'He deleted ALL of his contributions to a project': 20+ Workers who quit in memorable ways

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jan 19, 2025 11:00 AM EST

The best payback is living well. You can spend years despising your terrible boss and thinking of ways to get even… or you can just up and quit that job. 

That's one of the nicest parts of leaving a job that's been making you miserable: you simply never have to worry about what your (former) boss thinks ever again. They can never scold you for turning in a late assignment or forgetting to call an important client back. A wave of relief will wash over you as you depart that job and realize that your manager will never have that power over you ever again. You also won't have to circle back with the coworker with the bad breath, you'll never have to send an email at 10 PM, you'll never have to ponder which scoundrel stole your sandwich from the office fridge. You're free as a bird! If you're on the right path, you'll even take on a job that pays better, and which hopefully brings you way more joy. Check out some inspiration for the next time you quit your job, because the folks below had some awe-inspiring outros. 

Next, read about the parents who refused to take their 10 and 13-year-old kids to their grandparent's house… because they were seeing the Eras tour instead. 

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  • 01
    Cheezburger Image 10456032256
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 02

    She tried her best!

    drshmoo A vp at my company caught wind that she was going to be fired. Her secretary told her that the higher ups were on their way. The vp told her secretary that she was going to the bathroom. After waiting for 30 minutes they had someone check the bathroom. The VP never went to the bathroom. She went home to try to avoid being fired.
    via u/drshmoo
  • 03
    The Year_of_Glad This was my dad's company rather than mine, but it's a good enough story that it's worth sharing anyway. The boss goes into the office of one of my dad's co-workers to discuss some kind of technical issue. They disagree about the proper corrective measure, it escalates into a screaming match, and the boss fires
    via u/The_Year_of_Glad
  • 04
    the co-worker on the spot. Tells him to take his sh and get the f out. The co-worker comes back the next morning, just like nothing happened. Nobody's really sure what's going on, and since the boss had to go out of town for a meeting, they can't get ahold of him to ask. He doesn't seem to be causing any problems, though, so
    via u/The_Year_of_Glad
  • 05
    they just kind of do their thing and leave him alone. The co-worker keeps coming in and doing work, and a couple of days later, the boss walks past his door and does a double-take. "Co-worker, didn't I fire you?"
    via u/The_Year_of_Glad
  • 06
    Without looking up from his desk, the co-worker replies, "You can't fire me - I have too much work to do." The boss thinks about that for a minute, shrugs, and walks off. Dude kept working there for another couple of years after that.
    via u/The_Year_of_Glad
  • 07
    fanta_is_ so... Mine was pretty simple but hilarious. Big box retail electronics store. All hands meeting, so probably 60ish employees. Management fired a guy right before the meeting (seems like a dumb decision), and before he walked out, he stood up in front of the crowd and said
    via u/fanta_is_****_soda
  • 08
    "Well I'm going to miss you all. These idiots fired me because they think I've been stealing stuff, and well I haven't!" Right then an iPod touch came tumbling out of his hoodie's pocket and hit the floor. Sealed in a box with the company's inventory and antitheft stickers still on it.
    via u/fanta_is_****_soda
  • 09
    nola-radar I work in IT and have seen a few crazy exits. 1. A developer had access to the master code repository. Upon leaving, he deleted ALL of his contributions to a project he was working on, replaced it with gibberish, and had it pushed to the server.
    via u/nola-radar
  • 10
    2. I'm not sure if he did this intentionally, but a DevOps guy set up a bunch of huge EC2 instances on Amazon Web Services and didn't tell anyone about it. Upon a monthly audit of AWS charges, it was discovered and ended up costing the company over US$10,000. The company had to eat that expense.
    via u/nola-radar
  • 11
    3. There was a gastro- pub in a building with a bunch of tech companies. I was picking up lunch whilst this guy was getting wasted on whiskey. The guy orders a triple whiskey to go. He says, "I've got to go to a meeting where I know I'm going to get fired, so I'm going out big." Tiger bl d, indeed.
    via u/nola-radar
  • 12
    captainobvious254 Work at papa johns. Dude quit because he wanted to go home to wouldn't let him and boss
    via u/captainobvious254
  • 13

    She wanted that free food no matter what!

    punkterminator A girl at my work was fired for never showing up except for employee appreciation events that involved free food. She showed up to one after being fired and had to be escorted off the premise by security because she refused to leave.
    via u/punkterminator
  • 14
    Cheezburger Image 10456032768
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 15
    totemdeath We had one employee come in with his cell phone to talk to our boss. Our boss talked to the employee's mother who told our boss he could not work that evening because he was too sick to work
    via u/punkterminator
  • 16
    P... Back when I got my first FT job as a developer, I was with a start-up that I'm sure nobody will really know even 5 years later. They had one Web Developer at the time, and I was brought on with a few other people to round out the team making us 4 people strong. What we were working on was an LMS.
    via u/PAFaieta
  • 17
    We had one woman there who would be in & out of the office, and have the door closed a lot of the time if she was even in. She was generally nice if we did pass by, but if she needed something she was always very specific about it. Turned out she was leaking company data, and proprietary info to a key competitor and was fired on the spot.
    via u/PAFaieta
  • 18
    k... A co-worker of mine lost her mother. She was on the floor at work when she got the call, management sent her home and since I was standing right the f there I heard him say to her "Take all the time you need, we'll figure it out." Yeah they fired her for taking time off.
    via u/kawakunai
  • 19
    ST1300rdr I was an assistant manager for McDonald's way back in the day. Had a drive thru customer come inside, furious because instead of a Filet-O-Fish in her packaging, there was nasty, dirty, grill towel. The store manager happened to be there that day, and handled this customer. She asked of the people working in the grill area, "Who did this?",
    via u/ST1300rdr
  • 20
    and this one guy proudly takes credit for it. She was in the process of telling him he was fired, when he just yells out, "I Quit!" and marches out with a big old smile on his face. Also, when I ended up quitting, I was at that time a 1st asst manager, and pretty much ran the store. We had just had an evaluation done on our store and the manager was not happy with the grade, so he
    via u/ST1300rdr
  • 21
    took it out on me, even though the grade was bulls they give you 3 reviews, and the first one is I always bad. Anyway, I got sick of him chewing my a so I told him I would quit right now. He just said, "Whatever...", so I did. I handed him my keys and walked out. To show just how out of touch with his job he was, I was scheduled to
    via u/ST1300rdr
  • 22
    open the next day. No body ever covered that shift, so when he pulled up to work at 9am, all the opening crew was across the street at a donut shop. Its a pretty big offense to not open a McDonald's (especially a corporate one) on time.
    via u/ST1300rdr
  • 23
    Ankleshank The CEO of a company I was working for was convinced an employee was stealing. Asked me to write a falsified affidavit claiming I witnessed it, told me to find a new job when I refused to.
    via u/Ankleshank
  • 24
    anormalgeek Feels lame compared to these, but we had a guy work with us for about a year. It was his first job out of college. When his contract ended, he sent a pretty standard goodbye email (it was nice working with all of you, here is my personal email, blah blah blah). Except he sent it to everyone. In the entire 20k+
    via u/anormalgeek
  • 25
    employee company. We assumed it was some stupid accident, but apparently he did it on purpose thinking it was standard protocol to email the CEO and everyone else to say goodbye.
    via u/anormalgeek
  • 26
    bourekas A number of years ago, a guy chose to bring his young son to work one day. However, independently, that was the day he was being fired. Awkward.
    via u/bourekas
  • 27
    AcrossTheNight When I was in college, I worked dorm security over the summer. A guy who had just graduated who had been a senior RA in the building was working staff with us too. He knew where an unused, unlocked closet was, and decided to secretly move in over the summer. Most of us on staff knew about it but didn't tell our boss.
    via u/AcrossTheNight
  • 28
    As it turns out, he was doing more than that. He also stole a meal card for the dorm cafeteria that was intended for use by kids at summer campers, and he and a couple other people on staff were using it. They got caught and all banned from the building. Not coincidentally, there were a lot more hours available for those of us who were still there.
    via u/AcrossTheNight
  • 29
    birdonfly I saw a post in my Facebook feed. The poster was not a friend of mine, but one of my Facebook friends had left a comment, so it showed up on my feed. The original poster shared a picture of some flowers she had received, along with a note from a suitor, asking her to dinner. The photo included the guy's name and phone
    via u/birdonfly
  • 30
    number. Apparently she was in HR and a recent applicant was the one that left the comment with the picture, note/flowers. She posted a something to the effect of, "yeah right, like I would go out with this guy...and he has a criminal record!". Many "haha, OMG, what a loser!" comments were visible from her friends.
    via u/birdonfly
  • 31
    I texted the guy that there was a pic about him on FB he might want to check it out. After a couple "who the f is this" texts, I sent him a screenshot of the post (with my info blacked out). He brought it to the head of HR at the company. She got fired. He got the job he was applying for.
    via u/birdonfly
  • 32
    You think that would be taught in HR 101, but I guess people are still idiots.
    via u/birdonfly
  • 33

    Shock the whole office

    [deleted] I once quit a job rather than update my address when I moved....thought it'd be a bit suspicious when my address suddenly matched my boss's...
    via u/[deleted]
  • 34
    Z... Was buying a car and one of the salesmen at the dealer was arguing with the manager over $50. All glass walls in this place so I can see everything. The guy walks into the manager's office, slams his fists down on the manager's glass desk shattering it into a million bits. Computer, phone, paperwork, all go flying.
    via u/zombreness
  • 35
    Without so much as a flinch while the whole thing happened, the manager, still sitting where his desk used to be, calmly said, "Get out. Do not come back". Being the only customer there at the time, the manager then apologized for what I'd witnessed and said he'd knock $2500 off whatever
    via u/zombreness
  • 36
    knock $2500 off whatever price I'd already haggled my own salesman down to if I continued my business with them. Ended up with a nice car for a good price.
    via u/zombreness
  • 37
    Mc One guy I worked with had worked with the company for almost ten years. When he decided to quit, he got a big cardboard box and filled it with packing peanuts. Deep at the bottom of the box, under all those packing peanuts, he left a note that simply said, "I quit."
    via u/McC******
  • 38
    cragglerock93 I heard this second hand, but apparently a guy that I knew was sacked from his call centre job (where I also worked) for transferring an irate customer to Pizza Hut instead of escalating it to a manager.
    via u/cragglerock93
  • 39

    Whoa, this doesn't happen often, but good for this person

    dontbait I got fired, collected unemployment for 2 months, got a call from my ex employer offering me my job back. I'm sitting in the parking lot waiting to head in right now.
    via u/dontbait
  • 40
    Cheezburger Image 10456031488
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 41

    A good quitter knows exactly how to disrupt their workspace in the most effective way

    batteriesincl About 4 years ago I was a receptionist in a medical office. One morning I arrived to open our urgent care center and the MD on call wasn't there ( normal, he was always late). After an hour had passed and patients were lining up, I walked down to his office to see if he was just waiting to be called down, he wasn't
    via u/batteriesincl
  • 42
    there. I went back down to urgent care and started checking people in. I heard some commotion down the hall, while another MD came down to start seeing the patients that were now piling up. It turned out the the MD that was on call, cleaned his office out and quit via letter he slipped under his office door.
    via u/batteriesincl
  • 43
    impulsive6791 I am a little late to the party, but I will add my story just because I don't get to share it too often. I was finishing up my degree. and working full time for a regional big box style electronic retailer. Our warehouse manager, we will call him Bryan, was a very interesting character. He was your typical "good ole
    via u/impulsive6791
  • 44
    boy" drove a pick-up truck, never finished high school, but was very large and intimidating because of his tendency to be quick to anger. Bryan constantly complained about his home life and how terrible his marriage was, and his "ole woman's" gambling problem. One day while working in the Camera section (front of the
    via u/impulsive6791
  • 45
    store) Bryan comes bursting out of the warehouse, quickly gaining the attention of everyone on the floor. He began shouting expletives to everyone, screaming how he was "rich" and ran into the general mangers office and told him to "kiss his a and began to walk around the store screaming at all the customers and employees about how much he hated them.
    via u/impulsive6791
  • 46
    A mere six hours later Bryan re-enters the store, still wearing his company shirt, and heads straight into the GM's office. About 30 minutes later he leaves. Come to find out he had gotten a call from his wife screaming she had won 100,000 while gambling.
    via u/impulsive6791
  • 47
    Bryan upon hearing this went into a frenzy quickly telling everyone off and giving his 2 second notice. Once he arrived home he realized it was not $100,000, but 100,000 pennies. He came back to the store to ask for his job back.
    via u/impulsive6791
  • 48

    Cushy job if you can get it

    [deleted] Had a co worker that showed up once every week and a half and watched golf when he did show up...I watched this happen for 6 months...that's what happens when you are sales and have no one watching your work. "I dunno its just been really slow"
    via u/[deleted]
  • 49

    Oy vey, come on man

    SonOfPlinkett A coworker once left a company MacBook Pro in the bathroom of a Starbucks, but that's not why he got fired. He got fired for leaving a company MacBook Pro in the bathroom of a Starbucks a second time.
    via u/SonOfPlinkett
  • 50
    Th3Novelist Lee was such a baller. His first restaurant job serving was at a Red Lobster (worked with him at his fourth restaurant job, coworkers who worked with him confirmed the story). They were criminally understaffed for a weekend night due to scheduling issues and mgmt being a bunch of One of the
    via u/Th3Novelist
  • 51
    managers was laying in to him, talking sh /down to him and micromanaging like a Cal Trans Supervisor instead of doing something productive. It only took a single threat of giving him "another write-up" early in the night for Lee to drop a handful of dishes on the ground mid-rush, flip the bird, say "F you, I quit!" and walk out the door. But before he did, he grabbed
    via u/Th3Novelist
  • 52
    the wait-list - the only wait- list which quoted the - current wait time at 2.5 hours for 40+ parties. Baller, right? That's not enough for Lee. He came back ten minutes before closing with a party of 17 to celebrate his freedom. Mgmt had to give out so many "Complimentary Entree" vouchers - basically all 40 or so parties only paid
    via u/Th3Novelist
  • 53
    for their drinks that night - that the manager had to take the party to break even and serve them two hours past closing. Normally, that'd everyone off and deserve your food being f ed with, but Lee kept inviting people to join him and enjoy drinks on him after their shift. Lee was such a baller.
    via Th3Novelistu/

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