If you have ever walked out of a job?

[exhaustedbutstillgoing]

Thought this would be an interesting thread as I was very nearly tempted today!

Have you ever walked out off a job and what was it that made you walk out?

I was a long term temp for an NHS eye hospital. After I was forced to sit on an upturned plastic box on the floor because they'd hired a permanent member of staff who took my desk: I walked. Made it to lunch time and fucked off outa there.
I'd been there for several months. They didn't bother to tell me or the agency my position wasn't available anymore (because it was available.... On the floor!!) just treated me like absolute shit.
Nasty nasty women in that department. Fuck them.

Yes, I walked out of one job after about six weeks because it had become clear that things would just never gel.

It was the London offices of a foreign oil company. I was one of only two women there, not that that should have mattered. The other one was just a complete bitch though, and that seemed to be why she fitted in there. It was a totally toxic atmosphere, with her cosied up to these misogynistic gits of men.

I was doing office admin and PA type work, which I had always enjoyed up until then.

I realised pretty much from day one that accepting a job there had been a big mistake. The men there were not gentlemen at all and I was more of a servant than a colleague. Nothing I ever did could ever be good enough and I received no training for my job. No induction or introduction to the company at all. Just thrown in there and expected to just get on with it. If you didn't just magically know what to do you were useless. I felt totally downtrodden and spent most nights and weekends in tears because of having to go back.

One Friday night I could take no more so I picked up my stuff and told them I would not be coming back. Then, I just walked. On my way out of the building I had a chat with the security guard at the entrance door to the building. He told me that several other women had also walked, just as I was doing. None had lasted more than a few weeks before leaving, usually in tears and telling him that it was because of the way that company treated them.

When I told the employment agency I had used what had happened they sighed and told me that they were having trouble placing anyone there for long enough to receive any commission. So it wasn't just me and I was relieved, in a way. The weekend after I had walked out I really felt as though a huge weight had fallen away and I was happy for the first time in a couple of months even though I didn't yet have another job to go to. That didn't take too long to sort out though, back in those days.

Yes I'd be there for a month. Woman I worked with was an utter bitch and it started to verge onto bullying. I left for lunch and didn't go back. I was a bit gutted as it was well paid but I ended up in a job I loved and stayed there for years.

I walked from a job in a children's nursery - after just three weeks, because the other staff (including the senior) were treating the children badly, and I witnessed so many instances of poor practice. I didn't want to be part of that - so quit. The place closed 6months later, and I'm so relieved that the children will now be in better places.

No. But I wish I had

18, worked in a pub. The owner realised we had more Sunday lunch bookings than joints of meat and started punching walls.

I walked out. My mother marched me back to apologise because he was apparently “under a lot of stress”, that meant I was in the wrong for leaving him in the lurch.

I now have my own daughter and if her boss behaved like that I’d be 100% on her side, demanding an apology and making sure the whole village knew what a violent man he was.

I walked out of a call centre job after 3 months. I wasn't making any sales, I had to cold call hundreds of people a day, telling them lies (that we had a buyer interested in their small business when it was just a ploy to get them to advertise the sale of their business on the company website), the call centre manager was a hateful man who stomped around shrieking at anyone who had the audacity to leave their desk for a toilet break.

Four toilet breaks of 5 minutes maximum per day. I took an unforgivable 5th toilet break and walked out of the building. I am always polite to cold callers these days. It's not their fault they are working for a bunch of cunts. Horrible, horrible job with a culture of bullying.

Yes. I found 2 colleagues talking about me. One of them was using my computer and left their online WhatsApp logged in, I saw a picture of me and scrolled up... it was awful. I reported it to HR and told them I was leaving that day.

Yes started a job at Thames Water. It was working in Customer Service , basically dealing with customers who hadn't paid their water bills / working out accounts where there had been water leaks.
Worked alongside the manager in the morning. In the afternoon was given a pile of backdated accounts to work through ( untrained ) Couldn't wait until end of day as I was feeling left alone and stressed.
Spent the night worrying about the following day but went to work. Dismayed was still expected to work on working out bills with near no training. Left at lunchtime never to return.

I was doing a 3 year hospitality and catering course. The first summer I was placed on placed in a hotel and I really enjoyed it. I was working in the accommodation sector.

The sector summer I was placed into work experience again in another hotel. It was a small hotel but it did have a function room and it held functions like weddings.

The people I worked for, they placed me into the accommodation sector. I didn't like it because I wasn't learning anything new. Eventually they placed me into the kitchen doing kitchen porting and the washing up of dishes as well as the accommodation sector. I hated it. I was interested in bar and restaurant service.

Eventually I learned there was two weddings booked back to back in the one week. One wedding on a Thursday and One on a Saturday. We never had the capacity to do that. It would have meant running staff of their feet in preparation for the functions and cleaning up after the functions.

The roster had me scheduled for 2 days off before the Thursday and the 2 weddings. I just never went back.

I look back on that and it's not even half of a patch of my current role. I'm a nanny for a family and it's just gone into a different realm to what I signed up for. It's gone into housewife material of work every day, morning til night - the childcare, the cooking and the cleaning and the laundry of the whole entire family. The lockdown was beautiful because it was the first time in along time I got a better work life balance because the parents came home to me more often instead of dossing off on parental duties. There was along time the parents placed more of an emphasis on their social lifes than coming home and relieving me of a day's work.

The mother is in her 40s now and probably peri menopausal and are moods are intense and she's dishing out a lot of dirt on me. Like last week, she looked into her fridge and cried to me - 'this messy fridge, really upsets my happiness' - almost as if to say - what the fcuk are you doing Blue, whtmy is my fridge like this? I was tempted so many times this summer just to not go back in and leave them to it to pick up their own dirty laundry, clean their own house, cook their own meals and mind their own children.

I work hard and I want to put my energies into a corporate establishment where I hope I will be appreciated more and I get paid properly. I never once got paid time and a half in my current role. There were work days where I worked from 8am til late at night. There were weeks I never even got a day off. There were weeks I stayed the night and up early from dawn with the young children and never sniffed time off until I fell into bed at midnight.

A lot of what I do is the work I do now is single mother terroritory. I don't have any issues with single mothers by the way. I never signed up to give away my life and work the intensity that I do.

I walked out of a temping job I had after graduating. This was in Norfolk in the late 90s. It was a small cardboard packaging company with a very small team; an office manager, sales person and two men working in the warehouse downstairs.
The main warehouse man, a hideous, miserable man, constantly made sexist and sexual jokes and remarks towards everyone but more directed at me. It got on my nerves, as you can imagine. He did this in front of everyone and nothing was ever said. The office manager was scared of him.
One time I made a cheeky remark back.
The next day, the office manager (female) sat me down and gave me a telling off. Please would I not make a comment like that as warehouse man found it offensive.
I remember how I shook with anger as I stood up and walked out. Funnily enough, the office manager was surprised. She thought I would just take it.
I told the temping agency what happened They called me in for a chat and I got paid a couple of weeks extra wages. They rightly identified it as sexual discrimination.

Yes it was about 20 years ago and I was in my early 20s .
My dd was young only about 2 or 3 but I'd always worked .
I temped quite a bit which was fine but I got a job and lasted 3 weeks and that was 3 weeks too long .
Most of the staff were young even younger than me which I'd never seen before and the managers my age at the time .
Anyway the managers were bully's
I was quite shy back then and they didn't like it that I couldn't commit to overtime because of my dd .If I knew that I had to do overtime I would never of took the job . I used to go home and cry because they would demand to know what overtime I was doing .
One manager literally screamed at me just because I answered him back one day and not in a rude way I just answered a question .
The last straw my bitch of a manager again shouting across the office what overtime I was doing and because I didn't want to or able to commit to any more hours she spoke to me like shit and said she wanted to know after lunch .
On my lunch break I got all my things together and went home .
I rang the next day and told them to send what I was owed in the post ( got paid by cheque) I remember I had to chase my pay a couple of times too the cheeky sod's .
Awful company, thankfully I got another temp job not long after .
I also remember weeks later I bumped into a ex colleague and she said oh you just went home, I said yes and walked on .
I think she was a bit bemused why but I think it was her first and only job and thought that's what work life was like .
Nooo
I wanted to quit a couple of other jobs since but mortgage and kids stops you so I've held out till I've had another to go to .
Always trust my instincts now because in hindsight I can tell on the first day if it's a toxic place.

First day of a supply teaching job and as I was greeting the children, one of the dads stormed over and pushed me against the wall while shouting obscenities.
He then pulled out a Stanley knife and waved it around in my face.
He had obviously mistaken me for a different teacher and was somewhat unhinged.
I left the class with the TA and went straight to the headteachers office. His response when told was 'yes that happens.'
When I stood staring at him he continued.
'was there something else? What do you want me to do about it?'

I collected my stuff and left. Then rang the police from the car.
Turned out that the man was wanted for violent knife crime and skipping bail.

Not really walking out of a job but deciding that I would leave before the end since it was a temp job.
Carpet sample factory - very bitchy and very much a 'bucket of crabs' mentality. Like to mock my nerdy hobbies and take the piss out of me since I was a student and it was the summer. That and the long bus commute and the slowly dawning realization that my DP at the time was about as useful as a marzipane dildo in the emotional support stakes - I wasn't allowed to be depressed you see.
It was somewhat like school but without the purpose.

I decided that I had made enough money and on the last day worked with a massive smile on my face - of course got even more piss taken out of me.
I SKIPPED out of the factory with a massive open mouth grin - even if I had to live off noddles and never go out was I ever going to work in such a shitty place again.

Very nearly. In a hotel, I was on reception, dealing with a guest, I was lovely, the General Manager walked around the corner and heard the end of the conversation. Guest happily went on his way and GM called me into the back office and started yelling at me for poor customer service. "You didnt ask if he'd like any newspapers, you didnt ask if hed like a dinner sitting etc etc". I was mortified as he was so cross and in front of 5 other members of staff. In fact I had asked the guest every question we were supposed to GM just hadnt heard. I couldnt get a word in with him shouting at me. I just held it together until he left the room and then I started crying.

My dh was out of the country at the time and uncontactable. I wanted to walk out but thought I should run it by dh first. Dh came home 3 days later and I told him and handed my notice in the next day

That experience taught me theres no way I'd put up with that level of disrespect and if anything similar ever happened again ( I doubt it would) I'd walk

@EmpressoftheMundane

Can you walk out when you have an employment contract that says you need to give three months notice?

Er...asking for a friend

Why not? I doubt they would pursue you. You might lose pay. What industry are we talking about?

I did when I was around 22. Working in an office, the two directors were having an affair and eventually got married, so it was pretty awkward and messy from the start. She started off being lovely to me for the first few years, but eventually she became more and more paranoid and jealous about anyone speaking to her now husband. It became and absolutely horrible atmosphere, and one day I had just had enough of her speaking to me like shit so I got up and walked out. She wrote me horrible references for the next few jobs I applied to, so it made me realise I definitely did the right thing!

I worked in a small shop when I was in my early 20s. I walked into the back stockroom to grab a till roll and my boss was in there wanking. I just turn around and walked out of the shop and never went back.

Yes, it was a truly dreadful place to be. I didn't realise how bad until I went somewhere else.

I've not been the one to walk out, but I think I've had colleagues walk out from most of the places I've worked... varying from just phoning up to announce they weren't coming back to silently walking out midshift. I have worked in some very stressful places.

No,iv had so many jobs I should have walked out of. But I never did. I always needed the money.

Years ago I worked in Film and TV crews. I was very young and it was my dream. I did a lot of unpaid work on shorts and student films and finally got a job on the set of a tv show. On my second day a man (he was married with kids, a great bloke, everyone loved him) who was very much senior offered me a lift to the station. On the way he pulled into a side road and unzipped his jeans expecting me to blow him. I was horrified, terrified and refused, managed to get out of the car and ran all the way to the station.

The next day I was no sooner in work than I was balled in by the producers and told how they’d been told by this man that I was useless on set, that I had a poor attitude to the production and that I didn’t have the experience etc. I was so worried I would lose my chance that I just apologised and said I wouldn’t happen again.

On that set I lived with horrendous bullying and constant sexual harassment from the much older men I worked with. I was literally told by a man in his 50s that I’d never get anywhere if I didn’t loosen up and learn to have fun and that he’d help me find more work if I was nice to him. When I tried to speak up about it I was met with a culture of silence and shaming.

In the end I was on the brink of a breakdown, my dream was in tatters and I wanted nothing to do with film or tv. I left when we broke for a holiday I decided not to go back. I told my folks that they’d let me go which was humiliating but not true. When I called production to tell them I wasn’t coming back and why they told me that this sort of behaviour from me didn’t bode well for my professional reputation and that I’d find that I’d struggle to get work blah blah blah. I hung up on her, this was a woman with daughters my age and she didn’t give a shit.

Anyway I was done with that industry and never went back. I retrained in a new field and do that now where I can work alone from home. I was very young at the time, I was possibly a bit naive and sheltered. It was 20 years ago now but it did sort of ruin my life for a while and I know it wasn’t an isolated incidence as similar happened to other young women I knew in the industry.

Yes, more than once. Panic.

I worked for a vet clinic as an assistant. One of the vets had a horrible temper and most staff refused to work with him. As the new person I was always the one who had to work with him. It was extremely stressful and he was so rude about everything treating us assistants like crap.
He hit a dog once because it wouldnt hold still. I told him i cant continue this, walked out and never went back.

I left a managerial role after disagreeing with the company strategy, not considering it to be good for the long term future. Was not prepared to implement it.

Painful until I found a permanent role, great since.