20+ Employees who happily quit their toxic jobs: 'Guy taped his resignation letter to his computer... and never showed up again'

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jun 10, 2025 11:00 AM EDT

Here's your sign to get out of that terrible job that you dread going to every day! 

Many employees deliberate about quitting for a long time before they actually type out that resignation note. It can be a big decision: leaving a company you're miserable at can leave you unemployed and scrambling to get your bills paid. If you have an awful boss or insufferable coworkers, you might be ready to take that financial risk just to get away from it all. And on the bright side, you have everything to gain from starting fresh at a new company. 

For some employees, resentment builds and builds until one day they crash out and tell the boss exactly what they think about him. Or they get so frustrated with a customer that they give up the "nice guy persona" and fully flip their lid. While this is bewildering to the boss or customer on the receiving end of that ire, at least it'll give the other employees a story to talk about for a lifetime. 

Up next, read about this parent of a 15-year-old who is refusing to buy the teen a cell phone, and who offered her a handful of quarters to use a pay phone instead: "She says it's affecting her social life." 

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  • "What is the most epic way you have seen someone quit or be fired?"

    Chukkan If an epic fail counts, I have a story. I detassel during the summer, and one year | managed to con a few friends into doing it with me. The work s ks but the pay is good, and we had a pretty good season overall. Except for Mike. Great guy and a decent worker, but he was always the last one into the
    via u/Chukkan
  • field and the first one out, which doesn't earn a lot of respect from me or the other supervisors. Towards the end of of the season we had a really hot day, and by lunch break most of us were ready to call it quits. Mike took it a step further and actually did quit. Went to our contractor and explained that he couldn't do the job anymore and was quitting. Contractor tried to
    via u/Chukkan
  • change his mind but Mike was committed, and sat on the bus the rest of the day. We finished for the day about an hour later, and corporate told our contractor that we had no more fields to pick. Mike quit literally an hour before we ended for the season, and threw away his bonus with it.
    via u/Chukkan
  • Perrah_Normel My friend's fast food joint has a name for it, if someone's just had it, they say they're going to get a pink lemonade. This originated from a guy that had apparently had enough and he took off his apron and hat, went to the soda machine, filled himself up a big pink lemonade and walked out. So after the next
    via u/Perrah_Normel
  • guy quit in the same fashion, they all refer to it as getting a pink lemonade. And they all do it when they quit, whether it's a walkout or planned.
    via u/Perrah_Normel
  • offshoreET I was on an offshore oil platform that was run by an old operator that had been there for years. Our company had recently purchased this platform, and they sent a young lead operator to "straighten him out". This old dude listens to the guy for about 5 min, and then goes upstairs, makes
    via u/offshoreET
  • one call to his old company, and 30 min later, a helicopter from another company lands and flies him to his new job, leaving the new boss wondering what just happened.
    via u/offshoreET
  • Senator_Chickpea Guy taped his resignation letter to his monitor -- back- dated two weeks -- and never showed up again. "That's completely unprofessional", said no one who was working there.
    via u/Senator_Chickpea
  • _Belmount_ This kid I worked with in highschool literally skated out of the store. We worked a supermarket called Vons and his car broke down. He had to skate several miles for his shift and got there right on time. They told him that he was too sweaty to work and had to go home
    via u/_Belmount_
  • and change and come back in. They also mentioned a write up. Kid just said "F that" and skated from the loading dock in the back of the store through one of the aisles and cashiers to the front door.
    via u/_Belmount_
  • MisterShine Woman in the office, some years back, got completely plastered at the Christmas party. Nothing new there, but she told the boss to his face that she thought he was a He wasn't, actually - she was a bit unhinged, though. When she got trapped in the lift she sang opera - badly - for the two and a half hours
    via u/MisterShine
  • it took to release her. The screeching echoed up the lift shaft and drove everyone mad. Anyway, she turned up the next morning in the throes. of a gargantuan hangover and the boss proved he wasn't a by calling her in and saying that he knew she was drink, and it was Christmas and all that, and he'd just appreciate an apology.
    via u/MisterShine
  • "No!" she screamed, so everyone could hear. "I said you were a and you are, you !" Out the door in five minutes.
    via u/MisterShine
  • nothingheretofear Worked in a call centre for a supermarket bank for two years whilst studying. Our department was supposed to there to help with Online Banking issues, normal browser fixes and password resets - that kind of thing. Customers caught on to the fact that we usually had the lowest wait times for the queue and would call
    via u/nothingheretofear
  • through to us instead of the customer service line that could actually help with banking issues. Management decided the best way to handle this was to 'cross-train' us so we would be able to deal with basic banking issues instead of giving the customer the right number or passing them through to the right team. The main call types
    via u/nothingheretofear
  • you would get were people asking why we had charged a fee for them not paying their bill or why we had blocked their account when they were hundreds/thousands of pounds behind on payments. It was horrible. Straight up, 100-200 calls in a 4 hour shift instead of the 30 or so that we had dealt with before. People crying
    via u/nothingheretofear
  • that we were ruining their childs Christmas by blocking an unpaid card or that they wouldn't be able to eat because we were making them pay the monthly minimum payment. Everyone hated it. But there was one guy, really quiet - didn't talk to anyone much. Just came in, did his shift and went home everyday. Until finally he cracked. I was halfway across the call
    via u/nothingheretofear
  • floor from him about an hour into a 6pm-10pm shift when he suddenly stood up, screamed "Well maybe you should pay your next time then!". He then threw his headset at a bill window, picked up his keyboard and smashed it off the desk before walking over to his manager and quietly and conversationally saying
    via u/nothingheretofear
  • ו" hate this place, I won't be back" and then walking out the door. It was great.
    via u/nothingheretofear
  • LargeNCharge86 My buddy was told he was off. He knew it was coming and to f with them he screamed "YOU CAN'T FIRE ME!" and went limp in his chair. Two security guys had to carry him out.
    via u/LargeNCharge86
  • adudenamedrf Didn't see it happen in person, but one that comes to mind was when a JetBlue flight attendant quit by deploying a plane's emergency evacuation slide,. grabbing two beers and telling passengers to go f themselves, and sliding down onto the tarmac before driving home..
    via u/adudenamedrf
  • [deleted] Two jobs ago, I was working for a large pharma company, decent job, overall, but the typical corporate BS. So, they had a big layoff planned, and were doing a job of keeping it quiet. HR has a big meeting with a powerpoint, one of the action items was "Contact IT and see how many badges can be deactivated between
    via u/[deleted]
  • midnight and 5 AM" This site was huge, you had to badge in just to get through the gate to go into the parking garages. HR's brilliant plan would force people to drive to work, have their badge fail to open the gate, while cars piled up behind them. The idea was then that the security guard would have them turn around somehow, and go to the visitors gate, where a
    via u/[deleted]
  • box of their personal effects would be waiting. Well, someone from HR "accidentally" posted the powerpoint to the sitewide intranet, where it stayed up for an hour. By the end of the day, all 7,000 people on site had seen it, and the plan was changed.
    via u/[deleted]
  • Lyn1987 I was working as a shift leader at dunkin donuts when I was 19-20 years old. Now the thing with being a shift leader is it requires CBL training in order to get the pay raise associated with it. My manager always had an excuse for keeping me from the CBL training. So I was basically doing the extra work but not being paid for it. Eventually I got fed up
    via u/Lyn1987
  • and took my revenge by giving every single customer the senior discount. Now I had already been doing this out of laziness for some customers. The senior discount on a medium coffee will make it an even $2 So I wouldn't have to
    via u/Lyn1987
  • make change. But once I realized I was never going to get my due I applied it to all orders. This went on for months before I was caught and one of the GMs (who really didn't give a sh) said that I had cost the company something to the tune of $75 a day average for each day that I did this. They lost at least $2000 in revenue, and tried unsuccessfully to involve the police
    via u/Lyn1987
  • Cheezburger Image 10514577920
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

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

  • Andy06r My wife got fired on Facebook after she no showed to work. They scheduled her on our wedding day.
    via u/Andy06r
  • [deleted] Found out on Thursday that Friday would be the last day for me and my entire team as the government had not renewed our contract (IT and project management) (found out last minute). Immediately told everyone the situation, and to come back on Friday for pizza and a resume writing review party. We brought up everyone's resumes on the
    via u/Andy06r
  • projector, updated and critiqued everyone's. We all wrote each other multiple letters of recommendation and gave each other tips and agreed to recommend each-other as soon as we found new jobs. Most people were working again the next week at other companies with equal or better pay.
    via u/Andy06r
  • soomuchcoffee More of an epic fail but still great. Dude is under the impression he is being fired soon. He stews on it for a few days and then marches into his boss's office to address the issue. Apparently he gets caught up in the emotion of it, and moves from conversation, to
    via u/soomuchcoffee
  • LL F YOU I QUIT, and then calls his boss every name under the sun. Everyone hates you, you're a huge b f this job and f ' you for wanting to fire me. "I...I don't want to fire you though?" "Ah. I see. Uhh...hmmm...Well can I stay then?" "No, get out."
    via u/soomuchcoffee
  • [deleted] One guy I know got fired from a warehouse at a fruit and vegetable store and he jumped on the manager's back and played the manager's bald head like a bongo drum after he was fired.
    via u/[deleted]
  • Lasair Wasn't there to witness it, but my dad took his shirt off, lit it on fire, and walked out. This was after working for the company for 20+ years.
    via u/Lasair
  • ALLSTARTRIPOD Dude just stood up one day, exclaimed "F this sh" and walked out. Never to be seen again.
    via u/ALLSTARTRIPOD
  • Facemaestress I worked at Wendy's for a year or so in high school. One of my coworkers was there for a little over 3 years. He got fired over a yelling match with the general manager of the store. The last thing the general manager said to the guy was "bring back your uniform or I will take the cost out of your last paycheck." A few days
    via u/Facemaestress
  • later while I was working my normal night shift he came in with his uniform in a box with the general manager's name on it. We looked inside later and everything was burnt to a crisp. Except for the button on the top of the pile of burnt cr p.
    via u/Facemaestress
  • CrystalxFrost This guy I used to work with brought a big-a stereo to work the day he quit, plugged it in, and blasted the song "Take This Job and Shove It" on replay before doing donuts in the parking lot with his truck and driving away.
    via u/CrystalxFrost
  • Flexplc I once quit a job as a maintenance supervisor at a gym in a pretty fulfilling way. There were roughly 70 televisions that would normally air news and sports. At the bottom of the screen was a ticker bar that would announce class schedules and gym events. I placed a fairly direct resignation letter on the ticker bar, and had all the
    via u/Flexplc
  • televisions play Slack by Superchunk on repeat. The chorus line is "Im working, but I'm not working for you. You slack II Changed the password for the tv control system and walked out as the manager was scrabbling to turn off all the screens and gym goers were cracking up everywhere.
    via u/Flexplc
  • Fojanratte A guy at my work held a speach on how he will quit and will travel for a year. Was so exciting that 3 others decided to go with him.
    via u/Fojanratte
  • Cheezburger Image 10514578176
    via Toa Heftiba For Unsplash+

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

  • Sig... When I worked at Walmart, one of my friends quit in a great way. Some backstory first. We had this manager, Bruce, who was a real Treated • people like sh. And he also had no sense of personal space, and his breath was terrible. Also, keep in mind how much Walmart hates the union.
    via u/Sigmar_Heldenhammer
  • OK, so my friend was quiting, he goes home on lunch, prints off a bunch of flyers for the local union chapter, puts them on cars. in the parking lot, hangs. them in the back, lunchroom, hides them under product on shelves. Then, he goes to seasonal, gets a basket, goes to pharmacy, fills the basket with toothpaste, mouthwash, dental floss,
    via u/Sigmar_Heldenhammer
  • toothbrushes, etc. He walks up to Bruce who was at the front of the store, on a very busy day, gives him the basket and says, "your breath walks out. stinks." And For the next month, we had head office people there in full panic mode looking for all the union propaganda, and telling us how evil the union is.
    via u/Sigmar_Heldenhammer
  • kalas_critic Group firing, 3 weeks before Christmas. Was an annual event. No-one looked kindly upon meeting invites in that week.
    via u/kalas_critic
  • nuggetblaster69 My friends dad used to work at a fast food joint and usually manned the drive through. He has an identical twin who would come by and order almost every time he was working. So one day he decided that he had enough of this job, so when
    via u/nuggetblaster69
  • his twin brother pulled around to the drive through window, he took off the head gear, and climbed out of the store window into his brothers car.
    via u/nuggetblaster69
  • NotReady2Adult New GM sent from corporate called our manager, who would pull 24hour shifts trying to turn the store around after he'd also been sent by corporate a few months sooner, a lazy idiot. Our manager quit on the spot,
    via u/NotReady2Adult
  • "If I'm what you call lazy and an idiot, let's see how you do without me" Two weeks later, the place shut down.
    via u/NotReady2Adult
  • [deleted] We saw an employee who was always doing weird things get fired on the spot for having been caught using the CEO's private "executive bathroom" - a facility clearly marked "private" on the door.
    via u/[deleted]
  • The guy knew the executive bathroom was off-limits for rank-and-file employees, but apparently he became flush with excitement to see if he could get away with it.
    via u/[deleted]
  • Hairless-Sasquatch worked as a dish washer for a fairly upscale banquet hall when I was 18 and straight out of high school. well they had a tendency to "hold" on to paycheques because the company "was almost broke" well, the owner and proprietor was driving around in a benz and after 4
    via u/Hairless-Sasquatch
  • weeks of not seeing a paycheque (supposed to be paid bi-weekly) I decided enough was enough. as soon as my coward of a boss finished telling us payments will be held another week, I promptly went into the storage room and smashed every plate, bowl and mug in the place, told my boss to f himself, took all the muck from the dishwasher filter and
    via u/Hairless-Sasquatch
  • smeared it on his benz and f ed off out of that place for good. still haven't seen my money and that was 10 years ago.
    via u/Hairless-Sasquatch
  • 92shields I worked in a small warehouse for a while basically picking and packing orders for delivery, when I started it was just two of us doing this but the guy I worked with quit a month or so after I started. I spent probably about 2 weeks doing the job on my own before they got a new guy in.
    via u/92shields
  • On his first morning he wandered in and to start I picked up the pile of orders. we had for the day so I could show him the process. He takes one look at them and goes "That.... is intense", turns around and walks the f out! Never saw him again!
    via u/92shields

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