'The entire IT department left': 20+ Dramatic quitters who left their coworkers in shock

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jan 11, 2024 11:00 AM EST

If you already know you're going to quit, you may as well do it in style. 

Imagine that your boss suddenly raced away from the building after quitting. The office would never stop talking about it! Whenever times get tough, people will joke about the time that the manager fled the building. People always talk about their dreams, but that guy put his money where his mouth was and executed a perfect final day. 

When people are laid off, it's often done in the early morning or outside of normal work hours. That way, if the person throws a fit or gets emotional, other people aren't around to see it. Quitting, on the other hand, also comes with some strong emotions. But since quitting is on the employee's terms, there's a much bigger chance that the office will get to watch that person stride out of the office on their last day. 

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  • These folks shared the strangest ways they've ever seen someone quit. Some decided to rage quit, while others were more subtle about it. Regardless, you can check out all of these great stories below. 

    Then, check out these mildly infuriating moments, like one person who accidentally got the world's most dangerous milkshake.

  • 01
    Yesterday my boss literally ran away from work after quitting. What is the strangest way you've seen someone quit Context: my boss (retail) called me into work for noon and was showing me how to check the company email and set alarm codes for the doors and then gave me the password to his company blackberry. This was strange, then when the regular guy came to start his shift at 1 he closed the store and came out with all his stuff and said "I am officially done with this company as of right now"
    via u/Calik
  • 02
    phone started to ring and I reached to grab it, knowing this was the district manager and not wanting to confront him he literally ran out of the store and I haven't seen him since. Apparently he had just emailed the district manager to say he had resigned and wanted no further contact. The other guy and me have only worked at the store for a month. So Reddit I ask of you. What weird way have your coworkers quit?
    via u/Calik
  • 03
    dottieblue Not my story, but my boss's: she worked at a VERY busy downtown restaurant/brunch spot and the line would be FLOODED with tickets for hours on end. One day, one of the line cooks just stopped amidst all the commotion, stood up straight, paused, and grabbed ALL of the tickets off of the line, scrunched them into a ball, and put them in his pants. He then put his middle fingers up and rotated facing everyone who was watching in horror, and walked out.
    via u/dottieblue
  • 04
    [deleted] I used to work at a fast food place in a small town. We had the run of the mill "So-and-so was arrested. Guess he's not working here anymore." happen more times than I could count. But the best was when someone didn't show up for his shift. The manager calls his phone and he doesn't answer. It goes to voicemail. He changed his greeting to the following: 11 you. I quit."
    via u/[deleted]
  • 05
    Massivz My high school summer job was at Burger King. One year they put me on the schedule when I was supposed to be at a sports camp 6 hours away and I said, "no, I told you like three months ago I need those two weeks off" and they replied with "well you have to come back to work then go back to camp" and I was like, "okay," so I drove back home
    via u/Massivz
  • 06
    and quit. When I got home, there was a manager on the phone for me saying that they have a "no-quitting policy." I was like "okay, well I quit so..." Followed by awkward silence. Then she hung up on me.
    via u/Massivz
  • 07
    Lionsgatekeeper83 We walked the guy down to security and he hugged the old security guard for like 10 minutes in silence.
    via u/Lionsgatekeeper83
  • 08
    Lumpyproletarian I was once giving a course at a company HQ in a room overlooking the front door. I was just explaining company law for engineers, when the entire IT department left the building with their belongings in black plastic bin bags.
    via u/Lumpyproletarian
  • 09
    [deleted] My supervisor used to tell everyone at my last job they were easily replaceable. He was a former military guy and he tried to run the place military style. He would threaten people, break stuff and make unreasonable demands. So, one day I found a new job and just quit with out notice. He got hold of my number and the next day he called me and yelled at me for being unprofessional. He said I owed him 2 weeks.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 10
    I told him I'm easily replaceable and he should have no problem finding a replacement. Then hung up. I should also mention that job had the bare minimum amount of employees to run the place. If someone called out, we would all have to work at least 2 hours overtime to make up for it. If anyone took a week vacation it was a nightmare. My quitting like that set the place back a few months until they hired and trained a new guy to replace me.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 11
    kem741 It's a long story, but our manager wrote, me, my friend, and literally everyone else who had worked that day up because she thought someone stole $20 from her. My friend and I decided to quit (because I'm not going to sign a write-up when I did nothing wrong and she's too stupid to lock her stuff up). I took the paper, simply wrote "I quit" and handed it back to her. I look at my friend and he looks right at her, just staring at her.
    via u/kem741
  • 12
    Then he slowly crumples up the write-up, puts it in his mouth, and starts chewing, just staring at her. He then turns around, walks to his car, and drives away, still the whole time with the paper in his mouth. It was glorious.
    via u/kem741
  • 13
    DrRocksoo I ran away after quitting. I was hired by a competing company, put in my two weeks, and the boss got suspicious. He came by my desk and told me to follow him into his office to sign a non-competing form, basically saying that after I left there I couldn't work for the competition for 6 months. I my pants as I got was
    via u/DrRocksoo
  • 14
    up to follow him. At that exact moment, the phone rang. I picked it up and told him I would be there in 5 minutes. Finished up the phone call, grabbed my, and hauled out the back door. They eventually did find out that I went to work for the competition and he sent me an email saying "congrats on the new job. I'll have to stop by for a 'visit' one of these days".
    via u/DrRocksoo
  • 15
    SourCreamWater Worked a VERY fancy french restaurant. The Chef was a "Master Chef" and thus he had the biggest ego of anyone I had ever met. Chef was in the piano bar talking and having a drink with some horse racing big wigs (Rancho Santa Fe during track season). Hard working, mild mannered busser is changing table cloths. Chef just starts belittling him in front of everyone for a laugh.
    via u/SourCreamWater
  • 16
    "What the 1, man? I just saw a bit of the table when you switched cloths!" (You're not supposed to see the actual table). "If you grabbed the wrong size table cloth, fold it back up, I LAZY!" man you're so (There are many different sizes so you grab a variety and use it on the next table if it was wrong) Chef said something else and laughs with a jockey, some hot women, and some guys with back pockets thicker than George Castanza...I forget
    via u/SourCreamWater
  • 17
    what he said that made everybody laugh. But this 20 yr old behemoth of a busser takes his apron off and throws it at chef. Chef stands up from the booth like he's and is yelling about how he will lose his job.
    via u/SourCreamWater
  • 18
    Busser goes this job and :!" you, you German and decks chef right in the chops in the middle of the busy piano bar, then walks to the back exit, grabs a tray full of buffed Riedel stemware and chucks it into the wall and leaves. It was pretty rad.
    via u/SourCreamWater
  • 19
    Infinite_Euphoria My first job out of college was at a medium sized company with a small IT staff. There were just 6 of us programmers until we hired the new guy. We were using this obscure language which you couldn't really hire for without paying through the nose so they decided to do OTJ training for this. So the new guy was a little older than me, but had no experience outside of teaching. He was nice, sort of quiet, and a little quirky. The only thing personal he kept on
    via u/Infinite_Euphoria
  • 20
    his desk was this plastic goat. I didn't have anything personal on my desk either, so I didn't think anything of it. Sometimes he would play with it a little, but it mostly just sat in one spot on his desk. Everyone needs some sort of stress relief I suppose. A few weeks go by, and the new guy seems to be picking up the language fair enough. He had coded a couple of screens, albeit with a little help. One Monday comes up, and he doesn't show at the office. Our boss calls him and says you can't j
    via u/Infinite_Euphoria
  • 21
    up without calling. Not a big deal to me, I mean things come up, it was just a little unprofessional. The next morning, I get into the office super early which is unlike me since I was such a late riser. He rolls in around his normal time and is surprised to see me, but I figure its because he likes the quiet morning. We're there working for a couple hours and the whole time he's fiddling with the goat in his hand. Mid morning he gets up
    via u/Infinite_Euphoria
  • 22
    out of his chair and leaves our little room. An hour goes by and I realize he isn't around to go to lunch which we all used to do as a group. Figure he must have had something to do. Well he doesn't show up after lunch. The next day, no call no show. A weekend passes and still doesn't show and he hadn't returned any calls, so my boss had to call the police to do a health check on him. He finally sends an email to say he wouldn't be back.
    via u/Infinite_Euphoria
  • 23
    We all look at each other thinking, who in the world quits like that. Was this spur of the moment or premeditated? We look at his desk, and realize his little plastic goat is gone. He must have come in that morning to grab it, but was surprised by me into staying for a bit to cover it up or something. He hadn't done anything malicious to the code, he just wanted his goat.
    via u/Infinite_Euphoria
  • 24
    TheShrinkingGiant A guy I knew got an email for a meeting in the boss's office. Figuring he was 1, he starts just destroying computer equipment. Just up like crazy. So he goes into the office, sits down, and the boss tells him he needs him to go to a conference someplace, and it'd be all paid for by the company. He didn't get to go to the conference.
    via u/TheShrinkingGiant
  • 25
    BobFinklestein My previous company was so awful that we would get new employees sometimes that would "get the vibe" very quickly and quit within a few days. But the classic was the guy who never came back from his lunch break on the first day. Within his group in our company, his name became a verb meaning "to quit at lunch and never come back". So occasionally, you'd hear an frustrated employee say "that's it, I'm doing a <this guy's name>.
    via u/BobFinklestein
  • 26
    tyrannustyrannus My friend quit his job at a corner store by just walking out and never coming back. Before he left, he stashed an open gallon of milk on top of the radiator that hung from the ceiling.
    via u/tyrannustyrannus
  • 27
    challam After 25 years as an executive with a fairly large corporation, I threw the keys to my company car and my company credit card on the CEO's desk and walked home...started my own business four months later and just retired after 19 successful and blissful years.
    via u/challam
  • 28
    Spingetslost When I quit my job, I left not angrily, but curtly. Solemnly walked out of the office, said goodbyes to my co-workers, and made it two steps out the door, congratulating myself on my dignity--until I realized that I left all my groceries in the office fridge. Went back and, with as much dignity as I could, collected half a loaf of bread, two jars of peanut butter, and four older apples.
    via u/Spingetslost
  • 29
    graffiti81 I've got one. I was working construction with a small company. It was the old man, his son, a foreman, me and occasionally a day laborer who was the old man's drinking buddy. Being a drinking buddy, he wasn't a great worker. Well, one day the boss had to run for material. So he sent me and the day help to strip a really old roof (which is a horrible job but whatever) while he sent his kid and the foreman to do a little tiny
    via u/graffiti81
  • 30
    framing job that should have taken about an hour. Well, two hours later I'm stripping this roof and I see the our van go by with the framers in it. I see it pull into a coffee shop about a quarter mile away. I keep working. Well, an hour and a half later they come back with iced coffees for themselves and nothing for us and proceed to stand and watch us work. I yelled down to them "Where's mine?"
    via u/graffiti81
  • 31
    The reply was "Oh, we didn't think you'd want one." Well that but I kept working getting dirtier and sweatier as time went by. I me right off, They watched us for about ten minutes until the boss showed up. By this time the roof was like 90% done. I was visibly I off. The boss says something to the effect of "Meatloaf (they called me Meatloaf because I kinda look like him) is just fat, dumb and happy."
    via u/graffiti81
  • 32
    I replied "Oh, yeah Steve? you, I quit." "That's not funny, Meatloaf." I said "It wasn't meant to be, you, I quit." I proceeded to climb down and dump about ten pounds of roof nails in front of his truck, grabbed my and left. This was like 9am on Monday morning. I had a week's worth of vacation coming too. By Tuesday afternoon, a friend of mine
    via u/graffiti81
  • 33
    had offered me a week's worth of work scraping a house to prep for painting for more than I was making roofing. So I did that for five days then started putting in applications. Three days later, I had a job in an air conditioned office. So I quit, made better than double what I would have that week and got a much better job. yeah.
    via u/graffiti81
  • 34
    bonjelea The first department I worked for had an officer who was lazy at best but was mainly just there for a paycheck. His wife had multiple degrees and he often said that he would quit once she found a well paying job. Apparently she did. One afternoon I was talking to my Sergeant when he got a call from this officer. The conversation only lasted about a minute but in that time he managed to the Sergeant off immensely. He hung up the phone and looked at me and said, "you're not gonna f---- be
    via u/bonjelea
  • 35
    Turns out the officer got a a call from his wife saying she got hired with some university over seas. So he parked his patrol car at a 711, took off his gunbelt and badge and threw them in the trunk then locked the car keys in the trunk with them and called the Sergeant and told him where the car was parked.
    via u/bonjelea
  • 36
    toddjunk Story 1; about a coworker Straight out of college, I worked for two years in news production. If it happened behind the camera at this news studio, I was often involved. From starting out running the teleprompter, scrips, audio board, chyron generation to eventually technical directing (before I decide to leave news).
    via u/toddjunk
  • 37
    I was primarily employed by the NBC affiliate but a Fox affiliate also rented studio space. In smaller markets, this is common for Fox to not have their own dedicated studio building. Fox and NBC news broadcasts were run very differently; this was late 90s and the term often used to describe Fox news production was "MTV edits" - lots of flashy wipes, quick camera changes, etc. The primary Fox director at this station was referred to as Doc. I don't even know his real name; never cared - the man
    via u/toddjunk
  • 38
    !. Treated was a everyone terribly and I was the only one he respected because I was the only one who stood up to him. I still find that to be He was a large man, 6'4" tall, probably 250 lbs or more and had a menacing behavior. It was not unheard of him to refer to a female coworker as a "." I really didn't like the guy and so what if I didn't want to be pushed around? Not everyone is so good at sticking up for themselves. I thought we should all be treated fairly and with respect.
    via u/toddjunk
  • 39
    Near the end of his tenure, his mother had been diagnosed with cancer. This obviously affected him greatly, but in unpredictable ways. His rage/abuse could be worse; other times he could be quite withdrawn. In honor of his mother he started shaving his head because of her chemo. One night he had gotten off the phone with a family member, I'm not sure who and he was very upset. Having a hard time keeping it together. This was painfully evident to me.
    via u/toddjunk
  • 40
    We're about 25 minutes out from going live, so it's about 9:35pm and the Sports Director (SD) comes in to complain to Doc about something. Doc jumps up, nostrils flaring and I'm worried that there is going to be a fight, so I step in between them. Still not knowing 100% what is wrong, I tell the SD to back off and tonight is not a good night for this. I don't know if Doc appreciated this or something, but his menacing stare weakened greatly and the SD ramped it up and really tore into Doc. The S
    via u/toddjunk
  • 41
    physically the complete opposite of Doc seemed to sense he might get the upper hand for once and just really lays into Doc verbally. Doc's mouth just falls open, he pushes the SD out of the way and runs screaming and crying outside. I run after Doc and I find him completely collapsed on his knees in the parking lot, under the one working street lamp we had, just crying, sobbing, blubbering - he was a mess. Just destroyed.
    via u/toddjunk
  • 42
    I tell him we go live in 20 minutes, he's got to get his together and get in there and direct. He finally stands up, says he doesn't care anymore and rushes to his car. He peels out (which is saying quite a bit because his car was no one makes a much money in local news production) and we never saw him again. He never called the station to resign or anything; dude dropped off the face of the earth. I think it's safe to assume he went back to PA to see his family and hopefully his mom. I
    via u/toddjunk
  • 43
    At 9:45pm I find one of the NBC morning news directors. This guy is a classy , has a smooth jazz style voice and is just an all around cool guy. He directs at 6am; so he has no reason to be at the station - it was purely random. I grab him and drag him off to the control room; telling him Doc has gone AWOL and he's got to direct the 10pm Fox News. "There's no way I'm doing this. I know nothing about Doc's switcher. Fox is crazy !" As I mentioned earlier, the two broadcasts are extremely differen
    via u/toddjunk
  • 44
    two seconds away from an "I'm too old for this "type of monologue. I told him I was there for him, I'd technical direct the show, tell him what the cues were, what the typical camera calls were, etc. It was abysmal. I've never partaken in 60 minutes of shittier tv than that Fox broadcast that night. Larry, a man of cool, calm demeanor, just dropping F-bombs left and right; so justifiably frustrated by a directors switch board setup that might as well been in an alien language.
    via u/toddjunk
  • 45
    We never got any calls at the station of complaints from viewers, which is amazing, because there was so often when someone's mic would be off or the wrong person would be on camera; wrong footage rolling for a voiceover, etc. It was truly horrid. Good times.
    via u/toddjunk
  • 46
    Meowtlandish When I worked at staples, one of the cashiers was removed by police. Apparently she had been ringing up prepaid phone cards (which activates them) and then voiding the sales (which fixed the problem of the register being unbalanced). Unfortunately for her, all those voids are tracked, and she just threw the cards away in the trash can. She was something like 16 or 17 years old.
    via u/Meowtlandish
  • 47
    She was loading all the minutes onto her phone, she even taught another cashier how to do it. In total I think she stole somewhere in the neighborhood of $2000 worth of prepaid phone minutes. Pretty much the drama highlight of my career there.
    via u/Meowtlandish

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