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Original poster

What is the shortest time you have stayed in a job?

130 replies

Honkytonky12 · 25/08/2022 22:21

I've been in my job for 2mths and I really hate it. I keep putting off handing my notice in but it's just getting worse and worse. Help me feel better 😭

OP posts:
NotanotherboxofFrogs · 26/08/2022 22:39

25 minutes. That was far too long.

I was on a YTS scheme and sent on placement to an office, (so was a teenager)

It was just me and the owner working in the office on an industrial estate, he showed me where I would be working,

hard plastic chair typing from a phone book on my knee doing data entry, my neck would have been ruined,

he told me how I had 30 minutes for lunch and if I wanted the toilet, it was at the far end of the building and I had to "earn toilet time", 30 seconds for every hour worked then

he commented about my clothes, I was wearing a blouse up to my collarbone with long sleeves and a pair of black trousers and brogues he advised that I should wear something lower cut and a skirt and heels, there was no contact with the public in this job.

This had taken 20 minutes in total as he droned on and on about what he expected the work production rate to be (no breaks in typing at all and done in complete silence),

I went out for a smoke before I started (I don't smoke) and left and went into the nearest phone box to let my scheme know what happened, No trainees were ever placed there again despite him contacting them many times.

Deathraystare · 27/08/2022 09:48

Two weeks in a reception area. Unlike other posters this was a temp job over Christmas, nothing to do with a bad job or me being crap! Mind you I have stayed much longer at crap jobs!

megosaurusrex · 27/08/2022 10:09

Two weeks but wish I'd left after 2 days tbh.
I was stuck in a job I hated almost as much for 2 years. I wouldn't do that now, life's too short!

VerifiedBot2351 · 27/08/2022 10:11

A couple of hours. No one spoke to me and I had no idea what to do. I walked out and didn’t go back.

100problems · 27/08/2022 10:22

6 weeks.

I took my resignation to every meeting and sat hoping the MD would have a stroke.

I've never met anyone so intrinsically unpleasant in my life.

balalake · 27/08/2022 10:34

Fourteen days, then had an internal job move.

@100problems to wish that on anyone, the MD concerned must have been really bad.

MrsLargeEmbodied · 27/08/2022 10:34

i have had crap interviews where i wish i had spoken out!
3 months i think was the shortest i think, walked out of the kitchen, clocking off time but other workers were staying behind cleaning,
they were menacing, like Prisoner Cell Block H

IsJohnReadyToMakeAComeback · 27/08/2022 10:42

26 years. Seriously.

100problems · 27/08/2022 10:42

Yep. He was. I'm absolutely not exaggerating. The entire company culture was run in his image too. Managers would go out to lunch and not come back.

My last day he screamed at my colleague in a meeting for 30 minutes. Afterwards my assistant, who was present throughout , said she couldn't feel her legs where she'd sat so tense in case he turned on her next.

YourLipsMyLipsApocalypse · 27/08/2022 10:50

One day.

I sat in an open plan office with about 8 other people and nobody spoke a single word the entire day. Absolute silence. I thought I had spontaneously gone deaf.

Whichwhatnow · 27/08/2022 10:52

I stuck out an awful door to door salesman job for 3 hours as a student 😬

I also quit what I had thought was my dream job after three months. It was horrific with the manager from hell. If it's making you that miserable life is too short!

Whichwhatnow · 27/08/2022 10:55

I'm genuinely wondering if your job was with a certain famous vacuum cleaner manufacturer. It sounds very similar 😆

Whichwhatnow · 27/08/2022 10:55

I'm genuinely wondering if your job was with a certain famous vacuum cleaner manufacturer. It sounds very similar 😆

FunsizedandFabulous · 27/08/2022 10:59

4 hours. It was a part time restaurant porters job. Got yelled at constantly. No minimum wage back then. I think it was £30 a day. So I thought nope, not for me, and walked out.

Whichwhatnow · 27/08/2022 11:00

Sorry, that was to @100problems!

100problems · 27/08/2022 11:00

Retail. I'm staggered they are still operating.

Hersetta427 · 27/08/2022 11:02

I once resigned on my second day. Knew it was wrong instantly- they buggered around with my start date and during that time I went for an interview with another company, they offered me the job two days into my new role. I resigned and worked one more day and they they said not to bother any more so I never went back.

Whole company was odd, no one spoke to each other and one women wrapped all her fruit in cling film - including bananas and oranges.

RaininginDarling · 27/08/2022 11:33

Less than an hour! I was in my twenties (a very long time ago). It was an admin job in an open plan but dark, cramped office, my job was to chase up overdue payments. Everyone just seemed so tense and unhappy and scared of the manager who was breathing down their necks (literally, the office was tiny). A wave of doom just came over me and I realised: I can't do this. It was so visceral, I was out of my seat and heading towards the door before I realised what I was doing. I apologised over my shoulder, picked up my coat and walked out. Got another admin role very shortly after. I still remember the utter elation as I walked away.

Topseyt123 · 27/08/2022 11:43

About three weeks I think. It was a long time ago.

With hindsight, I really have no idea how I lasted that long. They were a bunch of misogynistic, chauvinistic arses, and far from being their office administrator, I was actually their servant. Well, slave more like.

The day I left I spoke to the security guard on the door of the building where they rented office space. He told me that the lady who had had the job previously had also left in tears after only a couple of weeks, saying exactly the same things as me.

The employment agency also later told me that they had sent several people there with the same result every time, so they would now send nobody else. They weren't getting any fees from it because nobody lasted long enough for that.

I'm still angry about those twats over 30 years later.

DiscoStusMoonboots · 27/08/2022 11:47

A day and a half. I handed my notice in at lunchtime on the second day - the atmosphere was so shitty I didn't even care if it reflected badly.

DiscoStusMoonboots · 27/08/2022 11:48

Should add, it didn't harm me professionally. I walked straight into a similar role the following Monday.

LateSummerLobelia · 27/08/2022 12:32

Honkytonky12 · 25/08/2022 22:21

I've been in my job for 2mths and I really hate it. I keep putting off handing my notice in but it's just getting worse and worse. Help me feel better 😭

I spent 5 years in one job and knew within the first day I would hate it. The workplace was wierdly toxic. DH recalls me coming home the first day and saying; 'There is a really strange atmosphere'.

I stuck it out for many reasons and wish I had dumped it within my probation period of 3 months.

threecupsofteaminimum · 27/08/2022 22:36

10 minutes

Sumthingsweet · 27/08/2022 22:47

Two weeks , when I got a job in a call center I would call all my friends up and my mum 🤣p45

Sumthingsweet · 27/08/2022 22:49

I was 17 though 🤣we had to sell time shares , I decided I’d much rather talk to friends lol

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