Some jobs are so unnecessarily bad that it almost seems like the managers are competing in some secret contest to determine who is the truly worst boss. After all, employee turnover isn’t that uncommon and even a competent manager’s style might not work with every employee. But to have the entire team Quit at once really takes some work.

Recently, a person asked the internet to share their stories of job experiences so bad, all the staff walked out at once. So scroll down and upvote what you think are the wildest ones, and comment your own stories. And if you want to explore other horrible job experiences, Bored Panda has you covered, so check out some more here. 

#1

Boss man told workers hell fire them for discussing wages, someone left a copy of the federal law protecting our rights to discuss wages on his desk, he gathered everyone into his office where he pinned the papers to a wall and shot them with his shotgun and then says anyone who discusses wages will be next. Wel all left and someone called the anonymous police line about a shooting at the place.

Image credits: DickLickingGoodness

#2

Record profits are made. The ceo an managers get raises " lunch brakes will now only be 10 min and there will no longer be free food. We did good but not good enough so no raises for yall this time " 10+ people walk out to never return

Image credits: AnnoyingDiods

#3

Oh fun one. Our salon lost our manager to having a new baby and becoming a SAHM. It was sad to see her go. So our DM comes in and says he's hiring from within the salon. He's been looking at our sales , client retention and what not to pick.

Meanwhile for a month or so we had no manager. So Becky took the role on and did great. ( We still had paperwork and orders that needed done) She set up a cleaning schedule. She fixed a lot of simple issues that our old manager just didn't see issues with. Our schedule was written out for the entire month . Basically she stepped up and put in a lot of work she didn't get paid to do. Becky also had a really bad back. Was 45 and did hair for 27 years. If anyone needed to manager it was her. Her client list had gone down a bit, but she was still very busy.

Tara had worked their six months at this point. And Tara was not a team player. She would put your sales commission on her account accidentally. She would say things like she's paid to do hair not clean. Not to mention, she weight shamed everyone. Skinny fat in between. She found hurtful things to say about everyone. But she would be loud and laugh and be goofy. So we kinda just rolled out eyes and moved on . She was 23 and had a decent client list and remained " busy" . But here's the thing. She wasn't busy. Her friends would come in, hang out and whatever. Sure, she would do a wash and blowdry. But that's $20. No cutting no coloring. When her actual clients came in, she would do their hair and after they left, her and her friends would laugh about them. Our old manager had to tell her if her friends aren't there to get their hair done they don't need to hangout.

So DM comes in and sees all these clients / friends waiting on Tara. His dumba*s thinks that Becky overstepped her role and Tara should be managing.

The best part. We all looked at each other and started packing our bags. 6 people walked out. Tara crying that this isn't fair she earned this and we are just jealous bit**es. We went as a group and rented spots at a different salon. The old one shut down a month later. Because we take our clients with us. And washing your friends' hair doesn't keep the salon a float.

Image credits: Inner_Art482

While these may seem extreme, many companies are actually facing mass voluntary turnover, as workers choose to find other opportunities. Many have learned to not take themselves for granted and will leave bad jobs quickly. In 2021 alone, 45% of resignations were from people who had worked at a position for less than a year. The sunk cost fallacy still affects us, however, so this number drops to 8% after at least three years in a position.

Now, maybe that’s too harsh, if you are fine with your workplace, you’ll probably stay more than a year, if you can. Certain industries do suffer more turnover than others. Annual turnover in the US is around 18%, but it goes up to 30% for retail and commerce. These positions, particularly in service roles, have the misfortune of having to deal with potentially terrible managers and the general public. On the other hand, the energy industry experiences only around 15% turnover, as power infrastructure might kill you, but won’t yell at you for doing your job. 

#4

Landscaping company. We were already stretched to the breaking point because the owner would never hire enough help. Then he decided it was a perfect time to take a new project...over two hours away from where anyone lived. Multiple people quit after this announcement. I stayed for another few days and then quit.

A few weeks later, he was calling everyone and begging us to come back because the property owners were furious with him over the work not even being started. I told him I'd already gotten a new job. He swore at me and hung up lol

Image credits: apocalypticradish

#5

They called in a consultant. This guy's "brilliant" idea was to totally switch business models and go from selling one type of product (which we had tons of clients willing to buy and were making great money) to selling a completely different product and turning all of our production staff into salespeople. After the announcement:

Day 1: three people left

Day 2: four more left

Day 3: it was down to me and the two owners, I lasted another week and then left.

Company went under in about 3 months.

Image credits: jippyzippylippy

#6

I had a boss that colluded with some new hires and family members to vote out the union. We lost our pension, benefits, and guaranteed rates overnight. They only needed 40% to pass. Everyone who voted to keep the union quit within a month.

Image credits: fourfingersdry

Despite the general chaos in the world economy since COVID, there is a growing sense of confidence among workers. Many of the stories here may have appeared risky, as quitting on the spot can be terrifying. You don’t know how long it will take to find a new job, how quickly you will have income again, and other concerns. But 36% of workers stated that they were ready to quit without having another job lined up for them. 22% were confident that they could find employment fairly quickly. So managers beware, more than half your workforce is ready to walk at almost a moment's notice. 

#7

I led an IT team that supported a new version of a proprietary application. The team was a mix of corporate employees and contractors.

Most of the customers who used out app were located in the Western hemisphere, so while we provided 24x7 support, the vast majority of customer issues were during the typical North American work day.

We had a couple of contractors who liked working overnights, so they covered the evenings, and did a handoff every AM.

This worked very well. So well, in fact, that our corporate overlords decided that the app should be expanded globally. We noted that the current team couldn't handle the additional support load without more team members.

Instead of doing that, management decided that we should just move a bunch of people from the day shift to the night shift. Since no one liked this idea, management implemented a mandatory "rolling" schedule, in which you might work 9-5 one week, and 3-11 the next. There was no predictability, and personal preferences/needs were not taken into account at all.

I pointed out to management that this would make our well-seasoned support team unhappy, and would technically violate the contract that the contractors were working under (which specified work hours).

Nobody in management thought that this was a problem.

I immediately wrote letters of recommendation for everyone on my team, and started applying for other jobs. In about two weeks, I had a better job lined out, and gave my notice.

Within about a month, all of the contractors had been moved to other contracts (with different companies) when they reported the contract breach to their handlers, and about a half dozen of the long-serving corporate folks had found other jobs, like I did.

Support for the app got moved to India, and my understanding is that the dealers (the people who used the app) staged something of a revolt, and the app had to be shut down and reverted to a previous version that cost the company a lot more money to maintain.

Image credits: EarhornJones

#8

CEO announced to the company, amid concerns of being overworked, that other people have it worse and ‘if you don’t like it you can leave’. So everyone left.

Image credits: The_Rural_Banshee

#9

Management who came in at noonish, checked some shots then left at 3-4pm announced that all artists would be required to work 12 hour days for the next few weeks because they took on too many contracts at once. A few people said "f**k it" and quit, that cascaded into more and more people quitting since they realized they'd be expected to finish their shots too.

Image credits: Lunaciteee

Either directly or indirectly, managers are responsible for over half (60%) of the voluntary and, obviously, involuntary turnover at a company. Of the 60% of US workers who chose to leave their jobs, managers were cited as a common factor for quitting, alongside a “less-than-ideal work environment,” which is a wonderfully vague way to describe a horrible workplace. Since managers can and do have so much control over the day to day of operations, it is safe enough to blame them for a workplace is, well, “less-than-ideal.”

#10

Our boss.

Multiple issues: trying to make us work while on vacation, underpaying us for car mileages, refusing to help with training, lying about being at the office when she was at home, ect

What made us all leave was when she denied leave for our coworker who’s dad had died unexpectedly. She asked for even just one day for the funeral and my boss refused.

We covered for our coworker for the week but then all put in our notice.

The higher ups finally figured out something was wrong for us ALL to resign and they fired her.

They begged us to come back, but if they’re that blind to what’s happening, it’s not worth it.

Image credits: cooldart61

#11

Boss relied on the old “you’ll never be able to get a job somewhere else, and certainly not a better one” gaslighting tactic to keep us. One of us did find another, better job somewhere else. Everyone else was gone within 6 months.

Image credits: sarahsuebob

#12

They hired a manager who was vicious. Then did not stop her behavior. And long term employees just quit one by one. I held on longer than most. At my exit interview, they asked why I was leaving and I just said her name. Finally two years later they let her go but by that time they had an entire turnover of staff.

Image credits: amileinmyshoez

In the US, for not entirely clear reasons, the West Coast appears to have the worst managers. In an America-wide survey of workers, people in California, Washington State, and Oregon complained the most about bad bosses and were the most likely in the US to quit over terrible managers. The bottom line, at least for US employers, is that statistics show that three out of four resignations could have been prevented. 

#13

Boss binge watched us on the security cameras and came back to us with the findings.

Image credits: Crystalsghosts

#14

we had a really really toxic manager (F 36) who wasn’t fit to be manager, would talk trash on her employees & got banned from working at VS. one time, the store flooded & we were waiting to hear back from her as to when the store was repaired. she had terrible (hardly any) communication, so she didn’t tell half the staff. one full time employee (F 41) stopped by 3 days after reopening & asked why she wasn’t notified. the manager told her “you’re a big girl, you should’ve figured it out yourself”. we all quite like beads falling off a broken necklace after that.

Image credits: eli_ana35

#15

They hired a micromanaging architect to lead a bunch of engineers.

Image credits: augustwest30

#16

Boss touched peoples kids at take your kid to work day.

Image credits: FunSuffering

#17

Management laid me off. The manager. In 6 years I had 1 turnover. After they laid me off all 6 of the guys reporting to me had their two weeks notice in. It’s a long story but basically the new management had no clue what they were doing and it showed when they “eliminated my position”

Image credits: TheSiege82

#18

Boss said that we wouldn't have paid Christmas vacation (after doing it for 5 years), the issue is that he announced it two weeks before Christmas when a lot of people already had travel plans - That and removing Christmas bonuses.

A bunch of people quit over that, some I know are job hunting and ready to leave.

Image credits: backstabber81

#19

Teenage Coworker asked for two days off because she’d found herself pregnant. Manager said that she was just reading her body wrong and wasn’t pregnant. Called her into work the day after her abortion.

Image credits: missthatisall

#20

One big team which worked extra shifts and extra long days in the corona times.

Government declared a bonus for the personell.

Some got it and others didnt while having the same contracts, responsibilities and also did overtime go help the company.


No explanation as to why someone was included or excluded. Some didnt feel like working there after that.

Image credits: BammyQ2

#21

For one job. I quit after 4 years. Was going to be denied a pay raise that I was supposed to have. Put the entire management staff in shock. A week later over half the staff quit because they we’re being blamed for what management was screwing up. The district manager came in and wanted to know what the hell was going on. They finally admitted I had pretty much running the place while they were sleeping and calling in. She fired all but one person and promptly promoted the crew leader who I had trained as the new assistant manager. Sadly the damage was done and they were bought out less than a year later by another company because they sank their profits after I left. Linch pin.

Image credits: BoosterRead78

#22

I worked as desk clerk for my dorm building freshman year of college and came back during my sophomore year knowing we got a new housing director. Notably in our contract it stated we were allowed to do homework or watch tv/listen to music during shifts (one earbud only) as long as you were still checking cameras, sorting packages, helping students as they came to the desk, and checking people in of you worked a night shift. These tasks usually took around an hour of your shift (excluding shifts between 10pm-2am on weekends when students would constantly be coming back from parties and having to check in). The new housing director for the building I worked in decided that even though we all signed contracts saying these things were allowed it didn’t mean we should be doing them.

After about a week she started giving out warnings for doing anything besides homework during shifts. Then a few weeks later she decided that not even homework was going to be tolerated. Me and the other girl who I shared night shifts with and who worked after me during day shifts had both started looking for other jobs after the first rule change because not doing anything but the desk duties for 4 hours was a huge waste of time and was also the only job in the city still paying minimum wage. We both agreed that if we weren’t going to be allowed to do nonwork related things we may as well find better paying jobs that at least have tasks for us to do during our shifts. Once we got accepted for a new jobs her at a hardware store and me at a grocery store we immediately put in our 2 weeks and left.

A few weeks later I ran into a guy who I had worked with the semester before and he asked if I still worked for the dorm building. I told him I had quit a few weeks ago and he told me that he had also just found a new job and that about half of the staff for that building and the other one the new director was in charge of had quit within the past month.

So basically going back on the rules we agreed on in our contracts resulted in the loss of half the desk clerks for the buildings.

#23

Funny story.

Me and a friend worked at a burger king together, both on the same shift, that being 11 - 5. I didn't hate my job as the drive through person, as it was a start for 16 and half year old me. I knew I could be happier, thus I was already on the verge of quitting. My a*****e of a manager only added to my stress, though. To let you know how d***head-y he was, every day he would give us some sort of a sit-rep on, "how he owns this place", and how "you have to listen". One day, at around 3, a customer pulls up to the speaker and asks for a lot. Something like 4 burger and fry combos, one burger without onions and 2 others with extra ketchup. My friend makes the order alongside some coworkers as the customer arrives at the window. She was in her 30's, with black hair and a darker skin tone. She took her food and drove off, yet a couple minutes later she returned. On the speaker she says she got the wrong order. I'm new to this job, so I ask my friend, "What do I do? Her order is wrong." and he responds with, "I don't know, ask the manager.". I walked into his office, where he yelled, "WHAT." I

"Well, there's a customer in the drive-through who got her order wrong and wants a refund. What should I do?" I said. He stood from his chair. "UGH! Gimme a second!" I waited by the window for a couple minutes, when he arrived. At this point, the lady was at the window, and she had lost her temper. But, the thing is, when my manager took *one* look at her, he fumed.

"This is what we're dealing with, THIS!" He says, pointing at her as if she has three heads. "Another one of you. Your kind never leaves, do they?" He said, obviously remarking on her race. My friend had made her order correct, and was ready to give it back to her, when the manager snatched it and threw it in her car. The lady was understandably upset, but all credit to her, she just drove off only yelling a few swears. Everyone had seen what had happened, but kept quiet. The next day, I had already quit, but for whatever reason, my friend didn't. According to him, almost nobody showed up, because they had all quit.

The manager was soon fired after countless reports, and that burger king now has somebody else.

Image credits: SatisfactionAdept283

#24

I'm going to be incredibly vague because certain slugs from my former employer would pick up on this comment in a heartbeat and I'll get nastygram phonecalls...

An employee got injured. It was NOT the employee's fault whatsoever. I won't say how they were injured but it was severe. 6 witnesses. One witness was a paramedic, and he tried to intervene. He was stopped, and the employee's husband was called to go in and pick his wife up off the floor, where they had literally just left her. He brought the employee to the ER. While at the ER, the employee found out that the incident report was obstructed and that the visit would be self-pay. An executive a*****e got involved and didn't want the incident report to trigger an OSHA investigation. Every witness was threatened to keep their mouths shut or they'd get fired. 5 quit the same day. Employee never got the incident covered. Whole thing was b******t.

Image credits: anon

#25

Boss ordered a tractor-trailer full of rain gutters for a large job. The truck arrived however no Moffett or forklift was on-site. 60k lbs of metal gutters and equipment he wanted to be unloaded by hand. The whole crew got in the work trucks and left.

Image credits: MinimalDark

#26

The restaurant I worked at wasn’t taking COVID seriously during the heart of the pandemic. They were violating their own social distancing measures and expecting everyone to simply be okay with it. On top of that, we were grossly understaffed and expected to provide the same quality of service as a fully-staffed restaurant. We just got burnt out and all just so happened to have found new jobs within two weeks of each other.

Image credits: TheCyrcus

#27

Not all at once, but in very quick succession.

A coworker, whose brother owned the business and no one liked, got promoted to supervisor. Took him about 20 minutes before he started abusing his power, ordering people to do extra hours to cover his shifts and s**t like that.

About 6 weeks later, basically the entire staff had found new jobs and quit.

#28

I was a valet. The work sucked, but my coworkers bonded and commiserated over everything, so on the whole, it wasn't so bad.

Then, for some-a*s reason, the company president got involved in the day-to-day operations of our lil' valet program. Dude's a millionaire, wheeling and dealing in the 3 biggest cities in our state, and running nearly every public parking lot as a private entity. Why was he *so* caught up in our little operation?

He hired one of his corporate homies - another millionaire - as a "hospitality manager," in an effort to whip us all into shape. To establish dominance, he fired 1 person per day for his first 2 weeks - 10 people out of 30. This led to more valets quitting, bringing our total down to 15. Then, he began ruling with an iron fist: We had to adhere to *every single syllable* of the corporate script; no ad-libbing or just making conversation with our customers. We were expected to stand at attention, feet shoulder width apart, with our hands folded behind our backs at all times we weren't servicing a car. We were expected to run everywhere - no walking, and *especially* no taking the tunnels or skywalks between buildings. We had to show our dedication to the company by being visible to everyone in the street (and he'd go to the upper levels of the buildings we were in with binoculars to spy on us).

Then, he began threatening us all - "I've got contacts at all these local temp agencies, I can have a whole new staff in here ready to work tomorrow." This, of course, killed morale even further, and more people quit.

Within 3 weeks, our 30-person valet outfit was reduced to 12 individuals.

#29

The drain on the roof plugged. Ice built up. Roof collapsed, killed some. Everyone else quit. Luckly, I was on the roof top during the accident. We were safe up there, and our settlement was higher then those bellow. Well, not more then those who died, but more then those under the falling roof. No, I can't give details. Part of the settlement.

Image credits: anon

#30

Owner slowly phased out giving us our tips from online orders and me my money for delivery fees. I kept track of it all and last year confronted him that he owed the employees about 11k$ in tips and 5400$ in delivery fees for me. (Tips and delivery fees were from the start of 2016 to Jan 30th 2022.)
He exploded at me and said tips were off the table because it costs to much to run the restaurant. I asked about my delivery fees and told him how much he owed just me, fired me on the spot.
When I went back into the restaurant to get my hoodie, I gave the cooks all the information I kept track of and left. Apparently they left just before dinner rush started.
Learned my lesson, don't for a Greek...

Image credits: StreiBullet

#31

I worked at a supermarket once, and we had to count EVERYTHING in the store. Horribly long day but we were gonna get through it. We were not provided anything even though we had to work all day. As a person (at the time) under 18 I was only allowed to work 7 hours with a 30 min break. I worked 10 hours with a 10 min break (very illegal). It was supposed to be from 8 am to 9 pm at the latest. We ended op starting at 7 am to 6 am the next morning. A lot of laws were broken and we were not compensated for working through the night. 5/7 of us left within the month.

Image credits: lester_samuel

#32

The program director suffered an extremely sudden loss. When she came back from a month of grieving, she was suddenly putting everyone on performance plans for really s****y reasons (I was put on one because like six clients had been dissatisfied with me in my four years there and four of those six were just upset that I had breasts, the other two were mad at the program as a whole and taking it out on me). She was also suddenly pushing us to bill for 100% of the time we were on the clock (we’d literally get yelled at for asking our managers for advice because it wasn’t billable). People started to leave at a high rate, and their clients would be dumped on the rest of us. The managers all refused to help with clients at all, so it was wholly on us. Between April and July of that year, the program lost 20 of the 33 employees.

#33

Private company (1924-1988) single owner dies of old age. Family sells Connecticut based company to French corporation.

French company says we are moving you guys 500 miles north to New Hampshire. You can move yourself at your own expense, and have equivalent pay for 1 year after which it may be readjusted.

They were expecting about 125 people to relocate with them; they got 3.

They got desperate, but in the end all they could get was people promising to stay until the Connecticut site closed, for an additional 6-month bonus at the end. (I took this, I was the last one, signing papers with HR on the loading dock and driving away with a few nice checks.)

EDIT 1: for those interested I met and spoke with old Bern himself in '87 while he was touring our test lab. His comment was (more or less) these guys need new equipment, which was spot on.

EDIT 2: No part of Connecticut is 500 miles from New Hampshire. More like 250 miles, if that.

Image credits: youngmindoldbody

#34

New Manager cut every full-time employee's weekly hours in half. I was working a steady 41.5 hours a week, then suddenly my weekly went to 19.5 hours. The moment I saw the schedule, I grabbed my stuff, and just left. Best decision I've ever made. And I found out later on, that 3 more people quit a few days after me. Sucks for you, Chipotle.

#35

I worked at a brick-and-mortar video rental chain, and... strangely enough... CBD products outlet before the pandemic hit the US. When it did, the Governor put out an ordinance mandating closure of all non-essential businesses. Corporate tried to stay open by insisting they *were* essential, on account of providing entertainment to people languishing at home, and also CBD for anti-stress. That didn't fly because it wasn't for legit medical purposes.

Here's the thing. I read state laws on the books for that ordinance. It was directly enforceable by state and local law enforcement authorities.

Which meant corporate was basically flying us in the storm like kites.

Needless to say, **everyone** quit at once, on the same day, including me. I got unemployment off it despite quitting voluntarily, thanks to corporate "creating unsuitable conditions for my remaining employed."

#36

I worked at a center for disabled adults. The management was so horrible. They made the attendees start cleaning the toilets themselves. Loveland center in Venice Florida. Still the same manager. 10 people quit in one week.

#37

My manager was so two faced she would talk s**t about literally everyone. We didn’t realize it as first until someone slipped up and word got around that she was actually just an evil b***h. since i put in my two weeks (wish I didn’t and just left her high and dry but I was an assistant manager) everyone else did the same and she had to hire a whole new staff. The cycle shall repeat in due time.

#38

I worked at a trustee’s firm, basically we processed foreclosures on people’s homes. It’s illegal for banks to do it themselves, they have to hire a unbiased 3rd party to do it, that’s where we came into the picture. After the 2008 housing crisis trustee services were in high demand and they made bank, like they gave out quarterly bonuses, holiday bonuses, to all employees.

Unfortunately I got hired the first year they stopped giving out bonuses because they didn’t have as much business. I worked there for one year and after they were bought out by another company I knew it was a sinking ship so I quit.

I found out a couple months later that everybody, like everybody except management walked out of work because nobody got paid on payday. I don’t know the exact details of how they managed to mismanage all the money they made that resulted in bankruptcy, but I know the “president “ was a nepotism baby who had no f*****g clue what he was doing.

It was also a very toxic work environment, my boss would have her friend in another department file official complaints about me because I would transfer calls to her when the caller asked for them by name.

#39

As with most answers here - incompetent leadership. This was when I was just starting out my career. There was this employee (let's call her Q) who our company CEO would blindly trust and give dangerous amounts of authority to. This person was not only incompetent, but also unbearable as a person, with unrealistic expectations and no knowledge of the projects we were working on. We couldn't do anything about it because the CEO believed WE were the problem lol. As expected, one day the whole staff walked out apart from me (I was new and just starting out my career, didn't want to let go of a job I worked so hard to get at that time), that incompetent nincompoop, and another newer employee who joined with me.



Story doesn't end there, the CEO still believed she was in the right and the staff were idiots to have left. She put Q in charge of the project and the full brunt of the workload fell upon me and the other employee. Eventually CEO realized that it was impossible to implement the project with 3 employees and had to rehire new staff members. I worked there for a year or 2 and was on my way to bigger and better pastures.



Later turned out Q was not only involved in swindling office funds but also involved in corporate espionage for that company's competitors.

#40

They pulled us into a group meeting to let us know our contract with company A had not been renewed so we would be moved to company B contract at the end of the month. We were told we would be going from 8-5 mon thru Fri shift to 2-11 with Wed Thursday off. 15 of the 22 of us put in our two weeks and left at the end of the contract with A. The rest tried it out and I heard 3 of them logged out and walked away without notice after the first week. Never did hear about the others though.


I applied directly to company A and got hired on in the same job with higher pay since I wouldn't need training and already had experience. They didn't renew their contract because they were building their own team to handle it so having someone with experience was a benefit to them and to me.

#41

When I was working at a car wash when I was 16 the owner couldn’t pay us on Friday. Everybody quit on the spot and told him to go suck a d**k????? And he was a total prick, which deserved it

#42

Diesel truck repair and maintenance shop.
The company owned approx. 100 trucks and trailers. The shop had six bays but all but 3 we blocked, so we really only had 3.
The company races a hydroplane, which usually gets stored off-site.
For some reason, the owners parked this huge rig in the shop for a week, leaving one bay.
3 techs had to work out in the rain for a week. I got to work indoors because I pushed back harder than anyone else.

Needless to say, this killed efficiency.
Then, one morning, a sign appeared stating that since work was backing up, 10 hour days were mandatory until further notice.
Everyone accept one guy quit.

#43

I dont have the time to write the whole story - but I used to work for an IT services company here in the UK.
We were a very profitable, successful company. At our peak we had around 2,000 employees.
Eventually we were sold to an American company. Despite us all expecting to get f****d over with US working practices - it wasn't that bad. The new owners at least had a gram or 2 of sense and realised that a company making > 60% profit to revenue shouldn't be tampered with too much.
And THEN in turn they were swallowed up by corporate America... taking us with them. Everything suddenly became all about maximising revenue streams. Cutting contract hours on the cheap. Outsourcing to India. Redundancies.
It was a disaster. We lost customers all over the place. Got sued for breaches of contract. Got sued for missing delivery targets. Almost went bust... and we were the **only** profitable part of this whole f*****g s**t show.
Now, the company employee **40 staff**. 40. Yes 40. From a peak of 2000.
The most impressive disaster f**k Iv even seen.

#44

I am going to name and shame. The Filter Queen vacuum company hired a bunch of people. We were supposed to do demos in people's houses and if they wanted to buy, put them on the phone with a salesman who closed the deal and KEPT THE COMMISSION. We got paid a fixed salary, but only if our demos resulted in sales.

They promised to hire other people to do the cold calling and set up our appointments. They lied. I came in a week later and they tried to hand me a phone book (yes it was that long ago) and said I had to make my own appointments. I walked out, just like everyone else they lied to.

#45

there’s a burger king in my town that’s kinda the place where all the alcohol/cracked out/ stoner people go to work. AWFUL management and even worse working conditions, scheduling, and pay. one day all of the staff walked out when they were on their 50th hour of the week. they all went to different fast food places and jobs around the area. i worked at the dairy queen and had 3 burger king employees come work with us. the stories and tales from that place are horrid. overworked and underpaid.

#46

I was a shift manager at McDonalds. One day in the middle of a huge rush, manager trainee (who I will refer to as L) refused to listen to my direction because "they are a manager too." I went to my GM, GM then spoke with L, and once L came back, started smacking me on the back and said I need to stop being so sensitive. I then firmly told him to get his hands off me and sent him on a break. This whole time, my senior manager was beside me and never said a word, and apparently, the reason for that was that she was afraid she'd make him mad. Also, some background information, no one liked L because he was rude and very flirtatious with female employees. There had also been many complaints made to the GM about L before, concerning him being touchy with minors as well that was never dealt with so I went to HR and submitted a complaint. I'm not sure how it all went down, but GM fired L and everyone was happy about his termination. A couple of months later, we lost half of our managers within the span of a month. And then rumor started going around that L was coming back as an opening manager. GM spoke to me and said that L has changed and that L knew he was in the wrong, but I knew his work ethic and how much the employees disliked him. At this point, I was fed up with the job, being constantly overworked and understaffed, and now to find out that L was coming back was the last straw. I placed my notice the next day, and soon after, many followed suit.

#47

Actually just happened yesterday to me. It was a small family business where there are just three other employees other than the family. Things have been toxic at work for a while and the boss is in the process of trying to sell the business. One co worker and I, without even contacting or talking about it handed in our resignation letters yesterday and quit. Once the third employee heard we were quitting they wrote their letter (sitting at their desk) and handed it in. The boss threw us all out that day and now is running the business completely alone

#48

Small engineering contracting company, very difficult business to be in.

The only real source of revenue was from legacy products that various defense companies still integrated into their systems. Unfortunately, the legacy products were being discontinued because components used to make them were obsolete and NLA.

So we needed to find a new money-making product, quick.

Our CEO was driving the company into the ground. He would insult and belittle many of the engineers because of project delays. We were severely understaffed and overworked, and since contracts were the new revenue strategy, we were always taking on more clients without finishing older projects.

Eventually, one of the more visionary engineers tried to have the owner of the company fire the CEO. The owner refused, he was barely involved and didn’t understand what was going on.

This engineer was subsequently let go by the CEO “due to finance reasons” (yea… okay). He was the manager of software engineering. So my colleague got promoted and did a decent job for a while, but we were again very short handed.

One engineer, we’ll call him Bob, the CEO focused his antics on in particular just quiet quit, until he got fired. It was sad; from talking to him, I knew how much he loved engineering, but he was just so burnt out from being s**t on all the time.

My new manager had another baby and so he was starting to feel the stress of the job. Many of us were below market rate and working above and beyond what a typical engineering job would require, especially at that pay grade…

So my manager jumped ship for a less stressful position at a more established company, presumably making more money as well.

So then I was promoted to manager. We now had an impossible backlog of projects given our team size (3 SWEs, including a new grad). Eventually, the other experienced SWE quit, leaving me and the new grad with all these projects.

At the same time, a startup I was working with got funded so I jumped ship. The new grad left a few months later.

I’m not sure how the company is still alive. I had some particularly nasty clients and it was very enjoyable telling them I was quitting, all while the CEO had to deal with the aftermath of having no staff left to finish ongoing projects.

I ended up hiring Bob the burnt-out engineer at my startup and we appreciate the hell out of him. We’re all in a much better place now.

#49

Too much growth with a side of COVID. The company was pretty big when I joined but it grew staggeringly fast to the point that the old systems we used (at least in my department) couldn't keep up with the number of people. So we ended up with reorganization processes happening every few months for a couple of straight years, and the environment got less fun to work in as the "good bosses" that had originally shielded us from the ever increasing demands of upper management got promoted and couldn't keep doing that for the larger number of people and projects they were now in charge of. Then COVID comes along and we're all working from home, luckily with an IT department that's capable of adapting to that extraordinary well, but the social ties we all had when we were in the office start dying out. I decided to leave the UK and move home to NZ, and by the time my notice period was done about 1/3 of the whole department had also resigned, easily the biggest turnover for that department since it's inception.

On top of that, when I was leaving it was a tough decision because I had the whole golden handcuffs thing of a bunch of shares that I only got access to 3 years after I signed up, so I thought I was walking away from £30000 profits or so, on top of a pretty decent salary. Turns out the share price crashed and by the time I would have had access they would have been worth less than I "bought" them for.

#50

I had a boss when I worked at Wal-Mart run me down for 45 minutes in a closed door meeting where he told me to get my brain checked and was basically calling me mentally challenged. I went for lunch, and I talked to someone I worked with at Wal-Mart and her husband, who had once offered me a job, seeing if that was still a possibility, and told them the entire story. It was known that the boss and I were not big fans of each other, but I did my work and tried to avoid him as much as possible.

About a month after I quit, there was a bomb threat called into that Wal-Mart, I didn't find out about it until the next day when someone came up to me and asked about it. About a month after this, I get a call, and the RCMP wants to question me about the bomb threat. The guy heading the investigation knows me, knows my character, he thinks bringing me in is a waste of time, but he will do his job. In this meeting, he finds out why I quit, I also tell him I work a job where I make in a few days is what I made in a month at Wal-Mart.

They poked the dragon, and now I'm pissed. I still knew the paging code for the store, I spilled all the beans to the staff over the speaker, the boss tried to find me, and when he did, I give him the look of, you do anything, it is a world of hurt for you, I walked out of the store and afterwards every employee of the store finds out the story because management feels the need for meetings to address the situation. The overall decision from the staff is I showed great restraint in not putting my first through his skull and most quit in protest to him still being the boss.

The store also went on to have the worst inventory of any Wal-Mart because of the level of theft that happened after the mass exodus of staff.

#51

I’m was working at a very busy late nite bar in Johannesburg called vertigo’s and it was owned by the Israeli Mafia, however as Batman we made a ton of money working there and all tax free as it’s tips.

They were protected by Diplomat Bouncers who pretty much had the monopoly of clubs and bars under their control and this bar had a take no s**t attitude to customers.

We weren’t selling cheap drinks so the clientele was usually high class and they drank copious amounts and tipped over the top.

But if that same client stepped out of line or bumped someone accidentally or because they were drunk the bouncers would charge in a s drag said person out and give them a solid beating out the venue.

It was me and four friends who lived in the same area working the bar and we would cringe every time the bouncers did that to a paying customer and felt to scared to say anything or get involved.

Anyways fast forward to a Saturday after a big South African rugby win and the whole bar is heaving with people who had come to drink and watch sport and the vibe was electric and tips were flooding in.

This old chap was drinking and getting loud and the bouncers without asking or reasoning pummeled this old chap so bad that an ambulance had to be called and people just stood there in shock but the bouncers and owners were laughing and joking about it.

Me and my friends looked at each other across the bar and we all knew it was the right time to get out of this place and we took
Off our work shirts and placed them on the bar and walked right out and as we got out the doors ran to my car and jumped in and sped off.

Vertigo’s was eventually closed down for multiple assault charges and the owners were implicated in some very shady dealings.

#52

Huge grocery store in Germany (similar to Walmart) where I worked besides my uni. It's bit long story since it wasn't just one factor which made many employees leave the workplace.

Well, not at once but within a few years many people (including me) left the store because we got a new manager who was really unable to manage the store and behaved like an a*****e towards the employees and department managers. And as much as I got to know, even his former store didn't want him back for obvious reasons.

It was already pretty chaotic before he came to our store, but it got really out of control with him. Every department manager made their own rules and basically everything was unorganized. The tasks we often got were totally non-sense because they were either unnecessary or too much at once to do in a shift, especially if we got interrupted for any other non-sense task.

Also, my colleagues and I from the late shift had to correct the mistakes of the early shift all the time just to be able to do our tasks. And although we were way less employees in the late shift we have done more tasks than the early shift. Idk how they could work that carelessly although the manager and one department manager are always present during the early shift. And yeah, reporting that to the department managers had literally zero effect.

Additionally, most of the customers we had to deal with everyday were really annoying and very rude and many of them weren't even able to speak German properly so we had to explain them everything several times including using body language.

Well, everything got even worse with the corona pandemic (panic buyings and hoarding, limitation of people inside the store and therefore even angrier customers who had to wait in lines for ages, people ignoring the obligation to wear masks etc.) and lately the war in Ukraine (again panic buyings and angry customers)

I wouldn't have stayed in this s****y job for almost 7 years (until I've finally quit last year) if I wouldn't depend on the money I earned there.

And yeah, most of the new colleagues replacing the former ones didn't even last a year. They all left within a few months because they couldn't endure the stress there. Only a few of them stayed there for a longer time.

#53

Volkswagen told us (subcontractor) that there’s no work in at least 6 months. That was right before Covid spread to Europe. They were our only customer for 20 years. Boss just expanded and had used up his reserves. He treated us with honesty and acted in a way to minimise the loss for everybody equally.

#54

Cybersecurity lead for a major organization. The office had a CIO that was unbearable to work with, with her sexually harassing many folks, myself included. After she was reported, she was immediately removed, but placed in another organization. Upon a new CIO coming in, we found that she was even worse. No now sexual harassment, but she was incompetent and came in with the attitude of making sweeping changes The problem was her lack of understanding how a very large organization (Government) operated, legal requirements in place, and how/why change processes matter. She was not technically competent, and asked the IT staff to accomplish impossible tasks. Finally, for my department, she attempted to subvert security in order to accomplish things she was told were illegal. My entire section turned in two week notices. She was fired immediately, but half the team still left, not trusting a good replacement to come in.

#55

The boss let his d***head son take over.

#56

It was my first "adult job" and I very intelligently like the person i am.... worked for an MLM. Now obviously we were all stupid enough to continue working there for long periods of time. About 5 months in we had to start going door to door in much nicer neighborhoods than we were used to resulting in much less sales and much less money for all of us. But that wasnt why everyone quit of course because we just had to "work harder" and be "better salesman". So a month goes by and one of the newest workers discovered a website called devil corp. This website explained in detail what an MLM was, the way they use people and fool them, and many actual company names that participated- our company being one of them. Anyways he showed it to a buunch of people, mostly all the new or lower level sales people. Now I was the only one in the group of people that left that was actually a "higher level" not truly in pay or anything like that but by title because I had people who I had hired that worked under me and i was beginning to form my own "team". Anyways yeah he showed me the website and I wanted to wait until at least the end of the week to quit but I couldnt even muster the strength to go in the next day. Next thing i know I was taken out of the company group chat we had along with almost 2 dozen other people. What a time it was. Unfortunately no other people in higher positions left, which did make me sad for some of them truly. Have a lot of them on snapchat n they all doin the same bs, very sad especially since literally all of them are at least 2 yrs older than me. Truly a shame. Half of em still live all together in one of our bosses apts. Wild. It aint even a nice apt.

Image credits: Krombopulusmichael_

#57

Hurricane knocked over the building.

#58

Our director left and the guy put in charge had no fckn clue of what our work was about. We were the creative department of an advertising agency and the guy came from the telecommunications industry.

Six people (myself included) quit the same day.

#59

A coworker’s husband was a manager at a pharmaceutical company and needed to hire a slew of people for a WFH position that paid $10 more. We lost almost half our staff in a matter of weeks (and it takes almost a year to train new staff so we’re still struggling).

#60

One if the main investors did a hostile takeover. Out of nowhere he was suddenly in the room during our daily standup and his introduction was about how much money he had and how he bought his first house after selling his first company…

His introduction was very accurate, he only cared about money and could’t give a single s**t about any person in the room other than 2 of his friends who were pretty decent software engineers (though outsiders to the company) but lacked similar social skills as him.