'That was the first job I ever quit': 15+ Fed-up workers explain the exact moments they decided to quit their toxic jobs

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Mar 26, 2024 11:00 AM EDT

No matter how patient someone is, everyone has their breaking point. 

Most people who quit a job on the spot don't quit because of an isolated incident. Instead, a lot of people can only handle customers complaining to their faces so many times. You can only work so many tables that tip zero dollars before you start to lose your marbles. There are only so many times a Karen customer can confront you about prices that aren't in your control before you start to daydream about unemployment. 

These kind folks from all different chain restaurants shared the moments that made them want to quit. Some people were left to run entire restaurants by themselves. Others had conflicts with managers or coworkers that just made the job untenable. The best stories are the ones where multiple workers walk out during the shift, leaving the toxic managers to deal with all of the cranky customers, piles of dishes, and endless complaints. It's a satisfying end to a bad job, and several people noted how relieved they felt as they left their workplace for the final time, never to return again. 

Check out these stories below. Speaking of customers who don't tip, this HOA got an entire neighborhood banned from a pizza parlor after tipping so badly that the manager called to yell at them. 

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  • 01
    'People who have worked at chain restaurants, what's your "I'm out" story?" B->
    via pat__ on Unsplash
  • 02
    People who have worked at chain restaurants (Fridays, Red Lobster, etc). What's your " this I'm out” story?
    via u/Saloctogonapus
  • 03
    [deleted] Small asian food chain. Manager is speed- thawing raw chicken in the prep sink. Defending himself, he announced there are 5 rules of thawing that this practice is in-line with... but he could only remember 4. The place was closed within a month.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 04
    lilybear032 i worked at chilis. they would drastically cut my hours when they hired a new host, and then suddenly work me until i was exhausted because the newbie quit. this was an every other week thing. my paychecks would go from $30 to $250, and eventually I left after I pulled a double shift when a newbie quit, and then got no hours for 4 days.
    via u/lilybear032
  • 05
    terenn_nash worked for a franchise Qdoba for 4 months as a manager - good food, worked with good people, nothing about how the day to day op ran was bad, except how cash was handled. Deposits were kept in the safe, and would be periodically taken to the bank, deposit slips logged etc.
    via u/terenn_nash
  • 06
    as i was starting training, a deposit went missing. the two managers that had access to it were held accountable, and had their pay docked to offset the lost deposit - no police report filed, no one fired, no procedures changed to prevent it from happening again. 3.5 months later, a deposit goes missing again, from a weekend
    via u/terenn_nash
  • 07
    i had time off. Franchise owner pulled the same held the overlapping managers responsible for the missing money, docked their pay, no police report. at that point i dug in to who had been taking the deposits to the bank when they were discovered missing.
    via u/terenn_nash
  • 08
    The franchise owner on both accounts, who was also docking pay as a penalty for the "lost" money. within a week, i was ready to nope the out at the end of my shift, left backdated letter of resignation, and have copies of all deposits from shifts i had worked so the franchisee couldnt pull a "missing" deposit on me after the fact.
    via u/terenn_nash
  • 09
    edit: for those wondering why i didnt report him or go to the police - 23 year old me didnt want to have his future up by a false felony theft accusation and subsequent arrest, didnt have the money to fight said false
    via u/terenn_nash
  • 10
    accusation. the people being screwed were themselves 10-15 years older than me, and were in a better position to fight back if they chose to.
    via u/terenn_nash
  • 11
    Sharqi23 I worked at KFC when I was 17. I was terrorized by the cook, who used to display his crush on me by dangling raw gizzards threateningly over my face. The floor of the kitchen was always lathered thickly with grease, and a couple of times I slipped and nearly put my hand in the fryer by accident. But that wasn't why I quit.
    via u/Sharqi23
  • 12
    I worked mother's day, which is a big day for restaurants apparently. Every other employee had called in sick, etc., so it was just me, our store manager, and the district manager, working the restaurant. We do the lunch shift, which was crazy, but managed. However, the a/c went out, and it was super hot for May.
    via u/Sharqi23
  • 13
    After the lunch rush, the mgrs went back to the office which is the only place the a/c was working, and left me to do the cleanup and prep before supper rush. I was overheated and feeling sick. I went back to the office and told them I was getting overheated and needed some fresh (cool) air, but they told me to get back to cleaning. I started getting nauseous and
    via u/Sharqi23
  • 14
    told them I was going outside to take a break, either with or without their permission. The district manager's face broke into a condescending little smile and told me he knew I wasn't going to just walk out. We all know how this ends. Even at 17, I had enough self-respect to leave those the dust. in
    via u/Sharqi23
  • 15
    That was the first job I ever quit, which makes it kinda special in my heart.
    via u/Sharqi23
  • 16
    [deleted] I worked at Chuck E. Cheese's. I was in the mouse suit taking pictures for 3 separate birthday parties. I passed out in the suit on top of the children. Kids were crying and screaming "Chuckie's dead!!!!!".
    via u/[deleted]
  • 17
    My coworker dragged me to the backroom by my ankles, then took my head off. I got out of the suit and cooled down, drank some water and was feeling a little better. Then my manager goes, "So, you ready to get back in the suit?" Absolutely - not. Quit on the spot.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 18
    aspenthewolf Sonic Drive-in. I was a carhop. My first job. I was a good worker, on time, friendly, fast, customers liked me, and everything was generally okay. I had some issues with their ordering system since the button panel they had was outdated and had some things that were illogical on it, but
    via u/aspenthewolf
  • 19
    I did my best and never got anyone's order wrong. And then came the lunch rush. The lunch rush was always busy so we would all hurry to take orders out as soon as possible. There was a wristband scan- in system for employees to accept an order, take the receipt and put it in a tray and then scan again to take the food out and
    via u/aspenthewolf
  • 20
    associate that dollar amount with your employee (since if they paid with cash then you'd owe that to the company). Sonic has a countdown on every order for how fast it needs to go out since they have a corporate policy for how long it should take. I believe restaurants are penalized if they have slow service and don't
    via u/aspenthewolf
  • 21
    meet their guaranteed order times. So my manager decided, hey, instead of actually waiting for each employee to scan in and take their orders, she should just take my band and have everyone pay me back. The first few times it worked okay, but I realized I was coming up short and being forced to pay out of my own tips, so I was
    via u/aspenthewolf
  • 22
    barely making anything. I tried to even out with everyone but nobody had any record of what orders they took out... Then, one day, I came up negative by a large margin. My manager refused to admit that this was her fault and her problem. I didn't have enough tips to cover it all and nobody would cough up the money they owed me.
    via u/aspenthewolf
  • 23
    They all gave me the cold shoulder and pretended to act busy. I told my manager what I still owed, that I would bring it back as soon as I could, and I walked out. I couldn't afford to keep driving over there and wasting my time to deal with their negligence and bad practices. They also wouldn't let you accurately report your
    via u/aspenthewolf
  • 24
    tips (since they're supposed to pay the extra up to minimum wage if you don't make enough in tips), so on these days that I had to use my tip money to cover it I was making lower than minimum wage. I was young and dumb and just wanted out. If it hadn't been my first job and I had known better I would've taken it right up to corporate
    via u/aspenthewolf
  • 25
    and hopefully get it all lined out. Now I know better, know that I can stand up for myself.
    via u/aspenthewolf
  • 26
    wastingtoomuchthyme. pizza hut - it was ok at first until they hired a newly minted 23 year old MBA manager who acted like a guard at a prison camp. messed with the breaks, water, scheduling and had general contempt for us.
    via u/wastingtoomuchthyme
  • 27
    There was a huge local event going on and I was scheduled to work and someone had called out and the line was out the door. I show up and he starts going off on me about the other staff and tells me "You're luck you showed up on time else I would have fired you on the spot." I was like "ok".. and stared at him..
    via u/wastingtoomuchthyme
  • 28
    "you can't take any breaks today because we're so busy and you'll have to work a double..." I was like "ok".. and stared at him.. smiled.. walked out.
    via u/wastingtoomuchthyme
  • 29
    → [deleted] Fake Italian eatery with Mario in the name. My brother had just started working there after changing from a bar. He was trying to be a bartender but was told he had to go through 6 week's training, 3 as a host and 3 as a server. At this point he had been a bartender for about 3 years. He was annoyed but did it without much
    via u/[deleted]
  • 30
    issue as it was a new job. A couple weeks in he is hosting and some people come to the door. He was carrying a stack of about 20 plates and told them he would be right there. He seated them and that was that. Well the manager thought my brother took too long and told him that anytime a customer comes in you drop
    via u/[deleted]
  • 31
    what your doing and assist them. This manager was barely 18 and was talking to my brother like he was an idiot. Well about 30 minutes later a group of four comes in. My brother picks up a stack of plates and walks to the door. As he walks by them he drops about 10 plates on the floor. After they
    via u/[deleted]
  • 32
    shatter he just smiles at the group and asks them if they would like a booth, all while standing on the plates. He left shortly after
    via u/[deleted]
  • 33
    wewantedthefunk. Does Starbucks count? I was working at a very busy location in Dallas that consistently hit our goals and was a great producer for the district. Because of this, the assistant manager of the store was offered her own store at the Galleria up the road (rather the Galleria North, attached to a Crate and
    via u/wewantedthefunk
  • 34
    Barrel). I was one of the shift leads close to her and so she offered me a raise to join her at the new store. A few months later, the shaky crew we had at that point started to quit for one reason or another leaving me, my manager, a part timer and a mentally handicapped full-timer. This store was insanely busy in the mornings and even more so
    via u/wewantedthefunk
  • 35
    when the soccer moms coasted during the day and on the weekends. Not long after the foot traffic increased, my manager quit... leaving me to wait for her replacement. See, Starbucks at that time - possibly only in our market - was going through a corporate reorganization. They wanted drink turnarounds to function more like fast
    via u/wewantedthefunk
  • 36
    food - so they hired fast food managers. My new manager had been a manager at Wendy's for a while and apparently had it in mind to run this place like she ran Wendys. She was an awful woman, mean, stupid as a hitching post and probably took 30 smoke breaks every hour.
    via u/wewantedthefunk
  • 37
    Fast forward to a few weeks after she'd started she'd run off - the last two people I worked with. Rather than come in to help me, she scheduled me alone on a Saturday morning (one of our busiest times) until (6am) to (6pm) with no one else on the schedule. I was to run the bar and the register for one of the highest volume stores in Dallas with no help.
    via u/wewantedthefunk
  • 38
    After asking her if she'd be able to help me or get a floater to help, she told me to tough it out and it would be fine. I no-called/no-showed, effectively quitting and ignoring the 30 voicemails she left on my phone asking where the I was.
    via u/wewantedthefunk
  • 39
    Dougboard Steak N Shake, I worked for this place for three years split between two locations. I did just about everything in the kitchen, and often worked the overnight shifts. I was pretty confident with everything, but I reached a point where they told me they "couldn't" raise my pay
    via u/Dougboard
  • 40
    any more without promoting me. So I went for a promotion to a training position. Well, to be promoted to training, you had to attend a class, which management had to sign you up for. Except management kept forgetting to do it. Three times. And then I eventually learn that being a trainer only comes with a $0.50 raise, and only for
    via u/Dougboard
  • 41
    when you're actually training somebody... which you can only do for three hours a day maximum. Decided I'm done bending over backwards just to get the runaround from the . And when I quit, they had the nerve to tell me that they were marking me as a do-not-rehire, and that I ruined my chances of advancement.
    via u/Dougboard
  • 42
    [deleted] Spring Creek Barbecue....I was a busboy at a barbecue place. Awful experience. Anyways, 16yo me had been working there part- time for a little over a month. We had Managers then one step below was a Shift Manager. This particular night was New Year's Eve night so it's super busy of
    via u/[deleted]
  • 43
    course, I was scrubbing baked on cheese from mac'n'cheese trays, caked on barbecue sauce off of other trays... and while I'm scrubbing, our Shift Manager (about 20yo) decides in his down time he would ball up the leftover raw dough from the rolls and throw it at the back door as hard as he can for god knows why.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 44
    Well of course the back door is right behind me at the scrubbing station. He throws one and it goes whizzing past my head. I look at him and tell him that's too close and to not throw it while I'm standing there. He laughs it off and goes. about his way. Well about 5 minutes later I'm scrubbing and all of the sudden there's a loud smack and an intense sting on my
    via u/[deleted]
  • 45
    leg. I look down and see splattered raw dough, look up at him and he's laughing saying, "oh sorry dude I didn't mean that" I quietly peel dough off my work clothes and grab a tub to clean off some tables. I come back and ask to switch spots with a fellow busboy to wash plates and silverware. We switch, NP. So now I'm going about my way, washing plates.. and all
    via u/[deleted]
  • 46
    of the sudden the door swings open and in walks my manager (~35yo M) FUMING. He starts SCREAMING at me asking why there's not enough silverware washed, "What the are you doing back here." etc. He must've told ppl he was going to yell at me because he had about 4-5 ppl behind him watching all with a eating grin on their
    via u/[deleted]
  • 47
    faces. He was red- faced, spitting, completely going over the top and showing off his authority. He physically moved me back to scrubbing station and told me not to come out of the back for the rest of the night. So 16 yo me, feeling completely belittled bc not even my parents yelled at me the way he did, goes back to scrubbing when all of the sudden
    via u/[deleted]
  • 48
    theres another loud "SMACK!" and sting this time on my arm. I look up and the shift manager was standing there smiling. Now I've had it... I took all the clean pots and pans out of the sink and threw them on the ground, let out all the washing water (which took a good 20 mins to fill the sink again) walked over to the raw dough, took a ball and threw it as hard as I
    via u/[deleted]
  • 49
    can (former hs football quarterback: humble brag lol) at the shift manager from about 10ft away and hit him square in the stomach with it. Took off my apron, told one meat cutter I'm out, and walked out. The best part was the other busboy followed me out bc he had been thinking about doing the same for weeks. The rest of the NYE shift they had zero
    via u/[deleted]
  • 50
    busboys, so the managers/shift managers had to do our work the rest of the night. To this day I have absolutely no remorse for walking out and never going back.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 51
    TLDR: was a busboy that got my kicked by raw dough, and verbally abused by ppl who loved having authority. So I walked out and let them do my grunt work.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 52
    luthurian My first full-time job out of high school was working graveyard shift at a Denny's. A new line dancing / cowboy bar opened literally around the corner, and they didn't have any extra staff on hand for the overflow into our little diner. One cook, one manager, myself and one other waitron.
    via u/luthurian
  • 53
    We proceed to have a line out the door and every table full of grousing, grumbling, drunken suburban cowpersons. We're sprinting for drinks, orders, trying to run register, busing our own tables. The manager is pinned in the kitchen trying to make food happen. The other waitron, she finally snaps. She's too stressed out. She
    via u/luthurian
  • 54
    heads to the kitchen 'to help cook' and will not return to the FOH. Cue the dramatic music. I ran the entire FOH by myself for a hour. Doing a -poor job, mind you. No man can run fifty tables, register, seat, and bus at the same time. So I walk back to the kitchen and stare through the window at
    via u/luthurian
  • 55
    my manager, the cook, and the other waitron. "Any of you coming out here to help me?" Three heads shake. "Cool. Figure it out yourselves, then." I up my apron, take off my corporate- issued tie, and walk straight out the front door, with a couple hundred faux- cowpokes staring.
    via u/luthurian
  • 56
    sacjmc I was working PT at an Olive Garden for the extra cash. Not that there was much of it as one of my shifts was Monday. No business, and they used it as a training day for new hires. No daytime bartender, so I had to start my shift by cleaning up the mess made during the day. this particular day
    via u/sacjmc
  • 57
    someone had dumped a full container of strawberry daiquiri mix. all of the floor and left it there. I walked in to start my shift, found that and six to go orders waiting for me, with the hostess breathing down my neck about the to-gos. I decided that I could either listen to this twit scream at me, mop the floors, clean all the glasses, wipe all the
    via u/sacjmc
  • 58
    counter tops, and stock everything for probably $10 in tips, or I could say this and go home. I walked in the back, told the manager on duty I was done and punched out. He told me if I left like this I'd never be rehired. "I'll try to get over that" I said on my way home.
    via u/sacjmc
  • 59
    fusionsplice Applebees - Local sports team comes to shoot a commercial with the Carside-to-Go for an advert to play during games. Poor girls working the booth that day was told she wasn't TV friendly so they pulled an attractive female from
    via u/fusionsplice
  • 60
    a different section to do the commercial. She cried until she was sent home. Was a domino effect to her not working there anymore.
    via u/fusionsplice
  • 61
    Haceldama Taco Bell- I worked for a hormonal molotov cocktail of a manager who would, out of nowhere, have these massive screaming outbursts of rage. She also enjoyed mind games. One of these was to hire an outsider on as a new assistant manager, always a young woman. She'd train her, be sweet as pie, and act as her new
    via u/Haceldama
  • 62
    best friend. Once she lost interest in her new AM she'd start nitpicking, then work her way up to straight out bullying, culminating in finally firing the AM. The girls were completely destroyed by the end. And god forbid anyone ever wear blue eyeshadow. She hated blue eyeshadow, and would go on rants about how trashy women looked in blue
    via u/Haceldama
  • 63
    eyeshadow if any of us came in wearing it. Horrible woman. There were tons of complaints about her, but she presented well to the higher ups, and she was the regional manager, so nothing ever came of the complaints. Another of her games was to mess with the weekly schedule. She'd pick a target and start moving their hours
    via u/Haceldama
  • 64
    forward, usually the day before their next shift, and not notify them. The next day the employee would be late, and then she'd berate them for it and write them up. People started taking to calling in the evening before their next shift to check if their hours had been altered, so she started locking the schedule in her office. Eventually it was my turn. I was already
    via u/Haceldama
  • 65
    I off about spending the previous year often being told I had to run both the walk in and drive through registers simultaneously, including during the dinner and lunch rushes, while rushing to do the prep work between orders, keeping the dining room clean, and sometimes making the food as well when the
    via u/Haceldama
  • 66
    cooks decided to go on break en masse, and then getting a five cent raise because I was not, in her opinion, a team player. So when my shift leader called me very early on a saturday morning to tell me that I was scheduled to help open (um no, I was scheduled for 2pm) and that I was already an hour late. So I grabbed my uniform, drove to the store,
    via u/Haceldama
  • 67
    walked up to the counter, and threw my unwashed uniform on it. Told my shift leader that I was sick of Manager's and I was done. Never went back. Found out the next tax season that Manager lied to corporate and told them that she didn't have any address for me so that they wouldn't be able to send me my W-2s.
    via u/Haceldama
  • 68
    Four years later, Manager came into the funeral home I was working at to arrange services for her mother. I had the embalmer use blue eyeshadow on her.
    via u/Haceldama
  • 69
    teke367 I worked at Red Lobster. I was transferring from one store to another. My last day at the one store, a table walks in around 15 minutes before closing. It was a fairly large table (maybe 8-10) people. I had one of the large tables, but it was already sat. There was an open large table, but the server whose
    via u/teke367
  • 70
    section it was in was already cut for the night. Normally, the procedure is to sit the table there, and have another server wait on them "outside of their section". Instead, the manager made the table wait until my table was done to sit them there (which was almost an hour, in an fairly empty restaurant).
    via u/teke367
  • 71
    So I thought to myself "so much for transferring" and told the manager I'm out. I guess he realized that if he fired me, it would go to the district manager, and they'd ask why he made the group wait, and he ended up getting somebody else to take it.
    via u/teke367
  • 72
    A few years later, at the new store, I had put in my notice. I'm such a nice guy, I gave them a month instead of two weeks. Three weeks in, they pull that same , and I just said this is going to be my last day. Technically, I'm on file with them as "no rehire" because I "only" gave them three weeks.
    via u/teke367
  • 73
    Worked at the Old Spaghetti Factory and during the summer, our freezers that we kept the complimentary spumoni ice cream in was on the fritz so it was a little mushy when I brought it out to a guest. He looked at it like I just put roadkill on the table and was like, "what is
    via r/AskReddit
  • 74
    this?" I explained that our freezers were having problems and that I was sorry about the quality of our FREE ice cream as nicely as possible. Next day I am pulled into the office by managment regarding a comment card this gentlemen had filled out complaining about his poor ice cream
    via r/AskReddit
  • 75
    experience. My manager asked me why I didnt offer to get him new ice cream and I explained how all of the cream is half melted and that it would have been more of the same. As punishment, one of my shifts was taken away from me and at that point I stood and said, "just take the rest away as well. Im out." And didnt look back.
    via r/AskReddit
  • 76
    Puzzleheaded North ⚫ I worked at Chipotle as a cashier for 3 days in my early college career. They were severely understaffed so I was trained with a quick 5 minute explanation of the cashier system and then expected to function on my own for the rest of the day. Every time I'd ask for help because I was confused the manager
    via u/Puzzleheaded North
  • 77
    would be annoyed and not understand why I couldn't just get it. On top of that, I was required to clean, refill ice, and man the register all at once when the line was clearly poppin at all times. If I couldn't refill napkins in time because I was ringing
    via u/Puzzleheaded North
  • 78
    people up it was a huge deal that I was incapable of being in two places at once. Called in before my 4th shift and quit.
    via u/Puzzleheaded North
  • 79
    MacroHacks I'll pass along my Dad's story. He goes in for his first day at Pizza Hut. They hired two new people both starting that day, including himself. Upon arrival the two of them are looking puzzled at each other, but of course knowing you aren't the only newby can sometimes calm the nerves. The manager
    via u/MacroHacks
  • 80
    comes out with another employee and says "good luck today guys I'm sure y'all will do fine." And both of them leave. My dad and this other new employee were left alone, with no training, prep knowledge, register knowledge, or anything for the entire days shift. So they did what they could to take orders, make food, and
    via u/MacroHacks
  • 81
    provide service, but according to my Dad everyone waited a long time for their food, everything was burnt to a crisp, and no one was even remotely happy. Fun times. He didn't go to work the next day.
    via u/MacroHacks
  • 82
    KhaosElement I'm going to count this, because the owner genuinely though this place was going to turn into a MASSIVE chain. Was hired on as a line cook for it. Turned out, I was THE employee. I'd be prepping, cooking, washing dishes, all of it. One guy in the morning, and only me at night. I worked two night, we closed at
    via u/KhaosElement
  • 83
    midnight, got done with all the dishes around 2 am. Saw a note on the time clock that they wanted me in at 6 am for breakfast shift. Left a note saying "I yourselves." and never came back. They closed down a week later.
    via u/KhaosElement
  • 84
    [deleted] I was a hostess at a Macaroni Grill way back when. One Friday night we were absolutely slammed. Like by 6 the wait time was around 2.5 hours. Management noticed that we were quoting a wait of 2.5 hours and that many customers were opting not to stay....So they told us not to quote anything longer than an hour,
    via u/[deleted]
  • 85
    regardless of how long the wait got. As you can imagine, this didn't go well. We kept the business for the night, because what are you gonna do? Go over to Chili's and start waiting all over again? But we were told by several customers that they would not be returning. After having
    via u/[deleted]
  • 86
    to lie to a family and tell them "Just a few more minutes" for the 20th time in 2 hours, I bounced.
    via u/[deleted]

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