'A mass email went out canceling all our annual sales bonuses. 40 salespeople walked that day': 19 Workplace taboos that inspired half the workforce to immediately quit

Author image for Jesse Kessenheimer
Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Jun 11, 2026 3:15 PM EDT

Where do you draw the line on workplace ridiculousness? Is there a limit to how far you'll let your company push your buttons before you snap and rage quit? 

Most employees have a hard limit on the punishment that they'll accept from a boss or manager. Oftentimes, that ceiling waivers depending on the day, and short-fused moments are more prone to rage quitting thoughts than days that are uneventful. However, the 19 stories in this next collection, found on Reddit's r/AskReddit sub, show employees who found themselves at the end of the line. 

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  • When your workplace shows you exactly who they are, you'd better listen to them, because workplace ethics are shown through actions, not words. 

    Every burnt-out employee knows that when your boss says, “We are a family,” that's a red flag, but they might not quit on the spot about it. If a CEO zeroes out everyone's PTO balance so they can fudge the numbers on a short sale of the company, that's a red flag that's not so easily ignored. In fact, that's the kind of workplace taboo that might just trigger a mass exodus, a mass quit moment if you will, and for some employees, that rage-quitting opportunity might be the best career decision you've ever made. 

  • signation
    via Canva+ (Bongkarngraphic)

    Female employee happy to quit. 

  • People who have seen multiple people quit a job in one day, what happened?
    via ObliviousOnion1
  • Amelsander They sidestep a manager that had a 10+ year career in the company, being consistant in nice and well performing to give the son in law of the CEO the job. 4 people quit after the news
    via Amelsander

  • A CEO's blatant nepotism hire is enough to let the entire workforce know where the big boss's values stand. Frankly, that's the kind of employee rage that'll make you see which workers have your back and which workers don't.

  • InertiasCreep ⚫ Worked for a firm that sold financial products. Company had 6K employees and 200 salespeople. I was one of them. We had a great year and sold more product than any prior year. There was a
    via InertiasCreep
  • big companywide meeting on a Friday congratulating us. Great, right? Monday at noon a mass email went out canceling all our annual sales bonuses.
    via InertiasCreep
  • Forty salespeople walked that day. Forty more were out by the end of the week, so just under 50% of the sales force. This was a well respected company and never had a problem recruiting. As soon as word
    via InertiasCreep
  • got out about the canceled bonuses, it killed the firm's reputation.
    via InertiasCreep
  • Resignation
    via Canva+ (Bongkarngraphic)

    Female employee happy to quit. 

  • Sales bonuses are critical to the workforce. Bosses might see it as a movable perk, but to a salesperson, a recurring bonus is just as much a part of their salary as commission or even their hourly wage. You can't just take that away without expecting repercussions. 

    These employees rightfully ghosted their company, hopefully leaving them more financially crippled than if they had just paid everyone their bonuses as promised. 

  • Cheezburger Image 10638126848
    via Canva+ (Bongkarngraphic)

    Employees who are rallying together to quit. 

  • ca77ywumpus Not quite all in a day, but my last job got a new manager who had NO IDEA how our department actually worked. Between micromanaging (we had to
    via ca77ywumpus
  • keep detailed time logs of how we spent our workday, down to the minutes we were away from our desk.) and completely impossible productivity "goals" and the fact that she bragged about coming back to work
    via ca77ywumpus
  • two days after gallbladder surgery as a way to shame us for taking time off, our department went from 8 people to 3 in a matter of months. I walked out after she accused me of faking a broken leg. (The leg had
    via ca77ywumpus
  • healed by then, but she was still harping about me missing work on New Years Eve because I couldn't drive and the bus didn't run on holidays.) Three others retired earlier than they'd planned.
    via ca77ywumpus
  • ca77ywumpus New CEO announces that everyone MUST be in-office at least 3 days a week. No exceptions. No thought to the fact that most of the staff had been hired as remote or that they'd downsized the
    via ca77ywumpus
  • office space accordingly. Next day, his inbox is full of resignation letters. Over half the department quit. It turns out that the liberal WFH policy was the only thing keeping people there.
    via ca77ywumpus
  • KooshlsKing • University did a study about how much IT staff was supposed to be paid versus what we are actually paid. They found we were all severely underpaid. When we requested raises as a result
    via KooshlsKing
  • of that, they were denied. Not everyone quit that day, but that's the day everyone decided to look for jobs and a few months later 80% of the staff was gone.
    via KooshlsKing
  • Striving_Hermit ⚫ I walked into a retail store and asked for the manager. The girl at the counter said "I'm the manager." So I gave her my resume and said I was looking for a job.
    via Striving_Hermit
  • A week later I returned and again asked for the manager. A different girl was there and asked me why I wanted the manager. I told her about what happened the previous week. She looked around the counter and saw my resume,
    via Striving_Hermit
  • "Oh! Is this you? Well here's the thing, I'm actually the district manager. Everyone, including that manager, just quit so... CONGRATULATIONS! You're hired!"
    via Striving_Hermit
  • BoxedCub3. They refused to give me a pay raise to match market and the new guy. It was a litmus test and almost the entire team was gone by end of the week. And all but one within a month
    via BoxedCub3
  • deezynr Ceo zero'd out the entire companies PTO balance to reduce his cash liability while trying to secretly sell the company. I was told he was told by the legal team that if one more employee left his sale would be jeopardized.
    via deezynr

  • Never mess with your workers' PTO. You are going to immediately regret that decision, no matter which way you slice it. Employees value their PTO just as much (or more) than their actual jobs, so this boss was playing with fire. And he got burned. 

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