‘Never make that mistake again’: Employee resigns after multiple instances of workplace mistreatment, manager backtracks on prior reprimands and refuses to ‘accept’ her two-week notice

Lana DeGaetano • "Show me to me please."

Sep 6, 2024 12:00 PM EDT

The worst part of leaving a job is figuring out a professional way to depart from your role without causing too much trouble for anyone involved. Although you might want to lean into grandiose theatrics, your best bet for a seamless career transition is to bite your tongue and pray that your coworkers won't crash and burn in the fallout of your departure.

What if biting your tongue just makes your circumstances more complicated? What if it's a lose-lose situation? On the one hand, you can avoid everything I've mentioned above. On the other hand, your workplace will start trying to finally accommodate your needs after countless instances of mistreatment and workplace malpractice. The employee in this story is facing a similar dilemma.

This is her first job out of college and she wasn't necessarily jumping at the opportunity to work for this small business. In this job market, you unfortunately take what you can get, and this just so happened to be her luck of the draw. If you can call it lucky. For starters, an entitled manager who refuses to call you by an appropriate nickname (in this case, a shortened version of her "longer traditional European name"), is already a glaring red flag.

If you are reprimanded for bringing in brownies or spilling coffee on your clothes, a five-minute conversation is uncalled for. Luckily, the original poster (OP) has found another job that pays better, and put in their two-week notice. In an attempt to avoid further mistreatment, OP decides to fabricate her reason for leaving but is met with (likely) false promises of compromise. She doesn't know why they are so adamant about keeping an employee they evidently dislike, and people in the comments are assuming they need to keep her around as a punching bag.

Scroll to read the entire story, including some advice folks suggesting she stick to her two-week exit plan and never look back.