'I caused a domino effect': 15 Employees who quit all together at once and spoiled their boss's day

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jan 22, 2025 5:00 PM EST

Go on, leave that terrible job: this is your sign! 

Every employee has a different tolerance level for the shenanigans they'll put up with from their bosses. (It also depends on how wealthy the person is, naturally.) Some thick-skinned employees are able to stay for years at jobs where their boss is just awful towards them. They can handle the most toxic environments and the most irritating coworkers as long as the pay is right. 

Other employees will leave at the first hint of discomfort, though, and neither of these workers is necessarily wrong. Leaving your job almost always guarantees you a cushier salary and a boost to your resume. But then again, leaving the familiar is easier said than done… What if you dislike your current job, leave it, and then utterly despise the new gig? There's no guarantee that you'll find it more enjoyable than before. It's just up to chance. 

If you ever get the chance to quit en masse with your coworkers, though, I know it'd be tempting. The thought of leaving your least favorite manager to handle grouchy clients or belligerent customers is a sweet daydream. Why not make it come true?

Up next, read the petty text messages between a landlord and a tenant who just wanted to let someone park for a single day, with irate commenters telling them to "leave a scathing review." 

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  • 01
    Cheezburger Image 10457800704
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

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

  • 02

    Don't mess with pickles!

    P... I used to work at a pickle factory in Michigan. When the new owners took over they insisted they change the recipe that had been the same for over 50 years without consulting the workers. Some of the employees parents and grandparents had worked there and apparently felt so
    via u/PoolsidePirate
  • 03
    strongly about the recipe that 13 people quit and the majority else were outside with signs the next days until eventually they switched it [almost] all the way back. None of those who quit came back. Edit: I didnt quit, and actually enjoyed both recipes. But, now I cant tolerate the smell or taste of pickles. I used to love them. :\
    via u/PoolsidePirate
  • 04

    This story is incredible

    b... In the early 90s I worked for a large construction company in Florida. I was on the road crew. One of the machines we used was called a mixer. The objective of this machine was to mix up the subgrade of a road. It has giant teeth that spin insanely fast. Well my crew had laid down the dirt, limerock and clay and now had to run the mixer
    via u/bocefusly
  • 05
    over it. Well someone set the blades too low and ripped an international fiber optic cable out of the ground. A clean cut would have been bad but this cable was shredded beyond belief. It cost $100,000 per hour that this cable was down. Luckily I wasn't at work that day. When I came in the next day anyone who was even near the incident got fired.
    via u/bocefusly
  • 06
    My whole crew was extinct. To put into perspective, the cable was fatter than your upper leg and composed of thousands of glass strands. Every strand had to be fused back together. It cost the company millions. Total about 40 people were fired and I was put on another crew.
    via u/bocefusly
  • 07
    Edit: Alot of you are messaging me confusing a mill it machine with a mixer. A Mill it machine only removes a layer of asphalt from the road for repaving. A road construction mixer is like a giant garden tiller that mixes up the different materials for the sub grade before the asphalt. It goes way deeper and combines different layers of clay, limerock and dirt.
    via u/bocefusly

    Sometimes a massive mistake can happen in seconds, and there's no easy way to fix it. In this case, the company lost millions in a matter of seconds, and the workers were very much fired, not quitters. It just goes to show how fragile one's career really is! 

  • 08

    You love to see it

    Woojie All the engineers at one job I was in had their contracts changed to that they had to buy their own tools, Due to the specialist nature of our jobs we were all looking at over £4000 per engineer. 10 walked and the rest threatened to strike. The boss had to give in and buy the tools himself.
    via u/W00jie
  • 09
    FalstaffsMind I work in local Government for an urban county. One of the IT Departments, reclassified all their employees as Exempt (a designation designed for political appointments), fired them all (only Exempt employees can be fired without cause), and asked them to submit resumes if they wanted their jobs back.
    via u/FalstaffsMind
  • 10
    Their goal was to get rid of some employees they felt were de d weight. But it turns out, the most valued employees, the ones with readily marketable skills in the prime of their careers, just shook their heads and had jobs elsewhere by the end of the week. Furthermore, when you pull a stunt like that, word gets out, and resumes don't come flooding in. They are still trying to recover.
    via u/FalstaffsMind
  • 11
    [deleted] Worked in a bar in a nightclub. Restaurant by day, club by night. 5 bartenders behind the bar on any given Friday and Saturday, plus barbacks. Thought something was weird about our credit card tips - went to bar manager. We collect receipts and checkouts plus paychecks for a few weeks, examine them. Someone is
    via u/[deleted]
  • 12
    withholding quite a bit of our tips. Fast forward to a Friday night, busy as f Owner comes in to see how things. are going, bar manager confronts him. Owner denies wrongdoing, claims what he's doing is legal (it wasn't, he was pocketing the withheld tips). Bar manager signals for me to come over, threatens to quit if the owner doesn't return the money he stole.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 13
    Owner more or less says "tough sh "bar manager walks out. I lean into the bar long enough to tell one of the other bartenders what happened, give the owner a snarky wave, and follow him out. 5 minutes later, the rest of the bar staff joins us, and we wander down the road to another bar to commiserate over the bulls . Left over 500 people in the club with no bar staff. Zero f S
    via u/[deleted]
  • 14
    given. Found out a few days later that the daytime serving staff heard what happened and quit too. Last I heard, they had to shut down for a few weeks to restaff. Still overly proud of myself for that. F that guy.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 15
    Oliverrr36 My mom used to work for a college. She started there as a secretary when the college was just starting out and gradually moved up until she was running the whole business department. Without her knowing, the college ran interviews and hired a woman to be her superior. They never asked my mom to apply for the position and never
    via u/Oliverrr36
  • 16
    mentioned it to her until the day this woman is introduced to her, and my mom's boss informed my mom she was supposed to train this woman to be her boss for the department. My mom was clearly hurt and upset, but she needed her job and just couldn't quit, so she sucked it up and trained this woman while putting on her best face and being cordial. All the rest of
    via u/Oliverrr36
  • 17
    the people who worked under my mom in the department could not stand this woman and were incredibly upset by the situation, as well. One morning, my mom walks through the doors, and the boss of the college is waiting for her. He brings her into his office and fires her.
    via u/Oliverrr36
  • 18
    Within the month, the rest of the department all quit, as well, leaving them to hire and train all new people right before fall semester started. Six months later, the woman they hired to replace my mom quit, and they had the b to call my mom and ask her back. You can guess where she told them to shove it.
    via u/Oliverrr36
  • 19
    Heros tinc Several things are happening right now. Mandated 36 hour shifts. Mandated over time shifts changed from 2 a month to 6-8 a month. Refusal to allow people to go part time. We have lost and will lose 15-20 people by the end of the month.
    via u/Heros***inc
  • 20
    sometimesballeri... Our general manager was fired (everyone loved him) and they brought in a new GM who took away ending times to shifts (we had to stay until he said we could go while most of us were college students trying to schedule classes) and all of
    via u/sometimesballerina
  • 21
    the employee perks (we even had to pay full price on dollar sub day). Everyone. quit. There was only 2 of the same people working there 2 months later.
    via u/sometimesballerina
  • 22
    A... I worked in the corporate headquarters for a large national retailer. After 20 years in business, the company was sold to an arrogant billionaire who put his son in charge (his first job after completing his MBA). The son decided to relocate headquarters 500 miles away, close to his daddy's headquarters. He gave us 30-days notice to
    via u/Altarocks
  • 23
    move with no moving compensation or lose our jobs. Out of 300 employees, one moved. I had already been looking for a job, the writing was on the wall. I accepted a new position the day after the announcement and gave two weeks notice. My boss went ballistic, said 'what are we supported to do!? No one
    via u/Altarocks
  • 24
    can fill you job here and we won't have anyone new until we move. You're not a team player!' Bonus: The company was out of business within 60 days after the move, four months after the acquisition. They had spent $50 million to buy it.
    via u/Altarocks
  • 25
    Cheezburger Image 10457799168
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

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

  • 26
    ShutUpHeExplai... Competing company in a similar but not identical line of business tried for years to replicate our product with no success. They scrapped. the project and took the R&D money and bought our company instead. Fired 600+ people in one day. I was one of them. I hear from those who remained the place is awful now.
    via u/ShutUpHeExplained
  • 27
    awelldressedman I was the lead cook in a million dollar kitchen at a multi-million dollar high end restaurant. The executive chef had been there since they opened and worked his way from the bottom to the top in 4 years. That place was his whole life and he was completely dedicated to it. The absentee owners had hired a "do nothing, know nothing" manager. After
    via u/awelldressedman
  • 28
    weeks of complaining, the owners had a meeting with the manager and gave him a week to get on top of his job. The chef went on vacation that week, the manager saw that as an opportunity to buddy up with owners. A week and 2 rounds of golf later the chef comes back to work to a pink slip. 27/30 employees came in and resigned immediately after.
    via u/awelldressedman
  • 29
    [deleted] My old workplace decided to do a complete overhaul of everyone's rotas. They went through an entire consultation period, asking. people what they could and couldn't work, then completely ignored everyone's preferences and allocated shifts and rotas entirely based on the company's needs, completely invalidating the
    via u/[deleted]
  • 30
    entire consultation period. People were being asked/expected to work more unsociable hours and weekends, and nobody was pleased by these changes. A lot of people left.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 31
    Cheezburger Image 10457801472
    via Alyssa Jane For Unsplash+
  • 32
    flamingopinknut... I worked at a Dave and busters in a fairly low income area. We had parties of 8 or more come in regularly, and they would run up $200 checks which was fine since they had an automatic 18% gratuity for being such a large party.
    via u/flamingopinkn******
  • 33
    They decided to eliminate the large party gratuity option in hopes that it would inspire servers to work harder. Instead we all started getting regularly stiffed on these massive checks. Within three weeks over a third of our staff quit.
    via u/flamingopinkn******
  • 34
    PatrickRsGhost From what I understood, I caused a domino effect at a local big-chain pizza place. The pizza place I worked at wasn't a full-service restaurant, which they're mainly known for; it was a take-out or delivery only store, located in a shopping center with several other businesses.
    via u/PatrickRsGhost
  • 35
    During the two years I worked there, we had gone through three store managers. The first manager was awesome. He was firm, strict, but fair. The second manager was a bit of a ditz. He went by the book, but you could tell his heart wasn't really in it. I think he preferred to be a driver than a manager. The third manager was an all-out b. She mistreated the employees, especially the
    via u/PatrickRsGhost
  • 36
    men, and she'd do things. that only benefited her, not others. I was getting fed up. She had put a suggestion box outside her office. I wrote a very lengthy suggestion that she treat her employees with respect. She basically fired me. She said I'd resigned. I didn't care. I was no longer under her tyrannical rule.
    via u/PatrickRsGhost
  • 37
    A friend of mine who still worked there called me a week later and told me three other people quit because like me, they got tired of her sh.. Later that same year (I quit late Summer), about two weeks after Halloween, my parents ordered a pizza from that pizza place's major competitor. They asked me to give the driver the money, and when I did, it
    via u/PatrickRsGhost
  • 38
    turned out to be a driver I knew from the other place. She told me she quit on Halloween night because she wanted to take her 4- year-old trick-or-treating, but the manager said no, then she (the manager) took off early, in the middle of a rush, to take her own 8-year-old daughter trick-or-treating. The driver that was now working for the competitor told me she
    via u/PatrickRsGhost
  • 39
    threw her hat at the manager, told her to f off, and quit right there. A year or two later, I ran into the old assistant manager, who was now working at an Arby's. She told me many others had quit, and that manager was no longer there; she and her husband were fired, due to stealing money from that store. Karma...it works,
    via u/PatrickRsGhost
  • 40
    PM_YOUR_FEELI... 1 guy left In an office where there are 5 people working that is 1/5 of the company leaving. thats the best I have ·- i
    via u/PM_YOUR_FEELINGS

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