To ask what is the shortest you stayed in a job?

[Jax07]

And why you left?

Mine was 4 months and I left because the commuting. (2hrs each way) I thought I could do it but I couldn't... it also didn't help that my boss was hard work.

When I was a teenager I lasted for one day of a paper round...

I had a 'proper' job a few years back but it transpired that the job didn't exist so I'd left my last job to sit and twiddle my thumbs. Think I lasted about 2 weeks there, luckily my old employer missed me and took me back!

Half a day
Tg I didn’t stay, ramped up one element which I was interested in but I could see very quickly it was over exaggerated and I would have loathed it

No harm, just took the next one

Another job in a pub, walked out half way through the 4th evening.
The manager was furious and called the people who had been my referees, they both told him, it wasn't me, it was him.
Turns out he was well known for being a slimy creep.

My first job I was there 5 years. Currently been in this job 31 years!

My eldest daughter lasted two shifts at Victoria Secret/Pink. They wanted her to work 2:30pm-11:30pm every day with only one day off, and she wasn't allowed to swap shifts. After work she'd have to venture into a pretty empty car park on her own (she was 19 but looked more like 15). Decided it wasn't for her.

5 weeks, including one week's notice period. I started job hunting on my second Tuesday there, had an interview on my third Wednesday and resigned on my fourth Friday!

The file counts all of the fee earners had were hideous (there was a trainee with 1,000 files in her name!). I decided the job wasn't worth potentially losing my practising certificate for, when I dropped the ball due to sky high file numbers. I ran and haven't looked back!

My first office job was in sales. The job was awful. I managed two months, and became one of the longest standing members of staff in the team.

Often people would disappear at lunchtime on their first day. In the two months I lasted at least two people did that.

The winner though, was a guy that came in, got shown to his desk, asked to make a quick phone call and never returned. Ten minutes max he lasted.

About 3 weeks at a Scottish power call centre. Two weeks if that was 'training' but once the team went live answering phones it turned out we hadn't been even remotely trained! Lasted less than a week after that.

2 weeks. Twice. The first I was 18, working as admin for a horrible solicitor who expected tea brought to him at regimented times, god help you if you were on the phone and it was late. He also had a nasty little dog that would growl at you constantly, and a secretary who was pretty much the same as the dog. Nasty place to work, I quit without notice.

Second was admin for another bigger firm of solicitors, it was an ok place to work but I had just completed an accountancy qualification so not what I wanted. One week in I got offered my current accounts based job, which I took. I did work my weeks notice for them.

3 days

It was a PA job for a social services manager and it turned out there was precious little work to do, probably because the manager themselves was basically doing a non-job. I did suggest going part time instead and was told that they had to have a full time PA "because everyone else had got one"

2yrs only left because I was moving to another country

One day.

Got a job when I was 15 in a barbers as a Saturday job, sweeping, making tea, washing hair.

Realised very quickly that they were a bunch of perverts. Spent my first day being sexually harassed.

Was left waiting outside because they opened up late, owner turned up hungover smoking a spliff.

Lads in and out all day just hanging around boozing.

Made my mind up at the mention of the 'back room service'.

Was awful. Never went back.

2 hours. I got a job through a recruitment place, turned up and they expected me to be able to use this crazy busy switchboard thing which I had zero experience of and wasn’t given any training on. After 2 hours of cutting people off, transferring to wrong extensions and god knows what else I thought fuck this and left.

2 weeks, make shift call centre where you had targets to sell phones but nearly every person we called said their phone was a company phone and they couldn't upgrade it themselves. O was 16 so didn't really care. The place was a shambles and I would never work in a call centre again after that.

2 months was my shortest one. The longest one I've had was 2 and a half years but I'm only 28 and spent 4 of my adult years being a SAHM.

I hope to stay in my current job for a long time.

3 hours (excluding the week of training). It was a children's party entertainer. You were supposed to shadow 3 parties before taking your own but they thought I would be fine.

They were wrong. Never got invited back and was too scared to call up and ask where the payment for the training was.

Faked sickness a couple of hours into my second shift at a popular fast food place so I could go home. Didn't go back. The manager treated everyone like shit.

1 hour

I always wonder if someone I worked with, comes up in these. We recruited to a 0.8 (4 days a week) post, and the woman seemed lovely, etc.

The week before she started - she was working her notice in her previous job - she got in touch to ask if it could be 3 days per week. I said yes, but it was X no of hours, and so it would be long days. She said she didn’t have childcare after 5.30, but would see what she could do..... on her first day, she asked to leave early to get her child, as nursery closed at 5pm, a good 1/2 hour away. Ok fine. We’d talk about work patterns on her second day.

On her second day, she asked to work 2.5 days. We had the same conversation as previously - that we could be flexible, but the role required a certain set of responsibilities to be covered.

On the third day, she emailed at 6am to say she wouldn’t be back!

I always wondered why she applied for, and accepted, a job that she simply couldn’t manage to cover the hours for. If she’d sat down with me and been open from the first, we probably could have done something, but the daily ‘oh, and there’s something else’, made things hard.

Two weeks as a waitress. Loathed it. Won’t tolerate being treated like shit by customers. I make every effort to be polite and patient with servers in restaurants and clean the tables when we leave. I know from the other side it’s a bloody hard job.

Half a day.

I knew shouldn't have taken it at the time, I even declined the job when they first offered it to me, as after the interview it was clear I didn't have the depth of experience needed.

They talked me into it, saying I was the right person and I would be fully supported.

First (and only) day, I was shown my desk and had a huge to-do list. I was dropped right in it. No support. Lunchtime I left and didn't come back!

Had a very awkward conversation with HR.

Some of these are hilarious, though they sound pretty horrendous at the time.

I have a lot of sympathy for entry level jobs, usually young people without much experience. My son has been in a job for five months and he’s now their longest serving employee (apart from various managers). The mind boggles at the thought he’s now training others.

Three days, one of which I took off sick because it sent my anxiety skyrocketing. The job was not as advertised and completely not what I applied for or am trained for.

Two night shifts. It was apparent that the care home manager was a psychopath.

Ten years later, she was in the local newspaper for abusing dementia residents and tormenting staff.

1 day. I took a "marketing" job when I was a student. I should have known better but I needed a job and they made it sound great in the interview.

Turns out it was being one of those clipboard people. Never went back. I got paid £9 for a 12 hour day as well.

7 weeks, at HMRC. I'd been made redundant from an investment banking job and was struggling to find something similar. I decided on a complete life overhaul and that a civil service career on 25% of my previous pay was just what I needed. Job security, flexitime, gold plated pension and no stress.

I spent 7 weeks photocopying, tidying the stationary cupboard and filing, I was bored to actual tears and the bureaucracy incensed me. I felt more stressed out than I had on a trading floor, so I started interviewing again after a week and left after 7. I am not cut out for the civil service!