Yep.
I haven’t, but I certainly feel like it now, or at least giving notice. I haven’t felt very good at work for months, but what happened over the last few weeks was about the last straw.
Yep. I dropped my computer, phone and keys on my supervisor’s desk before he got to the office that day. No note, nothing to explain why my things were on his desk. He finally got the message after his 10th unanswered call to me. Did I feel guilty? Not at all.
I left with short notice twice in my working life.
1st time the Chief was a true ass. I was afraid one morning he was going to walk in and make just one too many comments and my response would be I will not be back tonight. I found another job and the next morning I turned in my resignation effective the first of the following week 4 working days notice.
I did not feel bad, just the month before he handed an employee his final check at 4:30 PM. no warning or notice. And just to show how much of an ass he was, for the next 6 months the boiler engineers had to work 7 days a week. The reason, because I did not give him notice.
2nd time, long story made short. On Monday all the elevator/stationary engineers were called in to a meeting. We were told that our jobs had been outsourced. but they had saved positions for us as stationary engineers. This meant a cut of $2.00per hour in pay, loss of company truck, and loss of about $10,000 a year in overtime. I started looking for another job that afternoon. It took me a few month to locate a good job. I got a call on Monday about 4:00 PM offering me the job. I was carrying my letter of resignation with me at all times. I changed the date on it and faxed it off right then, my last day was Friday.
I never felt bad either time. If an employer or boss wants his employees to stay then he should treat them with respect. It was their problem not mine.
Once.
I got hired for what was represented to me as a standard-issue clerical/administrative job for a job placement company specializing in attorney placements. Showed up for my first day and after filling out all the appropriate paperwork and so forth was informed that - surprise! - it was actually a cold-call sales/marketing job calling law firms (literally alphabetically out of the NYC telephone book) to ask about their available positions and/or desires in a successful candidate.
I, being somewhat confused, said “This is a telephone sales job? I was informed it was a clerical/administrative job.” The person explaining my new and improved duties actually told me “Oh, we tell everyone that otherwise nobody accepts the job.”
I picked up my purse, gathered my coat, and walked out. The person explaining chased after me, trying to convince me this was the Greatest Opportunity Ever. I said “You guys lied about the actual job you hired me for - why would I believe a single thing that comes out of your mouth after that?” and kept walking.
Not even remotely sorry.
Once, two years ago, first time in my life, and I’m in my forties.
Worked for about a year for a boss who was probably mentally ill, who had a successful company despite, rather than because of himself. It could have been ten times bigger if he hadn’t been so paranoid and such an absurd micromanager. I resigned with nothing to go to and worked out my month-long notice period. A week later he called me and begged me to come back on an hourly schedule. I doubled my asking price, he agreed, and I went back part time on the proviso that he “give me no shit”. I was earning more money part time than I’d been paid full time. After about two months he flipped out on me yet again for no reason whatsoever and I decided I’d had enough. Shut my laptop, said “we’re done here”, and walked out forever. No regrets.
I fled an ESL teaching job in South Korea (as in fled right out of the country), which is a very common occurrence over there because that whole industry is often sketchy and there really isn’t much in the way of foreign worker’s rights. It’s called a doing a “midnight run” and it’s such a typical thing to do that it’s just kind of part of expat culture there - lots of people who do it even return to South Korea with a different school (not me though).
Just once, at a fast food job. I’ve worked several different fast food and low wage jobs, but morale at this place was the worst I’ve ever encountered, anywhere. Everyone there, management, coworkers and customers, seemed to have the attitude that anyone working there was a total loser. One day I just couldn’t face it, and I simply didn’t go. I didn’t even call to say I wasn’t coming. I slunk in and picked up my last paycheck a week later. I did feel guilty about it, it was unprofessional, but the atmosphere was so damned oppressive. The guy who cleaned late nights actually hung himself in the parking lot, and nobody really gave a damn.
Really? I was in Daegu from 2010-2013! I kind of miss the place, honestly.
I quit one job without notice TWICE!
It was a shipping job leading up to Christmas and I was working 4am until 9pm pretty much every day except Sunday. My supervisor hired his girlfriend and allowed her to not work, be in the way, treat everyone like shit, and generally make a crappy overtime goldmine completely intolerable. One morning I was throwing boxes and she wandered over to scream at me about something and I handed him my badge on the way out the door without a word.
His boss (who was actually a really good guy) came to my house to discuss what happened, explained that he didn’t really like the situation with what’s-her-face, didn’t know it was that bad, and had implemented the nepotism policy which gave her a short window of time to transfer to New Mexico or resign. He wanted me to work there badly enough to offer a raise and promotion and I agreed to come back in a month.
One day I realized the month was up and I was due back in about 20 minutes and just didn’t feel like it. I called in and apologized and re-quit.
Finding another thread about this subject in a Google search was what brought me here.
At my last (final?) pharmacy job, I was working at a small rural hospital (bigger than critical access, however) with some of the nicest and most competent people I have ever met, and morale there was also some of the highest of any place I have ever worked, in or out of health care.
And the job was literally killing me. I had been in the ER with what I realized later was a grade-A panic attack, and I was losing weight so rapidly, I realized I was in a state of starvation because I could not eat. Not that I couldn’t keep food down; I couldn’t GET it down in the first place.
It was simultaneously one of the hardest, and easiest, decisions I have ever made in my life. I had no choice in the matter, because if I had stayed there one more day, I would have been a patient IN that hospital. 
What made it so painful was that I had worked there just 6 months, and for that job had moved several hundred miles away to an area where I knew absolutely nobody, and was starting to make friends there too.
I will never forget the incredibly sad expression on my boss’ face when he handed me his card and wished me the best. He had really liked me and had told me more than once that I was an excellent fit for the job and that he was glad he had hired me.
In the meantime, I moved back to the city I consider my real hometown, and started my own business.
The only time I sorta did this was after my sophomore year in college. I got a job early in summer break working as a janitor in a church/church school, but really wanted to work in an analytical lab. My mother at the time tutored dyslexic kids and said, “Oh, so-and-so’s father works at an analytical lab.” So, I called up the father, explained who I was and that I was looking to gain summer experience in a lab. He set up an appointment with the lab manager. His first question to me was, “You don’t fool around, do you?” I had no idea what he meant until he explained to me that the person I called was the founder and CEO of the company. After we talked, he decided he liked me and offered a summer position with the caveat that the job was to start the following Monday.
I went in the next day and sat down with the church manager, who was a really nice guy and a good boss. He was disappointed, but he understood, I worked the rest of the week and started at the lab the following Monday.
So, for me, it was an opportunity, not a bad job circumstance, and although I kinda felt bad, the church manager was great about it.
Whoops, and re-reading some of the posts, it turns out my experience does not apply as I DID have a job lined up…damn wine…
Just thought about my brother. He gave several years notice.
Company was always in trouble. His pay check bounced. He went into the office and laid it on the line. He was to be given a good check now! The company was to cover any expenses the bounced check caused, and if he had any other problems with management or the office he was done. He was giving his notice now. From that day forward they always made sure his checks were good, other employees checks bounced but his didn’t. As the years went on he became tired of the idiots running the company. He calculated what his retirement and SS would give him. He was putting up with screw ups and only making $1000 a month by working. His boss got pushy one day land he had had it. the next day his wife picked him up from work about noon, he loaded all his tools and went into the office and told them to mail them his check. When they asked how about a two week notice he explained that he had given it years ago.
Once. In my twenties I worked as a clerk for four years for an accounting business and the owner’s behavior was becoming more and more bizarre. At once point he accused my immediate supervisor and I of colluding with a client behind his back and banished her to an outer office. One day, while my immediate supervisor was on vacation, the owner came in and gave me a scary series of rambling, senseless instructions that ended with telling me to pick up his dry cleaning and then left the office. As soon as I saw his car pull out of the parking lot I picked up my purse and walked out. I felt bad for about 2 seconds. Several weeks later my immediate supervisor called me to apologize. She told me the owner was bi-polar and off his meds and she had known it for a long time and never told me and he had ended up institutionalized. She said she didnt blame me for walking out and would give me a reference when I applied for another job.
In short, you should not quit without notice unless:
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Your physical and/or mental health is in immediate jeopardy. (See my post above.)
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You are being asked to break the law as part of your job, or the job is unnecessarily dangerous. This could range from not supplying standard safety equipment to workplace bullying, sexual harassment, overt discrimination, etc.
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You are not being paid.
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I’m sure there are other good reasons too.
Regarding #3, prior to the job I quit without notice, I was working at a start-up through a temp agency, and in the 2 months I worked there, I was the only person who got a reliable paycheck. :mad: IDK how they were regarding health insurance, etc. because nobody had worked for the requisite 3 months yet. Even before I realized my co-workers were having trouble getting paid, I knew I didn’t want to sign on there as a regular employee because of other issues. Communication was very poor within the company, which had multiple sites, and we had difficulty getting even basic supplies and had to purchase them locally out of our own pockets. :eek: Yes, we had a few people quit without notice, just in that short time.
Several of them are still on Facebook with me, and two of them still work there, as do a couple other employees who aren’t on social media. I haven’t asked any of them if things have improved; I sure hope so. Last time I checked the website, it still looked almost exactly the same as it had when I worked there.
p.s. The pharmacist I worked with was near retirement age, and his license was on probation in an adjacent state. The pharmacist they replaced me with had a list of issues with his license, and other legal issues too, as long as your arm. Somehow, he’d managed to stay licensed even though some of them involved controlled substance violations. Sure am glad I left when I did.
OMG, this happened to my oldest son last year! He was a college graduate working as a parole officer when he ran into a college friend who had had a good experience and hooked him up with a recruiter. What he found was:
- The recruiter was a scumbag working on commission;
- He was placed in a hagwon (for profit private school) in Daejon where the living conditions were bad and the school overworked the teachers;
- The school was run by a total domineering Asian tiger who was used to browbeating and belittling scared little American teachers…
But, my son is a former D1 athlete and after two years as a PO in Baltimore, was certainly not intimidated by her. But, he’s a trooper, and liked the kids, so he stuck it out for six months. Finally, not wanting to take any more crap and not willing to give up the money earned, he called the US embassy in Seoul and actually talked to a desk officer who was willing to call the school and lobby on his behalf (above and beyond the call of duty - they have no obligation or even right to intervene in a job dispute, but this guy had heard enough stories to get involved.)
The bottom line, Mike parked himself in her office and refused to leave until she paid him cash. The desk officer called a couple of times, and finally, exasperated, she paid him cash and let him out of his contract.
I don’t blame you for the midnight run, Mike said several teachers did it during his time…
So, with no job or prospects, his GF max’d out her credit cards, took a leave of absence from her job, met him in Seoul, and they had the trip of a lifetime visiting Thailand (Angor Wat and some amazing beaches) and traveled through Vietnam.
It has worked out well - he graduates from OSC at the end of January and he’s a better person for it.
Sorry, OCS, not OSC, Officers Candidates School…maybe another thread for another time, I grew up in Maryland (Go Navy! Beat Army!) and my oldest is about to be commissioned into the Army…shoot…
Lessee, all were joe jobs. Quitting a dishwasher gig, when dishwasher meant washing by hand. Boss was abusive and I’m like “see ya” at the beginning of a shift.
Working grounds crew of a university. They we’re bad folks. Had a budget to hire x number of students in the summer to do extra work and knew from experience that most would leave. Shitty day plus a new job offer and “I’m done.” The manager just said 2 weeks is a standard courtesy, allowing me to be a puck rock dick and “see you when the red flag flies.” In hindsight, I wouldn’t do it that way now
I taught ESL in Taiwan for a while in the 80’s. One school had me take a taxi, my dime, from their school to another location, and then teach 2 or 3 year olds English for 90 minutes. Gah. I was 22 and long before I became a parent. That wasn’t the gig I signed up for. I did the 90 minutes like a trooper and never went back.