'The restaurant had to comp like a 100 meals': 20+ Employees with the most satisfying job-quitting stories ever

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jan 7, 2025 3:00 PM EST

Finding the perfect timing can be so sweet. Quitting your job at the perfect time is just delicious, as a bunch of proud quitters below can tell you all about. 

When you're searching for a job, most employees want somewhere that pays well, has great benefits, and isn't an awful place to work at. It's even better if you can find somewhere that you feel passionate about the work, like nurses who can help patients with enough time during each visit, or teachers who are able to teach their favorite subjects to a small class size. We all dream of jobs that match all these requirements, but almost every gig has some kind of drawback. Maybe it's a boss who checks in with employees day and night, demanding perfection but never offering any praise. Or maybe your coworkers drive you up the wall with their poor office etiquette or by avoiding reading the emails you send them.

There are a lot of moments that can make one want to up and quit their job, but we don't often act on it. However, the people down below did exactly that, and they managed to quit at the most satisfying times possible. Keep scrolling to read some of the funniest and most interesting quitting stories from the workers who quit in a blaze of glory. 

Up next, read about the 18-year-old who left her stepfather, mom, and two siblings at the airport, writing that "I boarded anyway and left them all behind." 

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    Cheezburger Image 10451240960
    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.

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    Redditors who quit their jobs in a blaze of glory, what's your story?
    via u/[deleted]
  • 03
    L... I used to work recording concerts for my school's conservatory. Basically, students could pay a fee for the conservatory to record their concerts and put it on a CD for them. I had had the job as a work/study since I was a Freshman, and I loved it. In the second half of my senior year, I received a call
    via u/Lethkhar
  • 04
    from my boss saying that I had messed up a CD and that I needed to meet him in the studio to fix it at 4PM. I thought that was an odd request. Mistakes sometimes happen, but all of the employees knew how to fix it themselves and I was the most experienced worker he had at that point. I asked if I could just fix it earlier and submit it to our office assistant, but he insisted I come in at 4.
    via u/Lethkhar
  • 05
    I showed up about fifteen minutes before 4 to figure out what had gone wrong. I put the CD in, and immediately could hear that it was a CD of a completely different concert. That was really bizarre, but we have backups of all the audio so I just burned another CD of the correct concert from that.
    via u/Lethkhar
  • 06
    As the CD was burning, my boss came in and told me that I was fired. He said up a CD that badly was unacceptable. I had never been fired before, this was the longest I had ever had a job, and I was totally blindsided. To this day I have no idea how the wrong concert ended up on that CD. The best I can figure is the office assistant mixed up CD's or something, but whoever's fault it was it was
    via u/Lethkhar
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    a really easy problem to fix. I argued with him for a bit by telling him that I thought he was making a mistake, and this really wasn't a big deal. But he refused to listen. Just when I had resigned myself to my fate, the newly burned CD popped out of the computer. We both looked at it for about 5 seconds in silence. Then I laughed, handed it to him and shook his hand, then walked out the door.
    via u/Lethkhar
  • 08
    I wasn't done, though. I loved that job, and I felt wronged. I was also saving up for a trip to Europe, and didn't want to have to cancel it. (I already had tickets to Wacken) Without a job or a girlfriend, I had a lot of time on my hands that last semester. So I decided I would just start my own business recording students' concerts using my own equipment. I charged a
    via u/Lethkhar
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    slightly lower fee than my former employer and put up ads online and around the conservatory. I advertised that I was more experienced than anyone working for conservatory audio, and frankly my equipment was better as long as they weren't playing at one of the bigger venues. Especially for jazz. Also, instead of burning CD's I offered to just send it to them digitally, which a lot of students
    via u/Lethkhar
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    preferred because they would get it within an hour or two of the end of the concert rather than several days later. College students are cheap, and it didn't take long before I had to hire my own assistant to keep up with all the concerts we were recording. I probably ended up cutting the conservatory audio department's business by at least 20%.
    via u/Lethkhar
  • 11
    My former boss was livid, and he made a couple of unsuccessful attempts to shut us down. I earned more money that semester than I probably had in my previous 3.5 years combined of working for someone else. I was just mad at myself for not doing it earlier. The only problem is I don't feel comfortable putting that job on my resume anymore.
    via u/Lethkhar

    This is one of the best stories of the bunch! A true success story from start to finish. Congrats to this person for making money doing what they love, all while getting back at their bad boss. 

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    TankVet Walked out on a job interview, smoldering glory, not really a blaze: I drove about four hours for a job interview right out of grad school. Nice place, working environment seemed a little tense, but that's alright. This was an animal hospital in the Midwest.
    via u/TankVet
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    The owner asked me to clean a cage for him. I said sure, doctors have to clean cages every once in awhile. It takes maybe ten seconds. Then he asked me to hang out for a second while he talked to a client. I said sure. He told me to just keep cleaning cages. I thought he was kidding.
    via u/TankVet
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    A technician walked into the room and asked me why the cages weren't done. I shrugged. From her attitude I gathered he wasn't kidding about the cages. After a wait in excess of twenty minutes, I left. I just left. Got a phone call about five minutes later, didn't answer it.
    via u/TankVet
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    tjunot I don't know if this is a blaze of glory but it made me feel good. I got a job in the big city, my new manager said that she wanted to give me a two week trial period because she just wasn't sure about me. This manager was a biotch. Constantly yelling, expecting us to work through lunch and work late and come in
    via u/tjunot
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    early, sessions in her office about how awful we were. I was miserable, the job was hl. The Friday of the end of my trial period, my manager called me into her office.
    via u/tjunot
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    She said she was pleasantly surprised at how good I was and she definitely wanted to keep me on. I told her that unfortunately she had not passed her trial period and I would not be staying. Then I walked out. The best elevator ride down to the lobby ever.
    via u/tjunot
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    V I was a server in a really crappy restaurant. It was owned by a husband and wife. The wife was truly in charge and responsible for actually getting most things done. The husband was a hot headed ah le who showed up from time to time to kick the cook out of the kitchen and play chef himself. He was terrible at cooking. His wife did her
    via r/AskReddit
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    best to just keep him out of the restaurant altogether, but he was a hot headed a hole and did as he pleased. Luckily he was also lazy and reatauranting is work so he wasn't there very often. Anyway, one day on a slow morning when I was the only server he came in to cook breakfast and was just ruining everything. He was smoking a cigar in the
    via r/AskReddit
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    kitchen, using way too much grease and burning things. Customers would order scrambled eggs and bacon (how hard is that???) and he would give me blackened mystery substances dripping with grease to bring to the table. I refused. He screamed at me (within earshot of customers) and told me he was the restauranteur, not me, so I had better do as I was told. So I took the sh food to the
    via r/AskReddit
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    tables, they complained and asked me to replace it while looking at me like they couldn't believe I would have brought it to the table in the first place. I brought it back to the kitchen and hot head can't believe they didn't want it. He doesn't believe me and yells at me some more. I am not about to bring the same food out to the table so I refuse and tell him to do it himself. As you can imagine he did not like
    via r/AskReddit
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    that very much and he let me know loudly, but he did take it out. They gave him the same response they gave me and he shouted at them! He shouted a whole rant at them about how they had no idea what food was and he grew up in Greece where food was an art and he went to school and owned a restaurant and what credentials did they have?? Who were they to question his food? He told
    via r/AskReddit
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    them his restaurant was only for people who truly appreciated food and they could just go eat somewhere else. They did leave, in silence. I think they were too shocked at what had happened to come up with a rebuttal. When he came back from his incident with them he told me I was on thin ice and he didn't care for the backtalk I had given him. He
    via r/AskReddit
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    said if I don't like the way he runs things I could just leave. ...I was the only server in the place. I was so p led off I couldn't see straight and he had just told me to leave if I didn't like how he operated. I didn't like how he operated so I did leave. He must not have realized that there were no other servers because I immediately got a voice mail about how it was
    via r/AskReddit
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    all a misunderstanding and I should come back because they were busy (how they were busy I don't know) and everything would be alright. Luckily I was working two jobs at that time so I had the option of just picking up more hours at the other place. I didn't answer his calls until hours later when the voicemails started sounding really desperate.
    via r/AskReddit
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    All I said was I can't talk because I'm working my other job but I'm not coming back so stop calling. I heard from ex-coworkers that his wife came in shortly thereafter, cried uncontrollably, and closed the place for the rest of the day.
    via r/AskReddit
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    That did make me feel bad because she was a nice lady who worked hard and I can only imagine how hard it was to try and run a restaurant with a husband like that.
    via r/AskReddit
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    Ashenspire Was working as a busser at Outback in college (animation major). Was there roughly six months. Never called out, always came in when asked to. Finals were coming up, and I was slightly behind on my final project. Called the manager three days in advance saying I needed a day off I was scheduled for.
    via u/Ashenspire
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    Told me I had to get it covered. No problem. Called all the other bidders and even two hostesses. No one could/would do it. Called the boss back. His response, and I quote, "You need to decide right now what's more important: school or your career." I exploded on the guy with the easiest decision I ever made in my life.
    via u/Ashenspire
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    Engineerbob Not exactly a blaze, more of a slow burn. Used to be a comcast tech. Put in my 2 week notice, and got as many parking tickets as I could. The tickets couldn't be pegged to me, because I didn't own the vehicle. Comcast has a policy that employees need to pay their
    via u/Engineerbob
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    own parking tickets, but by the time comcast got the tickets in the mail, I would not have been an employee anymore. And, you know that phenomenon where work vehicles can park anywhere and not get a ticket? That does not apply to vehicles that say Comcast on the side.
    via u/Engineerbob
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    I still like to imagine the curses made in my name after they uncovered the extent of my evil plot.
    via u/Engineerbob
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    jax9999 I worked at a technical support call center for almost a decade. The average burnout time/turnover is six months. I was sistting in a meeting and they were ragging on us for sending too many boxes. the week previously we were sitting in the exact same room being ragged on for not sending enough boxes.
    via u/jax9999
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    I had a rough year, and I was just sitting there dying inside. I had this sudden epiphany. Every day since | had walked in the door of that place was worse than the last. There was literally no reason for me to be there. that thought just poppped into my head like a light bulb. went off.
    via u/
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    I got up in the middle of the meeting and walked out without a word. The SDM that was giving the meetings mouth hung open. He wan't used to the drones doing things like this. he started after me, and I ignored him.
    via u/
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    I went back to my desk gathered up some things, gave a few other things to some people and got out a goodbye email. the whole time the SDM getting more and more agitated trying to talk to me, eventually yelling. I just ignored him like a bad smell at a dinner party. So i just went home.
    via u/
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    they called and called for days. Eventually a supervisor I had on facebook messaged me. he was an ok dude, and i told him flatly that no i wasn't returning. he said they had all this paperwork to do, and an exit interview and so on.
    via u/
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    I said no. I was't going back on that floor. I wasn't going to sit in an office like a bad teenager in the principals office. It was over, it was done. we finally agreed to meet downstairs in an empty cubicle. I flatly didnt agree to anything, didn't sign anything, just gathered whatever sh they had for me and left.
    via u/
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    for a near decade they dictated everything in my life. my sleep schedule, my family life, holidays, they went so far as to time to the second how long i was in the bathroom during the day. that was all over. they had no more control over me and i enjoyed making that clear.
    via u/
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    urge_underk This is sort of the opposite, but whatever. I was working for a tech startup in '98 that was growing by leaps and bounds, and one day they re-orged the department and promoted this guy, let's call him Teddy, who had been there for like two weeks to manager. He had four or five people working
    via u/
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    for him, and he treated them all like sh. They were all self-motivated, senior-level people, and he treated them like children. He micromanaged their work, berating everything they did, complained when they had to leave work for stuff like a dentist appointment or a sick kid. When he first took over, he tried to enforce a policy where none of them could check in code unless he code reviewed it in
    via u/
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    person and then did the check in himself (that lasted less than two weeks). He reviewed an existing, approved schedule for a software release, decided it wasn't aggressive enough, told his superiors that they were going to pull it in by three months, and then ordered everyone to work weekends. Not because there was a business need, but because he wanted to show them that he could get
    via u/
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    stuff done. After a few months, this woman, let's call her Kelly, who was working for him gave her two weeks notice, saying that she was offered a managerial job at another company. Teddy lost it. You could hear him screaming through the walls of his office, then as she walked out of the office and he followed her to the exit, shouting at her the whole.
    via u/
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    time: you're worthless, Kelly, you're going to fail, don't come crawling back looking for a job, I'm glad to see you go, now I can hire someone with real skills, etc., etc. For at least a month after she was gone, he would randomly just say sh like "I can't believe that b just up and left, what a or "Oh, Kelly really f ed things up good. We're probably going to miss our
    via u/
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    release date because of how she left things." HR sat down privately with the guy to talk things over, and then he started about HR. "They're covering their so they don't get sued. They don't give a shi about good company men. like me." A few months later our company was acquired and we went to the welcome meeting that the other
    via u/
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    company had set up. Their CTO and the VP of Development spent about a half hour each talking about strategic vision, how the changes would affect us, the usual stuff, and then the VP said, "But there will be at least one familiar face to help with the transition. I think most of you know Kelly Johnson, she used to work here, she'll be the senior manager in charge of the products team moving
    via u/
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    forward, so...' II Everyone looked back at Teddy, who was white as a sheet and looked like he was about to have a heart attack. He was gone within a month.
    via u/
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    kadno Not me, but one of but one of my best friends. We were working at a Burger King when we were like 15 - 16. It was actually the day after he already quit, but it was super busy and some people called off. So they called to see if he could come in (I think they offered him like time and a half to make up for it) so he agrees.
    via u/
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    He's the only one in the kitchen on a busy Sunday after church rush. The managers were just bullshitting, standing outside smoking and doing. anything they could to not help him, so he got frustrated, threw a package of ham through the ceiling and walked out.
    via u/
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    tashtash After working there for over two years, starting at the bottom when there were only three employees (including me) and becoming Supervisor/Manager I was over due a raise. The boss kept putting off our meeting to discuss and I had prepped a small presentation to show what I had accomplished in my
    via u/
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    position over the past year. Meeting day finally came and I spoke for 15 minutes to justify the raise that I had asked for but instead of a negotiation I was told that my work had been unsatisfactory and they no longer wanted me to act as supervisor. This had come at a shock because they had never given negative feedback about the way I was running things and they
    via u/
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    let me pleas my case for a raise seconds before "terminating" my responsibilities. Of course, they would love me to stay at the company and train the new hires at my current (sad) salary and work at entry level tasks when there was no active training. They also expected me to stay in the role I was "not excelling" in for another 2-4 months to allow them time to recruit my replacement and allow
    via u/
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    me time to get that person up to speed and adequately trained. The best part of all of this is that they had never hinted at or officially advised of any issues with the quality of my work. I walked out as soon as they were done speaking without saying anything. A few hours later he called asking if I would come back... The next morning I met with HR who expressed
    via u/
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    their apologies and shock, and suggested I go and speak with the boss to see if things could be sorted (hoping to find a happy medium) so I went to his office, shut the door and told him about how much of an a he is and how he lost all respect I ever had for him but that I would finish the week and close my open cases without hinting to clients about how everything was behind the
    via u/
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    scenes in exchange for a larger severance package and being "laid off". Turned out for the best because I'm pretty happy where I am now :)
    via u/
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    SORRY CLOSED PLEASE COME BACK AGAIN-
    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.

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    derdono One of my first jobs was part time at a small budget supermarket. The boss was a of severely limited intelligence, assigning me far more shifts than I agreed to and spending the entire day shouting at everybody (rather than doing actual work). Turns out I was also getting a euro less per hour than
    via u/
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    agreed on - I noticed that after a month when I finally got my first pay. Not cool. Grounds enough for me to terminate my work contract with immediate effect. So, I got myself a new job, typed out my notice, put it in my coat pocket and waited for the worst possible moment to quit.
    via u/
  • 59
    That moment came 2 weeks later. My boss and I were opening on a Saturday, and it just so happened that the cashier that was meant to come in an hour later called in sick.
    via u/
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    He tells me and goes off on a tirade about how the shift is going to be h I with just the 2 of us. I smile, hand him my notice, and stroll out of the store without saying a word. Best. Feeling. Ever.
    via u/
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    [... Working in wings place just out of college as a cook. Start working there and everything is going ok. except for the fact that I'm really underpaid. I was making minimum wage as 1 of 2 cooks in the restaurant. Work there for a few months and the manager sits down to talk with me. We discuss a few things and I bring up the fact that I really deserve
    via u/
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    a raise. I was working 50-60 hours a week and the compensation based on my effort really wasn't evening out. He basically told me to off and that cooks are a dime a dozen. So I told him I was disappointed with his retort. Times were tough for me at that time so I bit my lip and just went back to work. The next few months were hl. The manager of the
    via u/
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    restaurant would openly put me down in front of other employees and constantly berate me for asking for more money. He would put me on back to back to back opening and closing shifts. and send people home on purpose so I would be the only one left to clean the kitchen at the end of the night. I was beginning to lose my chill with this job.
    via u/
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    So finally super bowl Sunday rolls around and for those unaware, this is a very very busy day for restaurants that make wings. I get into work and everyone is already ped. ed. I ask what's up and they tell me the other cook didn't show up and nothing is prepped for the day. I roll up my sleeves and start working. We get everything set and I start making wings for the orders. I'm working my a off and my manager
    via u/
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    comes up to me and starts giving me the same sh. The phones are ringing like crazy and honestly there are more orders than the restaurant can handle. It's chaos. Then some of the managers friends (not employees) come into the kitchen and start with all my stuff. Moving things, disorganizing stuff, sitting on my prep counters.
    via u/
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    I tell them to gtfo and my manager storms in and lays the f into me. Tells me I'm a worthless sh, I never do anything right, I'm not worth more than minimum wage and I never effort. put in any extra
    via u/
  • 67
    That was it. My brained just clicked and I stopped giving af about anything. I stood up straight and stretched out my arms wide. Slowly took off my kitchen apron and removed my hat. Starred de d in the managers eyes and calmly but sternly said. "Have an
    via u/
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    enjoyable super bowl Sunday." I threw the the apron and my hat in the fry oil basins grabbed my bag. and walked passed the rest of the employees who's mouth were hanging open and out the back to the ever fading ring of phones. ringing. Arrived at my home and met up with my room mates. I told them the story and we decided to order 200 wings and watch the game.
    via u/
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    Tl;dr: The wings were under cooked and over sauced, but I was just the right amount of salty.
    via u/
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    Power Word Coff... My small time office was bought out and taken over by a large company. Suddenly I was told I was "just a secretary", my salary was cut, benefits non existent and there was nothing legally I could do...because I checked. They did it in such a way that it was if I started a new job.
    via u/
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    The new office manager told someone that his highschool son could do my job, for less pay, so in the summer my hours were cut. I finally said f this and didn't show up. After buying and tearful trips home.
    via u/
  • 72
    Then I began to get frantic emails about how to deposit and split certain payments, how to use accouting programs, how to enter time sensative forms....so much whining. I guess nobody trained the boy and just sat him at the front desk.
    via u/
  • 73
    At first it was professional, then it turned to hostility, then begging. This was over the span of 2 days, in which I didn't check my email because I was busy at another job. I finally broke down and wrote an email stating I have all the information they needed stored on a website. At the bottom of the page was a link to Google. I signed it "just a secretary".
    via u/
  • 74
    M.. A couple of my best friends decided to get married in Scotland (were American). It was quite an expensive trip, so I picked up a part time job at a sandwich chain for about a year to save so my wife and I could attend. About 2 weeks before the trip, I was offered emergency overtime at my full time job. I was unsure if I was scheduled to work at
    via u/
  • 75
    the sandwich joint, so I called the owner. He told me I was, which was a bummer, because I couldve stayed at my real job for about $30/hr more for the evening. So I went in to make sandwiches. Another employee told me that I wasnt scheduled to work, rather someone called in earlier and the owner took advantage of my not knowing my schedule for the
    via u/
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    week. So I took the spot at the end of the assembly make line, bagged up 8. orders and walked out the door with them, along with the little rack of about 20 bottles of hot sauce. I hopped in my car and took off back to my real job to work that overtime shift with a bunch of sandwiches for the other employees.
    via u/
  • 77
    VerticallyImpair... Blaze of glory, not really. Going out, well I tired. 20 years old. Working in a car dealership as a lot attendant. Basically parking cars and cleaning up garbage. I am in charge of 5 other lot guys. It wasn't bad but a new manager was hired, 27 years old, and on a total power trip. (In my opinion that is too young
    via u/
  • 78
    to be in charge of guys who have been working on cars for 25-30 years.) Anyway, unknown to me, one day he throws a fit all red faced and fires 4 of my 5 guys. We were a good team and sh got done. So I get. called in on my day off to work and being the nice guy
    via u/
  • 79
    | go in. Thus is when I find out my guys were fired. I get called into his office and he let's me know it's my fault they got fired and I need to adjust my attitude. I freak out internally. I managed to keep my head. I
    via u/
  • 80
    calmly tell him that he go f himself and i wont be abused like that after faithfully doing my job, I'm done, and that he can park cars while it is a whole 5 degrees (F) outside.
    via u/
  • 81
    Before I can leave his office the owner walks in. Tells me to sit and take a deep breath, he sends the manager upstairs. Owner begs me to stay because he needs me to run the customer check in and the lot. Gives me a small bonus and a 3 dollar/hour raise. Manager gets fired at the end of the pay week. Only job I ever tried to walk out of.
    via u/
  • 82
    planned_seren... Not me, but a friend of mine. He was a cook at a busy restaurant. The general manager was a real al hole and treated employees terribly. My friend and another cook got fed up and decided to quit with a bang. They were working a busy Sunday brunch and they started slowing down the orders. The uncooked orders kept stacking up and
    via u/
  • 83
    up. Then they told the manager off and quit. The whole restaurant was mayhem. The restaurant had to comp like a 100 meals. I don't think the manager learned his lesson.
    via u/
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    Cheezburger Image 10451241728
    via Giulia Squillace For Unsplash+

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

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