What's your best story about quitting a job?

[GaYellowDawg]

I think I've got a pretty good one.

I had a December graduation from college and couldn't find a job right away, so I went to work at a Burger King to pay the bills. An assistant manager found out I had my degree and from that point on she was all over my back. I absolutely despised her and it was mutual. For that matter, every worker in the restaurant hated her.

As low man on the totem pole, I had to mop the restaurant every so often. Well, she'd go out to the floor to "inspect" the job I did, and every time, somehow something would get spilled. I got mad at her one day and told her that what I'd done was good enough. She said that if she told me to mop the floor seven times straight, I'd do it. I told her that hell would host the Ice Capades before I'd mop that floor seven times straight. Right then, I decided that I was going to quit, but I wanted to bide my time and quit at the worst possible time for her.

Primarily, I was in charge of tossing frozen patties on the grill. If I got behind, everyone got behind. The worst hour was lunch hour. The worst thing that could happen was for a bus to come in. One day, it's the peak of lunch rush, and not one, but two buses pull in. I was already tossing stuff on the grill as fast as I could, but she had to dash to the back and holler "There are TWO buses coming in!!" Bingo, that was the opportunity. So here was the conversation.

"Hey, Lori?"
"WHAT?!?"
"I quit."
"WHAT?!?"
"I said, I quit."
"You can't quit!"
"The hell I can't. I'm out of here, you BITCH."
"At least get through the shift!"
"Do it for the team? FUCK you."
"Who's going to work the grill?"
"I suggest you get your uptight ass back here and do it, because I haven't put a damn thing on the grill the whole time we've been talking."
"You son of a bitch!"
"Better stop name calling and start tossing burgers."

She comes storming back to the grill, cursing and throwing burgers on like mad.

"Hey, Lori?"
"I don't have time to deal with you!"
"You'd better make time."

I took my uniform shirt off.

"What are you doing?!?"
"Returning my uniform. You want the pants now or later?"
"WHAT?!?"
(thumbs under the waistband) "I said, you want the pants now or later?"
"LATER, LATER!"

I left, laughing. By the way, I had been fully prepared to walk out of there in my skivvies.

The postmortem: I came in two weeks later to pick up my final check. She was there. All the other workers were grinning and giving me thumbs-up type gestures. I got my check, and talked to one of them for a little bit (apparently my quitting was already a thing of legend), and the asst. manager said, "Is there anything else we can help you with?" in a real snippy tone. Mistake.

I turned around, grinned, and said, with every ounce of contempt that I could muster, "Yes. I'll have a #2 meal, and make it snappy." Every person on the crew cracked up. She was so mad that she just retreated to her office. I actually left to applause.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

1. You da man!!

When I first started reading this, I was going to fault you for leaving your co-workers in the lurch (it sucks when it happens to you). But clearly this manager was such a piece of work that it was worth the temporary inconvenience to see her get what she had coming.

From all of us who've worked in fast food with a dickhead manager, you lived out our collective fantasy!

My story isn't nearly as fun: I was supposed to teach a basic writing course at one of those private technical colleges. I show up on the first evening and there's only four kids in the class. The bright light, the veritable Rhodes Scholar of the group, had only failed the course twice, and one guy was on his seventh attempt. Collectively, they had failed Freshman English nearly twenty times! And the minute I walk in the room, they're asking basically, "How little can we do and still pass this class."

I quit during the break.

[Patiod]

2. That's a great story!

Mine is fairly tame. I worked for a certifiably crazy boss who yelled and screamed all the time, and generally made everyone's life hell. One woman even took me aside, and with eyes full of fear, told me "get out of here now, while you still can. He breaks down your self-confidence, and then you won't be good working anywhere."

As soon as I had worked there long enough to qualify for unemployment, I decided to make my exit on a Friday. This guy was so loony, and had so many buttons to push, that I knew it wouldn't be difficult to make him angry enough to fire me, but without any malfeasance on my part.

Packed up all my stuff over the week, and gathered up anything I might need (samples of my work, mostly).

He called me into his office and started yelling about some nonsense, and said "you know what, don't bother to come in on Monday." I asked him to repeat himself, and wrote what he said in my Day-Timer, then walked out.

On Monday, they called looking for me.
I said, "I was fired".
They said, "You know how he is - he didn't mean it."
I said "tell that to Unemployment."

They fought the claim, but lost. I was only out of work for a month or two, but I was glad that they had to help pay me while I looked for another job, this time with a saner boss.