Most spectacular way in which you or a coworker has quit or been fired from a job

In My Humble Opinion
121

I had to fire two of my interns for getting into a fight. Over the music one of them was playing in their shared office. It’s pretty difficult, let alone terminally stupid, to get fired from an unpaid internship. From one of the product teams. At Microsoft.
Another story from many years ago. One of my direct reports, we’ll call him McGee, left me a message when I got into work that morning saying he was sick. This was before cell phones, and our old Audix voice mail system left you no option for stopping the message you were leaving or deleting it. The voice mail has long since been converted into a WAV file that to this day regularly gets used as a test file:

“Hey Morbo, this is McGee. I’m not going to be able to make it in today - my allergies are really bothering me, so I think I need to rest up and I’ll----
<PA system>: MCGEE, PARTY OF TWO, YOU’RE ON THE FIRST TEE. MCGEE TWOSOME, FIRST TEE.</PA system>
-----uh…<click>”

122

I hope to God your response was “McGee, Party of One, your Pink Slip is ready. McGee, party of GONE…”

123

I work at McDonald’s.We had an employee named Al. Al showed up on time, did his job, and would do whatever you asked him to, a good employee. He went on vacation to his home state of N. Carolina. This is when the managers find out he had a conviction for DUI. His psycho ex let this be known. After Al came back from vacation everything seemed normal.
I am standing at the front counter when I notice a policeman in the vestibule. The cop is motioning for me to come over to him. I approach the officer, noticing his golden shield. He informs me that he is with the fugative task force. They are here for Al. I tell him yes Al is working. He then asks me what’s the best way to handle this? I’m thinking you’re the cop don’t you know?
I proceed to lead him into the grill, where he handcuffs Al. Al must have felt this was coming, he was very cooperative. I suggest that he should take Al out the side door. They won’t have to go through the dining room. I tell the officer I will unlock the door, it’s equipt with a bump-bar hooked to an alarm. I didn’t want anyone getting spooked. As I pass the cop I hear him say, “The manager will be the first one out.”! When I get out side there is a cop at the door, and another coming around the building from the back. Obviously, Al was wanted for something more than DUI.

124

If I understand correctly, he was radioing this to the cop outside, so that he didn’t wrestle you to the ground the moment you stepped out the door?

125

Yes. I’m sure the officer wanted to be sure I wasn’t getting a beat down.

126

You should have kicked the door open and ran outside, screaming "TOP OF THE WORLD, MA!!!’

127

That would have been funny, until the Tasering. I really liked how the cop asked me how I thought We should handle this.

128

While not spectacular, it did piss me off. We had a new employee report for work. The hiring manager left her a hat, but no shirt. I went to my car and retrieved my Beanie Baby t-shirt for her to wear. (I keep an extra set of clothes in my car.) After an hour she tells me she needs to go home to get her asthma medicine. I tell her that’s fine. She Never comes back. Damnit I liked that shirt, it was Very comfortable.

129

The most spectacular quit that I ever saw was a fellow teacher who came apart and blew up. He was having difficulties with a particular general science class; one day he apparently decided that he had experienced enough at their hands. So he turned on all of the lab gas outlets, yelled “Goodbye!” to the students, walked out the door, and locked it.

I heard the commotion down the hall, and walked to the room (the students had opened the door to the hall, as classroom doors cannot be locked to those inside), sent the students out of the room, and turned off the gas jets.

He never came back.

130

In my mid-20s, I worked for the State Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and had a horrible time with my boss and co-workers. Even after I gave verbal notice of quitting my job, I was told they needed it in writing, stating exactly why, when where, etc. I was going to leave.

I wrote my letter of resignation in three separate limericks, but I only remember the first one and the part of my departure date:

There once was a girl named Carrie
Whose thoughts they never did vary
Of having a degree
So she quits ABC
And art she’ll create extr’ordinary.

The 30th of May
Will be my last day
I’m really sorry I didn’t keep a copy of the series.

131

I worked at a very busy Subway for about six months in college a couple years ago. We could never keep managers. The first one was fired, the second left for a better job, and the third one left without telling anyone. The others thought she had gone out to get change from the bank next door…but she never came back. The fourth manager just quit.

One guy, a closer, emptied out the cash register and left, changing the digital display on our phone so that it read “Subway sucks.”

Another walk-out: one coworker, K, was signed on to the register. Another coworker, M, rang up a customer using K’s login (a common practice among us at the time). Later, K ran up to M screaming and swearing at him, saying that he had stolen $100 from her drawer. They got into a screaming match, and M walked out. Later, our supervisor looked at the cameras and confirmed that M had, in fact, stolen the money. As it turns out, M was due to go to jail in about a week, and was presumably out on bail. He was being charged with assault. We all scolded K a bit, telling her that he could very well have hurt her, but she’d been too angry to care. (And, naturally, we weren’t allowed to use the register on another person’s login anymore.)

So…none of these are spectacular, but seeing as this was my first “actual” job, it was pretty shocking at the time. My own leaving was even less spectacular: I called them one morning and told them I quit for personal reasons.

132

I’ve written about the Boss From Hellbefore, but I quit two jobs in the middle of a shift twice, both in high school.

First was a summer job at a local gas stand / convenience store that served pizzas in the evenings. Two people handled the evening shifts on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Sunday was just as busy as the preceding three days, but corporate refused to authorize a second person.

The regional manager (i.e., our store manager’s boss) was a First-class Bitch. She clearly saw herself as some sort of Carly Fiorina-esque business person - as if being a manager for some shit-ass chain of gas stations was something impressive. She would berate the store manager, and god forbid any of the underlings at the store actually make eye contact. If you were in her way, she would start shouting - “I’m not paying you to stand around!”. Mean, abrasive, rude, condescending - and those were her charm points.

One Sunday, I’m working the evening shift. For some reason the regional manager is there. It’s really busy, and there are lines at the register because you have to run back to the kitchen to make pizzas when an order comes through. This place didn’t deliver - pick up only - but the pizza is free if it wasn’t ready to deliver within 30mn. And we used to get holy hell if we were late with the pizzas, so the store manager told us it was better to have a line at the register then give away free pizza.

So while I’m rushing to get some pizzas boxed up, this shit-for-brains regional manager who’s doing god knows what starts yelling at me (in front of customers, no less) that there are people at the cash register waiting to be rung up. I come out, take care of the three or four people in line, when she starts yelling at me again. “You can’t leave people at the register”.

I point out that we can’t give away free pizzas either, and that maybe it would help having another person working the Sunday shift? She gives me this derisive look, and says, “staffing issues are only made by us in Upper Management”. I swear, you could hear the capital letters. She gives a dismissive wave of her hand towards the kitchen area, and says, I quote, “Go back to your hole”.

I take my apron off, go punch out my time card, and begin to collect my things. “What are you doing?”

DA: “I’m quitting”.
RM: “You can’t quit! You’re in the middle of a shift”
DA: “Well, watch me do the impossible then”.

Second job was at a local restaurant. I started there my first year in high school, bussing tables, and worked up through dish-washer to cook over the course of high school.

The new general manager was a power-hungry bitch. She loved writing people up for various ‘infractions’, both real and imagined. She would try to stir up rivalries among the staff, just, I think, because she wasn’t happy if there wasn’t some turmoil or problem. And the biggest place to screw with people was the schedule. The previous general manager had been pretty pragmatic about the schedule. She’d take requests, would try to work around them, but she was always quick to tell us if she was stuck. Ninety-nine times out of a 100, we’d be able to work something out. Scheduling problems were almost never an issue.

With this new cow, however - chaos reigned every week. Because we swear she would go out of her way to stick people on shifts on days they had requested off. And she had to approve any changes to the schedule. And then to ‘punish’ us for changing her schedule, you’d be on the next schedule for the worst/most inconvenient shifts possible. Can’t work days? Guess what, you’re now on every afternoon shift. Can’t work Mondays and Tuesdays? Guess what, you’re now working both days. This would happen until someone else pissesd her off.

Worse, she’d make random changes to the schedule during the week, and not tell anyone. And if you missed a shift, she’d threaten to fire you unless you rushed in. Either way, it was another ‘infraction’. She was a real piece of work.

This place opened at 5am. The evening shift would end at 11pm. By the time I got home and showered and went to bed, it would be 1am or so. Needless to say I tried to sleep in as much as possible the next day. So one morning at 5am I get a phone call from the power-hungry bitch of a general manager. Oh shit - did I forget to check the schedule? No way, I couldn’t have been on the opening shift today, 'cause I closed last night.

PHB: “So-and-so can’t come in this morning. You have to open the restaurant”.
DA: “Sorry, I closed last night. I’ve barely been asleep for 4 hours. And I’m supposed to work the evening shift tonight”
PHB: “You can sleep between shifts. Hurry, you have to open the restaurant”.
DA: “Sorry, there’s no way I’d be ready to work in time to open - but if you’re short I can help out in a few hours for the lunch rush. I’ll be in around 10am."

So I hang up and go back to sleep. I end up going in even a bit earlier than I promised - like 9:30am. The PHB was complaining to all and sundry about ‘the crap help she had to put up with’, and what an ungodly sin it was for her, the general manager, to have to get up so early in the morning. Do I even get so much as a thank you for coming in to help out for the lunch rush - when I’m going to be working the evening shift that day? Hells nos.

No, her way of ‘thanking me’ is to re-do the schedule - and not only has she sharply cut my hours, she now has me working night shift/morning open like five consecutive times. I point out that this gives me less than 4 hours of sleep since I can’t get to bed until 1am or so when I close. She starts in on one of her “I’m in charge here” lectures, just as two buses pull in for the start of the lunch crowd.

DA: “I see you’ve also cut my hours. I have a better idea, take me off the schedule completely. I quit”.

133

This isn’t spectacular, but might be interesting.

I was working as a low-grade peon, valued principally for my dependability, in the production department of an international business course firm. One of my duties was shipping course materials.

The HR woman kept sending Fedex envelopes to co-workers who were on travel for the firm. She’d send them to their homes. While they were on travel, and not home. Sent requiring signature, so they couldn’t be dropped off.

The drove the Fedex people crazy. They’d waste a delivery and have to redeliver the next day, when the person ALSO was not home. So they’d send the item back to me.

This drove the HR woman crazy. She insisted that Fedex attempt redelivery, every day, day after day, until she got a signature. I suggested she either send “no suignature required” or just let the employee know the package was coming and they could make arrangements to be there. Neither option was acceptable – the package had to surprise the employee and get a signature.

That was when I realized she was terminating employees, and using the Fedex delivery folks like ersatz process servers.

“Look, Fedex isn’t willing to do that,” I explained. “They lose money returning day after day waiting to catch these world-traveling employees.”

“MAKE them do it,” she said. “Threaten the [giant multinational company] with losing our [insignificantly small] business unless they [change their methods and agree to lose money].”

Uh…yeah.

Fedex didn’t, by the way, agree to lose money serving as process servers…and they were not intimidated by the peon who ships packages, needles to say.

So months later, the firm does a round of layoffs. The HR woman is selected to choose who gets laid off. Needless to say, she calls me in early the first morning.

She wasn’t my boss…and it turn out, she didn’t mention it to my boss. When my boss found out she was removing his people (and he at least respected my work ethic) without consulting him, he was furious. She offered to give him a more impressive title, but, recognizing he’d been trivialized by the person in charge of everyone’s fate, decided not to wait for her to settle another score and he resigned right on the spot.

They’d just trained the two of us on a bunch of new leased equipment costing about $250,000. My former co-workers reported later that the firm tried to “return” the equipment, but couldn’t break the lease. So the firm ultimately had to hire someone from Xerox to operate the stuff, at a reputed $70 per hour.

That’s more than they’d been paying me, of course.

134

When I was in college I was working as an intern doing IT stuff. One of the computer techs was an idiot. He was lazy and not very good at his job, but he was a major league ass-kisser. In the space of a month, he got suspended for trying to use another employee’s ID (to access a site he was banned from), he got into a motorcycle accident on the way to another site (motorcycles were not allowed to be ridden on company time) and then the kicker.

When he was coming to work the week after he got back from his accident he called into a morning radio show. It was quite a popular show in the area and a lot of people from the company listened to it. The topic? Fist fights you’d gotten into as an adult. He told all of Detroit about how he ran into his ex-wife and her new boyfriend at Walmart a few years before and had picked up a shovel from a display and proceeded to beat his ex’s boyfriend’s ass.

He bragged about how he got arrested and plead guilty to a felony charge of assault and battery (or something like that) and only got probation.

Of course, he didn’t put the fact that he was a felon on his application to his current job. And of course, the boss was an avid listener to that particular morning show.

She called ahead to security to revoke his access and he was fired as he pulled into the parking lot.

135

A co-worker was caught forcing a prostitute to service him at the threat of being arrested. So dumbass continues and eventually the lady tells on him and he immediately quits to try and save his ceritfication. From what a learned from a mutual party is he lied to his wife about why he quit… they’re sitting at home together when a local newsbroadcaster comes on the air with a picture of said jerkass and announced his being under investigation.
Out of a job and then kicked out of the house by his wife… perfect…

136

Hmm. I have… Many.

In college, I needed some spending money, so I took a job at a local pizza place. They pay was low, but, hey, I’m in college, right?
I didn’t have to wear a uniform, but I needed to wear a company hat. I was out of sight of customers, but I still needed one. They made me pay 6.75 for the hat (this was 19 years ago, and I still remember that, as I was only paid 5.25 an hour at the time.) Fine, I bought the hat. As well, if we wanted to drink anything besides water, we had to pay for it.

I was yelled at several times for brushing off my workstation. Their reason? There were toppings and cheese there that I could put back in their respective bins instead of just sweeping it away. Keep in mind that this was a fast-paced business, and sweeping spillage into a trashcan would take 5 secs as opposed to picking up the occasional olive, green pepper, or pieces of cheese would have taken forever. No matter, this is how it was done.

You were expected to work a 12 hour shift with no break, mind you, I signed up for a four hour shift. They said, “well, people have quit, so we need you to work longer.”

After the third day, the owner said, “you’re doing a great job, so we’ve decided to raise your pay 25 cents an hour.” I said, “thank you. However, since I’m not allowed to take a break (or eat) during my 12 hours, I can’t keep doing this.” They replied, “you have no choice in this matter.” I replied, “that’s where you’re wrong.”

I went back to the dorms, doused the hat in lighter fluid, and set it on fire. Best 6.75 I ever spent.

The second time, I was working for a small manufacturing company as a inside sales rep. It was the two owners, 6 production people, and two sales reps. Nice little place, and was only two miles from home. Perfect. However, one of the owners had severe control issues. The final straw was one day, he came in, screaming and swearing about something he actually caused. My coworker was so incensed that he started yelling and swearing back at the owner. The owner replied, “if either of you fckng have a fckng problem with the fckng, way I run things, you can fckng leave!” I opened my bottom drawer of my desk, grabbed my stuff, and walked out.

The wife of the owner called me at home two hours later, apologizing and asking me if I would come back to work for them. I told her there’s no way I could possibly deal with him after that. She stated she understood.

She eventually divorced him due to his attitude. Apparently, he was on meds, but wasn’t fond of taking them.

I ended up being hired for a better job two days later. No one needs to deal with sh|t like that.

137

That reminds me of one time I quit.

The day I went on holiday, I was there with my bags beside me at the pub where I worked, ready to leave from there straight to the airport. I’d been talking about this trip for ages because it was an all-expenses-paid freebie due to a film I’d made being shown at a film festival. I was like an overexcited puppy jumping up and down about my film being shown in Amsterdam.

Even if my boss, in this small pub, had somehow managed to miss this, I know she knew about it because she asked me to return a day early to cover lack of staff. OK, I’d do it - we were a friendly workplace where everyone hung out after work for several hours and I wouldn’t want it all messed up.

I returned - straight from the airport - to everyone with red faces gesturing me towards the in-house phone. My boss was on the other end, from the flat above the pub, remonstrating with me for not showing up the two nights before. When I say remonstrating, I mean ‘yelling like a wounded polar bear.’

She also ranted about other things including my maternal lineage, and I mean literally. Some of the things she said were the kind of thing you’d only say to someone you really hated. I had to hold the phone at arm’s length because she was shouting so loudly.

Apparently I should have looked at a form on the wall and written in my days off, but this had never been told to me in my 9 months of working, when I’d had no days off and my only sick day had been after a major operation and I’d just looked too ill to face the public, so had been sent home. Said form had no days off written on it from anyone because nobody else knew about it either.

I had enough to live on and my final exams at uni were coming up - I’d been wishing that I could have more time off. And the pub was quieter than usual - my colleagues could cope.

So I left the phone hanging, picked up my bags, said a slow, cheerful goodbye to my colleagues and the regulars, and left. As I walked out the door, I could still hear my boss shouting over the phone as it swung from the cord.

One of the regulars called a few days later and offered me an internship at Associated Press. :smiley:

Short as this is, I have to say that this wins the thread. Was it short? :smiley:

138

I have two stories from when I was in the Navy:

  1. The first was a Department Head on a submarine. (As a DH, he was fairly high up on the chain of command on the sub–4th in seniority overall.) He was also a heavy smoker, and the commanding officer (CO) decided that the submarine was going to go smoke-free. A few hours before a planned 6-month deployment (and with it, the prospect of him being forced to quit smoking cold-turkey), he asked the CO if he could borrow the CO’s personal car to grab a last-minute item he’d forgotten in his BOQ (Bachelor Officers’ Quarters) room.

He never came back. He drove to the BOQ, parked the CO’s car with the keys left in the ignition, and headed for Las Vegas on his motorcycle. :smiley: After a few days in Vegas, he returned to Norfolk and turned himself in to the authorities. Because he’d voluntarily turned himself in, he only went to Admiral’s Mast for nonjudicial punishment (NJP) for Unauthorized Absence (UA) instead of being court-martialed for desertion. His punishment was the equivalent of being fired for cause.

  1. The next guy was a Division Officer who apparently couldn’t deal with going to sea. One morning he didn’t show up for work, so the Executive Officer (XO) drove to the BOQ to check on him, only to find him passed out in the room’s closet. He reportedly had hit his head. After getting him checked out thoroughly at the medical clinic, he was returned to duty, but the delay had caused him to miss the sub’s departure for a planned weekly outing at sea. He was ordered to report to the submarine squadron each day while his sub was at sea. After not showing up for work at squadron a few days later, he was again found passed out in his room after allegedly hitting his head. This time he was admitted to the hospital and got a full workup, only to be released after they couldn’t find anything wrong with him.

After being released from the hospital, he was ordered to confine himself to his BOQ room and to call the squadron duty officer every six hours around the clock to check in and ensure that he wasn’t passed out again. He called for a day or so, then stopped calling. The squadron duty officer went to his BOQ room again, only to find the place trashed and him missing. He was listed as a deserter, and an all-points bulletin (APB) was put out on him. He was picked up and arrested after being found sleeping in a rest stop in his car halfway across the country. This guy didn’t get NJP–he was actually court-martialed. Some rule required that he first be returned to the unit he’d deserted from, so he was brought back to the submarine in handcuffs, then transported to the brig on base. He got a less than honorable discharge from the Navy, IIRC. Unlike a civilian job, you can’t just decide to not show up for work when you’re in the military.

139

He didn’t intentionally quit this way, but it was flashy and did result in him not working there anymore:

One of my first jobs was as a bellman in a hotel. There was another bellman we all hated but he excelled at kissing ass to management so they wouldn’t fire him even though he was a total pot and or crack head who came to work wasted half the time and exercised the most erratic behavior which management didn’t witness and didn’t believe when they were told.

Until he told one of his co-workers/chums on the front desk after we’d had a convention of cosmetic wholesalers “Look at this perfume I bought. Sixty dollars but goes for two hundred in the store… I’m gonna give it to my girl tonight and when she says ‘Oh baby what can I do for you’ I’m gonna turn her over and fuck her up in the asssssssss!!!” He said the last part just as another desk clerk- very near him- had gone on the P.A. to page a guess, so they heard something to the effect of "Will Mr. Smithenwesson please come to the lobby you have a phone call I’m gonna turn her over and fuck her up in the asssssssss!!!

As for intentional flashy exits, a bartender in another hotel I worked at yelled to his boss, with some good reason I’m told, “Fuck you, I fucking hate you, I hope you fucking die and go to fucking hell you fucking bitch!” then throwing down his towel, picking up his keys and storming out. (WILL & GRACE line: “My ride’s here… it’s a huff and I’m leaving in it!”) It was pretty noticeable, but other than some “ahems” and awkward looks most people pretended not to notice.

140

Back in the day when I was waitressing my way through college, I worked in a family owned restaurant.
My male boss was a total dick who liked to pinch asses and cop feels whenever he could.
Most of the other girls tolerated it and made cultural excuses for him.
He pulled that on me when I was slicing a loaf of bread so I swung round with the bread knife, pointed it at his throat and told him if he ever did that again, I use it and then inform his wife and his sister (who also worked there, why).
He never touched me again but he did try make my life hell whenever he could.

One day I was on the phone with his wife talking about my upcoming schedule.
He walked in to the kitchen, ordered me to hang up and then proceeded to rant in front of all the staff that I was an American slut who wasted time by talking to my boyfriends at work.
I explained that what I was actually doing and asked him to apologize.
He refused.
So I walked into the center of the restaurant on a very busy Saturday night, banged on a glass with a spoon to get everyone’s attention and dramatically tore up all my order tickets.
Told the regs that I was sorry their dinner would be delayed and why I was leaving.
Got a round of applause, bowed and left.