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?

Yes. 2004 I signed up with an agency while I was at University to earn a bit of extra cash. The agency offered me a packing job in a warehouse in the next town. My sister also signed up and we went together. Once we arrived, we went in and introduced ourselves and from the outset a couple of older women were quite nasty to us, snapping at us when we weren't sure what we should be doing (we hadn't been shown in the first place) and were downright spiteful. Some staff were ok with us but we were the only agency ones there and were really made to feel like outsiders due to these two old hags. The final straw came when at break time we both went into the cloakroom to get things from our bags and those two women came in and accused us of spraying deodorant in there and that we were deliberately trying to give one of them an asthma attack. We hadnt sprayed anything! We just looked at each other and walked out . Rang the agency to explain but they didn't want to know!

@DipSwimSwoosh

Eurocamp. Aged 19. I walked all the way from France to England.

That's got to be the longest flounce ever 😂

Always worked another P/T job in addition to my main job when younger, as moved out at 18 and was always skint.
Had an evening job at Tesco for a while, doing stock control/rotation, which was fine except there weren't always enough of the machines to go around the team and the stools were always in short supply. Being 5ft nothing meant I really needed the stool to do my job!
I worked my arse off there and was constantly busy.
One day our manager, whose shift always finished about half an hour into ours and who had an uncanny resemblance to Curly Watts, pulled me aside to say he'd heard reports that I was 'wandering around'.
I replied that simply want true. If I'd been seen 'wandering around' it was only to locate the equipment I desperately needed to do my job.
Was so pissed off that I pinned a note to his board and walked out, only returning to drop off my uniform. Thankfully had just been paid and has already taken slightly more annual leave than I'd accrued.
Never shopped there again. The warehouse are was so disgusting it used to make me gag.

I applied for a job at a soft play type place that did food as a birthday party host, really it was a glorified waitress job but sounded do able. Aced the interview and agreed to an unpaid work trial. I really wanted this job as hours were perfect for looking after young ds and I wanted a change to working in a school environment.

I left half way through the work trial;
Children's party food was left in a warm pantry from 8am and the last party of the day was 4pm.
Thick black mould on the sink, dishwasher and pot trays.
Filthy floor and walls.
Witnessed staff going for fags or toilet and not washing hands.
Food dropped on the floor and still being severed out.
And the worst bit was being shouted at by angry dad as his food was late. I apologised and explained I was only there for a trial and he said he'd wait for me when I finished and f#$k me up if I didn't fetch his food soon.

Grabbed my coat and bag and left. The boss phoned me later and offered me the job. . Hell no

I walked out from a job after a year of torment and micromanagement by my manager. I worked in a PR job where I was left in tears on a business trip in Sweden. We were with clients in a vehicle where we were going for a meal after a long day running an event and he was literally telling me off in front of the clients over photographs of the event and how he didn't like them. I don't know what got into me but I already had my coat on and my bag on my lap and I just got up and told him that he should have hired a photographer for the event and that he should also find a new coordinator. I threw the camera on the seat and told the driver to stop and I got off and walked off. I switched my phone off and went back to the hotel and checked out of the hotel. I asked my sister to lend me some money and book me a flight, so I went to the airport and waited for the next flight. When I got home, I sent a long email to the Director. By the way, there was nothing wrong with the photographs I took, in fact it was even published in a industry magazine and it's still on clients website and their social media account.

yes, a few years back I was doing temp work for a well known retailer, it was awful how they treated staff despite having a documentary claiming how 'good the work environment is' complete bs, no fire safety or store tour, shouted at for bringing my inhaler with me on the shop floor, about 4 hours in I had enough and said I was going to the toilet but walked to the back got my bag and left as quickly as I could. Turned out the agency had struggled to get people to stay at the store and offered to pay me the full shift to apologise.

@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

To a point yes. My last job was 3 months notice and I resigned but wanted to shorten the notice period, my line manager dithered (he was shit), so I told him I was leaving on the Friday. He told me I legally couldn't, simply told him to take me to court. I handed my laptop and car back on the Friday, never to return. Didn't hear another thing from them.

i have been wracking my brains and forgot a fairly recent top up weekend job, i work in the week anyway.
in a kitchen.
it was like Cell block H,
such awful bitches. gave everyone a piece of cake and hid mine for example, pushed passed me, terrible attitude. The boss and her assistant were ok
it was time to go but for some reason they decided to make a big deal about cleaning the kitchen, they were so foul, it was clocking off time so i just clocked off and went!

Two jobs I really regret not walking out of, one of which I knew from day one would be awful but ended up staying 8 depressingly miserable years.

One job I did walk out of - working in the admin office of a Maximum Security prison. The atmosphere was awful, really oppressive, bullying of prisoners and staff, the governor was off on long term sick leave. I walked after two days, couldn't take any more, was already stressed and in tears by lunchtime day one. Two prisoners committed suicide the next week. Hateful place.

@Bunnybigears

Agency work on the packing part of a production line a friend and I got the job to tide us over at Uni. The product was still very hot when it got to us but we weren't allowed gloves the sellotape machine was broken and you were in constant danger of slicing a finger off. We couldn't keep up with the speed of the belt we were constantly being shouted at and told any product that fell off the end because we hadn't packed it was coming out our wages. Then they decided to speed the belt up. Our eyes met and we just turned as one and walked straight out listening to the product falling off the end of the line as we went.

I do hope it was something fragile?

Yes a long time ago. Our boss had no tact, overly critical and could be quite rude. One day she insulted me and my work. I walked out. As I left she said "come back, I was only joking" . When I got home the phone was ringing. It was her. I enjoyed listening to her apologise, grovel and beg for a long time. Then she went "so are you coming back tomorrow?"
I declined.

What I don't get are the people (mostly women IME) that treat you like shit when you are there, but when you leave they go on and on about how they miss you....

Can't help thinking in my case it was because me leaving meant that one of THEM would have to be the butt-monkey instead, not that they actually missed me - they hardly knew me.

Office job, huge organisation. Enjoyed the work and had decent manager, despite them not recruiting to fill vacancies so I was doing 2-3 jobs.

A year later it was more like 5-6 people's jobs and my manager was horribly stressed and started trying to micromanage.me (while having no time to do so). And between Admin and Finance, no-one would replace a piece of disability equipment I needed to avoid pain.

Set up a meeting with manager about that and workload. She didn't turn up. I walked out and cried by the river and phoned DH.

Who had.just been told he was being made redundant. He persuaded me to talk to someone I trusted to kick arse at work, I went back a few days later, my boss quit which ironically made things easier, and then they offered me redundancy.

I took the money and ran.

Yes I had an incompetent and Vindictive boss who gave me a frankly unfair and untrue year end rating so I had a meeting to discuss which got heated and I walked straight out of the office to my lawyers office and a high settlement and have not been back.

Years ago. I walked out of Horrid's beauty hall. I worked for Prada when they briefly had a very shitty and overpriced beauty range. What a lousy job. Worst ever. My manager accused me of laughing about Coochie Thrush (Gucci Rush) on the shop floor with paying customers. Never happened! As if! It was so ridiculous (but effing funny, I have to admit!). I was called into the head office and sat down at one of those looooong ass tables where you practically need to speak into a megaphone to the people at the other end. And so I was asked about Coochie Thrush and if I had ever uttered these words. Because it was actually the first time I'd heard the accusation, I burst out laughing and then went into total shock when I realised, "Fuck. This is serious. I am actually being accused of this."
My manager was an absolute trophy winning dickhead and horrible to work with. So really, it was easy to walk. I'd put up with so many lies and such bitchy treatment from him. I'd had enough. I didn't have the interest or love of the place to fight for my job. I went into work the next day, manager said something really snide and offensive. For the life of me, I can no longer remember what he said that was the final straw (it's nearly 20 years ago). I just grabbed my coat and left. My manager running after me telling me to come back as I disappeared into the crowd and out the door was the best Up Yours feeling ever. But the novelty quickly wore off. Being unemployed and pregnant was slightly more terrifying.

I’ve realised reading this thread that I’ve done this three times! Twice as a feckless student: walked out of a holiday temping role in an office just because I was bored, also walked out of a retail weekend job because I was always hungover and couldn’t face it anymore.

Then, years later I walked out of my teaching career. I didn’t realise how burned out I was. I didn’t know I was walking out forever but I never went back. When it came to it, I couldn’t physically walk back into that building. I didn’t even go back to collect my things. I still find it so strange that I didn’t know it was my last day there and that I never said any goodbyes.

Now I’m self employed doing a job I love and I work from home. I’m much better suited to this kind of life!

Once.

Mid acrimonious divorce, having relocated, given up my old (well-paid, responsible) career, and had to claim benefits, I got a job in a national award winning local retail shop. The manager on my department treated me like I was a piece of shit - I got all the scabby jobs, like, really really grim, not allowed to do the 'prestige' (but actually really fucking basic, just looked good in front of the customers) jobs. The working conditions were appalling, I worked all over Christmas, my first as a single parent with zero support from their dad, silly shift times, nmw. This carried on for months until one day I'd had enough of the shit jobs and bullying and belittling. My manager told me that if I didn't like it to tell the owner, so I walked straight off the shop floor, up the stairs and into his office and told him exactly who he had working for him. I walked out having dumped my mucky uniform in the skanky staff room that was not much more than 3 broken mismatched dining chairs. Less than 3 months later I signed up to a career-changing college course, started uni a year later and am now 8 years into my dream job. Life's too short to be treated like crap.

OK not really walking out of a job, more that I was grateful to not walk IN to this one.
6 months of unemployment post PhD, still doing write up. Get a potential placement - It's warm calling at a family business re Weddings and stuff. However, it is in the arse end of nowhere, car-only commute and 6 days a week (A one day weekend whoopedy doo!)

It never materialised, then I got a temp placement for the next 6 months at a college on a bus route outside my house, glad that the previous job didn't happen.

Yes. I was 18/19.

We'd had a change of management whilst I was on sick leave (was in a dv relationship at the time) and as soon as I returned to work she just made it clear she wanted rid. So she started micromanaging. All of a sudden I wasn't allowed to wear a cardigan on shift, despite working nights and the halls being freezing. She refused to allow us to turn on the heating and refused to sort out uniform fleeces so we weren't freezing cold. I received a disciplinary for a concoction of bullshit.

I went in for my disciplinary meeting and she ran thru all these "charges" some of which had been twisted, some of which were complete fabrications of things that never happened, and then there was cardigan gate. I tried to say my piece and she talked over me and at times outright called me a liar. She asked if I had anything to say, I looked at her and looked the bloke who was sitting in with her. Stood up, told her that she's "clearly made up her mind" and if she "won't listen to me then there's no point continuing this meeting" followed by "you can stick your job up your arse, I'm out" and walked out.

I don't regret it a bit. But I've never been so bold since, any jobs I've left since then I've done it properly and handed in my resignation.

Yes, three times I have left a job, without a job to go to.

Disclaimer, this was years ago, when I'd no dependants and obviously not in the middle of a pandemic.

Each and every time, it was the absolute right thing to do, and led to me climbing up the ladder and to earning my optimum potential salary.

I wouldn't have progressed so much career wise if I'd have lingered about where I was.

Each and every time I left when I'd reached my limit, but not at the point where I was beginning to stew, this meant I could move forward being grateful for each stepping stone I had, and not having any resentment or negativity behind me, and the door was always left open for me.

Just reading some other PPs comments, perhaps my walking out doesn't count, as I did actually hand in my resignation each and every time...

Kind of. I walked out of teacher training without telling anyone at the school I was training in that I wouldn’t be returning. Went to uni the next day and told them and they sorted it with the school. I never went back.

Only once. I worked for an American man and most days he would find something to scream about. His face would get redder and redder. If he was looking for a reaction from me he hired the wrong person. I would just sit expressionless while he yelled and screamed until he stooped and I would continue with my work.

One day he was in a particularly foul mood, his secretary was on leave and he couldn't find a file. He opened the cabinet, drawer after drawer and dumped all the files on the floor. He then screamed at me 'pick them up!' Instead I picked up my bag and coat and walked out.

I worked in a pub when I was young. It was one of my very first jobs. I was shy and quiet but worked hard because I was a people pleaser. The wife of the pub manager was rude to me on a regular basis. She blamed me for a mistake on someone’s bill that was absolutely nothing to do with me and I decided that was the last time she was going to speak to me like that so the next time it was time to go on my shift I didn’t go back.