'The kind of guy who emails you at 2 AM and follows up at 2:05 AM': Employee quits in the middle of the workday after terrible boss questions his 'commitment to the company' after leaving on-time

Author image for JR Atkinson
JR Atkinson • Writer and Editor
Apr 1, 2025 10:00 PM EDT

Sometimes bosses can get you down. You don't necessarily choose your boss, you choose a job and you hope your boss ends up being a good person. This doesn't always happen, though, or sometimes you just realize you're not a match. They might be perfect for a certain kind of employee, but you're not that kind of employee. This can make going to work an incredibly stressful thing. You're not sure if you're going to be respected or if you're going to clock out feeling worse about yourself than you did when you walked in. 

You're not sure if an argument is going to ensue or if they're going to be in a good mood. And you're definitely unsure whether or not your career is going in the right direction. That's what happened to this employee, to a startling degree. He wanted to show his bad boss exactly what he thought of him and did just that.

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    Cheezburger Image 10488363008
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

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

  • His quitting story is one of those juicy ones that sounds like it's ripped from a television show or movie. It's the perfect revenge fantasy for those who have always wanted to give their terrible employer a piece of their mind. Read on for the story and the details.

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    My Boss Was Such a Colossal A **** That I Quit Mid Shift And I've Never Felt More Alive

    You ever have a boss so bad that you start fantasizing about getting hit by a mildly inconvenient car accident just to get a day off? Yeah that was me.
    via u/RojerLockless
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    This man was a walking HR violation. A micromanaging credit stealing soul crushing dictator in a cheap suit. The kind of guy who schedules a "quick meeting" at 4:55 PM on a Friday. The kind of guy who emails you at 2 AM and follows up at 2:05 AM. The kind of guy who breathes like he's buffering.
    via u/RojerLockless
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    Final straw? Yesterday he called me into his office and said I needed to show more "commitment to the company" because I had the AUDACITY to leave on time instead of staying late UNPAID to fix a problem that HE caused. Then he hit me with the classic:
    via u/RojerLockless
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    "You're lucky to have this job." Bro. BRO. YOU'RE lucky I haven't stapled my resignation letter to your forehead.
    via u/RojerLockless
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    So today I walked in placed my resignation letter on his desk looked him de d in the eye and said I think you need more commitment to finding a new employee. I turned around and left like I was in a movie except instead of dramatic music there was just Karen from accounting loudly chewing her salad.
    via u/RojerLockless
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    No two weeks' notice. No backup plan. Just pure unfiltered freedom. And honestly I have never felt more at peace. To anyone stuck with a terrible boss Life is too short to spend 40 plus hours a week being miserable. Sometimes the best career move is telling an a hole to find. someone else to exploit.
    via u/RojerLockless
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    TLDR; My boss sucked. I quit spectacularly. 10 out of 10 would recommend.
    via u/RojerLockless
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    Medicine-Illustrious . 17h ago What's your next move? I quit a job, first taking a leave then not going back last year. My boss told me I 'lacked the people skills for management' even though I was a manager for 7 years and concurrently said I wouldn't ever make the
    via u/RojerLockless
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    salary I was making. So in other words, I was lucky they'd have socially inept me, who was overpaid. It did feel good to leave. The HR person told me I was unprofessional to not give 2 weeks. I said I don't think you realize what it would've like to work under her for 2 more weeks. Clueless.
    via u/RojerLockless
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    Other workers chimed in with their terrible boss stories.

    Apprehensive-Nea... 15h ago The middle of a busy day (sales), boss calls me in with the office manager to "talk". He demotes me, citing "insubordination", mind you in the middle of the busiest day that quarter. Office manager is there to "witness" said
    via u/Apprehensive-Neat144
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    demotion. He wants me to go back out there and perform my new role (demoted and at less pay) but still act as my old role (demoted with also less pay) until they can hire my replacement (ETA 6 months). So I flipped over a customers receipt I was working with (said angry af
    via u/Apprehensive-Neat144
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    customer is still out there waiting for me), and write out my resignation letter. Sign it. Date it. Flip it to him, and say "That's your problem now, I quit. Effective immediately. OH and by the way, this receipt belongs to the very angry customer out there. Go deal with them". Stand up, jaws DROP, walk out and pack my sh up, throw my keys at
    via u/Apprehensive-Neat144
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    his glass door and leave. F tried to give me my job back FIVE TIMES OVER THE COURSE OF FIVE YEARS!!! Felt sooooo000000 good!! They have still yet to hire my replacement.
    via u/Apprehensive-Neat144
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    Cheezburger Image 10488363264
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

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

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    lilclairecaseofbeer · 15h ago "Breathes like he's buffering" really got me that's hilarious
    via u/lilclairecaseofbeer
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    A1batross 11h ago • Been there done that... 40 years ago. You know how much damage burning that bridge caused to my career? None at all. My boss kept postponing my first annual review. Didn't know why. Kept asking for it. At the 18 month mark I asked again.
    via u/A1batross
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    He said to me "Here's your review: you're not getting a raise." So I said, "Fine, I quit." Grabbed a copy-paper box, dumped out the reams, scooped my belongings off my desk, and walked out.
    via u/A1batross
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    In the parking lot I saw my boss's boss. Where my (now ex-)boss was a twit, my boss's boss was a 1. So I thought I'd pull up in front of him in the parking lot, flip the double bird, and roar off in a cloud of gravel.
    via u/A1batross
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    He was starting to cross the lane in front of me, so I gunned it and pulled to the right to get in front of him. But he heard me coming and sped up to get across. Then he saw me veer towards him, so he doubled back, just as I figured to let him cross and pulled left. I slammed on the brakes as he reversed again. and ran full out across the lane. Exasperated, I drove off to look for a new job.
    via u/A1batross
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    Years later I run into a coworker who shakes my hand. "You're a legend! You quit and then tried to run over [ ] in the parking lot! When he got in the office he was shaking! That was GREAT." And, like I said, never did a bit of harm to my career.
    via u/A1batross
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    We... . • 11h ago Edited 11h ago I worked at a popular honewares store (in the UK) when I chose to walk out mid- shift. This store is a warehouse style store and it was a few days before Christmas so the store was packed with customers and products were
    via u/West-Kaleidoscope129
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    taking up all the aisles so people could barely walk around. It was a health and safety nightmare. We have cages of products. that we have to put onto shelves in our departments and I was done with my cage and about 3m from walking it back to the warehouse to drop it off when customer
    via u/West-Kaleidoscope129
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    services called for trained staff for the checkouts. I decided to go into the warehouse, dump my cage and go to the tills. But as soon as I got into the warehouse the warehouse manager stopped me and told me not to bring anymore cages in because it was raining heavily and the warehouse had no space and to let the others know.
    via u/West-Kaleidoscope129
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    Well... As soon as he finished telling me that, all of about 20 seconds of a conversation, the deputy store manager can storming in screaming at me for not going to the tills and choosing to be in the warehouse talking. I tried to explain to him I wasn't talking, that I was being told not to bring more cages in, the
    via u/West-Kaleidoscope129
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    warehouse manager tired telling him too, but he then screamed about not going right to the tills and that he watched me come into the warehouse. I explained I couldn't just dump the cage because it would block the aisles thus blocking fire exits (part of our training mentioned it), he wasn't having any of it and kept screaming.
    via u/West-Kaleidoscope129
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    So, I screamed back that I'm not his child who he can scream at and thst if he treated staff with more respect people wouldn't keep quitting... I walked passed him, walked through the door to the staff room, grabbed my stuff, clocked out and told him I quit.
    via u/West-Kaleidoscope129
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    It felt fantastic! Especially because they were short of staff, it was Christmas, and I was the only one of the staff left that was trained in my own department, the tills and customer service. Me quitting meant managers from each department would have to do all 3 of my jobs until they got new staff which wouldn't be happening before Christmas.
    via u/West-Kaleidoscope129
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    I got phones calls from the actual store manager several times over the next few days begging me not to quit and offering a small pay rise. She was on maternity leave at the time too, her baby was only a few weeks old, she she had to go back to work early because of this deputy managers idiocy. I didn't go back. I was done doing 3 jobs but being paid only for 1.
    via u/West-Kaleidoscope129
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    It felt awesome walking all the way across the store to the exit with him walking behind me begging me not to quit lol. Others who quit because of him did it with notice. I didn't.
    via u/West-Kaleidoscope129
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    Cool_As_Your_Dad 9h ago • who schedules a "quick meeting" at 4:55 PM on a Friday. The kind of guy who emails you at 2 AM and follows up at 2:05 AM. Holy freaking sh. The company I worked for one client is like this. And it PED me off so much I also
    via u/Cool_As_Your_Dad
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    left (did do some interviews). But these people would log an issue(s) at 11pm at night, and then next day want to do full deploy. If there are issues, It just get passed back to us. F that pressure.
    via u/Cool_As_Your_Dad

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boss antiwork workplace-stories toxic-workplace job bosses work coworkers working reddit story toxic-boss workplace reddit thread bad bosses Reddit toxic-work-environment
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