'I was given a 1 cent raise': 20+ Job quitters who had great motivations to leave their workplace for good

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Oct 30, 2024 5:00 PM EDT

Saying "goodbye and good luck" to a job you can't stand is such an empowering feeling. You know you're on to bigger and better things, while the managers you despise stay behind. 

When an employee starts considering leaving a job, there are a lot of factors to consider. They'll have to polish up that resume and start job hunting, which is a full-time job on its own. They are probably sick and tired of their boss, and maybe they're fed up with their coworkers and job duties as well. As they seek out a new position, they'll learn that the grass really is greener on the other side! A new job will not only treat them better, but will pay more and have better benefits. The current job often won't beg that employee to stay. They'll accept that two-week notice and start immediately searching for someone new to fill the role. 

For these people, quitting was an easy choice. U/virtueandsin got people to spill the beans about their final straws in the workplace, from mean bosses to petty customers and more. You can read all about it down below! 

After that, read about some family drama: this father excluded his son and daughter-in-law from a family trip, and they were incensed when they realized the truth about where the trip was scheduled! 

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    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 02
    Job quitters of reddit, what was the straw that broke the camel's back?
    via u/virtueandsin
  • 03
    coolplace I was given a 1 cent raise.
    via u/coolplace
  • 04
    Roland_T_Flak... Probably my best job quitting event took place when I was 16 and working concessions and box office in a movie theater. The job was actually okay - the work was easy and I got to go see free movies pretty much whenever I wanted. Then we got in a new manager who without a doubt the worst manager I've ever had in my life. She would make us pay
    via u/Roland_T_Flakfeizer
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    out of pocket for every discrepancy in our drawer - bear in mind we were making 5.25/hr at the time (there were no locks on our drawers, and a few people. later discovered that she made a habit of stealing from everyone's drawers and then making them pay for it), eliminated all our movie-watching privileges. (we now had to pay full price), and would stand on our line and scream at us in
    via u/Roland_T_Flakfeizer
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    front of customers for every slight mistake. The final straw (at least for me) came when I was working the box office with a line out the door, and she came up with her infant son in a car seat, placed him in the box office with me, and told me to watch her kid while she did some paperwork. So I had to deal with a huge crowd of people while an infant screamed in the box with me. She then had the
    via u/Roland_T_Flakfeizer
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    audacity to come out and yell at me for not taking better care of him. I got my revenge, though. Me and six other people quit the day Star Wars, Episode 1 came out. We actually came in to watch her struggle with it and laugh at her. Glorious.
    via u/Roland_T_Flakfeizer
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    GeleRaev There wasn't just one straw, there was a general swing towards cost-cutting measures that made it too unpleasant to work there. Parking fees, coin-operated water coolers, maintenance (i.e. janitorial) levies, equipment hire fees, etc. The photocopiers were coin- operated, and fees were charged for every amenity it was legally possible to do so
    via u/GeleRaev
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    for (climate control, for example). For a while it was almost funny - like the Ryanair of offices, but at some point I found myself sitting on the most uncomfortable chair I've ever used, trying to write with stationery that was chained to my desk, thinking "I just can't take this anymore". And that's my story.
    via u/GeleRaev
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    HolySteph I worked at a severely understaffed Staples in a high-traffic business district, and upon realizing that our number of associates was dwindling but our manager refused to hire anyone new, my fiancé and I checked out the company's stock ratings. The company was (is?) hemorrhaging money, meaning I wasn't getting the
    via u/HolySteph
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    raise I was promised for taking on a lot of extra responsibility in sales, nor was I getting the store transfer I had requested to a closer location. When confronted about my raise again later, my manager told me that my coworkers "had worked there for ten years and were still making minimum wage" and "you should be happy." I was still expected to do my usual work.
    via u/HolySteph
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    To top it off, a friend of mine had just finished her training to become a store manager and met with a DM to discuss her new promotion over lunch at a fairly nice restaurant. At the lunch, he told her the "good news" of Staples no longer having secondary managers, meaning her promotion was nullified, but the company was saving money! She also paid for her own lunch.
    via u/HolySteph
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    I submitted my two weeks a day later.
    via u/HolySteph
  • 14
    ThetaGamma2 Big boss' lapdog used to come in, interrupt our work for no reason, shout at us for five to ten minutes about stuff we didn't control, and then leave. Every time he did, I spent the next hour looking for other work. One day, I found it.
    via u/ThetaGamma2
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    SuperShawnat... I was refused a promised salary raise to minimum wage
    via u/SuperShawnathon
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    EverythinglsKo... Boss was the most passive. aggressive person ever. Loved to send emails (to all employees) about mistakes other employees made. These emails never specified the employee, but it was a small company and not hard to figure out who it was about. Not only that, but this was the only way the employee at fault even knew they did anything
    via u/EverythingIsKoolAid
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    wrong. He never took anyone aside to tell them if they were doing anything wrong. Which happened all the time, since there was no training and you were thrown into your job without even knowing what was expected from you. When someone royally screwed up, he'd go and talk to another supervisor about how I up that person
    via u/EverythingIsKoolAid
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    was, how stupid they were, etc. Loudly. So everyone could hear. Again, not to the person. Just talking badly about the person to someone else. It was a toxic environment.
    via u/EverythingIsKoolAid
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    On my last day, he sent out an email that read, "Someone is skating on thin ice and should start looking for another job now. Don't expect to last the week." Couldn't take it anymore. Went in and gave my notice. He was surprised and said, "That wasn't about you." Don't care. Couldn't take it. He let me finish up my work for the day and leave.
    via u/EverythingIsKoolAid
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    Awwkitties My stupid boss at a coffee shop put me over the edge. I was under 18, working 10 hour days without breaks or a lunch, but I persevered. I was too young and dumb to know that I was being used. I probably would have stayed at the job had this woman not asked me to wash out her coolers that she had brought on a camping trip and left rotting
    via u/Awwkitties
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    meat in. Sorry b my I'll work off doing my job, but I'll not do your personal (nasty) errands on company time. Let me just state- I was a barrista, not a personal assistant. She was not the owner of the company, merely a manager. I said I would not do it, and she yelled at me about not having the right "attitude." | told her that I was not her assistant, and to clean her own coolers, and I
    via u/Awwkitties
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    would close the shop at the end of the day and she could enjoy the 4:30am opening shift the next day. For the record, she did have to open in the morning and was given a solid chewing out by the owners when I informed them of the situation. She was not fired.
    via u/Awwkitties
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    [deleted] After I got laid off from a job I loved, I went back to school and took a good paying help desk position. As soon as I started, I realized I would be considered a temp (no sick days/vacation and no benefits), figured, oh well, the pay is good. The final straw was when the manager came in during slow time of no calls to ask
    via u/[deleted]
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    what everyone was doing, everyone else was on youtube and watching movies, I said I was doing my homework for school. A few minutes later, got called in and written up, the manager said that she didn't want me doing homework because, "if you get a better education, I'm afraid you'll leave to a better job. I know I can't give you a career, but I don't want you to leave this position."
    via u/[deleted]
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    [deleted] It was my first job out of college, I had worked there for a year and my boss made a huge deal about how I was getting a raise for being a wonderful employee blah blah, there was a cake and everything. When I get my next paycheck I received a whopping 24 cent raise. I put in my two weeks notice the next day.
    via u/[deleted]
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    Paulthekid10-4 bad equipment, expected me to drive a semi with no tail lights through mountain roads at night because "the load is important". More important than travelers on the road apparently. no thanks, good bye and good luck.
    via u/Paulthekid10-4
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    [deleted] At Pizza Hut I was an assistant manager at 19. I had my two week notice in but was still pulling a double on a busy Saturday afternoon. Had a district manager at the store doing some paperwork. A buddy of mine that also worked there (but was off the clock) came in and popped the cash register to change out a dollar. The DM saw this
    via u/[deleted]
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    and wrote me up. I chuckled and informed her that I was suspended pending termination because I had two other "cash violation" write ups. I was laughing as I grabbed all of my stuff knowing that this district manager who has never actually "worked" in a store now had to run the store for the next twelve hours and there was a pay per view boxing match on that night (usually means a very busy
    via u/[deleted]
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    night). As I was leaving my best friend at the time (our best cook) was coming in to clock in and I told him I was leaving and fired. He immediately told the DM to go f herself, quit on the spot, grabbed a two liter, and we both left together.
    via u/[deleted]
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    G I worked out of town for years. I was only home on weekends for the first three years of my daughter's life. I came home late Thursday night, sat down next to her for a few minutes then went to use the bathroom. She had a meltdown and asked my wife if I was going away
    via u/Grunion013
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    again. My company not only wasn't willing to get me back home; they were actively pitching me to clients for more demanding work farther away. It took me about a month to find another job and leave.
    via u/Grunion013
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    Kayla_Styles Having to be nice to customers who were verbally ab ive. The final straw was one lady that reported me for "smirking" at her (we're supposed to smile at customers) while she was telling me what an unprofessional b I was. Then my boss apologized to her for my behavior. It was so insulting.
    via u/Kayla_Styles
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    RKKJr Worked for a subcontractor for a government contract. Pay was okay but 45 minute drive to work, a mess at the pass office every day, 20 minute walk to the actual workplace, 2 months of useless training, no consideration for issues agreed to beforehand, expected unannounced overtime (or furlough, depending on the workload)
    via u/RKKJr
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    and I have two kids (much younger at the time) that depended on me being home at a fairly specific time...but the last straw was 2 weeks after being on the workfloor I was "volun-told" that I would be working the weekend and that it was expected (though never explained beforehand) that
    via u/RKKJr
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    we could be "volunteered" in this manner whenever management decided it was necessary. Quit that day at the end of my shift.
    via u/RKKJr
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    alewis14151 Being forced to work on the Fourth of July. No one else was in the office. Sued for harassment (this was just the latest item) and walked away with $40,000.
    via u/alewis14151
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    ehrie Being forced to charge people a fee if they paid their bill by cash. Getting yelled at everyday because of that got old real fast.
    via u/ehrie
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    DamnColorblin... I worked at one of those oil- change places (you know, the ones that will will do it in a jiffy). It was my 1st day and the manager was being real hard on the guys in the shop. So this lady brings her new car in for it's first oil change (3k miles) and the manager tells me to tell her that she needs a new air filter. I told
    via u/DamnColorblindness
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    him, "It's the 1st oil change on this car". He told me to grab the filter, show her where it was "dirty" and convince her that she needed a new one. I walked into the waiting area and saw this old lady reading the paper and I couldn't go through with it. I turned around, handed the manager the filter on my way out the shop.
    via u/DamnColorblindness
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    [deleted] After a few years of nobody getting raises and a couple of rounds of layoffs I got an offer with a 50k higher salary. Easy decision.
    via u/[deleted]
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    rocklobster747 When they told me to go home and don't bother showing up tomorrow. I thought that was ridiculous so I quit.
    via u/rocklobster747
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    [deleted] Worked at an incredibly small gyro place (I was one of three employees) as my second job. I gave the owner my schedule every week and said she could put me on for any day that I wasn't at my first job. Pretty easy, right? It's not hard to schedule three employees, two of which don't have any other obligations, right?
    via u/[deleted]
  • 43
    Well, she would constantly change the schedule without notifying me. She would put me on for days I had explicitly said I was not available to work. I'd get these angry calls and voicemails from my boss. and coworkers asking me why I wasn't at work when I was on the schedule. I kept trying to ask my boss if I needed to do something differently so this wouldn't
    via u/[deleted]
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    happen, but she said it was okay to continue leaving notes for her with my available days. Version 1 of the schedule would be okay, and then a few days later she would change it FOR NO APPARENT REASON.
    via u/[deleted]
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    Finally, she left this nasty- gram on my phone that said, "I'm getting tired of this no call/no show business, vondahl. If you still want this job, give me a call back and we'll talk about it." So I called her back and left a message saying that I was sick of her changing the schedule and that I quit. Felt so good.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 46
    no1flyhalf Working as a cashier at Target, I couldnt get this bag of apples to ring up from the barcode, so I just inputed the apples' code and weighed them. The lady FREAKED out, saying "NO NO NO THOSE APPLES WERE ONLY $2.50!!!" | looked and the apples had rang up for $2.52. I understand some people NEED to account for every
    via u/no1flyhalf
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    penny, but this lady was NOT one of them (see:iphone, excesssive/expensive still on the conveyor belt). I went ahead and changed the price because f turned off my light and quit. Too often did I have people ab e me/others for nothing. I couldnt take it anymore, so I bailed.
    via u/no1flyhalf
  • 48
    shaniebanie My boss was a . She demanded that I work 12 hour days for very little money. Well my dog ded one night (she was 15 so she had a long and happy life) so I texted my boss saying I can't come in tomorrow as I'm a complete wreck and it wouldn't be very professional of me to be bawling in the office randomly. At this point I've
    via u/shaniebanie
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    been at this company for about a year and I had never taken a day off. Well she calls me immediately and starts screaming on how I have to be in the office at 6 am to set everything up etc. I'm just sitting there staring
    via u/shaniebanie
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    at my phone in shock. So I tell her I'll be there in the morning. Now she walks in at 11 and I just hand her my notice and walked out the door. TL;DR My boss wouldn't let me have a day off after my dog d ed.
    via u/shaniebanie
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    NSRedditor Web designer: Quit on the spot because the project manager objected to scroll bars "in principle". numpty. I've got better things to do than put up with that kind of
    via u/NSRedditor
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    crazyxen Working a job for 3 years was hit hard by the economic downturn and had to freeze wage increases. After 3 years I finally get my first raise... 4 cents walked out a week later.
    via u/crazyxen

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