'Power-tripping, micromanaging, unsupportive boss': Workers who quit their worst jobs ever explain what pushed them over the edge

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Sep 23, 2025 3:00 PM EDT

What was a major factor in you leaving your worst job? Everyone has different pressure points — for some people, the boss is the main reason why they leave. They can't stand working for someone who they don't respect, or who treats them badly. If you grit your teeth every time your superior walks in the room, that might be a sign to leave! 

Other people can't stand their coworkers. That seems minor, but if you sit next to someone who chews with their mouth open or takes 6-hour-long phone calls all day, well, that might just push you over the edge. 

Some jobs just aren't a good fit for one reason or another. For example, one person shared that they were hired to work day shifts, but ended up working the graveyard shift, even though they had little kids at home. Their boss wouldn't give them any exceptions, so they had to leave (and they quit on the spot! How satisfying!). And in their wise words, they said that "Work/life balance is everything to me," allowing them to see their kids enough to make life meaningful. It's a great point, and a lot of jobs don't value it enough. If your employees have a fulfilling and rich life outside of their 9-5, they're going to bring their A-game every day. You know who won't do that? An employee who hates their life because their boss is demanding they work 12 hours per day for no overtime pay. 

Outside of office work, some jobs are so physically demanding that most of us couldn't do it for more than a few days without our bodies giving out. Just read the story of one dude who got a job picking tomatoes, only to realize that the sweltering greenhouses were full of wasps! 

After you read about the worst jobs ever, check out the story of a 34-year-old who was just trying to get to know a 27-year-old man before a date, only to realize: "Is he using ChatGPT to talk to me?" 

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  • 01
    twinfyre I took the job because they were understaffed and needed more people. Well... They were understaffed and needed more people.
    via u/twinfyre
  • 02
    vinegarballs I had to pick tomatoes. It was so hot in the greenhouses and the wasps were everywhere. Seriously, do wasps bring anything to the table or are they useless, angry ?
    via u/vinegarballs
  • 03
    ellieellieoxenfree Power-tripping, micromanaging, unsupportive boss. Everything I did was wrong. according to her, but she had to keep me on because there was nobody else who could do the job.
    via u/ellieellieoxenfree
  • 04
    SniperPoro McDonald's. They wouldn't really train you properly, but they would get mad at you for not knowing how to do things. One of the managers was also the type who would yell at crew members. She was ride to both crew members and customers.
    via u/SniperPoro
  • 05
    Azaziel514 First real job after college. Boss was always giving contradictory requests then being extremely mad when things didn't go well. He also liked to give indications that went against good industry practices. Also the whole speech "ask me if you have any doubts" then when asked he'd send me to someone else. Forcing me to keep an explicit schedule for
    via u/Azaziel514
  • 06
    the projects I'm working on then being mad that I'm sticking to that schedule. The best moment was when we were so close to winning a huge contract but there was a somewhat serious problem in our proposal. I went to him and he was basically "that's your problem, you deal with it"
    via u/Azaziel514
  • 07
    and left for the weekend. I had been there a few months and it was his company, I had no idea how to fix that with the resources I had. I'm still convinced that he could've fixed it in a couple of hours tops after a few phone calls, since he is a far better connected guy than me. But nope. Just watch that ton of money and reputation go away because you're an a h le.
    via u/Azaziel514
  • 08
    Barfhelmet Boredom. I had a job that literally required me to do nothing for 90% of the day. Absolutely brutal beyond belief.
    via u/Barfhelmet
  • 09
    Gol... Nothing is more awkward than being on stage with an audience and your co- worker doesn't know their gold in lines. For f sake Grant you had 4 months to memorize this sh and you've had 20 years of experience on top of that
    via u/Golden-Sun
  • 10
    HermoingoBoingo 2 1/2 hour commute. So 5 hours commuting each day. And it was so fast-paced that we never had a minute to rest. And we would get yelled at if we needed to go to the bathroom.
    via u/HermoingoBoingo
  • 11
    sirdigbykittencaesar That b Shirley. This was the job I had between undergrad and grad school, so I was only there for about 6 months. She was a complainer. There was no subject and no situation in which Shirley could not complain. People, weather, what was in the vending machines, it didn't matter, because Shirley would find a way to b about it.
    via u/sirdigbykittencaesar
  • 12
    She also had a hobby of suing people. I know roughly the area she lives in, and every once in a while I'll Google her name just to see if she's still as insufferable as she used to be and the answer is yes.
    via u/sirdigbykittencaesar
  • 13
    hard_caulk They didn't have soap in any of the bathrooms. I was told to bring my own as there was no budget. Manager was also using the company as a front for selling stolen. goods from out of the country. Coworkers confirmed all of this. I lasted 1 and 1/2 days
    via u/hard_caulk
  • 14

    Would you frequent this frosty and blaringly loud cafe?

    [de... 50C temperatures for 8 hours at a time. It was a small coffee shop with greenhouse windows, 6 freezers and chiller cabinets (no external heat sink so they chill the food but dump that heat into the shop), 4 panini grills and a large espresso machine.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 15
    I wasn't allowed to turn the music down, even at customer request, because "we are a music and coffee shop, that's our thing, it should be loud enough that you can't have a conversation without raising your voice." The single most common request we has was for a bacon roll. We had rolls, we had bacon, but I wasn't allowed to make them
    via u/[deleted]
  • 16
    because "we're premium, and bacon rolls aren't premium". The company was entirely based on opening new shops with investors' money so they could show growth to the next set of investors. My outlet certainly didn't make money. They went bankrupt a year after I left.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 17
    Great Janitor Toss up: Retail and it was the customers, hours, poor pay, and manager. Warehouse order pulling. Dull, mindlessly repetitive, mandatory overtime of two hours every day plus weekends
    via u/Great Janitor
  • 18
    Woman with long brown hair sitting at desk holding silver pen and looking unhappy, to the left is man in blue shirt shrugging
    via yousef samuil on Unsplash+

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

  • 19
    chicken_cider Rent a Center. The unreasonable amount of sales and yodelling I had to do. Cleaning the returned appliances for Re-renting. Nasty a people. Washing machines covered in old detergent, dirt, hair, god knows what else.
    via u/chicken_cider
  • 20
    Fridges filled with spilled food and liquid and mold. Delivering to hoarder homes. Smelly homes. People are gross. If I know anyone is coming over I clean my house. These people don't.
    via u/chicken_cider
  • 21
    [deleted] My boss' temperament. Very successful interior designer I was project managing for. When she was cool. She was the coolest. When she sucked. She was a dyson. She would throw TANTRUMS slamming windows. Throwing desk objects. Screaming. Making
    via u/[deleted]
  • 22
    insane and useless demands like "I want to know how much we've spent on coffee for the last threeyears. " Worse, according to her, no one is ever competent at their jobs, whether it's $1million+ builder or her
    via u/[deleted]
  • 23
    own staff. She was always the ONLY person who knew what she was doing. No one stayed longer than a year.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 24
    drphyz Management. The lower workers can manage schedules better than management themselves. A bad schedule can make the whole day h I and for it to repeat constantly can be tiring and demotivated the h I out of you and every other worker.
    via u/drphyz
  • 25
    Squid Hat2006 Working full time and still not having enough money to pay for rent and or necessities. Theres a special kind if hopeless when you choose between tampons and toilet paper after scrubbing floors for 2 weeks.
    via u/Squid Hat2006
  • 26
    [deleted] Went for the interview. Seemed nice enough. Small business with only 5-6 other guys. Well...figured out real quick why I was the youngest guy they got in awhile. Toxic boss who se sole purpose of existence was the company. The other guys had all been there for 20+ years so they were toxic know it alls that took every
    via u/[deleted]
  • 27
    chance to exercise their seniority. Was hired for the day shift. Got put on nights soon after I started. Boss expected me to show up an hour early and then stay until the truck was loaded for the next day which could literally have been whenever. Have 2 young kids at home so i said i should be put on days since thats what i agreed to when i was hired. Boss said
    via u/[deleted]
  • 28
    thats not what he said and moved my hours back even later. Grabbed my stuff and walked out that minute. F that place. Have anxiety/depre s on left over from the army and this place seriously made me miserable. Current job is the polar opposite. Took a $4 an hour pay cut but ever worth it. is it
    via u/[deleted]
  • 29
    I work to live not live to work. Work/Life balance is everything to me so I can see my kids more. More money isn't worth it if you're seriously considering swerving off a bridge on your way to work everyday, people.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 30
    Starbucks_Lovers There's definitely one thing Reddit hates: HOAs. Did you know HOAs around the country are represented by law firms? I was an associate attorney at one of those law firms. It was my first real lawyer job. Everyone working at the firm (nothing unethical, I feel obligated to say that), had cold, de d eyes and looked
    via u/Starbucks_Lovers
  • 31
    like they were going to kill themselves. I wondered if I'd be okay if that were my future. After 3 weeks of writing default judgments people over financially for the rest of their lives, I quit. $75,000/year with annual raises + bonus gone. I just couldn't do it.
    via u/Starbucks_Lovers
  • 32
    [deleted] The boss was also the HR department. Enough said.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 33
    romanholiday Job: Waitress Reason: My boss. I worked in a pub restaurant owned by a married couple, both were ex-RAF and the wife was a trained chef. She was one of the most awful people I've ever met, she bu ied me for having a learning difficulty and would frequently cuss out the staff,
    via u/r0manholiday
  • 34
    get drink on the job, and throw things at us. She was only ever nice if you had a spare ciga tte for her. The worst part was that she was quite a well known figure in our community, so no one believed me when I talked about how horrible she was.
    via u/r0manholiday
  • 35
    Woman with long brown hair sitting at desk holding silver pen and looking unhappy, in front of her are scattered notebooks and a laptop
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

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

  • 36
    PianoManGidley Call center work. People are orders of magnitude more likely to verbally assault you over the phone than in person. And at the time, my social anxiety and depre son were undiagnosed and untreated. I eventually had a nervous breakdown and quit.
    via u/PianoManGidley
  • 37
    [deleted] I wasnt trained. I shadowed someone in a cramped kitchen for one shift and then everyone assumed i knew what i was doing, in the height of summer selling ice cream. I didnt know the recipes and was slow because i was new. I quit
    via u/[deleted]
  • 38
    after 3 weeks when i overheard a manager openly complain about my incompetence when they thought i had already left.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 39
    Co... Being forced to work 13 days straight, half of which were splits (8am-12pm then 4pm-11:30pm) also, the commute took about 40 minutes each way, meaning. on my split I had about 2 hours spare for free time (the extra half hour taken from free time was because I rode a motorbike and it took time to get bike gear on and get ready to leave) then
    via u/ConfuciousSan
  • 40
    when I finally did get a day off, my boss would have the nerve to phone me on my ONE DAY OFF IN 2 WEEKS to ask if I could come in and cover someone with a passive aggressive Boss: Hey, could you cover someone today? Me: Ummm, no not re... Boss: Ok great, see you in an hour, thanks bye hangs up
    via u/ConfuciousSan
  • 41
    Plus my boss was a Gordon Ramsay wannabe tool of a man, constantly throwing insults in an attempt-to-be- funny-way, as if he was a big man, he would also walk off mid-shift and go nap in the office for an hour at a time and take 10 smoke breaks, all of which were 10-15 minutes long, even when it was super busy, but refuse
    via u/ConfuciousSan
  • 42
    to give anyone else one, and make a point of shouting his refusal in a way that ALL the other staff could hear. Plus, whenever he was called into HIS bosses office to receive a warning based on all the written complaints he had recieved, he would turn on the crocodile tears and plead innocence.
    via u/ConfuciousSan
  • 43
    This was just one of the many problems there, I have more from that same place but it's already pretty long. as it is. tl;dr boss was a collosal -biscuit.
    via u/ConfuciousSan
  • 44
    ---Kyle----- The slippery floor. Deli clerk. Actually loved my coworkers and enjoyed the process of things and making people and kids happy, but that floor was treacherous and made my knees sore having to carefully tread on it.
    via u/-----Kyle-----
  • 45
    [deleted] The horrid people I had to help, and the horrid bosses who only looked out for themselves. They had no problems throwing us under the bus if a situation went sideways.
    via u/[deleted]

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