'They expected me to... work for free': 15+ Employees who quit their jobs for good reasons

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Dec 20, 2025 11:00 AM EST

These workers had some A+ reasons for quitting their jobs. For example, one person declined to work for free, which is probably the most important reason one should leave a job in the first place. If you're not even getting paid to be there, you're just letting someone boss you around for free! 

Of course, it's not usually that cut-and-dried. Oftentimes, there's a buildup to the act of quitting: the boss spends months belittling their employees, or a wave of layoffs lets them know that the end is near. Some people were given jobs that were totally overwhelming — just ask the IT worker who realized on day 1 that they were the only IT person for 300 people, a ratio that would guarantee that IT worker a job full of stress. Some employers are happy to burn through employees, though. They'd rather just have a constant cycle of hiring and firing rather than put effort into creating a pleasant place to work. 

And, as mentioned before, some employers literally want employees that are not even paid! Apparently, a common sneaky way to get free labor is to insist on a trial period for new workers. Yes, they have to do all the work, and no, they don't get paid for it, meaning a lot of them will leave after that very first shift. Management gets free labor… but at what cost? Surely all the hours needed to find new workers aren't worth the measly few dollars they save by not paying the new guy. Anyway, keep scrolling to read a bunch of stories about quitting that'll give you a great feeling of schadenfreude toward all of the bad bosses of the world. 

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  • 01

    'What is the quickest job you quit from?'

    Cheezburger Image 10589234432
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

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

  • 02
    Any_Adhesivenes... Buffet. Spilled pan of chicken tenders on floor. Manager told to pick up, take in back and bring back out. Even my 23 year old not caring self knew that was wrong.
    via u/Any_Adhesiveness3549
  • 03
    Fragahah A fashion studio. Walked in to "interview" for the job and they expected me to sit down and work for free for the exposure. I asked them point blank, "what the hell is going on?" And they said they didn't like my attitude and asked me to leave. Weirdest 20 minutes.
    via u/Fragahah
  • 04
    GinB Was told it was customer service. It was actually cold. calling so I walked out. Probably there 30 minutes total.
    via u/GinB****
  • 05
    30... My wife started at a Mexican restaurant and after she cleared her first table, she went to dump the salsa from the bowl and the manager told her to put it in to the next tables salsa container. She quit after her first 45 minutes and then we turned in the restaurant to the health board. The were shutdown about a week afterwards to never reopen.
    via u/30FujinRaijin03
  • 06
    Brilliant_Drawing... Working as a household help. for a French family. The lady of the house did not like it that I did all the chores quickly and then had nothing to do. She felt that she was paying me for the day and that I needed to work the entire day. So she
    via u/Brilliant_Drawing967
  • 07
    kept finding new jobs for me to do and felt stressed because she was running out of ideas what else she could assign me to not be wasting her money. It became too unnerving.
    via u/Brilliant_Drawing967
  • 08
    thepipesarecall Abercrombie and Fitch. I watched the orientation video, used my discount to buy a winter jacket, then quit. Everything went according to plan.
    via u/thepipesarecall
  • 09
    Pu... IT job where I learned on day one I was the only IT guy in the building. Like 300 users. About 3 days in some department manager asked if the 100 new desktops were going to be ready by tomorrow, no idea what he was talking about. I reached out to corporate and their IT guy said something like "Oh
    via u/PurpleSunCraze
  • 10
    yeah, there's like 100 boxed PCs in the warehouse you'll have to set up and image, forgot to mention that". I laughed, handed my badge to HR, and walked. On the way out HR told me the last 4 people in my position had quit in the first week.
    via u/PurpleSunCraze
  • 11
    Cheezburger Image 10589238784
    via A. C. For Unsplash+

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

  • 12
    Al... Got hired on at a major ski as a member of their marketing team. First day was formal training where I was told to sit in on "Snowblower" training. Long hours, middle of the night up a mountain in the freezing cold. Yeah, not my cup of tea. Maybe they were just doing cross training, I thought.
    via u/Altitude528O
  • 13
    Next day, we are picking up equipment, I was expecting a walkie and my lift pass for being an employee. I was given sub zero gloves, heavy jacket, multi tool. Again, just thinking it was for safety. Got my schedule for the 3rd day and was scheduled for an overnight shift... immediately went to HR.
    via u/Altitude528O
  • 14
    Their response "that position (the marketing role) never existed." Quit on the spot.
    via u/Altitude528O
  • 15
    AH2112 Took a job umpiring indoor cricket because I was broke and needed the money. After my second shift I asked who I should give details to to get paid. Was told "Oh you're still training, you don't get paid" Told em to stick it up their ass and walked out.
    via u/AH2112
  • 16
    Hysterion_Proph... Got hired to do QA at a chemical plant. Walked in, spent a full hour trying to find who was in charge and who I was supposed to report to. After more than 90 minutes, I just walked out, never having found out who my "boss" was supposed to be
    via u/Hysterion_Prophetess
  • 17
    WirelessTrees I worked 4 days at an Amazon warehouse and quit on the start of the 5th day. During my first day, they changed my hours to conflict with my college courses. They told me they'd fix it. I brought it up every day until the 5th day where I drew the line and quit.
    via u/WirelessTrees
  • 18
    They had some people coming in at 5 and some coming in at 6. They told me to come in at 5 at first, but on the first day they told me I'm 6 going forward. I told them to put me back on 5 and they said they couldn't.
    via u/WirelessTrees
  • 19
    GentleMoonBeam A telemarketing job. I lasted two hours before I had an anxiety attack from the script they made us read. I realized I was not cut out for being yelled at by strangers for minimum wage. Never went back after lunch.
    via u/GentleMoonBeam
  • 20
    Cr... Ice cream shop. The owner had a very Jekyll and Hyde personality and didn't like putting things in legal writing in regards to pay. Edit: I was in my early 20s, very naïve, and was grateful that someone had even bothered to consider hiring me for a real life job.
    via u/Crashstercrash
  • 21
    Emersonson It's not crazy quick. But I worked at a Convenience Store at the University of Kentucky student center back in the day and left in four months and that was my fastest. They had recently been bought out by Aramark and my manager was not amazing.
    via u/Emersonson
  • 22
    I ended up reorganizing the stock in the basement to make resupplying easier, and then I was told that she would put me on a trial period for a promotion to assistant manager if I started ordering the stock resupply and maintaining the stock system. Decent pay raise.
    via u/Emersonson
  • 23
    A month and a half later I found out that she didn't have the authority to promote me. I told her I would work the remainder of the semester (one month) but only because I needed the pay and time to find a new gig. She was unrepentant, yelled. at me after for telling my co- workers, and she ended up fired a few months after I left.
    via u/Emersonson
  • 24
    Quitting your job on the spot is a privilege that many don't have, although I have been close. Fun side story - The Aramark CEO visited the student center while I was waiting to leave. He scolded me because some of the sodas were not "logo facing forward." I told him I wouldn't be doing that
    via u/Emersonson
  • 25
    because it would take too much time and I was running the shop myself so a trip to inventory meant the store was unmanned. The CEO was pissed, and my manager was mortified, lol.
    via u/Emersonson
  • 26
    JuanG_13 It was at a little torti that was owned by a mean little old Mexican lady and she was a bitch and everyone was afraid of her, so even before the day was over I decided that I wasn't gonna go back because I wasn't gonna deal with her shit, so I left and I never went back.
    via u/JuanG_13
  • 27
    tkinsey3 When COVID hit, I was let go from a company I had worked for for 8 years. I was the last round of people let go, and neither of us wanted it to happen but it had to. I got another job that I was very 'meh' on but it paid the bills. About 6mo later my old company reached out to offer me another job and I've never left a job faster
    via u/tkinsey3
  • 28
    meatbag2010 Shitty IT company. Employed me as a senior tech, they gave me two days of sitting in a box room cleaning filthy keyboards in a hospital. The manager at the hospital was surprised when I came back on day 2, telling me "the last guy didn't last this long"
    via u/meatbag2010
  • 29
    elpsycongroo93 Got fired after almost 3 days. It was a telemarketing job on my lunch break during my 3rd day I got an email that was an acceptance letter to law school. This old dude that literally looked like Tom Smykowski from office space I'd met that morning asked why I looked excited and I showed him the email and he said "go, leave this
    via u/elpsycongroo93
  • 30
    place and don't look back" he left the break room and about 10 minutes after my lunch I was brought into the conference room and the boss said I was not a good fit and will "fire me so I can file unemployment". I said
    via u/elpsycongroo93
  • 31
    okay. 2 weeks later I was living 1,000 miles away from my home town in my first apartment alone about to start a new career. I really wonder how that dude I met on that lunch break is.
    via u/elpsycongroo93
  • 32
    victorbarst I took a position in a factory that makes the industrial shelving for grocery stores once. At the orientation the instructor asked me to take it easy the first day and equated to football practice. Show up on the line and see seven dudes ranging from 20-40 all built like amateur boxers. Turns out the job was to grab these big 40
    via u/victorbarst
  • 33
    pound shelves, two at a time minimum, lift them above. your head onto a moving hook belt for 12 hours with only a 30 minute lunch break. My ride wasnt going to be able to pick me up until the end of the day. The next morning I was physically unable to move. I couldn't have gone back to that job if I wanted to
    via u/victorbarst
  • 34
    strange_bike_guy When they wanted me to participate in a morale cheer /song. No. I'd rather die.
    via u/strange_bike_guy
  • 35
    SoupNo5464 I took a job in the produce. section (closing shift) at a grocery store. My first shift was a day shift training where produce guy showed me what he expected everything to look like when he arrived in the morning. I received a call from the manager saying not to bother coming in for the closing shift the next night
    via u/SoupNo5464
  • 36
    because they were already staffed, but to come in for the following morning shift. When I arrived for the morning shift, the day shift guy was screaming and going crazy about the mess that closing shift left. He assumed I was the reason. and immediately screamed and started throwing produce at me (truly lost his mind). We had to be physically separated. They
    via u/SoupNo5464
  • 37
    were going to fire him, but I hated the job, refused to give a statement, and quit on the spot.
    via u/SoupNo5464
  • 38
    SL1Fun I left ten minutes into orientation after they attempted to bait-and- switch me with the job I thought I applied for and the job they actually hired me for.
    via u/SL1Fun
  • 39
    Common Media4... A hostess job, I walked in and walked out during the interview after they gave me a ridiculous one size dress to wear. Bye Felicia.
    via u/Common_Media4316
  • 40
    bon3r_fart Chipotle. I was fresh out of high school and couldn't fold a burrito to save my life. The embarrassment was too much to handle for 19-year- old me... the way people
    via u/bon3r_fart
  • 41
    looked at you heartbroken when you finished screwing up their burrito. I worked a single shift and just never went back.
    via u/bon3r_fart
  • 42
    SatinEchoo Dishwasher i quit because its not minimum wage and its againts the law
    via u/SatinEchoo
  • 43
    Larzionius Two days at save a lot. I was in the meat department and they said for my third day id have to do all the meat cutting and everythin and i was gonna be the only one in the entire department......l was never showed how to use the meat cutter and i never showed up
    via u/Larzionius

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