. One Friday night, my manager let the other bartender go early because he had a crush on her and wanted to get in her pants. I got overwhelmed by a rush and he started bitching at me about not being able to handle the bar."
"I looked 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 manager's 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."
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13. "I never have, but my favorite example was when a coworker, 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."
14. "The company told me I was to enforce two new policies: 1.) All employees must report to work 15 minutes early for their shift, however, they would not be paid for that time; 2.) All employees must take their unpaid lunch break in specific areas, under very specific circumstances. I told them we needed to have a meeting to discuss the legality of their new policies before I could enforce them on my team."
"They replied, 'Either you enforce the policies or you resign your position.' I said See Ya!!!! They begged me to reconsider and to not make a 'bad decision' just because I was upset. Unfortunately, I was already out the door."
15. "My boss cussed me out 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 and 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."
16. "I 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 ass off, graduated, and the boss said, 'Yeeeeeaaaah, we're going to move you to customer service. Sound good?' I stayed late that night drafting a company-wide 'F**k you' email. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have done that, but some bridges just beg to be burned."
17. "I was 16, working at a gas station. The owner went on a hunting trip. His wife came in and opened the safe, took money, and left. I was accused of stealing it. I pointed out I didn't have the combination, and the receipts for the day I worked that weekend didn't add up to what was gone. He called the cops and admitted to them that only he and his wife had the combination. He was a f'ing moron."
18. "The boss told me I should be sleeping at his house because that's the level of dedication he needed from me. Bye!"
19. And lastly, "Being told I was not bringing in enough clients during the middle of COVID."
You can read the original thread on Reddit.
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.