Years ago I told my boss I would be in extra early the next morning to help with inventory. After a heavy night of beer pong, I did not make it in and actually never went back. It was a crap job and only had been there a few weeks.
I worked a college summer as a landscaper. We were a larger outfit and each crew cut 250 homes in retirement communities, daily. There are a lot of retired folks in Ocean County, NJ. We put in a lot of hours. 60 hours was pretty much standard, more if it had rained the week prior.
The seniority chain mostly dictated whether or not you were riding a mower or walking the whole day with a line trimmer. I walked the line (trimmer) most days. The exception was if you a migrant worker. Mexicans always walked. And rode in the bed of the truck. At least they did until I got pulled over and was told by the local police to have the boss fix a few violations, and oh-by-the-way, these guys have to sit in the cab.
I was a particularly valuable employee. I could be trusted to show up to work on-time and sober, but even more importantly, I had a valid driver's license - a true rarity among the employees. I used this value to my advantage once. I reviewed my paycheck and found that I was being shorted $0.25 an hour on my overtime pay. That works out to about $50-75 over the course of the summer. I fought with the math-challenged foreman over it. Eventually, I got my quarter and back pay.
However, that also sealed my fate as eternal low-man on the totem pole. My first punishment was awesome. I had to drive my own car filled with migrant workers to the job site. I'm not kidding - it was awesome. Definitely not a punishment to have 5 fun-loving folks take you in as one of their own and blast salsa & meringue on the ride.
My second punishment was not so awesome. I was demoted to eternal line trimmer duty. The non-migrant crew members knew to always side with the boss, and made my job hell, which brings us to quitting day.
I drive me and a handful of Mexican guys from the shop to the site. I spend the day working. We're done and one of the crew "forgot" that we were supposed to blow off all 250 driveways. I got tossed the keys to the truck and was told to drive back to the start and get to work (while they stood around and did nothing for an hour).
Silently, I took the keys. A look of malice was clear on my face. I started the truck, dropped it in drive, and then drove it into every mower we had on the street. Repeatedly. I drove back to my car, parked the truck, threw the keys in the woods, and drove off. I showed up the next week to get my check. It had the right overtime pay.
I relocated here for a job editing manuals at a software company that I quickly despised. (Actually, I despised both the company and the job. And the staff.) I landed in the middle of a deathmarch that cost the company 25% of its employees, and training was negligible to nonexistent. It took me only a few months to decide to quit too, but not before I found another job. Finally I decided that if I saved a six-month nest egg, that would be enough.
Nothing turned up, internally or elsewhere, and I got progressively more disgusted and made no secret about my desire to leave. Finally, in one of the few non-heated conversations I had with that boss, she drew me aside and said, "You know, if you quit, you just walk away with what you've got. But if you let me fire you, we'll give you a pretty decent severance package, and you can file for unemployment. I know this didn't work out the way either of us expected, but since you relocated for the job, this is about the only thing I can do to help you recoup some of those costs."
So that's the only time I've ever been fired from a job, and it was because it was more lucrative than quitting. (But they fought my collecting unemployment and won. Boy, that pissed me off.)
@j8048188@DaveInSoCal@PocketBrain To he or she who may be fit to see it: I jot a bit to say bye-bye, as I do not yen for my job to go on. My end day is set for two all-day-set of now. I bow to you for the try and bid you a big win in the day set to be. It is as it is, Me
When I was a youth, the scheduling manager changed my schedule from 4-5 days a week to 1-2 days a week... I decided to put in my two weeks notice and started the letter with: "I feel as though it has been a fortnight since I have had the pleasure of making your acquaintance..."
Years ago I had to get out of Primm in a hurry and found myself washing dishes in a dancehall in Reno. The owner, Mac, could be a nice enough guy but had a real mean streak that he mostly took out on his girl, Maria, who had eyes that could melt onyx. Maria and I never spoke much, since Mac mostly kept her out of view.
Sometimes after my night shift was over I went up on the empty dancehall stage and played the piano. It was just an old upright, but in that big empty room it sounded as rich and full as any grand concert piano you've ever heard in your life. I was just whiling away the time on the empty stage when I heard Maria, who I guess had been watching me, start singing the song I was playing, "When Time Goes By". I've never heard an angel sing but they must sound like grinding glass compared to Maria on that dancehall stage. When the song was over I felt her touch for the first time, and she gently pulled my hands from the keys. What else went on I won't say.
Now I wish I could tell you I was a hero and took Maria away from all that right then. But I didn't. The hot desert Summer dragged on and we'd meet in secret from time to time when Mac was away. One afternoon she told me her story. She was from Nacogdoches and was the daughter of a saddlemaker who had a shop out there. She ran away as a child and Mac Balikian had won her from a railyard tramp in a game of dice in Silverton. Won her like a goddamn gold watch. That's what she told me, anyway. I promised I'd get her back to Nacogdoches, somehow, someday. I must have sounded like a fool, I guess. She looked at me and gave this sad little hopeless smile like I'd told her I'd build her a palace on the moon or something.
Things might have kept on like that awhile except one night Mac went too far and Maria showed up the next morning looking like she'd gone eight rounds in the ring with a prizefighter. She tried to say she walked into the swinging kitchen door. I told her to cut the bullshit and I came up with a plan. Maria was going to get Mac even drunker than usual that night so he passed out, then we'd empty the safe and get away on his 1949 Harley Panhead, then sell the bike when we got there and start fresh. Where 'there' was I hadn't worked out just yet, it just had to be anywhere else.
That night I was so nervous I kept smashing the dishes I was trying to wash. I remember nearly pissing myself when the kitchen clock struck and it was time to walk up the dark narrow stairs to Mac's office. Somehow I pulled myself along the railing and opened the door.
I saw immediately that the light was wrong. One of the two lamps was broken and the other was on the floor, throwing yellow light on a vision of Hell. Mac was dead. Maria was dead. In that shitty drywall office, two feet from a cheap chipboard desk, an angel fell. I stood there for a full minute, not even looking but just incapable of proceeding. To this day I don't know who did what to who. Mac was violent, a beast, a monster, but I don't think he meant to kill her. Maybe Maria knew we'd spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders and couldn't leave without killing Mac, and it all went wrong. So in a way she did it for me. It doesn't really make a difference, I guess.
The safe was still locked but I took what I could from the desk, then climbed back down the stairs with strength I gathered from some unholy place. A minute later, one more motorcycle left Reno, one more aimless light across the desert, completely alone and with endless darkness on every side.
Years later I was in a tourist bar somewhere near Phucket. They had one of those karaōke stages set up under some plastic tiki lights, and a Canadian tourist was up there doing his thing. He asked for one more song, and "When Time Goes By" started through the bar speakers, tinny and distant and sad. Ten seconds later I was in the bathroom, looking in the mirror, sobbing like I could still see the lights of Reno behind me, thick cold tears of fear and loss and regret.
I escaped from Mac, I escaped from Reno, but I'll never escape from Maria.
@Starblind This reminds me of a story a friend told where he was reading a "true" story on reddit and didn't realize for an embarrassingly long time that he was reading the plot to The Lion King. I know something ain't right with this story, but I have no idea if it's just a well done, impromptu fiction or if you've retold the plot of something well known to others. Either way, +1 on the slow clap.
@JerseyFrank Not based on anything specific, although the basic framework of trying to escape/double-cross someone drangerous with tragic results is really common in noir fiction and has been done all sorts of ways. I like writing about the hopeless people who show up in Tom Waits lyrics, toss a few of 'em together and the plots almost write themselves.
@Starblind You're the one that started the trend of highly exaggerated Amazon reviews, aren't you? Seriously though, I'd highly consider paying actual money for a full length novel. Or at the very least, a collection of short stories.
I don't have a great story, but after almost 15 years of dedication and devotion I was laid off from my former company. I got a fat severance package plus unused PTO paid out and had an equivalent job lined up 5 days after my term date.
Yeah, so, like, hmmm... After six years in the Navy, I decided it was time to go to school. So I loaded up my Pontiac Grand Am and drove from Alameda, CA all the way to Ocala, FL. On the drive, I stopped for the night in the mountains of Colorado. Ski season was wrapping up, but they still were charging peak prices. I plead my case and the clerk cut me a good deal, one that wouldn't waste my wad before I got home. I don't remember the town or the hotel's name, but I sure do appreciate somebody giving a veteran a break. So basically, me not re-enlisting was the quitting part. Kinda sounds anticlimactic now that I think of it.
@PocketBrain and aw shoot, you know what, the Grand Am died before that and I was actually in a Ford Thunderbird. I called it the Batmobile. Wasn't black though.
Hmmm. Is it really a "quitting" story if you got fired?
And, no, I wasn't the one who was fired. But many moons ago, in a place called Nuremberg, Germany, there was a transportation NCO who had a run-in (literally- they were both driving) with the post commander. Post commander was displeased, and the said NCO was transferred as far away as the 2 Star General could send him. Which would be to a place called Bremerhaven, where all autos go to leave the country. 6 months later, post commander turned over command and went to his next assigmnet in Washington, D.C. His car, however, went to Japan.
Don't have any good job quitting stories about me, but I do have one about someone else. I was working a temp job at some transcription place, doing some kind of check against the computer translation, and there was a lady who also showed as a temp that day who ended up in a different area there. At lunch time, she goes out for lunch, and then about an hour or so later, it becomes apparent that she's taken the longest lunch you can- she's decided to not come back after lunch. Joked about it a bit with some of the people there, and then told family about it when I left for the day. Wasn't invited back there because I hadn't met the "quota", despite saying there wasn't one or that it wouldn't apply to me yet.
I had been working at this job for about 4 years and was their top producer (internal wholesaling). It was about 4 days after our company holiday party where the two owners stood up and congratulated us all on the best year the firm ever had, so this next bit caught me by surprise...
My manager called the team into the conference room one strange Thursday morning for an "impromptu marketing meeting." In my experience last minute meetings are nearly always bad. This was no exception.
About 10 of us sat at the conference table, curiously awaiting some news of import, but instead we got...
"Tony (co-owner) is furious! He thinks you all aren't working hard enough, and wants you to know he's pissed off about it. We're going to set new, higher monthly goals, and anyone who doesn't achieve these goals is getting fired. There won't be any confusion why, just fired."
A lot of the team was newer to the company (<6 months). I had heard rants like this before, and thought that this was the stick, so the carrot must be coming. To break the tension and give our manager a lead in, I asked, "What new program is the firm rolling out that will help us achieve these new, higher goals?" Here I'm thinking I'm salvaging employee morale, instead...
"Dave, you've been here the longest, you know exactly what we're going to do to support you, and if you think you can get better support somewhere else, you know what to do."
I was stunned. The conference room was silent, and I'm pretty sure you could hear my jaw hit the table. I stood up, walked over to him, and held out my hand. He took it, I shook it, and said, "Thanks, I think I'll take the door," and walked out.
My adrenaline was pumping, but I held it together long enough to walk into the owners office where they were arguing (not uncommon), and said, "Excuse me. I think I've come just about as far as I can here, and I'm going to explore some other opportunities. You can have two weeks if you think it would help."
I was out that day before 11 AM. Still shaking, I drove to my friend's house. He was a bartender so he was home mid-day. "I just quit my job."
"Congratulations," he said, "have a beer!"
And I did. And it was good.
tl;dr Quit in the middle of a meeting of my entire department. Had a beer. It was good.
@DaveInSoCal "I think I've come just about as far as I can here, and I'm going to explore some other opportunities." Mind if I use that line next month?
Took a job back in college at a 24 hour gas station and Subway store, mostly because a cute friend was an assistant manager, said she needed people and I could work the same shifts as her. This was back when we were "sandwich artists" and cut the bread right like a canoe, not in that lazy half-slice-so-your-sandwich-makes-a-mess nonsense they do these days.
Four days later, I hadn't been to class because I'd been scheduled to work 2pm-2am each day. I'd done more work stocking the walk in cooler than practicing my sandwich artistry. And I hadn't seen my friend at work since the first day.
I stood in the back filling mayonnaise bottles from a giant bag of mayo and hatching a plan to smuggle out some of that fabulous cookie dough when the actual manager (a guy pushing 60) came through. He patted me on the shoulder and asked how I liked working there.
The words "I think today's my last day" came directly out of my mouth without passing through my brain first. He asked if i could finish my shift, and when I affirmed, he said for me to leave my hat and apron in the office at the end of the day. I actually didn't realize I had quit until after he walked away.
@Pamtha@djslack before thinking about how subway made sandwiches, my sophmoric mind interpreted your word as testiclate, as in did you testiclate the cheese before quitting?
TODAY My boss asked me, "Of the two jobs you, which do you think you do better?" To which I replied, "I'm not sure, but it doesn't really matter anyway, because I'm giving my two weeks notice."
My second job in IT, also my second job working for a local ISP. The manager there had a thing -- he had to have a butt-monkey. When I got there it was the website coder. He would rant and rave about how incompetent she was (well, she was kinda, but not any worse than anybody else with her experience and background). Eventually she quit. Then he tried to make our Java programmer the butt-monkey. He wasn't having it and after about a week, he told $MANAGER where to go and quit on the spot. Sometime around five months into my employment he decided it was my turn: he told me he wanted a side project I had been working on in my own time for my own purposes, to be finished and put in production, that night. He literally told me "Have that done tonight or have your resignation on my desk tomorrow." (I don't even remember what it was -- some sort of scripting or documentation probably.)
I lined up a new job and set my start date to be December 1, which was about three or four weeks after he threatened my job. I figured my notice period started at the time of that threat and therefore he had had more than ample notice, so on Sunday, November 30 I went in, cleared off my desk, rebooted a hung server that was running an important part of their website, and dropped my written resignation letter on his desk on the way out.
Now it happened, although it didn't even occur to me till later, that the first of every month was the day we ran web stat reports for business customers. And with all the employee turnover, that duty had devolved to me and I had written some scripts to make it easier -- nothing too complicated and only I was ever going to use them, so I didn't document anything -- and all the knowledge of how they worked walked out the door in my head. And our business customers wanted their web stats on the first like they always got, and when that didn't happen, they wanted answers. And there were a few other things that had been rushed into production that only I really understood, like our new RADIUS server (the only Linux system onsite, and I was the only Linux geek) handling auth for the new USR TotalControl dialup access system, and the new mail server software, and the USENET server, and a couple of other little things here and there.
My new boss told me that a few days later, he called them with a question about his wife's dialup account that she had just set up with them (yeah, it was that long ago) and in the background when the call was picked up he heard what sounded like TOTAL CHAOS. After a long wait on hold he got a guy who said "Uh, can we call you back? There's one guy who knew how everything to do with that worked and he quit with no notice a couple days ago."
That manager later tried to block my domain transfer, so I had to gin up "corporate letterhead" to make Network Solutions happy so they would move my domain over to MindSpring (yeah, it was that long ago).
@jqubed Oh, so do I. They had a huge database of modem connect strings that got thrown out in the merger with EarthLink. If you were around back then you know what I just said is roughly equivalent to "they had a huge sack of gold bars..." When I first signed up with them I was impatient so i called up support and said "Hey, I know I'm supposed to be waiting for a package with my username and password and such, but I don't realy need the software since I'm running Linux anyway. Can you just read me off your DNS, POP/SMTP mail hosts, and tell me my username and starter password and I can do the rest?" And the first thing out of the guy's mouth was "Oh, which distro?" Fifteen minutes later I was off and running. And I probably got six months of free service off my referral credits over the four years I was with them.
It's not as good as others' stories, but it's my only one. Two months ago I quit my job for a trial contact with a small but major company in web hosting and content management. They don't recommend people quit for the trial because they only hire about 60%, but I knew the demands my job put on me would get in the way of doing well enough on the trial. I was actually already working on the trial when I left my job and it was kind of overwhelming; so much new to learn. About 1 month ago I was told they were terminating my trial and I would not be offered a full-time position, so I'm looking for work now. I am looking at temp and contract jobs I wouldn't have tried in the past because I was encouraged to try to get more familiar with the software and apply for another trial in 6 months or a year if I am still interested, and I think I will be. I still think I made the right decision because working in TV seemed to be negatively impacting my health in multiple ways. My old job offered to let me come back but I haven't taken then up on that offer; I'll just be trying to quit again in a few months and I really don't want to be going back to broadcasting full-time. Having a steady paycheck was a lot nicer than getting paid for random freelance jobs, but I'm still optimistic this will work out for me.
I've told parts of this story here before, it is still somewhat recent, but it's my most satisfying and one of my best decisions ever. At my last full-time J-O-B (in the social service field), I was fired for refusing to violate my professional and personal ethics. My "final written notice" was very carefully worded to connote insubordination and failure to comply with my job description. I did my best to politely but firmly inform them that I would never do anything that was not in my kids' (my clients') best interests- no matter the cost. But I was shaking so hard I couldn't read my own signature on the form. In that same meeting, I was offered another position in a different department on the 2nd shift- our most difficult one. Having no other jobs or prospects lined up, I accepted and went to go clean out my office.
In my new position, I could tell almost immediately that the neglect and apathy went way deeper than I had even suspected previously. Within a few months I was physically ill at the thought of going to work. It was clear that we weren't helping our kids and some of them were worse off for having been there. One afternoon, I just decided to quit while I was out with my family before my shift that day. I had my laptop with me so I sat in the Office Depot parking lot, typed up a quick "here's my notice, my last day is..."- with a promise to expand on my reasons later- and ran inside to print it off. My manager knew what it was without even looking. In my last two weeks, I fulfilled my promise of an explanation and wrote an addendum letter. I went through our Mission Statement line by line explaining how we were failing on every count. I cited instances of where our kids were being neglected and set up for failure as well as how the staff are publicly harassed and not equipped to do their jobs. I also offered suggestions for improvement where I could. When I printed it out, it was ten pages long. At the end of my last shift, I left of copy of that letter for my manager, department head, and all (both) members of the HR Department. I turned in my keys and ID, said goodbye to the next shift, walked out the door, and never looked back.
A few weeks ago, on my way home from my new venture that I absolutely love, I realized it had been exactly a year since I'd walked away from that place for the last time. I bought myself a giant cupcake to celebrate.
@Pamtha I was fortunate enough to get my start in the field by volunteering full-time for a year at an amazing agency in St. Louis. The people I worked with there really knew what they were doing and really cared about those kids' futures. Working at this last job really showed me how too much bureaucracy and red tape can ruin a good idea, but rest assured that there are still at least a few people doing it right
I politely turned in my 2 week notice at a national IT Integrator back in the early 90's. Horrible boss had my NetWare account yanked while I was sitting at my desk 20 minutes later. I responded by kicking off fdisk on my company owned laptop and left. She was less than pleased with that, and tried to call the mortgage company and get my house closing cancelled. I still moved in on time (new job gave the bank employment verification) so I say I won.
I worked for two summers for a renovation crew on campus housing and having been treated progressively worse by management that was becoming progressively worse at making decisions and planning. Students were supposed to move in NEXT WEEK, but there was no sheet rock up, no carpet on the floors, no cabinets installed, etc. They needed us to work about 80 hour weeks to make it happen. And it was because of their horrible planning too -- all of this could have been avoided.
It's a Friday afternoon, my last day of the job. I had told my immediate supervisor I was quitting, who apparently didn't tell anyone else above him. Upper management contacted everyone individually, in person: "Starting today, you have to work every day until 10 PM [...we started at 7 AM...] or you're fired."
My response: "Today's my last day, and I'm leaving at 4."
I could have rearranged my schedule to help them out, but after being treated like the scum of the earth for working harder than most people there, I sure didn't owe them anything.
Now I've got a nice faculty job, and I get to laugh at those horrible days.
My actual jobs have all ended rather business like, 2 weeks notice, etc, but...
I did a lot of volunteering in college. At one point I was head of IT for the month long popup student book sale (which was rather large - $1.2 million in gross sales, avg year). There was one woman who kept forcing me to add weird events to the schedule. I told her I didn't like them - sure, we did book signings, but concerts, cooking demonstrations, and craft days were a bit much. I explained that we didn't have a bandstand, but she wouldn't listen.
Soon after I had to leave & focus on my classes. The actual sale rolls around and I start getting emails from her, which I ignore. Eventually I get a frantic phone call, she needs help getting the band setup in the sound system. I explain again that we don't have a bandstand, then give up and agree to stop by and help on my way to class (it was in the lobby of the sciences building).
I walk in and she immediately comes over. Ignoring what shes actually saying, I flip open a hidden panel on the wall. "These are the only 2 microphone inputs we have. the 5 man band will have to work that out. Good luck. By the way, I quit a month ago". Embarrassment palpably pouring off of her, I turned around and walked off to class.
Later my friends who still worked there thanked me. It was much easier to deal with here once she realized how stupid it was to schedule a concert at a book store.
Is it selfish of me to hope @Pavlov's recovery is going well because he's got to have some great stories for this thread? I mean, I hope it's going well in general, but it feels like he'd see this topic and grin the grin of a man with tales to tell.
My college had a required program where you had to volunteer at a non-profit for a certain number of hours and then write about it or whatever. My first time through the program, I got an internship at the Red River Revel, the local arts festival. Despite the fact that the event was in a month, they had almost nothing for me to do. After about a month of stuffing envelopes and twiddling my thumbs, the event came and passed. I showed up the next day I was scheduled to and the office was closed. No one told me it would be closed after the event, or warned me that I wouldn't be able to fulfill my hourly goal. They just... stopped showing up. So I did too.
Then I had to redo the stupid program at the Opera a year later...
@Moose Hometown represent! My mom works finance for the Revel every year. She has done it for years. Being a paid position, they generally have their act together a little more on her end.
@djslack I wish I could remember the name of my supervisor, it very well may have been your mom (this was 2010); they were all super nice and had their act together to get the event going, just not to also pay attention to the volunteer that they didn't ask for and didn't need (understandably). I got free entry though so it was not all a loss!
@Moose nah, she counts money all evening and occasionally rides around on a golf cart to collect from the sales booths. She wouldn't want to supervise anyone.
Needing a job after my previous employer went bankrupt (I was a manager for Herman's Sporting Goods for those that may remember the company), I accepted a position as the manager of a privately owned shipping/mail room store. Thinking this was going to be a nice change of pace, not having to deal with all the usual corporate bullshit, I was looking forward to being in a nice cozy environment. It took 3 days of being bullied and treated like complete crap by the owner to make the very easy decision of staying in bed the next day. My primary responsibility as the manager was apparently to be the one to haul loads of boxes up and down the stairs. I don't recall my exact words at this point but when I finally got around to contacting the owner I told him I didn't need that job badly enough to put up with the way he treated me. He refused to pay me for those days, claiming the first 30 days were a trial period. While I knew that was completely illegal and I could have pursued it, he really wasn't worth the time or effort. Not exactly an exciting story, but it defines my personality. If I don't like it, fuck it.
My happy forced resignation story: In 2000 I took a job for a growing ecommerce company. I went from customer service rep to helping build the fraud department to right hand bitch of the customer service VP back to being a cs supervisor. In late 2002 the company bought a fire sale, state of the art call center in Florida for pennies on the dollar. A few of us were sent down to train the people who eventually took our jobs. In 2003 we were told our department up here in PA was closing but we were welcome to transfer to Florida. Ever been in Melbourne, Florida? Most boring place I've ever been. Maybe it's because I'm a skier/winter person. I had been thinking about going back to school anyway but had become rather settled in my job. As it was, our department closed 3 years to the date I started there (therefore providing me with an extra 2 weeks compensation!) and 3 months later I was taking the prerequisite classes I needed to enter the program leading me to what I do now, working in Nuclear Medicine. Thank you shitty ecommerce company for the kick in the ass I needed to find myself and be happy in my career!
@cinoclav I want to have "fuck you money." TOP DEFINITION fuck you money any amount of money allowing infinite perpetuation of wealth necessary to maintain a desired lifestyle without needing employment or assistance from anyone. The 6% guaranteed interest payments from Bill's investments earn him about 12 million dollars per year. His standard of living only requires approximately $4,000,000 per year. He will never need to be employed by anyone. He has "fuck you money".
@cinoclav Melbourne isn't exciting if you're a summer/spring/fall person, either. Source: lived there for about thirty years. Worked at a call center, too!
@Kidsandliz Pretty damn boring. I'm not much of a beach person. Nice to visit for a long weekend, I could never live there. Matter of fact, every single person that moved down there to keep their job with the company ended up moving back home.
@emilyap My dad decided to retire early when his California Dictaphone division moved east and he had a choice of New York (had enough of New England winters growing up) or Florida. My folks did get a nice two-week Melbourne stay in a company penthouse suite while he helped with the transition, but that was plenty enough Florida for them.
@emilyap Yep, GSI. Started there when I was employee # 58 in the company. Before it was sold to eBay, the CEO Mike Rubin was on Undercover Boss (and got his ass handed to him everywhere he tried to work.) He mentioned that at peak levels they had about 10,000 employees working for them. Don't miss it a bit.
I find it interesting that there are so many IT related stories here. I was originally a Comp Sci major out of high school but decided there was no way I could see myself sitting there writing code all day long. Pretty sure I made the right decision by running far away from that career.
I got in a little bit late the other day (not a time-crucial job at all) and was asked, "Do you think you can show up whenever you want?" And I'm thinking "What makes you think I want to show up here?" I should say that. It would be epic. Except I almost have enough money to buy that boat. Maybe January...
I was about 17, working at a fast food place known for big burgers and risque advertising. I was on morning shift at the time, 5:30am - 2pm, but the 2nd person for drive thru didn't show up that day, neither did the afternoon shift. After working straight through my shift, with no breaks, we hit finally hit a lull. (At the time, we were the only fast food place for 15 miles in either direction.) So, I tell them I'm stepping outside to slam down a power bar and smoke for a few. 5 minutes later, my GM comes tearing out to my truck FREAKING OUT and asking if I'm ever planning on getting my ass back to work. In that moment, I realized that the migraines, minimum wage, and general ridiculousness weren't worth it. So I told him, "I was, but now, now I'm going home." I handed him my hat and uniform shirt (had on a tank top underneath) and started my truck. He ran after me, so I stopped and he asked, "But, but, you're coming in tomorrow, right?" I told him I would, to pick up my check.
Other jobs have gotten 2 weeks to 30+ days notice, depending on how hard it would be to train a replacement.
Years ago I told my boss I would be in extra early the next morning to help with inventory. After a heavy night of beer pong, I did not make it in and actually never went back. It was a crap job and only had been there a few weeks.
I worked a college summer as a landscaper. We were a larger outfit and each crew cut 250 homes in retirement communities, daily. There are a lot of retired folks in Ocean County, NJ. We put in a lot of hours. 60 hours was pretty much standard, more if it had rained the week prior.
The seniority chain mostly dictated whether or not you were riding a mower or walking the whole day with a line trimmer. I walked the line (trimmer) most days. The exception was if you a migrant worker. Mexicans always walked. And rode in the bed of the truck. At least they did until I got pulled over and was told by the local police to have the boss fix a few violations, and oh-by-the-way, these guys have to sit in the cab.
I was a particularly valuable employee. I could be trusted to show up to work on-time and sober, but even more importantly, I had a valid driver's license - a true rarity among the employees. I used this value to my advantage once. I reviewed my paycheck and found that I was being shorted $0.25 an hour on my overtime pay. That works out to about $50-75 over the course of the summer. I fought with the math-challenged foreman over it. Eventually, I got my quarter and back pay.
However, that also sealed my fate as eternal low-man on the totem pole. My first punishment was awesome. I had to drive my own car filled with migrant workers to the job site. I'm not kidding - it was awesome. Definitely not a punishment to have 5 fun-loving folks take you in as one of their own and blast salsa & meringue on the ride.
My second punishment was not so awesome. I was demoted to eternal line trimmer duty. The non-migrant crew members knew to always side with the boss, and made my job hell, which brings us to quitting day.
I drive me and a handful of Mexican guys from the shop to the site. I spend the day working. We're done and one of the crew "forgot" that we were supposed to blow off all 250 driveways. I got tossed the keys to the truck and was told to drive back to the start and get to work (while they stood around and did nothing for an hour).
Silently, I took the keys. A look of malice was clear on my face. I started the truck, dropped it in drive, and then drove it into every mower we had on the street. Repeatedly. I drove back to my car, parked the truck, threw the keys in the woods, and drove off. I showed up the next week to get my check. It had the right overtime pay.
I relocated here for a job editing manuals at a software company that I quickly despised. (Actually, I despised both the company and the job. And the staff.) I landed in the middle of a deathmarch that cost the company 25% of its employees, and training was negligible to nonexistent. It took me only a few months to decide to quit too, but not before I found another job. Finally I decided that if I saved a six-month nest egg, that would be enough.
Nothing turned up, internally or elsewhere, and I got progressively more disgusted and made no secret about my desire to leave. Finally, in one of the few non-heated conversations I had with that boss, she drew me aside and said, "You know, if you quit, you just walk away with what you've got. But if you let me fire you, we'll give you a pretty decent severance package, and you can file for unemployment. I know this didn't work out the way either of us expected, but since you relocated for the job, this is about the only thing I can do to help you recoup some of those costs."
So that's the only time I've ever been fired from a job, and it was because it was more lucrative than quitting. (But they fought my collecting unemployment and won. Boy, that pissed me off.)
I left.
This one time I decided to quit my job because I had a better opportunity.. So I gave 2 weeks of notice, and left after that time had elapsed...
@kadagan Me too. And I got a very nice reference out of the deal.
I wrote my two weeks notice in rhyming prose.
@NigelF Nice! You've just inspired me to write my next notice in Mad Ape Den.
@mediobarkre Good luck. "Suck" has four letters.
@mediobarkre @NigelF "I go now. Bye. May you not die ere I go. Jog on."
@mediobarkre My job is now old. I go bye bye in two sun day.
@j8048188 @DaveInSoCal @PocketBrain To he or she who may be fit to see it: I jot a bit to say bye-bye, as I do not yen for my job to go on. My end day is set for two all-day-set of now. I bow to you for the try and bid you a big win in the day set to be. It is as it is, Me
Format is lost in the reply above, but it's a letter template...
@mediobarkre Bravah, sir! Bravah indeed!
@mediobarkre Mine started off much more simply: "Dear Kit, I quit."
When I was a youth, the scheduling manager changed my schedule from 4-5 days a week to 1-2 days a week... I decided to put in my two weeks notice and started the letter with: "I feel as though it has been a fortnight since I have had the pleasure of making your acquaintance..."
Years ago I had to get out of Primm in a hurry and found myself washing dishes in a dancehall in Reno. The owner, Mac, could be a nice enough guy but had a real mean streak that he mostly took out on his girl, Maria, who had eyes that could melt onyx. Maria and I never spoke much, since Mac mostly kept her out of view.
Sometimes after my night shift was over I went up on the empty dancehall stage and played the piano. It was just an old upright, but in that big empty room it sounded as rich and full as any grand concert piano you've ever heard in your life. I was just whiling away the time on the empty stage when I heard Maria, who I guess had been watching me, start singing the song I was playing, "When Time Goes By". I've never heard an angel sing but they must sound like grinding glass compared to Maria on that dancehall stage. When the song was over I felt her touch for the first time, and she gently pulled my hands from the keys. What else went on I won't say.
Now I wish I could tell you I was a hero and took Maria away from all that right then. But I didn't. The hot desert Summer dragged on and we'd meet in secret from time to time when Mac was away. One afternoon she told me her story. She was from Nacogdoches and was the daughter of a saddlemaker who had a shop out there. She ran away as a child and Mac Balikian had won her from a railyard tramp in a game of dice in Silverton. Won her like a goddamn gold watch. That's what she told me, anyway. I promised I'd get her back to Nacogdoches, somehow, someday. I must have sounded like a fool, I guess. She looked at me and gave this sad little hopeless smile like I'd told her I'd build her a palace on the moon or something.
Things might have kept on like that awhile except one night Mac went too far and Maria showed up the next morning looking like she'd gone eight rounds in the ring with a prizefighter. She tried to say she walked into the swinging kitchen door. I told her to cut the bullshit and I came up with a plan. Maria was going to get Mac even drunker than usual that night so he passed out, then we'd empty the safe and get away on his 1949 Harley Panhead, then sell the bike when we got there and start fresh. Where 'there' was I hadn't worked out just yet, it just had to be anywhere else.
That night I was so nervous I kept smashing the dishes I was trying to wash. I remember nearly pissing myself when the kitchen clock struck and it was time to walk up the dark narrow stairs to Mac's office. Somehow I pulled myself along the railing and opened the door.
I saw immediately that the light was wrong. One of the two lamps was broken and the other was on the floor, throwing yellow light on a vision of Hell. Mac was dead. Maria was dead. In that shitty drywall office, two feet from a cheap chipboard desk, an angel fell. I stood there for a full minute, not even looking but just incapable of proceeding. To this day I don't know who did what to who. Mac was violent, a beast, a monster, but I don't think he meant to kill her. Maybe Maria knew we'd spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders and couldn't leave without killing Mac, and it all went wrong. So in a way she did it for me. It doesn't really make a difference, I guess.
The safe was still locked but I took what I could from the desk, then climbed back down the stairs with strength I gathered from some unholy place. A minute later, one more motorcycle left Reno, one more aimless light across the desert, completely alone and with endless darkness on every side.
Years later I was in a tourist bar somewhere near Phucket. They had one of those karaōke stages set up under some plastic tiki lights, and a Canadian tourist was up there doing his thing. He asked for one more song, and "When Time Goes By" started through the bar speakers, tinny and distant and sad. Ten seconds later I was in the bathroom, looking in the mirror, sobbing like I could still see the lights of Reno behind me, thick cold tears of fear and loss and regret.
I escaped from Mac, I escaped from Reno, but I'll never escape from Maria.
@Starblind (slow clap)
@Starblind - This. This is why you must be goated.
@Starblind This reminds me of a story a friend told where he was reading a "true" story on reddit and didn't realize for an embarrassingly long time that he was reading the plot to The Lion King. I know something ain't right with this story, but I have no idea if it's just a well done, impromptu fiction or if you've retold the plot of something well known to others. Either way, +1 on the slow clap.
@JerseyFrank It feels like something that would've made a good Louis L'Amour pulp story.
@Starblind tl;dr so you quit?
@JerseyFrank Not based on anything specific, although the basic framework of trying to escape/double-cross someone drangerous with tragic results is really common in noir fiction and has been done all sorts of ways. I like writing about the hopeless people who show up in Tom Waits lyrics, toss a few of 'em together and the plots almost write themselves.
@Starblind Just in case anyone else was wondering, onyx melts at 1600º C / 2912º F.
@Starblind You're the one that started the trend of highly exaggerated Amazon reviews, aren't you? Seriously though, I'd highly consider paying actual money for a full length novel. Or at the very least, a collection of short stories.
I don't have a great story, but after almost 15 years of dedication and devotion I was laid off from my former company. I got a fat severance package plus unused PTO paid out and had an equivalent job lined up 5 days after my term date.
Yeah, so, like, hmmm... After six years in the Navy, I decided it was time to go to school. So I loaded up my Pontiac Grand Am and drove from Alameda, CA all the way to Ocala, FL. On the drive, I stopped for the night in the mountains of Colorado. Ski season was wrapping up, but they still were charging peak prices. I plead my case and the clerk cut me a good deal, one that wouldn't waste my wad before I got home. I don't remember the town or the hotel's name, but I sure do appreciate somebody giving a veteran a break.
So basically, me not re-enlisting was the quitting part. Kinda sounds anticlimactic now that I think of it.
@PocketBrain Weird... I know 4 navy people--they all drive Pontiacs... hmmmm
@connorbush that was many cars ago. I'm in a Chevy Volt now. :-)
@PocketBrain and aw shoot, you know what, the Grand Am died before that and I was actually in a Ford Thunderbird. I called it the Batmobile. Wasn't black though.
@PocketBrain HM-15?
Hmmm. Is it really a "quitting" story if you got fired?
And, no, I wasn't the one who was fired. But many moons ago, in a place called Nuremberg, Germany, there was a transportation NCO who had a run-in (literally- they were both driving) with the post commander. Post commander was displeased, and the said NCO was transferred as far away as the 2 Star General could send him. Which would be to a place called Bremerhaven, where all autos go to leave the country. 6 months later, post commander turned over command and went to his next assigmnet in Washington, D.C. His car, however, went to Japan.
@rockblossom Was it a Pontiac?
Don't have any good job quitting stories about me, but I do have one about someone else.
I was working a temp job at some transcription place, doing some kind of check against the computer translation, and there was a lady who also showed as a temp that day who ended up in a different area there.
At lunch time, she goes out for lunch, and then about an hour or so later, it becomes apparent that she's taken the longest lunch you can- she's decided to not come back after lunch. Joked about it a bit with some of the people there, and then told family about it when I left for the day.
Wasn't invited back there because I hadn't met the "quota", despite saying there wasn't one or that it wouldn't apply to me yet.
@dashcloud you handled the overflow like you were hired to do. They just couldn't say that you were fired for doing your job.
I had been working at this job for about 4 years and was their top producer (internal wholesaling). It was about 4 days after our company holiday party where the two owners stood up and congratulated us all on the best year the firm ever had, so this next bit caught me by surprise...
My manager called the team into the conference room one strange Thursday morning for an "impromptu marketing meeting." In my experience last minute meetings are nearly always bad. This was no exception.
About 10 of us sat at the conference table, curiously awaiting some news of import, but instead we got...
"Tony (co-owner) is furious! He thinks you all aren't working hard enough, and wants you to know he's pissed off about it. We're going to set new, higher monthly goals, and anyone who doesn't achieve these goals is getting fired. There won't be any confusion why, just fired."
A lot of the team was newer to the company (<6 months). I had heard rants like this before, and thought that this was the stick, so the carrot must be coming. To break the tension and give our manager a lead in, I asked, "What new program is the firm rolling out that will help us achieve these new, higher goals?" Here I'm thinking I'm salvaging employee morale, instead...
"Dave, you've been here the longest, you know exactly what we're going to do to support you, and if you think you can get better support somewhere else, you know what to do."
I was stunned. The conference room was silent, and I'm pretty sure you could hear my jaw hit the table. I stood up, walked over to him, and held out my hand. He took it, I shook it, and said, "Thanks, I think I'll take the door," and walked out.
My adrenaline was pumping, but I held it together long enough to walk into the owners office where they were arguing (not uncommon), and said, "Excuse me. I think I've come just about as far as I can here, and I'm going to explore some other opportunities. You can have two weeks if you think it would help."
I was out that day before 11 AM. Still shaking, I drove to my friend's house. He was a bartender so he was home mid-day. "I just quit my job."
"Congratulations," he said, "have a beer!"
And I did. And it was good.
tl;dr Quit in the middle of a meeting of my entire department. Had a beer. It was good.
@DaveInSoCal "I think I've come just about as far as I can here, and I'm going to explore some other opportunities."
Mind if I use that line next month?
@nadroj be my guest!
@DaveInSoCal Brave! You've got big ones sir. How long until your next gig?
@mehdaf that story is from 2005. Took me 1 or 2 months to land another job that time.
Took a job back in college at a 24 hour gas station and Subway store, mostly because a cute friend was an assistant manager, said she needed people and I could work the same shifts as her. This was back when we were "sandwich artists" and cut the bread right like a canoe, not in that lazy half-slice-so-your-sandwich-makes-a-mess nonsense they do these days.
Four days later, I hadn't been to class because I'd been scheduled to work 2pm-2am each day. I'd done more work stocking the walk in cooler than practicing my sandwich artistry. And I hadn't seen my friend at work since the first day.
I stood in the back filling mayonnaise bottles from a giant bag of mayo and hatching a plan to smuggle out some of that fabulous cookie dough when the actual manager (a guy pushing 60) came through. He patted me on the shoulder and asked how I liked working there.
The words "I think today's my last day" came directly out of my mouth without passing through my brain first. He asked if i could finish my shift, and when I affirmed, he said for me to leave my hat and apron in the office at the end of the day. I actually didn't realize I had quit until after he walked away.
I never did liberate that cookie dough.
@djslack Did you tessellate the cheese?
@Pamtha Of course!
@Pamtha @djslack before thinking about how subway made sandwiches, my sophmoric mind interpreted your word as testiclate, as in did you testiclate the cheese before quitting?
TODAY My boss asked me, "Of the two jobs you, which do you think you do better?" To which I replied, "I'm not sure, but it doesn't really matter anyway, because I'm giving my two weeks notice."
My second job in IT, also my second job working for a local ISP. The manager there had a thing -- he had to have a butt-monkey. When I got there it was the website coder. He would rant and rave about how incompetent she was (well, she was kinda, but not any worse than anybody else with her experience and background). Eventually she quit. Then he tried to make our Java programmer the butt-monkey. He wasn't having it and after about a week, he told $MANAGER where to go and quit on the spot. Sometime around five months into my employment he decided it was my turn: he told me he wanted a side project I had been working on in my own time for my own purposes, to be finished and put in production, that night. He literally told me "Have that done tonight or have your resignation on my desk tomorrow." (I don't even remember what it was -- some sort of scripting or documentation probably.)
I lined up a new job and set my start date to be December 1, which was about three or four weeks after he threatened my job. I figured my notice period started at the time of that threat and therefore he had had more than ample notice, so on Sunday, November 30 I went in, cleared off my desk, rebooted a hung server that was running an important part of their website, and dropped my written resignation letter on his desk on the way out.
Now it happened, although it didn't even occur to me till later, that the first of every month was the day we ran web stat reports for business customers. And with all the employee turnover, that duty had devolved to me and I had written some scripts to make it easier -- nothing too complicated and only I was ever going to use them, so I didn't document anything -- and all the knowledge of how they worked walked out the door in my head. And our business customers wanted their web stats on the first like they always got, and when that didn't happen, they wanted answers. And there were a few other things that had been rushed into production that only I really understood, like our new RADIUS server (the only Linux system onsite, and I was the only Linux geek) handling auth for the new USR TotalControl dialup access system, and the new mail server software, and the USENET server, and a couple of other little things here and there.
My new boss told me that a few days later, he called them with a question about his wife's dialup account that she had just set up with them (yeah, it was that long ago) and in the background when the call was picked up he heard what sounded like TOTAL CHAOS. After a long wait on hold he got a guy who said "Uh, can we call you back? There's one guy who knew how everything to do with that worked and he quit with no notice a couple days ago."
That manager later tried to block my domain transfer, so I had to gin up "corporate letterhead" to make Network Solutions happy so they would move my domain over to MindSpring (yeah, it was that long ago).
@kensey I miss MindSpring.
@jqubed Oh, so do I. They had a huge database of modem connect strings that got thrown out in the merger with EarthLink. If you were around back then you know what I just said is roughly equivalent to "they had a huge sack of gold bars..." When I first signed up with them I was impatient so i called up support and said "Hey, I know I'm supposed to be waiting for a package with my username and password and such, but I don't realy need the software since I'm running Linux anyway. Can you just read me off your DNS, POP/SMTP mail hosts, and tell me my username and starter password and I can do the rest?" And the first thing out of the guy's mouth was "Oh, which distro?" Fifteen minutes later I was off and running. And I probably got six months of free service off my referral credits over the four years I was with them.
It's not as good as others' stories, but it's my only one. Two months ago I quit my job for a trial contact with a small but major company in web hosting and content management. They don't recommend people quit for the trial because they only hire about 60%, but I knew the demands my job put on me would get in the way of doing well enough on the trial. I was actually already working on the trial when I left my job and it was kind of overwhelming; so much new to learn. About 1 month ago I was told they were terminating my trial and I would not be offered a full-time position, so I'm looking for work now. I am looking at temp and contract jobs I wouldn't have tried in the past because I was encouraged to try to get more familiar with the software and apply for another trial in 6 months or a year if I am still interested, and I think I will be. I still think I made the right decision because working in TV seemed to be negatively impacting my health in multiple ways. My old job offered to let me come back but I haven't taken then up on that offer; I'll just be trying to quit again in a few months and I really don't want to be going back to broadcasting full-time. Having a steady paycheck was a lot nicer than getting paid for random freelance jobs, but I'm still optimistic this will work out for me.
@jqubed What happened to your blog?
@pooflady I've been working on portfolio projects, but have a few posts I'll be making at some point soonish.
I've told parts of this story here before, it is still somewhat recent, but it's my most satisfying and one of my best decisions ever.
At my last full-time J-O-B (in the social service field), I was fired for refusing to violate my professional and personal ethics. My "final written notice" was very carefully worded to connote insubordination and failure to comply with my job description. I did my best to politely but firmly inform them that I would never do anything that was not in my kids' (my clients') best interests- no matter the cost. But I was shaking so hard I couldn't read my own signature on the form. In that same meeting, I was offered another position in a different department on the 2nd shift- our most difficult one. Having no other jobs or prospects lined up, I accepted and went to go clean out my office.
In my new position, I could tell almost immediately that the neglect and apathy went way deeper than I had even suspected previously. Within a few months I was physically ill at the thought of going to work. It was clear that we weren't helping our kids and some of them were worse off for having been there. One afternoon, I just decided to quit while I was out with my family before my shift that day. I had my laptop with me so I sat in the Office Depot parking lot, typed up a quick "here's my notice, my last day is..."- with a promise to expand on my reasons later- and ran inside to print it off. My manager knew what it was without even looking. In my last two weeks, I fulfilled my promise of an explanation and wrote an addendum letter. I went through our Mission Statement line by line explaining how we were failing on every count. I cited instances of where our kids were being neglected and set up for failure as well as how the staff are publicly harassed and not equipped to do their jobs. I also offered suggestions for improvement where I could. When I printed it out, it was ten pages long. At the end of my last shift, I left of copy of that letter for my manager, department head, and all (both) members of the HR Department. I turned in my keys and ID, said goodbye to the next shift, walked out the door, and never looked back.
A few weeks ago, on my way home from my new venture that I absolutely love, I realized it had been exactly a year since I'd walked away from that place for the last time. I bought myself a giant cupcake to celebrate.
@Kleineleh I love this! Oh and your experience will give me sleepless nights over thge state of social services. W.T.H.
@Kleineleh you go glen co co.
@Pamtha I was fortunate enough to get my start in the field by volunteering full-time for a year at an amazing agency in St. Louis. The people I worked with there really knew what they were doing and really cared about those kids' futures. Working at this last job really showed me how too much bureaucracy and red tape can ruin a good idea, but rest assured that there are still at least a few people doing it right
I politely turned in my 2 week notice at a national IT Integrator back in the early 90's. Horrible boss had my NetWare account yanked while I was sitting at my desk 20 minutes later. I responded by kicking off fdisk on my company owned laptop and left. She was less than pleased with that, and tried to call the mortgage company and get my house closing cancelled. I still moved in on time (new job gave the bank employment verification) so I say I won.
Worst. Job. Ever.
I worked for two summers for a renovation crew on campus housing and having been treated progressively worse by management that was becoming progressively worse at making decisions and planning. Students were supposed to move in NEXT WEEK, but there was no sheet rock up, no carpet on the floors, no cabinets installed, etc. They needed us to work about 80 hour weeks to make it happen. And it was because of their horrible planning too -- all of this could have been avoided.
It's a Friday afternoon, my last day of the job. I had told my immediate supervisor I was quitting, who apparently didn't tell anyone else above him. Upper management contacted everyone individually, in person: "Starting today, you have to work every day until 10 PM [...we started at 7 AM...] or you're fired."
My response: "Today's my last day, and I'm leaving at 4."
I could have rearranged my schedule to help them out, but after being treated like the scum of the earth for working harder than most people there, I sure didn't owe them anything.
Now I've got a nice faculty job, and I get to laugh at those horrible days.
My actual jobs have all ended rather business like, 2 weeks notice, etc, but...
I did a lot of volunteering in college. At one point I was head of IT for the month long popup student book sale (which was rather large - $1.2 million in gross sales, avg year). There was one woman who kept forcing me to add weird events to the schedule. I told her I didn't like them - sure, we did book signings, but concerts, cooking demonstrations, and craft days were a bit much. I explained that we didn't have a bandstand, but she wouldn't listen.
Soon after I had to leave & focus on my classes. The actual sale rolls around and I start getting emails from her, which I ignore. Eventually I get a frantic phone call, she needs help getting the band setup in the sound system. I explain again that we don't have a bandstand, then give up and agree to stop by and help on my way to class (it was in the lobby of the sciences building).
I walk in and she immediately comes over. Ignoring what shes actually saying, I flip open a hidden panel on the wall. "These are the only 2 microphone inputs we have. the 5 man band will have to work that out. Good luck. By the way, I quit a month ago". Embarrassment palpably pouring off of her, I turned around and walked off to class.
Later my friends who still worked there thanked me. It was much easier to deal with here once she realized how stupid it was to schedule a concert at a book store.
Is it selfish of me to hope @Pavlov's recovery is going well because he's got to have some great stories for this thread? I mean, I hope it's going well in general, but it feels like he'd see this topic and grin the grin of a man with tales to tell.
@editorkid It's never selfish to think good thoughts about a goat.
Wait, what?.... We do miss you, @Pavlov
My college had a required program where you had to volunteer at a non-profit for a certain number of hours and then write about it or whatever.
My first time through the program, I got an internship at the Red River Revel, the local arts festival. Despite the fact that the event was in a month, they had almost nothing for me to do. After about a month of stuffing envelopes and twiddling my thumbs, the event came and passed. I showed up the next day I was scheduled to and the office was closed. No one told me it would be closed after the event, or warned me that I wouldn't be able to fulfill my hourly goal. They just... stopped showing up. So I did too.
Then I had to redo the stupid program at the Opera a year later...
@Moose Hometown represent! My mom works finance for the Revel every year. She has done it for years. Being a paid position, they generally have their act together a little more on her end.
@djslack I wish I could remember the name of my supervisor, it very well may have been your mom (this was 2010); they were all super nice and had their act together to get the event going, just not to also pay attention to the volunteer that they didn't ask for and didn't need (understandably). I got free entry though so it was not all a loss!
@Moose nah, she counts money all evening and occasionally rides around on a golf cart to collect from the sales booths. She wouldn't want to supervise anyone.
Were you at Centenary?
@djslack Yep, moved there for school. Go Gentlemen. Did you go to college in Ratchet City or just grow up there?
@Moose Born and raised here. Went to college in Ruston and came right back.
How awesome would it be if I used this topic to quit?
FYI @dave I'm not doing that.
@JonT not awesome at all :(
@JonT Well, we've already had one. And there's one more on the fence.
@JonT Wouldn't that be like a paradox of some kind? I think the Internet might explode.
@JonT epic.
Needing a job after my previous employer went bankrupt (I was a manager for Herman's Sporting Goods for those that may remember the company), I accepted a position as the manager of a privately owned shipping/mail room store. Thinking this was going to be a nice change of pace, not having to deal with all the usual corporate bullshit, I was looking forward to being in a nice cozy environment. It took 3 days of being bullied and treated like complete crap by the owner to make the very easy decision of staying in bed the next day. My primary responsibility as the manager was apparently to be the one to haul loads of boxes up and down the stairs. I don't recall my exact words at this point but when I finally got around to contacting the owner I told him I didn't need that job badly enough to put up with the way he treated me. He refused to pay me for those days, claiming the first 30 days were a trial period. While I knew that was completely illegal and I could have pursued it, he really wasn't worth the time or effort. Not exactly an exciting story, but it defines my personality. If I don't like it, fuck it.
My happy forced resignation story: In 2000 I took a job for a growing ecommerce company. I went from customer service rep to helping build the fraud department to right hand bitch of the customer service VP back to being a cs supervisor. In late 2002 the company bought a fire sale, state of the art call center in Florida for pennies on the dollar. A few of us were sent down to train the people who eventually took our jobs. In 2003 we were told our department up here in PA was closing but we were welcome to transfer to Florida. Ever been in Melbourne, Florida? Most boring place I've ever been. Maybe it's because I'm a skier/winter person. I had been thinking about going back to school anyway but had become rather settled in my job. As it was, our department closed 3 years to the date I started there (therefore providing me with an extra 2 weeks compensation!) and 3 months later I was taking the prerequisite classes I needed to enter the program leading me to what I do now, working in Nuclear Medicine. Thank you shitty ecommerce company for the kick in the ass I needed to find myself and be happy in my career!
@cinoclav If nuclear medicine worked, you know what they'd call it? Medicine.
@JerseyFrank Huh? That makes no sense. Are you familiar with Nuclear Medicine?
@cinoclav To some people it ain't so new and it ain't so clear.
@cinoclav Radiology, right?
@cinoclav I want to have "fuck you money." TOP DEFINITION fuck you money any amount of money allowing infinite perpetuation of wealth necessary to maintain a desired lifestyle without needing employment or assistance from anyone. The 6% guaranteed interest payments from Bill's investments earn him about 12 million dollars per year. His standard of living only requires approximately $4,000,000 per year. He will never need to be employed by anyone. He has "fuck you money".
@connorbush Right, radiology. Yeah, I wish I had "fuck you money" too. At the time I quit that one job I had "fuck me money."
@cinoclav Melbourne isn't exciting if you're a summer/spring/fall person, either. Source: lived there for about thirty years. Worked at a call center, too!
@emilyap @cinoclav yikes is it that bad? I applied for a job there... at FIT.
@emilyap Who did you work for? We were on S. Babcock. Most exciting thing about that office was the Hooters in the parking lot.
@Kidsandliz Pretty damn boring. I'm not much of a beach person. Nice to visit for a long weekend, I could never live there. Matter of fact, every single person that moved down there to keep their job with the company ended up moving back home.
@Kidsandliz If you like to surf, bike, or kayak you can have a fine time. The area didn't agree with me, but plenty of people like it.
@cinoclav GSI? I worked for Dictaphone out near Sarno and Wickham.
@emilyap My dad decided to retire early when his California Dictaphone division moved east and he had a choice of New York (had enough of New England winters growing up) or Florida. My folks did get a nice two-week Melbourne stay in a company penthouse suite while he helped with the transition, but that was plenty enough Florida for them.
@gio What year was that? We lost a lot of people in 2005 when Dictaphone was purchased by Nuance.
@emilyap Yep, GSI. Started there when I was employee # 58 in the company. Before it was sold to eBay, the CEO Mike Rubin was on Undercover Boss (and got his ass handed to him everywhere he tried to work.) He mentioned that at peak levels they had about 10,000 employees working for them. Don't miss it a bit.
@cinoclav Ha! I had a friend who resumed her job search after her first day at GSI. Quality company.
@emilyap That was was back in the late 70's when my dad was working for the Scully/Metrotech Division in Mountain View, CA.
I find it interesting that there are so many IT related stories here. I was originally a Comp Sci major out of high school but decided there was no way I could see myself sitting there writing code all day long. Pretty sure I made the right decision by running far away from that career.
I got in a little bit late the other day (not a time-crucial job at all) and was asked, "Do you think you can show up whenever you want?" And I'm thinking "What makes you think I want to show up here?" I should say that. It would be epic. Except I almost have enough money to buy that boat. Maybe January...
I was about 17, working at a fast food place known for big burgers and risque advertising. I was on morning shift at the time, 5:30am - 2pm, but the 2nd person for drive thru didn't show up that day, neither did the afternoon shift. After working straight through my shift, with no breaks, we hit finally hit a lull. (At the time, we were the only fast food place for 15 miles in either direction.) So, I tell them I'm stepping outside to slam down a power bar and smoke for a few.
5 minutes later, my GM comes tearing out to my truck FREAKING OUT and asking if I'm ever planning on getting my ass back to work. In that moment, I realized that the migraines, minimum wage, and general ridiculousness weren't worth it. So I told him, "I was, but now, now I'm going home." I handed him my hat and uniform shirt (had on a tank top underneath) and started my truck.
He ran after me, so I stopped and he asked, "But, but, you're coming in tomorrow, right?" I told him I would, to pick up my check.
Other jobs have gotten 2 weeks to 30+ days notice, depending on how hard it would be to train a replacement.