What's the shortest period of time you've held a job? I quit my consulting gig this morning after

[ohiosmith]

less than 48 hours!

[hobbit709]

1. Started at 8, walked out at noon. Never looked back.

[ohiosmith]

3. Bravo!

[lastlib]

18. I trained a guy that did that!

(So, whatever happened to ya?!? )

[HoneychildMooseMoss]

35. I can beat that

I had an industrial cleaning job once where the supervisor complained, in the most unpleasant way, about every little thing. "Hey, you! You missed this tiny spot on the stair railing! You're never going to amount to a hill of beans, you know that?"

Started at 8:00, walked out at 8:30.

[Broken_Hero]

60. I got the same record....

started at 8am at a mail house near down town Sacramento, left at noon. I can fully understand why some postal workers go crazy...

[Occulus]

93. I'm about to quit my job with USPS after 18 years.

Nothing lined up to replace it, of course, but this is Michigan. I don't expect much.

Please believe me when I say I am absolutely terrified of doing this.... but I need to.

Before I snap.

[MADem]

95. Do you have full medical? You should see if you can't get some kind of leave of absence.

See if you can't line up an evaluation based on stress in the workcenter, or something.

Wlll you get a retirement if you quit now?

Think it through--there might be other options.

Best of luck.

[Baitball Blogger]

2. Very impressive.

[ohiosmith]

4. Thank you!

[Baitball Blogger]

13. Though, I think I have you beat.

I answered an ad once for a sales job. It turned out to be a cattle call. I found myself in a warehouse full of desperate job applicants, just like me. The people who organized it were young, under thirty-five. They called the seasoned sales people in for a private meeting and afterwards, we were each assigned to one of them. We were told we were going to get some on the job training and had to follow our mentor around for a day. My mentor was a girl who was standing next to some picture frames. She instructed me to pick some up and we went to load her car up. On the drive she told me she had worked for them for just a couple weeks. Then she showed me the trade, walking into corporate offices lugging the pictures to claim we had overstock to sell.

She was nice, personable, and after the first office visit I asked her to drive me back to my car.

It was one of the most desolate experiences I had as a young worker bee in Orlando, Florida. And I had quite a few.

[graywarrior]

5. That's awesome!

I had a temp job as a key puncher in Boston that lasted 4 hours.

[ohiosmith]

7. Outstanding!

[graywarrior]

10. I lied my way into the job coz I was desperate

They figured it out in a few minutes. I left for lunch and never went back.

[ohiosmith]

12. Okay! More information is necessary! Lied about what?

[graywarrior]

14. That I could key punch

What an awful job! I was totally insane during that time.

[ohiosmith]

27. Oh! I thought it would be juicy! Like you were in a reform school for incorrigible girls!

[graywarrior]

28. I was too smart to get caught

[ohiosmith]

29. Shoulda known!

[graywarrior]

30. Lynn, MA girl

sneaky, underhanded and a pathological liar

[ohiosmith]

32. Yea! But can you cook?

[graywarrior]

33. Hell, yeah!

[ohiosmith]

37. Good! I'll have a chicken pot pie,.....and a beer!

[graywarrior]

38. How about a duck pot pie?

[ohiosmith]

40. You are a force! Touché!

[graywarrior]

41. qwak

[ohiosmith]

46. I'm down with that!

[graywarrior]

50. I gotta duck out of here and waddle off to bed

[ohiosmith]

51. I'd like a gander of that!

[graywarrior]

54. Geese, that was daffy

[kurtzapril4]

66. Ohiosmith will give you a goose

on the way out.

[ohiosmith]

68. Were you Peking?

[kurtzapril4]

72. No, but I know a quack

when I see one.

[kurtzapril4]

65. A friend who lives in Ipswich, MA

taught me a poem about Lynn, MA.

Lynn, Lynn, city of sin
You don't come out
the way you went in.

[graywarrior]

74. We Lynners hear that wherever we go

Someone said it to us when we were in Jamaica.

[kurtzapril4]

77. Hey, It's a claim to fame!

Nothing rhymes with Lombard(where I grew up), or Wauconda(where I am now), LOL!

[In_The_Wind]

6. one day

[ohiosmith]

8. Very good!

[rocktivity]

9. Three days

Last edited Wed Sep 4, 2019, 10:11 AM - Edit history (2)

It was a temp job, so I was able to tell them I wouldn't be back because I'd accepted a permanent job. It was actually because the alternative was ending up in jail for punching someone.


rocktivity

[ohiosmith]

11. Slacker!

[bluedigger]

15. How about a subordinate?

I had a new crew member show up at our field location at lunchtime. We introduced her around and had one of our senior guys give her the tour. I looked around at afternoon break an hour later, and she was gone. The guy I had show her around said she said she "didn't feel ready" and took off.

Five years later I was working in another state for another company and met my crew. "Hi! Remember me"? "Um, no, remind me."

[ohiosmith]

52. Hahahaha!

[femmocrat]

16. About an hour?

The (male) owner of a women's clothing store in our town hired me to model the fashions for customers. I was in the dressing room trying things on and his wife came in and fired me! She gave me the old, "You're a nice girl, but..... " speech. Looking back, she probably did me a huge favor.

[ohiosmith]

53. That may be the record!

[BlueJazz]

17. 2 Hours 20 minutes. Answered an Ad: "Good pay---Fast paced--work with wonderful people"

Started job, took me back to a loading dock, had to load 110 lb boxes OVER MY HEAD, other men were nasty and shitty cause I could only do 7 boxes per minute...they could do 9-10.
"Good pay" was minimum wage.

After 2 hours 20 minutes...told them they were fucking crazy and their employer was a slave driver.

It was Nike=== There's more I found out but I'll let it slide...

By the way...found sales "stuff" in trailer...each shoe cost about 7 bucks. (what a shitty company)

Funny...just thinking about it pisses me off.

[ohiosmith]

63. Nice story! Now forget about it! Don't want you to be pissed off!

[BlueJazz]

81. What story ??

[ohiosmith]

82. Cool!

[Scuba]

19. I quit one job after four hours, another after 12. How's that?

[ohiosmith]

69. Outstanding!

[Scuba]

70. Not really. I shoulda quit the first one in the first 15 minutes!

The second one was a scam, and I'm embarrassed it took me 'til noon on the second day to see that.

I'm smarter now, I hope.

[In_The_Wind]

83. I think you are.

[patricia92243]

20. Since you brought the subject up, why did you quit??? I was quite happy for you when

you posted about the new job. Hope all is well.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

21. 2 .5 hours...of paid training

figured out it was a scam, ... at break took my purse and headed for my car.

[Paulie]

22. Usually months for me. I just "hired" someone a couple weeks ago

Got a dear Paulie email 10 minutes after they were to start that morning saying tey are not comming because they got a better deal 2 hours before.

[RILib]

23. I about match you.

I was hired for a part-time job as an office person at a private press. It turned out to be full time, plus I was supposed to run their errands on my lunch hour, and be "on call" over the weekend if the owner's elderly husband needed help while she was out of town. This was before the days of cell phones, so it would have meant sitting at home all weekend.

I felt for them, but they were soaking up my entire life.

[NoGOPZone]

24. Two hours. They wanted me to sign some unbelievably restricting

non disclosure and non compete agreements and balked when I insisted on a copy.

[Aristus]

25. A little less than two months.

Not long, but long enough to realize it was the worst job I ever had...

[kwassa]

26. One day

summer job in college.

Working with a roofing company on the roof of my old high school

Working with hot tar and raking gravel with the sun baking off the roof in high heat.

No regrets on that one.

[Victor_c3]

57. I used to do roofs all the time when I was in college.

I loved it. I used to work for a small time general contractor during my summer breaks for about 4 years. If money wasn't an object, I'd still be doing that job. I loved digging holes, driving around a piece of shit job truck, slugging bundles of shingles up a ladder all day, moving piles of cinder blocks from one side of a jobsite to the other, and doing the bidding of my severely overweight boss.

The shortest time I ever held a job was 1 year and 10 months. It was hell. I was working for Amazon.com as a production manager and it totally destroyed my life. The only reason I hung on so long was because I had a new family and a new house and I needed the money. I just got out of the Army and I figured that I would give the corporate job world a shot. They paid me VERY well, but the job sucked the life out of me and the stress severely aggravated my PTSD issues. I got suspended for 5 or 6 weeks after I freaked out a work really bad. When I returned to the job I lasted a few more months before freaking out again and then I lost my job.

I would walk from the front to the back of my production line at Amazon and suddenly find myself on a dismounted Infantry patrol in Iraq. I could feel the heat of the air, the weight of my body armor, and the rifle in my hands. I'd get all light headed and feel like I was completely disorientated and drunk, start shaking and stuttering, and crying uncontrollably. It was awful and I completely scared the shit out of the people where I worked.

Now I work as a chemist for the federal government and I love it. I kind of bumble around the lab all day confused and in a half-daze. As long as I get the priority work in our lab done right away, I can take my time doing everything else and work at my own pace. I'm still a freak and I'm still completely crazy, but with this job I can hide out a little bit better when I need to get away from everything and my coworkers are very understanding when I start rambling on about something that happened to me almost 10 years ago.

[Demo_Chris]

31. Half a day

I was feeling almost physically ill because I knew it was not what I wanted to do. I called my wife and asked her opinion, and then I quit.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

34. 3 days. High School summer job working suburb road maintenance.

They mixed us kids in with the regulars into street crews of 4-6 workers. The regulars were such shiftless slackers, showing us how to do the absolute minimum each day, I felt like I was stealing money and figured I would have been fired soon for it anyway so I quit.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

36. What type of work?

I'm a consultant.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

39. Me personally, about 5 1/2 weeks but...

...I work at this place for a bit. They were so far behind and were having trouble getting enough people to get the work done that they would hire from a resume (as in not even a phone interview.) They hired this guy from somewhere in the Midwest, who was apparently more of a prima-donna than the rest of us. He flew in, rented a car and drove to the office on the Sunday afternoon the day before he was to start work. Looked at the building and drove to his hotel. After check-in, he called his agency and quit then flew back home the next day.



eta: Actually, make that a bit over 2 weeks. I thought of a place that was shorter.

[Honeycombe8]

42. One day.

Decades ago I got an office asst little job. Small office. People were nice. But I just didn't like it...don't remember why, now. I worked the full day, then at end of the day, the manager (an attractive older woman) came over to me and told me (nicely) to be sure and tell the bosses Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith good night before I left, because they like that. I call them Mr. this, Mrs. that, and they call me by my first name. Then I have to stick my heads in their offices when I come in and leave or they get their feelings hurt? If I'm so unimportant, why do they care if I tell them hello and goodbye...reporting into their offices, no less? I don't know...it just didn't set well with me.

I just didn't go back. I felt guilty and terrible about it, because they were nice people, but I was too chicken to call and quit. I was very young and on my own.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

43. I wouldn't worry about it.

It's business; stuff happens.

[Honeycombe8]

47. Thanks. It's always bothered me that I did that.

But I was just so young and unable to handle an uncomfortable situation. Out on my own from a dysfunctional family...I may have been about 19. I had been on my own since the age of 17. Oh, well. I didn't do that again. At least I learned from my experience.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

48. As my wife says...

...no one was hurt, no one was killed and no one went to hell, so get over it.

[raccoon]

58. That one's a keeper. nt

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

59. Thanks

31 years soon.

[Honeycombe8]

89. That's good. Tell your wife I'm gonna borrow her expression.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

100. Sure thing

have a great weekend.

[RILib]

61. See in the old days

young people called their elders Mr or Mrs Whatever.

I have nasty new neighbors, a blot on the small, knit community I live in, and it fries my chops that the daughter, who is about 1/3 my age calls me by my first name. That is, when she isn't making snotty remarks when I'm out working in the yard.

[Honeycombe8]

90. I AM talking about the old days. I'm gettin' up there in age, and I was maybe 19 at the time.

I was just young and uppity and not happy with teh work there, etc.....it is of course appropriate to call a boss Mr. or Mrs. But even where I work now, and have worked for over 2 decades...the way we address each other is reciprocal. First names, or last names for all. Except a few really old bosses (like over 90).

I was 19 about 40 years ago.

[Apophis]

44. I didn't make it past the interview.

[NightWatcher]

45. 2 hours. I never got thru training at McD's

I found out I was hired by another place that I had put in for. I never even was issued a uniform.

[davsand]

49. Less than 6 hours.

It was supposed to be a temp job at an electronics company. I got there in the morning and straight away they were taking me on a tour of the facility and then telling me all "The RULES." I'm ok with rules in the workplace, but this place was just over the top--lots of little picky bullshit things that no sane person would ever even worry about--let alone make it a part of a corporate policy. The one that REALLY set my teeth on edge was the one that said you had to clock out for a bathroom break. ANY time you walked away from your desk you were supposed to clock out. I was rolling with it all (thinking they were really a mess) feeling glad it was only supposed to be a two week assignment.

Just before my scheduled lunch half hour, this lady in a really nice suit wearing a HUGE amount of perfume comes rolling into the office. She stands and makes small talk with me for about two minutes then announces she really likes me and wants me to stay with them permanently. She sweeps out of the office and my trainer gets all excited. Come to find out it was the owner of the company and I'd just passed "probation." I explained that I was only supposed to be a temp for two weeks and was informed that my future was SECURE!!!

I left for lunch, went directly to the temp agency, and quit.

They closed down a couple of years later.


Laura

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

55. Sixty Minutes

I got a teaching gig at ITT Technical Institute about ten years ago. Part-time -- just one night class per semester.

First night of class, there are four kids in the room. Collectively, they had failed the course (just a Freshman Writing class) a total of 23 times. The little Rhodes Scholar of our group had only failed the course three times.

Their first question of me, "So what's the least amount of work we have to do and still pass your class?"

At the break, I went to the supervisor and turned in my keys. I told him I'd finish the class tonight, but there's no way I'm going to waste my time of idiots like these.

[Populist_Prole]

56. 2 Days. A bus boy in an Italian restaurant

It was an amicable quit. I was treated well by the owner and other employees, and they divided all the tips: The money was good. Too grueling a schedule though: I was a junior in high school and had to be there a little more than half hour after I got home from school and work till almost midnight. Unsustainable. Also, I just didn't like dealing with so many people ( customers )

[Helen Reddy]

62. Thank goodness os.

All that workin' and stuff.....kept you away from DU. Your most important work is here.

[ohiosmith]

76. Thank you HR! You are too kind!

[sendero]

64. Why don't you tell us why?

The reason has to be at least as interesting as the duration

A similar question might be "what job should you have quit in X hours and why?"

[Tommy_Carcetti]

67. Two hours at a Ponderosa Steak House.

I had recently quit a busboy job at another restaurant thanks to an asshole boss.

Found the new gig at Ponderosa pretty quickly but about two hours in, I realized I still had a bad taste in my mouth for restaurant work thanks to the experience at my last job and I just cut it short.

[kurtzapril4]

71. My very first job

was at a Brown's Chicken. All the boss did, during the entire time he was training me, was yell. I walked out the second day at break, and never looked back.

Another bad job I had was at a printing company. I was a pressman, and I made good money. But the boss was very, very "aggro." You'd know what kind of day it would be when he'd come in, in the morning. If his hair was messy and sticking straight up, and his face was red....it was gonna be a bad day. For you. I worked there about 2 weeks. I asked one of my co-workers "Does he always yell and scream?" and she said, "oh, you'll get used to it. He doesn't mean it...it's an Italian thing." I went out for my lunch break that day, and I never went back.

Why do adults in positions of responsibility see fit to yell at other adults? Jeebus!

[cliffordu]

73. About an hour.

[Phentex]

75. Three hours and it was a stormy goodbye...

lucky for me the job I left was right upstairs and they hired me back immediately. I felt bad about that because they had made a big fuss and had a farewell luncheon and everything after I quit. But the fact that they had not hired a replacement during my two weeks notice was nice .

[Knightraven]

78. For myself, it was 72 hours.

I was working at a Braum's when I was a 16 year old, my first job at that. I decided to throw the apron at the assistant manager after he threw chocolate sauce at me thinking it was funny. I had to buy the white shirts for the job as it was and had to get a loan from my mother for it as it was.

Two days later McDonalds called so I was able to pay her back. They also paid a little more.

[HereSince1628]

79. I got fired within 6 minutes of reporting

to a job 18 months ago.

The pay was $1.48 per hour. Really. It was through Veterans Administration

I objected to the overt gang culture permeating the workplace.

[Common Sense Party]

97. Gang culture? Really?

Yikes.

What type of business was it?

[TheManInTheMac]

99. Taking care of Paulie's calls?

[steve2470]

80. 72 hours maybe ?

I had a gig many years ago selling portfolios to new photo models.

Total scam.

Walked out after 3 days or so. God I was so naive.

[IrishEyes]

84. That depends

I had a permanent job that only lasted a week. It was as a receptionist at a place that did facials and waxing. The woman I was working for was crazy. The prior receptionist warned me but I didn't listen because I needed a job. There were two women who shared the office but they despised each other. Each woman had a receptionist to greet clients. We were not allowed to talk to each other or acknowledge each other in any way. Even though we sat right next to each other, we were not allowed to even say hello. I accidentally said hi to the other receptionist without thinking. The crazy woman's head appeared from the office and she glared at me. The next day I was fired. She even shorted me on my check.
It had a temp job that lasted three hours. They only needed someone to watch the front desk while everyone in the company was at a meeting.
I also left a temp job immediately. I was told it was a data entry, administrative assistant job. It turned out to be a strict telemarketing job. I told them that I couldn't do it and left.
At the hotel I worked at, two girls who were servers left after one lunch shift. They were hired that morning. They couldn't take the crazy bosses, disorganization and crappy equipment. They were right. I'm not sure why I stayed for a year and a half except it paid well.

[Earth Bound Misfit]

85. 3 hrs- Wally-World, Nov 1994

when they started the anti-Union propaganda film, I got up and walked out.

[MadrasT]

86. I quit one job before I started.

I was hired, and decided "meh, nevermind" before the first day of work.

[tammywammy]

87. I worked one night as a cocktail waitress. Never went back. n/t

[jmowreader]

88. Two months and it was a big mistake

A few months after moving to Fayettenam I got a temp job helping to close Western Publishing...they do Little Golden Books and lots of jigsaw puzzles. The job was not hard, just packing and shipping the remaining stuff in the Fayettevile plant. The day before they closed for good I got called into the plant manager's office. They offered to pay to move me to Racine, WI, and have me supervise a packaging line, but my wife (now ex-wife) refused to go.

[Munificence]

91. 3 days

3 days!

I quit a very good future in taking over for a business owner that wanted to retire. I personally retired at 40 years of age (I am 42 now) after selling my business that was identical to his for the most part.

Anyway, he had heard about me, still young, laying on my ass getting fat, playing the guitar and hanging out. So he made the proposition to me that he'd like to see if I would come on board, take over his company so that he and his wife could retire. Nice small company doing about $2 million a year in revenue with 13 employees.

After 2.5 days of snooping around it was a no brainer that this "old school" company needed to go at least out of the 1980's and into the new century with computer technology. Done a quick study and we could save around $300k a year by automating the old paper work/job tracking from paper to electronic form.

In the meantime the wife shows up and introduces herself to me, says that they are so happy to have found me and that everything is going to be so great moving forward with their retirement and me running the business. Then almost immediately she says:
"Tell me do you read the bible son". I was nice, told her not in years, but I did use to read it to my grandfather as he had lost his eyesight and still like to hear scripture at 89 years of age (that was 25 yeas ago). I have officially been to church twice in my life but only when I was between the ages of 6-10 as my mother drug me there for Easter on two occasions.

Well the 3 of us meet , and I discuss moving forward with updating the computer systems/software and getting up to speed with today's technology and you would have thought the 4 horsemen were at the door because the first thing she said was "We can't do that". I asked why and she said "We believe that computers are the devils work".

I left that eve and never returned. I turned down a pretty lucrative situation, guaranteed 10% of revenue as salary and as high as 20% based on revenue/profit margins....nope I'd rather slip back onto my couch, pick my guitar and let the world pass me by and enjoy watching my 3 young kids grow up verses being dictated to by "born-a-gainers"..

[olddots]

92. Nursing home kitchen 43 minutes

I cut jello into I inch cubes , broke eggs into a giant bowl and left my apron on the counter on the way out the door .
Then there was the time when I was a life guard at a car wash --badda bong

[harmonicon]

94. I think that depends on how you look at it.

I was written into the schedule at one place and removed before my first shift. There was a change of management, and I was gone as simple as that. I'd gone in a week or so before for sort of unpaid training, learning the register and pulling a few pints, but mostly just chatting with my friend behind the bar. If that counts, I guess 0 - 2 hours or something.

Other than that, it was however many days I had to go in to get paid for finishing up training. That was to do something - stocking shelves maybe? - at a Meijer. Dear god. The horror. What's even worse is that I noticed when I was last looking for work that that same job is now done by a contractor, which I'm sure means they aren't part of the union; that was their one redeeming quality as a company. They may have had shitty business practices, but at least they were union.

The real question is what is the longest I've ever held a job. I think it's about six months. I've never been fired though, so there's that?

[Common Sense Party]

96. Royal Prestige cookware.

I went to my one (and only) sales presentation in some young couple's run-down apartment.

I was supposed to sell them on why they NEEDED a $2000 set of pots and pans.

About 30 seconds in, I knew I was done.

I excused myself as quickly as I could, returned my samples, and got the hell outta there.

[AngryOldDem]

98. Two months.

I was also in a consultant's position at a firm that had turned me down not a month earlier for the same position I was filling.

It was a disaster from almost day one. The place had a big management shakeup where the HR person and a few others got fired. Then they started moving the goal posts about my job so that I never knew from one day to the next what I'd be doing, and I got no help or guidance on how to do it. Plus, the people there just generally sucked, and the company sucked even more (amazed it's still in business).

One day I just said fuck this shit, and told the consultant firm I was done.

[LeftishBrit]

101. In my case, 6 months; but I know of someone who got a 'permanent' academic job...

travelled from another country to Heathrow to take it; persuaded the university to pay for a taxi from Heathrow to said university (yes, you've read it right; a taxi not a coach or train; and the job wasn't in London); arrived at the university; decided that they didn't want the job after all; and turned back within 3 or 4 hours!