We asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about the breaking point that made them quit their job. Here are some of the nightmarish reasons people decided to jump ship!
Warning: Some submissions include topics of sexual harassment, eating disorders, and body-shaming.
1. "I had COVID. My boss wanted me to return to teach school in person. They said I could come in and teach (with COVID!!) or I could quit. I quit."
2. "My mother had a cancer scare and had to have a hysterectomy. I told my manager I would need the time off to take care of and support her and she basically said, 'I don't give a shit whether your mother dies, you're coming in...'"
3. "I filed a sexual harassment complaint on my manager and the general manager shredded it right in front of me."
4. "They told me I was getting lazy when I was the one rotating all the pet food for the whole store, cleaning the moth-infested shelves and throwing out moth-infested food, and held down the fort while managers sat in the office gossiping."
5. "Manager played favorites with my counterpart and let her take paid time off work whenever despite having used up all her sick/vacation time, leaving me to do all of her work..."
6. "I worked at a fast food restaurant and I ended up getting strep throat and had to call out. They told me, 'We don’t want sick people working for us...'”
7. "I had a female boss who was incredibly competitive with me and would constantly criticize me. I turned myself inside out and took on extra work 'til I developed an eating disorder from the stress and constant criticism."
8. "After losing everything in a recent house fire, I had to change my availability at my Walmart job in order to help take care of my elementary school–aged brother. They threatened to take away my full time position while giving the hours to new hires instead. I walked out and never looked back."
9. "After 10 years, numerous demotions, continuous gossip and slander of my character, they oh so kindly hired my supervisor who I was instructed to train..."
10. "Nepotism. I found out they were secretive about people’s ‘numbers’ because the work wasn’t evenly distributed AKA a bunch of family members didn’t do shit while I did the majority..."
11. "When I was 18 and working a few casual jobs, I was in the hospital for two weeks. One employer came and visited with presents. The other employer kept calling my mum insisting to know when I was coming back to work. Mum had to keep telling her she didn't know...because I was in a damn coma! I survived, clearly, but only returned to one job!"
12. "The last straw for me was an alcoholic manager that upper management refused to fire due to nepotism. He’d clearly be drunk on the floor to the point of passing out in front of customers."
13. "They refused to pay any employees, and said it wasn’t their job to pay my rent when I told them I needed my wages to pay it — I started my next job two days after that."
14. "I think the breaking point for me was the fact that I never got my checks on time. I’d have to constantly ask for it and there were always excuses and delays..."
15. "I knew it was time to go when my boss told me she was watching me on the camera."
16. "I was waiting tables at a restaurant inside a Holiday Inn. The tips were...not good. I desperately wanted to be moved to cocktail. My boss kept promising he would move me over as soon as there was an opening. An opening came up and he hired someone else. I asked him about it, and he told me I'd have to lose some weight before he put me in cocktail..."
17. "My direct supervisor pulled me into her office and said I wouldn’t be so anxious if I didn’t get tattoos and piercings and they were somehow directly affecting how I did my job and how I interacted with my coworkers..."
18. "Was told flat out I wasn't qualified for a promotion after nine years when someone with less than half that experience was given the same level promotion within one year of mine being turned down."
19. "One day, I was at home watching the news and discovered two of my coworkers had been arrested in a neighboring state for going to a rural shelter, taking a bunch of dogs so they could bring them to a more urban area to increase their chance for adoption, and then murdering them in the back of the van and throwing them in a random dumpster..."
20. "I was pregnant and working in a retail store. I told my boss I was feeling the heat more acutely due to my pregnancy and asked if I could do more seated tasks. She said I couldn't because it was too busy. I ended up passing out and hitting my head and getting a concussion..."
21. "I was working as a barista in a hospital cafeteria and found out that two of the managers were in on a bet together about which of them could sleep with me. I rage-quit on the spot..."
22. And "While planning for Black Friday, my boss said he would not enforce COVID store capacity restrictions, and that he was having my two coworkers with COVID work for Black Friday. I was so done after that."
