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For some reason, it can be incredibly difficult to find a job where a company appreciates their employees, pays well, and respects boundaries.
And during the pandemic, many employees across America decided enough was enough and quit their jobs to find something better. This was known as The Great Resignation.
So to get to the bottom of why some people decided to put in their two weeks, we asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell us the moment they realized they had to quit their job. And the answers ranged quite a bit — so we gathered some for you to read below. If you have your own story to share, leave it in the comments below.
1. "When my superintendent accused all the teachers who were under my supervision of lying about their students’ state test scores because the scores were 'too high.' He did not believe students from poverty could possibly have such high test scores."
—Anonymous
2. "After my maternity leave was over, during my pump sessions (which were 30 minutes twice a day — once during my 30-minute lunch break), my boss would call me multiple times to make sure I was still working and taking phone calls. I was required to take my laptop with me and a phone was installed in the pump closet. He would even ask me questions outside of the door. At one point he asked if my pumping would, 'take much longer.' My milk supply started dwindling, and I knew it wasn't worth my baby not eating or keeping up with his needs. I quit two weeks later."
—Anonymous
3. "I'm a retail worker and my old store manager told me once that I needed to lose weight. I'm a plus-size girl, and I told her how I had taken a trip with my boyfriend and was having issues with the airplane's seat belt. She told me that maybe I should go on a diet. Then I told her how I had to get a few teeth pulled and that I couldn't eat certain things and she said to me: 'Well, now you can go on a diet.' I couldn't believe she said this to me. I was looking for a job after that."
—Anonymous
4. "I knew I had to quit when I was sexually harassed by a stakeholder and was told by my boss that my reaction of taking the afternoon off (which, by the way, I thought was very reasonable) and refusing to deal with the stakeholder again was a sign that I found the job too stressful and should get some therapy. Then, when I quit a few months later, my boss asked me to stay to start an affair with him. 🙄 I laid a personal grievance complaint with HR and got a rather large severance package."
—Anonymous
5. "I briefly worked at a [dollar store]. One day, I was stocking a shelf with bottles of bleach, and because they were cheaply made, a bunch of the bottles cracked, spilling bleach all over the shelves, the floor, and me. I cleaned it up quickly and asked if I could go rinse the bleach off my arms as it was literally burning my skin, she told me to just use the same paper towels I had cleaned with and took the money for a replacement uniform shirt out of my pay. I hunted for jobs like crazy and was out within a month."
6. "I worked for a well-known convenience store for nine and a half years. I was assistant manager for seven. I was making $17 per hour during COVID, which was a $2 bump from my $15. In October 2021, I was informed I was losing those extra $2 an hour because the 'panic' was over. I straight-up quit in front of the moronic district manager and walked out. NOBODY tried to keep me — screw loyalty."
"I now work at a job starting at the hourly rate I left my former employer at."
—Anonymous
7. "I was working for a locally-owned and operated hotel company. After a near-death experience and WAY too many hours at work, I resigned with a week's notice, so I could spend more time with my wife and start a family. The president of the company said, "I never thought of you as a traitor. There are 3,000 people in this company that love you and need you and you're abandoning us for one woman (my wife)." He proceeded to say that he would never choose one woman (his wife) over his entire company and career. At that moment, I was reminded that I was making the right decision, and he was a very sad man."
—Anonymous
8. "I was with a company for three years and single-handedly ran an entire department. Yet when I requested time off two weeks in advance for my stepson's doctor's appointment, I was told, 'You know...he's not your biological child. His father should be the one handling his care.' Yep, I was done then and there!"
—Anonymous
9. "I knew I had to leave this job when an employee threatened me with a knife and called me the 'N-word.' My manager told me I had to understand where he was coming from."
—Anonymous
10. "Two years into the pandemic, teaching young kids remotely while keeping school partially open was starting to take its toll on the entire staff. Yet, week after week, the principal put on more and more demands around performance of staff and children, and increased paperwork so we couldn’t focus on high-quality teaching. Eventually, after many staff left or had public breakdowns, the management held a meeting to say that 'mental health wasn’t an excuse' and 'we all needed to put our big pants on and had one night to get over our emotional reactions.' This was followed by a directive that we couldn’t challenge decisions or complain about workloads nor were we to put anything in writing."
—Anonymous
11. "Once I worked as a recruiter for a temp agency. The company was owned by a husband and wife. The icing on the cake was when his wife, who did nothing but nitpick the office all day as she literally didn’t know how to do anything involving being a manager, came out of the bathroom and called my coworker and I into her office. She proceeded to tell me that ever since they hired me, their company has been losing a couple of thousand dollars a month. I told her I’ve only been here two months, and I’ve brought quite a bit of people in, AND they pay me minimum wage so their money problems are not my fault. Her solution? We are now only allowed five squares of toilet paper per bathroom trip. The next day, I left my office key on her desk."
12. "I worked at a dollar store, and my commute no longer made sense with the kind of payment I was making at the time, so I secured another job closer to my place. When I went into my next shift, I told my manager I would be giving her my two week's notice. She was livid and proceeded to tell me that 'She will give me the worst references ever and that I was a piece of shit for quitting.' Then she told me that since I am leaving, I have to pick up all the open shifts so everyone can have time off before they were short staffed. I walked out five minutes later and left them with a line of 20 people at the register."
—Anonymous
13. "A few years ago, when I was 18, I worked at an ice cream shop. One day, not long after I had started working there, I was put in a shift by myself, which was weird. I had left my phone in my bag, assuming I was not supposed to have it on me, but I went to go check it after a few hours and there were dozens of texts from my manager about things I should be doing. At first I thought it was a list of things that needed to get done during the day, but I was wrong. He was watching me on the security cameras and then texting me accordingly with things he wanted done or that I should be doing. He did this for my whole shift. When things got really quiet, and I wasn’t doing much, he would text me saying, 'You need to be looking busy all the time. Wipe down the tables and fridges, etc, etc.'"
"I was so creeped out. I asked another co-worker about it on my next shift and she was like, 'Yeah, he does that, it’s so annoying.' I stayed working there for a little while longer because I needed the money, but it didn’t last long."
14. "I work in a small law firm and the main boss is as cheap as they come. Recently, he told me that he was reducing my pay since I don't work a full 40 hour week and that he couldn't 'afford' to pay me my usual pay. Two weeks later, he came in flaunting his new $25K Rolex watch. WTF??? Well, right now he's on vacation. I won't be here when he comes back next week. LOL."
—Anonymous
15. "I got a call at 3:30 p.m. on a Friday from my doctor’s office moving up my appointment from a biopsy I had done. I knew that meant I had cancer, so I basically begged the nurse to tell me the results, and I did indeed have cancer. I called my boss to let her know I couldn’t make my 5 p.m. shift because I was mentally processing things. She told me to take some time and come in at 5:30 p.m. instead. I went in and worked, but I told her I wasn’t coming in for the rest of the weekend. After that I knew I wasn’t going to go back after treatment. To top it off, she’s a cancer survivor herself."
—Anonymous
The National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline is 1-888-950-6264 (NAMI) and provides information and referral services; GoodTherapy.org is an association of mental health professionals from more than 25 countries who support efforts to reduce harm in therapy.