20+ Employees who left their toxic bosses and bad coworkers: 'He told me to get a real job... so I left'

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Apr 23, 2025 11:00 AM EDT

We all have that one story about the worst job ever… if you're lucky, you just got a glimpse of the gig during a job interview without agreeing to work there. For those who agreed to take the job anyway, some only stayed a few days or a week before noping out of there as fast as possible. 

While some bosses hide their bad tempers or sour nature during the onboarding process, they can't hide that personality forever. Your true nature is bound to emerge eventually. One person noticed how their new manager was acting sweet towards them, only to witness him stop and berate a different employee for something that wasn't even their fault. When people show you who they are, you can believe them! Then act accordingly, which may mean hightailing it out the door. 

Up next, read about a fed-up employee of 25+ years who decided to take 10 weeks of PTO before resigning: 'You need my help? It'll cost 1 mil.'

Advertisement
  • 01
    'I left after 20 minutes and just walked out the door without a word'
    via Marsha Dhita on Unsplash+

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

  • 02
    lamtheBiscuit It was a shop that refurbished train suspension hydraulics. 40% of the guys were missing atleast part of a finger, maintainence guy was missing 4 on one hand and 1.5 on another. Half the guys were high and the guy training me stormed out half way through the second day. I was like yeeaaah, I'm just going to dip out now...
    via u/lamtheBiscuit
  • 03
    Feralmedic Many years ago I worked at a popular sports bar as a line cook. First day they had me train with a guy who didn't speak English for 2 hours. Not a huge deal. Mostly you observe people in a kitchen and that's how
    via u/lamtheBiscuit
  • 04
    you learn. Owner came back and said she was scheduling me to be alone the next day.... which was super bowl Sunday. Noped out of there so fast. Left right then and there.
    via u/lamtheBiscuit
  • 05
    Cheezburger Image 10497180672
    via Kateryna Hliznitsova For Unsplash+

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

  • 06
    DarrenEdwards I worked for a newspaper for most of a week. I was expected to use my own laptop and software, no IT and I'd have to share logins and passwords with 3 other people and guess when they would need them.
    via u/DarrenEdwards
  • 07
    dramboxf One week. It was 1985, and a collections agency was looking for an IT guy. It was basically desktop support on some IBM PCs. It took me a week to realize what a soul-deadening place that was and I bolted. It was mutual, actually -- they saw
    via u/dramboxf
  • 08
    how I was reacting to some of the techniques the collectors used. The targets were mostly old people who were encouraged to sell family heirlooms and the like to pay off debts.
    via u/dramboxf
  • 09

    Does anyone ever actually buy stuff from door to door salesfolks? Maybe in like the 1950s that would work, but not in the current day...

    yourmomknowsw... I left halfway through the orientation when I found out it was a job selling those expensive vacuum cleaners door to door.
    via u/yourmomknowswhatsup
  • 10
    AvocadoVoodoo Three days after my two week training. I was supposed to be a seasonal temp worker for a national propane company. The job distribution and training consisted of taking calls off-hours for people. who wanted refills and acting as a messenger service, referring their contact info their local
    via u/AvocadoVoodoo
  • 11
    "store" when they opened the next day. Easy-Peasey. When I got out onto the floor, I found I was actually expected to be a dispatcher for drivers AND ALSO FIRST POINT OF CONTACT FOR ALL EMERGENCY SITUATIONS. Things I had never been so much as briefed on in training.
    via u/AvocadoVoodoo
  • 12
    My first shift I had to field a call from a local police officer who was on site to a horrific propane truck crash. I got to wake the guy's district manager in the de d of night, tell him his worker was de d, and the overturned truck was blocking a few lines of the freeway and the police were trying to get a hold of him.
    via u/AvocadoVoodoo
  • 13
    That was just the start: A customer got the smell of garlic and eggs in the house? I got the call. (What do I do next, Miss Dispatcher? "F if I know. Get out of the house ASAP?") CO detector is going off? I got the call. (Instead of 911 for some reason?!)
    via u/AvocadoVoodoo
  • 14
    I had ZERO interest in being a underpaid, not-trained emergency dispatcher. It's the only job I took off on without giving a 2 week notice. I was nice enough to finish out my shift on the third day, but that was it.
    via u/AvocadoVoodoo
  • 15
    jojomayer I went in to an office for an interview. They said they had several positions available and I wanted to do some admin stuff... Welp, after the interview they told me to get in a van to do the next part of the process. Turns out we drove an hour away so I could shadow one of their door to door sales people. They would ask residents to go into their
    via u/jojomayer
  • 16
    basement to check their hot water heaters to see if they were eligible to replace them with their companies own... I felt pretty unconfortable about this and pretty p ed my whole day was gone doing this. The worst part was the girl I was shadowing spent half the day sitting around in the truck reading magazines and waiting for people to come home from work... I was sort of asking
    via u/jojomayer
  • 17
    questions about the job and she got defensive and said, well I decide if you get this job or not, to which I replied, yeah I dont know if I want to do this.. But she kept insisting that it was her who decided if I worked... Dont think she understood I meant that I didnt want to do this sh... a day. waste of
    via u/jojomayer
  • 18
    her thinking she couldn't be serious I would be gone for all of 10 mins and back helping her if needed. She stressed how important it was to get the things done that needed to be done and I could only leave if I called around to the other workers and found someone to come in and cover for me while I was gone. I took off my name tag slammed it on the counter and walked out. I
    via u/jojomayer
  • 19
    never went back for any reason. For any who might wonder; my dad came out fine was in the hospital for a few days.
    via u/jojomayer
  • 20
    [deleted] Walked in to a "group interview" as a young moron, the second I heard the word "vector marketing" I bounced.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 21
    [deleted] I was pretty well qualified, but between jobs and receiving financial support. I get an interview with a small company. I'm looking forward to earning some money again. The boss/interviewer is a . At one point he asks me if I feel guilty that people like him are supporting me. I politely
    via u/[deleted]
  • 22
    inform him that he'll have to support me a bit longer while I find a suitable job. I tell him that the interview is over, but thanks for your time.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 23
    LibertyJorj I was interviewing for a contract position at a very small game development company, and they told me they were looking for someone to help finish up an existing project. Literally, the game looked like it was made in MS Paint. As if they had just hired some random guy off the street and asked them to
    via u/LibertyJorj
  • 24
    make some art for them. Granted it's a mobile game and sold for the standard 0.99, so maybe that's not the worst, but the game itself doesn't look engaging at all either. But I figure, worst comes to worst I could make some money on the side with some low-effort work.
    via u/LibertyJorj
  • 25
    Then they told me that my pay would be a percentage of the sales. Noped right out of that one.
    via u/LibertyJorj
  • 26
    Zielko Worked in a bakery, it was my first day so I get there in the morning to meet everyone. Then they have me grease up baking trays for the others to fill... I lift up the first tray and like 10-15 cockroaches just scatter everywhere from under the tray. I tell the guy showing me the work that there were cockroaches and he just shrugged... This was all in
    via u/Zielko
  • 27
    greyhound1211 Found out that the educational assistance they touted in their advertisement applied only to full time employees and that they both defined full time as no fewer than 40 hours and kept anyone who would apply for that assistance from ever being qualified for it. None of this was advertised and the people I interviewed with
    via u/greyhound1211
  • 28
    assured me, a college student, that working 21 hours a week would get me the benefits. Too bad I read my contract before signing it and called them out. Don't lie to your employees, especially during an interview on something that can be easily and swiftly disproven. If you're willing to lie to me about this, what else are you willing to lie to me about?
    via u/greyhound1211
  • 29
    (I did their training before being offered my contract, so I count it as having worked there, btw.)
    via u/greyhound1211
  • 30
    Uni... Mine had to be when I was 18 and working at Blockbuster. I was helping the manager during the before open shift getting new items stocked on the shelves that came in that morning. My mom called me and told me that my dad was having a heart attack and she was panicking while waiting for the ambulance.
    via u/UnicornQueenFaye
  • 31
    Why did she call me at work to tell me this? The Blockbuster I worked at was in a strip mall type area behind my cul-de-sac, my house and the Blockbuster was separated by a small alley and a 3 min walk. I told my manager what was happening and asked if I could leave to help my mom while they waited for the ambulance. She said no. I just stood there looking at
    via u/UnicornQueenFaye
  • 32
    the backstore, customers were about 10 feet away. So i tell the guy that I'm not feeling too well after about an hour of doing that and i head to the bathroom. When I came out I told him I couldn't do that job and he told me to get a real job then, so I left and gor myself a proper job. Tldr: cockroaches
    via u/UnicornQueenFaye
  • 33
    TheStressedTech I went for a 'trial shift' with a door to door sales company, the guy I was partnered up with told me that if he didn't make above the target sales he was coming out with the equivalent of £3 per hour, which in the UK is well below minimum wage. This was commission only 'self employed' role. Noped all the way home that day.
    via u/TheStressedTech
  • 34
    [deleted] Back in college, I used to work part-time as a nanny. One summer I landed a really sweet-sounding 40 hour/week (Monday-Friday) nannying job, looking after a baby and toddler. I was super excited about all the money I was going to make working that many hours, but the weird thing about this job was that the
    via u/[deleted]
  • 35
    unemployed dad was also going to be at home with me. He was supposed to be spending all his time looking for a job, and I was watching after the kids while the wife was at work. Literally that first week, on day 2 or 3, he starts hinting about his marriage problems and how his wife sleeps on the couch. The next day, he asks me to try out his fancy new massage chair. I
    via u/[deleted]
  • 36
    reluctantly agreed, and he just stared at me while I laid on this vibrating chair and was like "...oh yeah, nice, great, thanks." He then offered to give me an actual massage sometime, and maybe I wouldn't mind giving him one too? On Friday afternoon I went home, told me parents (who I was living with for the
    via u/[deleted]
  • 37
    summer) everything, and my mom called the guy and told him I wasn't coming back the following Monday or ever. He then sent me a text saying he was "disappointed in me." Ugh. And his poor wife.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 38
    ToyVaren 2 different ones: First was a scheme going door to door soliciting donations for the environment. You had to get 5 "donations" or something to get paid. I worked 14 hour training shift, then left.
    via u/ToyVaren
  • 39
    Second was door-to-door dollar item sales. After an hour, I realized it was MLM and told them no. But, since I was in their van, I had to stay the whole 8 hours.
    via u/ToyVaren
  • 40
    deadtime68 It was my first day working for a family business that had just bought the equipment necessary to install underground fiber optic lines. They had previously been realtors but had read an article in an entrepreneur's magazine that said $1 mil/yr gross was common. They pulled their 14 and 17 yr old out of school to act as laborers
    via u/deadtime68
  • 41
    and the Mom and Dad were going to run separate crews. I was their first employee hire. As I was setting up my bore path, the Mom told me we didn't need to expose an electrical line, we would just drill a few feet underneath it and we didn't need to
    via u/deadtime68
  • 42
    expose it. I told her that was ridiculous, reckless and dangerous. The husband then came over and wanted to fight me for insulting his wife and not 30 seconds into his tirade the 14 and 17 yr old drilled directly into a large electrical line (which 'pops' the transformer - and sounds like an explosion).
    via u/deadtime68
  • 43
    As I was walking away the father went from wanting to fight me to chasing his 17yr old around a retention pond. The Mom was begging me not to leave, NOPE.
    via u/deadtime68
  • 44
    arcsine I was unemployed for a couple months, and started applying for pretty much any job I could do. This one was a basic small-biz IT support contractor. The employee the interviewer introduced to me mouthed "run" when he turned his back.
    via u/arcsine
  • 45
    [deleted] Cold calling people about injury claims. "Have you been injured in the past 3 years?" That kind of thing. The thing that really irked me was that all of the people I called in those 20 minutes were polite, said they're not interested, and they were just sitting down for dinner.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 46
    I realised it was a horrible job and I was in no way cut out for it. I left after 20 minutes and just walked out the door without a word.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 47
    ob1page When I was 16 I had an interview at a local pizza place in a not so good part of town. I was hired and as I was walking out 2 guys came in and robbed the place. The manager gave them the money in the register and they ran out. I looked at him and he said "You get used to it". I never went back.
    via u/ob1page
  • 48
    Jer... I had a job in a salad plant (those bags of salad mix a lot of restarants use.) I was there for two weeks coring lettuce: in front of a conveyor belt, 8 hours a day, pick up a head, slam it, pull the core, put it down, next. You talk to your co-workers or you plot the downfall of Western civilization. One really sweet lady had been there for 10 years. 10 years
    via u/J***faceBob
  • 49
    on the lettuce line. she got called into the office and was gone for about half an hour. She said "I won't be here tomorrow. I got promoted!" I asked what she'd be doing. "Cabbage!" I didn't quit. I wished her well, dropped my sh and walked out. I feel bad about not quitting, but I was young and, well, 10 years!
    via u/J***faceBob
  • 50
    That was 28 years ago. Had I stayed I might be up to carrots by now. I sometimes wonder how my life might be different had I stayed, and in those moments I celebrate every decision I've ever made edit: When I say I didn't quit, I walked out. I didn't formally tell anyone I was leaving and I provided no notice. I've never left any other job this way
    via u/J***faceBob
  • 51
    cut... Was hired as an intern manager for a local non- profit recycling plant. This meant I would hire and train interns for this "amazing" work opportunity. Turns out for them "interns" meant working for free doing basically everything for the organization event and marketing wise while also cleaning the bathroom and taking out trash for the
    via u/cutesarcasticone
  • 52
    whole place every week. That's actually super illegal for being way too close for slave labor. I was on contract for minimum six months, but I managed to get out of it after two. I ain't risking my career for their shady business practices. edit: While yes it is legal for non-profits to have unpaid interns and give them a level
    via u/cutesarcasticone
  • 53
    of responsibility, this place had no marketing or event planning staff and relied on interns to be able to do the jobs and have the quality of a professional. Besides always being hounded by the ceo that the interns who had no experience or training wasn't producing
    via u/cutesarcasticone
  • 54
    the same quality of work someone who's been in the industry for at least a few years this does enter a gray area where even a full non- profit may be protected.
    via u/cutesarcasticone
  • 55
    [deleted] Was told to work inside an industrial metal shredder that didn't have a safety lockout. HI to the f nope.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 56
    CBU 15
    via Andrej Lišakov For Unsplash+

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

  • 57

    This person stunned their new boss with a lesson he won't forget

    lux_nox_ez Wanted something part-time when I was at Uni. Applied for at the local cinema chain, and got an interview. It was one of those high turn over places that meant if you got an interview thdre was a 95% chance you got a job. Guy on the Box office radioed to his manager and was told to take me to room 7. We got to room 7 and
    via u/lux_nox_ez
  • 58
    wait. And wait. And wait. About 25 minutes pass before to manager starts screaming ab e over the radio because we were not in room 2. So off to room 2 we go on the other side of the building (15 screen cinema). The manager starts trying to turn on the charm and I basicly
    via u/lux_nox_ez
  • 59
    say if thats how you treat your employees in front a job candidate there is no way I am ever working for you and asked the other guy to show me out. I'm sure it made no difference to his behaviour, but it saved me a lot a potential ab e.
    via u/lux_nox_ez
  • 60
    Factualkoala666 I worked in Claire's for one day. At the end of the shift she asked me to put a bucket load of tiny earring packages back on the walls. A few hours later I finish and apparently misplaced a few of them so she threw all of them to the floor and said to do it again. NOPE
    via u/Factualkoala66
  • 61
    byrneeoinm "I won't pay you to design that logo, but when my friends ask who did it I'll tell them and you'll get more work that way." Nope.
    via u/byrneeoinm
  • 62
    ReallyHadToFixThat At the interview. They were late, no-one knew where I was supposed to be and as the interview went on it became very clear that what was advertised as a programmer position was actually tech support.
    via u/ReallyHadToFixThat
  • 63
    Lo... I remember going for a "Marketing Job" interview. The interview was I had to get on a bus with a group of other people who "worked" there and go to this really scummy council estate (UK) and knock on peoples doors and ask them if they wanted to donate to charities and things, it was really really odd.
    via u/ReallyHadToFixThat
  • 64
    I was following this guy around for around half an hour, while he got doors slammed on him over and over. I mentioned "man the pay must be great if this is what you have to do all day" and he then told me he wasn't paid a penny, it was purely commission based. Every person he signed up he got like 50p. I just laughed and walked off.
    via u/ReallyHadToFixThat

Want More? Follow Us and Add Us as a Preferred Source on Google.

Tags

boss workplace-stories jobs job bosses work coworkers workplace
Scroll Down For The Next Article