Have you ever walked out of a job/not returned?

[TravellingSpoon]

If so, what job was it?

Yes I was a student working in one of those pick and mix sweet shops. I had to wear vile bright pink dungarees. I walked out because the manageress was really horrible to me - had a massive chip on her shoulder about students.

I had to walk through the city centre in the pink dungarees.

my next job was McDonalds

Yes - one aged 24 at a supermarket where I was doing stupidly early weekend starts part time as a student.

I'd requested uniform trousers but the trousers in my size didn't fit properly so I asked if I could have skirts instead. My request was refused.
So as I couldn't actually wear the uniform I didn't go back.

(I did have another better job lined up luckily).

In the second job I was 21. My temp agency sent me to an insurance office & the clerical work was grindingly boring. The smokers in the office seemed to go outside every hour while I got very short breaks. It was a long day & I never went back, I asked the agency to find me another job.

I worked for a company that had a small call centre. When they had a recruitment drive they always took on more people than they needed because so many wouldn't last the week. The quickest was someone going out for lunch and not coming back. It wasn't even that bad a job, no cold calling, no selling.

Yeah. Working in retail at a very popular high street store. The manager spoke to me like I was a piece of turd. I told her we're to stick her job and left.

Twice! 1) Telesales and 2) door to door sales. I was a little lost at the time and found myself in situations where I just excused myself to the toilet and kept on going and 2) showed up to the base early, left the expensive goods at the door with a note and hid in parked car to make sure they got their stuff back!

4 hours induction in a nursing home..utterly horrendous....rang dp he came and got me.

I’m thinking about doing this at the moment and I need to make a decision this weekend As to whether I return on Monday. I started a new job on the 2nd January and I’m struggling to grasp it. I think I might get it eventually, maybe I’m being hard on myself. I can’t really put my family in a position of being short of money though which is what would happen if I bailed out. I don’t want the stress of being unemployed and potentially claiming or attempting to claim JSA. I’ve been looking for other jobs and applied for 5/6 over the past couple of days. I walked out of two jobs when I was in my early 20’s both legal secretary jobs. I stayed for the day and never returned. I stayed in my last job for 13.5 years though. I really hate working for other people these days. I’d love to set my own business up.

Yes. Retail job when I was in mid 20’s first moved to London and needed any job to pay my way. It was miserable. I was employed on the shop floor selling pieces of clothing that cost more than my months rent to people who to be honest we’re not very nice for a boss who was a twat. I just thought I can’t do this anymore. I went home thinking my partner would go mad- instead he said Thank God!! I hate that job!! Turned out to be a good choice. It made me focus on starting my actual career.

Handed in my notice this week for a shit retail job. I will work my notice but only because my colleagues are nice.

Manager a total little weirdo with a dumber and dumber hair cut who would never get back to me (work alternative shifts). I took great pleasure in silencing my phone today after multiple phone calls and a voicemail demanding I call him immediately to discuss my notice...there's nothing to discuss

We used to take bets on how long some agency staff would last. One was 10 minutes. I really dont understand why, it was a bit of a shitty task (cleaning tyres 8 hours a day) but you got left on your own after training with radio/TV and friendly enough staff.

Three times.

1st. My first job after leaving school in the stores section of a large car sales/garage. I was treated like shit from day one by everyone and hated having to go in every day. Mostly due to the foul atmosphere as everyone else in there had some sort of fiddle going on so that they spent their days cooking the books or stealing parts to do car repairs on the side etc and resented everyone else for their own fiddles in a one-sided "Why can't they cut me in on their fiddle while not getting anything of my fiddle" greedy attitude. It was obvious to all that I didn't fit in as I made no effort to learn how to start up a fiddle of my own so wasn't trusted to do anything more than the most menial of tasks. After about six months, I'd had one haranguing too many from the foreman and didn't turn up the next day. They rang me and ordered me to turn up the next day or never turn up again so I took them at their word and didn't go back.

2nd. Working on a building site near Euston Station. It was incredibly grim with several fatalities from accidents and I had a complete bully of a foreman who hated my guts for "Being a posh cunt" by having the cheek to finish my secondary level education unlike him. I worked as a brickie's mate mixing cement and stacking blocks all day. There were supposed to be three of us doing this but the other two were a bit too fond of smoking dope all day to bother doing a full day's work so it all landed on me. Then one day, while hauling a trolley laden with bags of sand up a steep ramp, the other pair decided to let it go "For a laugh" and I had to leap out of the way. I complained to the foreman about their 'prank' to be told that he was sorry it missed me so I called him some choice names, walked off the site and never went back, not even to collect the half week's pay I was owed.

3rd. A computer store in the late '90's. I was doing Saturdays to see if I wanted to be full time as I was doing a computer course during the week. I did a couple of weekends and realised it was a total rip-off joint. They were using the same Windows disc to install on every machine and the same with any software so that even the smallest change made by the user would require them to bring it back to the store to be 'fixed' as there was almost nothing installed on their computer. That and we were expected to 'Upsell' like crazy by bamboozling the customers into buying 2 or 3 times more than they actually needed. I called in before my next shift and told them I'd found something else. I hadn't at the time but did find something much better as soon as I finished my course. A guy on the course with me took over my job and, being a gullible fool, got himself into a lot of trouble when he ended up being the 'Front' for their next scam which involved installing computers for small businesses "On the cheap" in a "If it seems to be too good to be true, then it probably is" fashion.

In my mind all the elves escaping from Lapland did so in costume, in some sort of reindeer pulled sleighs driven by Sami in traditional outfits. Please don't tell me otherwise

Ha. Before I escaped, I got left in the Forest one day after dark. I had been ‘planted’ by the side of the road to frolic amongst the trees in my costume, so that the guests would glimpse me as their coach drove past when they arrived from the airport. I wasn’t supposed to be there for long, but after the coach passed by nobody came to collect me. It got dark. It was -40 degrees. I was starting to panic when I heard a tinkling of bells and saw fairy lights approaching through the trees. Thought I must be hallucinating with the cold and general spookiness; but then Santa (aka Ken) emerged driving the reindeer sleigh with cig in hand, with a “Sorry doll, the skidoo broke down so they sent me to fetch you on the way back from my grotto”. Surreal.

It might also amuse you to know that I kept in touch with one of the elves who stayed, because she couldn’t afford the escape flight. She told me that things went even more downhill, and on Christmas Day there was no food at all for the elves (the routine was we were given leftovers after the guests had eaten, and on that day either there were no leftovers or they just forgot to deliver to the elf cabin).

Anyway one of the elves had got friendly with the husky man, and he turned up and offered to take them all to a ‘bar’. So off they all went in the husky sled, to a shack in the woods where they got hammered on some god awful Finnish moonshine. The pissed husky man then drove them all back at breakneck speed, the sled hit a tree and overturned. One of the elves broke her leg and had to be airlifted out. “Lucky cow,” said my friend in her letter (yes an actual letter; this was twenty odd years ago...) “She got to go home.”

Yes, in a Young's pub. I was writing a book at the time and needed to get out and do something physical for pocket money - so I washed up, brilliantly, in the local gastropub.

I was the only woman. The gentlemen were not pleased to be working in a mixed environment. They gave me a third-degree burn by flinging a baking tray of boiling fat at my head. I caught it, hence the burn on the wrist.

The waiter grassed me up for eating a chip I didn't come back and they rang me incessantly to get me to come in because 'no one can cope'.

The profit margins in those pubs are insanely high - but Youngs dock your NMW for going to the loo. A fiver a pee, as I recall. I had to threaten to sue them to get back pay.

Yes. I was pregnant, horrendously ill, had an absolute twunt of a manager who made my life hell. One day he was being particularly cunty and vile. At lunch while he was out I cleared out my cabinet into a carrier bag that I had, then waited until 4pm when I was leaving as I was on reduced hours due to the sickness. The next morning I called in sick and went to my GP and got myself signed off until the end of the pregnancy. I told him by email I wasn't returning. He was far from happy. He knew it was because of him but I was protected as I had hyperemisis so it was pregnancy related sign off (the reality was i was coping with support). I'm a solicitor and was working on a huge case. I did no handover, nothing. I felt a huge relief.

VenusClapTrap being rescued by Santa from an unpleasant death is both wonderful and terrifying.

When I was 20 I walked out of a telesales job. I'd been there a couple of weeks and absolutely hated it. The boss was awful, I just couldn't take it anymore. So I went out for lunch and never came back. And when I was old enough to know better 29, I had a row with my boss and stormed out in a huff. I had 2 kids by then though, and needed the job, so had to go back with my tail between my legs.

Dont suppose theres much other employment for elves. Ripe for exploitation.

I really think The Elves of Lapland would make a great TV show.

Oh. Got one of my own. Again not a full walk out but a walk off the job. I worked in a bank and was left on my own on the counter for ages with an endless queue out of the door. I was absolutely desperate for a piss and everyone who could have opened another till just sat there with their head down.

I stuck the closed sign up and went. Blessed relief

@Wollycardi why do you regret it?

I was hired as a Graduate Financial Assistant. It soon emerged that the job was basically entering a number from a receipt into a database and pressing a button to get a printout then stapling it to the original receipt. Over and over again for 40 hours a week. I walked out after two hours. When they phoned to find out where I was, I explained that I’d been led to believe it was a graduate job with prospects but it clearly wasn’t. They said of course it’s a graduate job, we added the word Graduate to your job title 🙄

Yep, a newsagents. I'd worked out that me & another we're paying a different tax % (same age etc), so I asked for my payslips 3 times. They never materialised & on the fourth time of asking he screamed at me on the shop floor. I walked out. Our tax money was lining his pocket because only one of the staff was on the books. He fled shortly after, not sure if because of this or because he was dodgy in other areas of his life

Yes from the local council. Best thing I ever did as I’m now in a job I love.

Venus, that’s the best thing I’ve read in ages! Well obviously shot for everyone who was stuck there but it’s a bloody good story

Twice for me, 1 straight after the other, I don't regret either. Both respectable pharmaceutical companies.

1. The job I'd interviewed for actually wasn't really available for 6 months so instead of the research job I was expecting they stuck me in the factory, it was noisy, dirty and freezing. I stuck it for 4 days as I'd left a good job and they were paying me researcher's wages for a factory job but I couldn't hack it.
2. The manager and all the staff in my department were hideously racist to a young middle Eastern chap who worked there, lots of plane / 9-11 "jokes" and such. He was too scared to complain as the company had paid for his work visa and he never said anything back. I pulled up every comment I heard but when the manager joined in openly I walked out. Found a brilliant job a week later.