15+ Groups of employees who all quit at the same time: 'Over half the team quit within a month'

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Nov 30, 2025 11:00 AM EST

When that one critical person quits at their job, it can set into motion a whole chain of other employees quitting.

You'll meet plenty of coworkers throughout your life, and sometimes you meet people who are just A+ workers, dedicated to their job and very good at all of their tasks. They're a bright light — when times get stressful, they can handle it. When customers flip out, they can not only calm them down, but they have that customer leaving with a smile. You think that this person can do anything… until they decide they've had enough. 

Many employees leave their jobs because they're super fed up with management decisions, lack of raises, or they just can't handle negative interactions with customers and clients anymore. But if one employee is feeling that way, there's a good chance that other workers have a similar feeling. That can cause entire workplaces to walk out all at once! It's rare, but when it happens, it can be catastrophic for the higher-ups at the company. They're suddenly scrambling not just to complete their managerial duties, but also to hire new staffers, train them, and do all of the work left behind by the employees who left. Who knows — if enough workers leave, even those managers might call it quits!

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  • 01

    'What happened at work that made everyone quit at once?'

    Employee in brown jacket holds cardboard box of office supplies while looking unhappy outside of office builiding
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

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

  • 02
    V4Vendota The guy everyone hated became the manager because the lousy CEO played favorites.
    via u/V4Vendota
  • 03
    Butterbubbleb Company did a survey of employee happiness. It had super limited answers. We filled it out and tried to explain that, internally, our team was doing well and we were happy but just about everyone had problems with two other employees outside the team who were bu ies in important positions.
    via u/Butterbubbleb***
  • 04
    The company asked us instead what -we- could do better so the bu ies don't bu y... Over half the team quit within a month which is unheard of at that company and our team was/is a corner stone of the entire buisness.
    via u/Butterbubbleb***
  • 05
    Picard TangoAlpha Three of us, the engineers, quit the same week and without any discussion between ourselves. Man in charge was an insufferable, insulting This led to the head office losing faith and the whole subsidiary being sold off.
    via u/Picard TangoAlpha
  • 06
    Sn... Not my work, but close friends. Restaurant owner wasn't paying his staff and checks kept bouncing. So one night, they all said "f this", closed up shop together and left. Owner got ran out of town after Social Media and reg media took over. He closed down both of his places (the second also had a staff walk out the
    via u/SnoopThereItIs88
  • 07
    week prior to the first) and sold the buildings. Edit: since people keep asking. This was in MD. And the "second place" was his second restaurant (Indian place) that had kitchen staff walk out a week prior, but the walk out didn't close the restaurant. He closed it and sold it after his first restaurant was shuttered. Good riddance.
    via u/SnoopThereItIs88
  • 08
    Madonna Bin Laden One of my first jobs was as a dishwasher at a local steakhouse which was always really busy as it overlooked the waterfalls of the the local river. My 3rd or 4th day working the whole kitchen staff just didn't show up. Except for me. Boss grabbed me and taught me how to cook as we went. Not only had I never cooked before, this
    via u/MadonnaBinLaden
  • 09
    was a Friday night and I was missing a concert, so I was kind of angry about that. Probably not the culinary experience some of the customers expected that night, but I tried my best. Then, after we closed I had to stick around for another 4 hours to wash dishes. Turns out everybody went to the concert. This was almost 40 years ago. Still mad.
    via u/MadonnaBinLaden
  • 10
    EurassesDragon I worked at a KFC in the 80s. We had a really cool manager. I was assistant manager along with another, and lots of other great young people worked there. Our manager was hired to turn around the store and he was given a budget to buy new equipment. He also saved money on paper products and got the store really clean with our help. At
    via u/EurassesDragon
  • 11
    the end of the year, he was fired by the upper management for "spending too much". They then brought in a new manager who immediately set about giving us all a hard time. Everyone walked. The store had to shut down for several days and the new guy brought in his family to help run it.
    via u/EurassesDragon
  • 12
    They store shut down permanently a few years. later. The district manager offered me a job in management but I just didn't trust them at that point.
    via u/EurassesDragon
  • 13
    Titan_Ura _69 Worked at a chain pizza place. The manager didn't approve of how well we cleaned and prepped for the next day. So we all came in to a note saying something to the effect of "you are all replaceable" so we all said ok, took off the uniform and left. We didn't even lock up or close up shop. Just walked off. Phones were
    via u/Titan_Ura***_69
  • 14
    ringing for orders, there were people coming in to the dining area but nobody was there working. Once she realized nobody was there she was calling everyone going nuts telling us to come to work or we're fired. One person went back and tried to save it. I just reminded her that I was replaceable, and so was the person who signed my
    via u/Titan_Ura***_69
  • 15
    check, then hung up. They had to close for about a week or two to replace the staff. The location completely closed and filed bankruptcy less than a year later at least partly due to her leadership. The location is a Verizon store now.
    via u/Titan_Ura***_69
  • 16
    De... Worked at Dairy Queen; someone was stealing money regularly during the closing shift. Many of us had a suspicion of who it was and I'm pretty sure most of us told our manager for fear of being blamed ourselves (we were certain it was the assistant manager who was with us on those closing shifts). Instead, our manager started randomly firing
    via u/Dense_Society_2873
  • 17
    younger staff members for any minor discretion and blaming the missing money on them. When they fired me, it was the last straw and several of my co-workers walked out in solidarity. News flash: it was the assistant manager all along. I ended up threatening to go to the labour board and they kind of.. paid me off?
    via u/Dense_Society_2873
  • 18
    1112212111122112 Smallish company with a very necessary programming team of 5 people. CEO spent several hundred thousand dollars repainting and refurbishing the building, deciding he didn't like the colour, and got it redone in the same month.
    via u/1112212111122112
  • 19
    Then lockdown hit and the company was suddenly struggling for money, CEO decided to retrench two of our team members, at first we thought that he picked those two because they were less familiar with the systems. But then the other 3 of us were told by the CEO that those two were in the most rough positions financially,
    via u/1112212111122112
  • 20
    and one was expecting another kid in a few weeks. And that this meant that they could hire them back as contractors for cheap because they'd be desperate. In the next week the three of us chatted among ourselves, all resigned, and they had to keep the other two devs on
    via u/1112212111122112
  • 21
    with their standard paycheck for longer, all while looking for new places to work
    via u/1112212111122112
  • 22
    functionalsock Worked at a cheap clothing retail store while I was in college. 15-20 hrs/week for the first several months, as was most of the staff. Then we got a new manager who decided that the state- mandated paid breaks (15min after 4 hours) were a waste of money. So he changed everyone's shifts to 3hr 45mins or less so no one would get a paid break.
    via u/functionalsock
  • 23
    Then people complained, so he hired a bunch of new people and reduced the old staff to about one shift a week. Lost pretty much everyone who actually knew what they were doing in less than a month. I heard most of the new people also quit pretty quickly, once they figured out how dumbly the place was run.
    via u/functionalsock
  • 24
    polywha Business largely workedbecause the owner trusted his employees to do a good job. So the employees did a good job. The business was doing really well and the owner assumed it was all because of him so he started micromanaging everyone's
    via u/polywha
  • 25
    job. People started dropping off like flies because the working conditions became intolerable. The company didn't last very long after that
    via u/polywha
  • 26
    Man in gray suit holds brown briefcase and coffee while smiling and walking outside
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

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

  • 27
    The_Windbreaker I worked at the largest apartment complex in my area (~800 units) with maintenance. The office crew had about 10 people and maintenance had 9. Had a great group with an amazing property manager and maintenance supervisor. The property manager took an offer managing a beautiful resort property. In comes the new property
    via u/The_Windbreaker
  • 28
    manager who had next to no experience, and she starts to try to change things even though it ran fine like it was. She also became a mouthpiece for corporate. Everything they suggested she put straight back out to us. Within a month 7 of 9 maintenance employees put
    via u/The_Windbreaker
  • 29
    in their 2 weeks notice including the maintenance supervisor. The next month. 5 office workers had their 2 weeks in. A few months later I heard that the new property manager shut down the entire office and maintenance department to take them all to some golf tournament and got herself fired for it.
    via u/The_Windbreaker
  • 30
    [d... There was a staff of 10. At the beginning of last year it was agreed if more than 50% were out sick with covid we close the place down for 1 week and then reasses. 9 of us were out with covid at the same time including the boss. He threatened to fire the last person if they didn't go in
    via u/[deleted]
  • 31
    and cover for 9 people including the boss! We all quit within the next month like hell did any of us want to be in that position especially when the 'plan' we co-constructed wasn't honoured. Fuck profits over people.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 32
    jen... It was way back in my high. school days. I had a part time job at a coffee shop. The entire precent (it was a fisherman's wharf kind of set up) was managed by the same company, so the bar, the restaurant, the coffee shop--we were all employed by the same bosses.
    via u/jenemb
  • 33
    Started off great, then a change of ownership happened, and the new owners were assholes. They cut back hours, tried to drop wages, all the usual stuff, so the staff was already primed to mutiny when a busy Friday night rolled around.
    via u/jenemb
  • 34
    I had a friend who worked with me in the coffee shop. She was a dishwasher, but her duties also included collecting leftover plates from the outdoor dining areas. She also had spina bifida, which meant she wasn't always steady on her feet.
    via u/jenemb
  • 35
    Well, the new owners decided it wasn't a "good look" that she collected the dishes with a trolley, and told her she had to use a tray instead. This led inevitably to her dropping a whole tray of dishes on her way back to the coffee shop. (Okay, she might have done it intentionally, but they certainly couldn't prove that.)
    via u/jenemb
  • 36
    She got yelled it, in front of both staff and customers. And all the staff from the restaurant, the coffee shop and the bar walked out on the spot. The place went under soon after, because I'm guessing they didn't treat the next lot of staff any better than they'd treated us.
    via u/jenemb
  • 37
    memberzs Poor pay, for laborious work. Passing highly qualified people up for promotions and giving that spot to someone with no experience or training in the field to someone from outside connected personally in someone in management. I happened over about a month. Me leaving was the breaking point for most
    via u/memberzs
  • 38
    people, i was the one maintenance guy that would actually answer calls and get things done. I left after getting turned down for an R and D position (which I did. at my previous job in more technical field) within a week two warehouse guys left, along with three production people which was half of that department, then shortly after that even the HR girl left along with the maintenance manager.
    via u/memberzs
  • 39
    Its not a big company, but a very popular one in the RVing and towing products trade. too bad the owners only care about profit and not employees being able to afford housing.
    via u/memberzs
  • 40
    jond200 They issued phone lockers. All the lube techs quit except for one but he got high at lunch the next day and got fired. Mind you this was one day after the boss just got back from his dads funeral.
    via u/jond200
  • 41
    bearded_charman... Manager got caught stealing from employees
    via u/bearded_charmander

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