Employee quiet quits for 6 months until neglectful boss notices and fires her: 'I honestly can't believe it took them this long to notice'

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
May 28, 2025 8:00 AM EDT

It's remarkable what employees can get away with if they have a neglectful and distracted boss. Most of the time, we come across stories of horrible micromanagers, but whatever happened to the employers who seem like they're out to sea half the time? 

In this instance, we have an employee who recognized almost immediately that her values did not align with those of the company. After about six months on the job, she asked for a raise, which she did ultimately get, but the process was tense and difficult. She knew after this salary negotiation that she wanted to get out of there, but she wanted to see just how long she could stretch her "quiet quitting" phase until someone took notice of it. As it turns out, it took another six months. Finally, she tested the boundaries in a way that got her boss to finally realize what's been going on—or rather, what hasn't been going on. Keep scrolling below for the full story and for the best reactions from members of the online community!

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    Cheezburger Image 10510620416
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

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

  • The funny thing about quiet quitting is that even when you think you're doing the bare minimum, you are probably socialized to be better at your job than you realize. Therefore, the bare minimum in your eyes might not actually be the bare minimum for someone else. With that in mind, this employee definitely came across as more competent and hardworking during that six month period than she actually was. Power to her for pulling that off!

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    I checked out of this shole job with s⠀⠀-a "religious" owners over a year ago. When I got my last raise, six months ago..., it was so clear to
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    me that our values were just utterly misaligned. As such, I decided to quiet quit immediately after that conversation over my pay.
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    I honestly can't believe it took them this long to notice, given our company is under 25 people.
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    To satisfy any curiosity, I did something stupid that I knew could get me fired, and it did. The cherry on top was when they told
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    me I had "violated the trust" in the relationship. Like, b, there wasn't any trust. I showed up,
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    did my job (so you thought), and left. Terrible, terrible people who treated employees like s
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    Edit to add: wow! So much support from people! (and an expected amount of people who like to pretend that the worker- employer relationship is just fine in America)
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    eltonnbaba ⚫ I've been trying to get fired for the past 4 years lol. I unofficially changed my hours to 9-3 and work maybe 1hr/day and still no go.
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    Seanw59. FYI poor numbers is not grounds to deny UI. Go get that money and fem once more.
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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    mikeysgot... I haven't been doing sh for 2 years and I just got a great yearly review and a raise
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    Purple_Fol... I quietly quit for 12 months, and my fraudulent MD never realised. My numbers fell off a cliff and after 9 months I eventually
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    got a snotty email. I worked from home decided to become a teacher and even did a week's volunteering at a
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    local school and didn't take holiday to do it. I checked during break time and lunch time and if they asked during
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    the week where I was...I was in a meeting. Walked out and left for a teaching post grad on my terms. With my middle finger raised high!
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    [deleted] ⚫ It took me like a solid year to get canned, even while I was making ample use of the "unlimited vacation time" lol
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    Katamath... Reminds me one of my previous job. For 2 years I did absolutely nothing for 200k per year.
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    Like, O commits on GitHub. Then project was closed, I've got a hefty bonus and bunch of recommendations,
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    which results in new job offer in 2 days even for bigger sum.
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    Teknodruid • Sounds familiar. Working for a company where we got contracts yearly.
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    1 year they gave 1/2 my contracts to another person who needed hours - repeatedly asked what my replacement work was - crickets...
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    So I billed full time 40 hr/wk until the contract money ran out (10 months) & they came at me asking what I was billing if I only had
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    blah work... I told them I was hired full time & not going to work part time because the new manager was more
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    worried about her newborn than the f**king team she was given (while pregnant).
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    Same company that passed me over for a promotion because "You were too serious in the interview"... I had more years of related experience
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    than the person that got the promotion had been alive ... But I was "too serious". I told them "I thought it was a serious position" which they didn't appreciate.
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    Place is trash & they wonder why turnover is running about 14 months on average.
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    them: QUEST Engineering in case anyone wanted to know.
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getting fired quiet quitting workplace-stories fired work stories toxic-workplace job fired story work satisfying quitting story employees Horrible Bosses company quitting toxic-work-environment
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