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While some of us are lucky enough to have our dream jobs in a great working environment, there are also those of wish that we could just tell the boss what we’re really thinking before taking off for good. Whether it be a part-time job or whether you have to work overtime every single day, everyone has a breaking point, and the people in these stories had their reasons for calling it quits.

From dictator-style bosses who refused to let the staff socialize, to fainting spells in the hot sun, and even doing the deed in the bathroom with another co-worker while on the job, there are several reasons why people would leave a check behind. Here are some of the craziest stories of employees who quit their jobs to escape horrible bosses and crazy coworkers.

1. Making the Most of Customer Rewards

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I’m the manager of a retail store and I had found out that a cashier was ‘stealing’ product by scamming reward card benefits. I came up with a detailed incident report to present to this employee and I was under the assumption that it was just her. After I confronted her in a reasonable manner, she freaked out and got really angry; quitting on the spot. She was using fake accounts instead of using the customers’ reward card to get herself points and redeem them for product/gift cards. The customers weren’t getting the points for their purchases and it was a headache for me if they noticed.

The next day after the other cashier found out, they all called to quit. After thinking to myself, “what just happened?”, I found out they were all in on it; using a fake card on their shifts to gain rewards. I am now down four cashiers, and I have one left. On the very same day, my last remaining cashier disappeared for twenty minutes. It turns out that she was in the bathroom with another employee doing the deed. She quits before I could fire her because her dad is a cop and she didn’t want him to find out she got fired for this. I was down to managers only.

2. Losing a Loved One

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It was my first week at a fancy restaurant waiting tables after 2 weeks of training and passing a written exam on the food, wine pairing, etc. It is a very popular restaurant, so tips are good, good enough that it can support a family if you had some experience, were friendly and had a few regulars. On my second night there, it was a Friday night dinner service where it was all-hands-on-deck. It was the busiest night of the week, and although it did feel cluttered at times because of all the waitstaff being present, it was still mandatory. One of the more senior waiters, +35-year-old male, got a call from his wife just before the busy dinner service. Their daughter had fallen ill and was rushed to a hospital around 2 km from the restaurant. Seeing as it was Friday night, and all the other waitstaff were there, he asked the manager if he was allowed to be excused to attend to his daughter as he had divided his tables amongst 3 of us. It would not have been a problem as the restaurant seemed overstaffed that night because of the fellow new recruits like me.

The manager, who was always a bit of a jerk denied him the leave. He warned that if he were to leave his post that night, he would be fired without any chance of appeal. The waiter, who was unaware of the nature of the condition begrudgingly continued his shift. We weren’t allowed to be on our phones during peak times (as the manager would keep them in his office) and he only checked in with his wife at around midnight. His daughter had a brain aneurysm and passed at around 10:30 pm. He had been denied the opportunity to say goodbye to his only daughter. Distraught, he rushed to the manager’s office and delivered the most bone-chilling, harrowing emotional… you to the manager. His cries were heard throughout the restaurant, everyone heard. Everyone cried in sympathy, even restaurant patrons. He resigned on the spot, along with 80% of the waitstaff and me. We all accompanied him to the hospital and tried our best to comfort him and his wife before leaving them to grieve together. I never went back and didn’t even collect my tips for the night. I also heard that shortly afterward, a new manager was appointed.

3. Security Camera Abuse

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My girlfriend worked in photography and graphic design and shared a work computer with her boss. It was a small family-owned business with 5 employees, not including the husband and wife owners. She had worked there for nearly a decade when something unimaginable happened. The boss goes on holiday, and when she goes to edit something, she finds an adult video on the program, something which was very common. She then finds folders inside folders hidden away on the laptop, some of which contain more adult videos and amongst all the obscenity, she finds security photos and frame-by-frame close-ups of her getting changed from the few times she had gotten changed in the back, after working with chemicals. She obviously freaks out, calls another staff member over asking “what do I do?!.” They conclude to take screenshots/evidence of it all, and she goes home for the day after making up an excuse about feeling sick.

That afternoon, she comes over in tears and distress to tell me what happened. We go to the police station and file a report with all the evidence. The constable says that she will contact him and that my girlfriend isn’t to go to work again. The constable wrote a resignation for her and specified that contact must be made through the police station and she wants all her entitlements, including leave to be paid out. The next day, the other staff find out what happened, and they also wrote resignation letters and left them on the boss’ desk for him to find when he returns from holiday. The boss gets back to the resignation letters and phone calls from the constable asking him to report to the police station. The constable told him that he has to attend the police station, or she will come to his work and put all the evidence on the shop front counter for his customers to see. He goes into the police station and admits the whole thing. All the staff quit, and the business closed down within a month. My girlfriend didn’t want to go to court, so we just moved on from it.

4. Keeping Things Cool

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One summer, while working at McDonald’s, the air conditioner broke down mid-way through the blistering summer. The general manager of the store, who had denied everybody their raise after the yearly review, started telling us that it was against store policy when we found ways to work around the heat, like bringing in fans, frozen towels, etc. The manager refused to fix the AC or let us find other ways to cope with the heat, and when we began complaining, she told us, “You’re replaceable. If you don’t want the job, then leave.”

Twenty-nine of us turned in our two weeks notices a few days later, all at once including department managers, crew trainers, and crew. We all wrote “replace this” in some way, shape, or form. After we left, she had a bunch of new hires who only stuck around for about two weeks to a month before they quit.

5. Mass Call Out

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I worked as a driver for a party rental company where we provided party items like tents, dishware, etc. As a driver, I was one of the better-paid employees at $12.00 per hour so you can imagine what the other pay rates were like. As such, lots of cheap labor was needed, and the vast majority of our employees were illegal immigrants.

One day, one of our trucks got pulled over because it accidentally missed a weigh station, something which happens every now and again. The next day, I walked into a virtually empty building. The truck that got pulled over was bringing back 5 of our employees and when they got pulled over, they were asked for proof of immigration and every single one of those employees, except the driver, were subsequently jailed for being illegal immigrants. The following day, I walked into work and was informed that 90% of the staff had called out of work because they heard about the situation and we’re all scared that ICE was coming to raid the shop.

6. Pizza Drama

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While working for an agency during the Christmas season, a company hired 20 workers for the busy month, including me. Closer to the end, the company was having a Christmas feast party during working hours. Since us agency folk aren’t a part of the company, they herded us into the back of the warehouse and told us not to disturb the feast and since we had few hours left, we couldn’t leave work.

This one person from the party grabbed two boxes of pizza to bring us because he probably felt bad. He was stopped by a manager who told him, “don’t feed the dogs our food.” That’s when things got bad; we were running, literally running from one side of the warehouse to the cafeteria and the party music stopped dead. It turned into a big argument, and people were leaving as the scene became chaotic and cops were called. No one was arrested, but all of us quit on the spot, including some warehouse employees. The agency representative told us that the manager was fired not only because of how the situation was handled but also because they lost out on a huge contract. Every one of the agency workers got a bonus, just in time for Christmas.

7. Falsified Documents

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I once worked for a small, country veterinarian who always tiptoed on the line of ethical conduct. But one day, he pushed us all over the edge. A client brought a horse in for a West Nile vaccine because the horse was being moved to a place with a high number of cases and the owners wanted to make sure everything was good to go before the move.

The problem was that we were out of the vaccine as the vet always forgot to order medications yet wouldn’t delegate the task to anyone else. Instead of referring the clients to another clinic or ordering the correct vaccine, he gave the horse shot of antibiotic, falsified the documentation, and sent them on their way. We were all ordered to keep our mouths shut. I tossed my clinic key on the desk and walked out, followed by every single employee in the building that day. We then reached out to the client to make them aware of the situation. When we were done, we called the state board to file an official complaint.

8. Nothing Good Comes Free

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I had my first job as a dishwasher at a Polish restaurant when I was 14 years old. One day, the owner and his wife asked me to work a double shift because the night washer called in sick. It was illegal seeing as I was only 14-years-old, but I agreed to do so and in between shifts they let me pick whatever I wanted off the menu to eat.

I had worked there for six months and had never eaten anything more than a crouton. A couple of weeks later, I got my paycheck and saw that they had subtracted the full price of the meal from my check. I told some of the other members of the kitchen staff, and they were so pissed that three of us waited for the dinner rush that night and walked out at the same time. I later found out that both the owner and his wife spent the night bussing tables and doing dishes. Hearing that made me extremely happy.

9. Keep Your Hands to Yourself

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We all worked in an upscale supermarket, along the lines of a smaller-end Whole Foods. The produce manager was an open misogynist and enjoyed upsetting the mostly young female staff (17 to 22-year-olds). He denied holidays, messed up shifts, assigned brutal work tasks far exceeding any other department, and verbally harassed and demeaned his female employees. The turnover in his department was incredible, but he got a free pass because he was golf buddies with the owner.

Complaints never got anywhere. One day, he kept the deli and produce staff until 2 am cleaning “as a lesson” but dismissed the only guy on shift. The next morning, the produce manager slapped one of the girl’s backsides to get her to move faster. Seven of us took off our aprons, left our shirts in a pile, and quit. The 17-year-old girl’s father hired a lawyer and the POS manager was finally fired, but we didn’t want our jobs back. We all got a nice compensation.

10. Stay Away from the Party Favors

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I worked at a big ski resort, in the retail/rental shop during the holiday season and on New Year’s Eve, the shop manager was having a huge party and everyone was invited. The drinks were flowing, even for the crew members who were under 21.

Party favors in the form of joints were passed around. The next day while we were all recovering but made it to work, the same manager had everyone at work take a “random” urine test. Everyone on that shift failed and lost their jobs. In solidarity, the rest of us all quit the next day. The HR offered everyone their jobs back who didn’t take the test, but many people didn’t.

11. You’re Not Above Me

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A couple of employees and I were transferred to a different branch after ours was closed, and unfortunately, the manager of the new branch was utterly incompetent. At one point, he made the new employees take turns sitting on chairs that were placed on top of a table to show that “we are not above them.”

I was unable to get on the table because I am severely overweight, so both the manager and one of his salesmen tried to lift me to the top of the table, but that didn’t work either. After this attempt, I stopped, but instead of forgetting it, he fired me. The day after, one of the new employees quit after the manager made several comments on his race and the fact that he was an ex-convict.

12. Don’t Be Late

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I was bartending on the side to augment the little pay I got as a helicopter flight instructor. I worked there for two years and I was never late, nor had any disciplinary trouble. One day, I had a cross country flight run which took longer than it should’ve because there were some maintenance issues. I knew I would be late, so I called and talked to my supervisor to give him a heads up.

I was only twenty minutes late by the time I made it to work when the owner’s 23-year-old son, who managed the place, informed me that his new policy was that I would have to surrender half of my tips for the night, as punishment for being late. I told him that I didn’t think that was very fair, especially since I was only twenty minutes late for the 5-hour shift. I explained how I’d never once been late, and I’d called ahead. He literally said, “tough luck, don’t be late.” I told him to piss off and walked out. When I told my coworkers what happened, four other people quit right on the spot because they’d had enough of his power tripping nonsense.

13. New Policies

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Many years ago, when in high school, I worked at a movie theater which was pretty poorly run from the moment I started there. The staff never got paid on time and management sat in the office talking all day, never doing any managing. It would have been hard for things to get any worse, but after a couple of months, they brought in new management who seemed to want to make it their personal mission to run the theater as poorly as possible.

They first implemented a new policy requiring all projectionists to wear ties, despite the fact that projectionists are never seen by the public and that they worked around the giant, rapidly spinning objects that a tie could get caught in. The management refused to reconsider the policy and every single projectionist quit as a result. They then decided that the door people (of which I was one), who were scheduled every day a week, would now only be scheduled on the weekends, and refused to reassign any of us to concessions on the weekdays so we wouldn’t lose hours. As a result, almost every single door person quit, including me. By my count, the theater went from a staff of about 50 to a staff of about 12 in three weeks. I swung by about a month after I quit and found out that the entire management staff had been fired and replaced yet again by an entirely new one.

14. A Family Emergency

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I had a job working at a local restaurant that recently changed owners. Over time, multiple issues came up, including difficulty getting off for important things, hiring kitchen staff who were bad at their job but cheap, purchasing cheaper and lower quality ingredients, etc. To make matters worse, the owner just sat around and drank. Things were extremely tense and after a few months, we hung in there only because we liked each other, but many of us were already looking for other jobs.

There was a young mother who waited tables there and really needed the job as she couldn’t afford to be between jobs. One night, she got a call that her grandmother had a severe stroke, was unresponsive, and was not expected to make it through the night. She asked to get off and start her 3-hour drive to the hospital. The manager says, “of course,” but the owner says “no.” The manager and owner got into an argument in the back and the waitress ended up pleading her case, crying. The manager said that if the owner wouldn’t let her go, he was done. The owner ended up firing them both on the spot. Within the next 15 minutes, everyone who hadn’t been recent hire ended up walking out of the building. Seven people left.

15. A Long Bidding Process

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I used to work at a grocery store, where the manager who was hired ran the store, but could not be the franchisee until his numbers were satisfactory enough. A year had passed, and the manager was doing everything he could put in a bid for the position; making the store run and look wonderful and all the staff liked one another. One day, he is told they are putting in a franchisee bid and tell him that if he wants it, he can have it. He bids, but so does one of the district manager’s sons and he gets it. The manager is understandably upset but stays on as the grocery manager. Fast forward and the new franchisee gets fired for not following regulations. They do another franchisee bid, telling the manager the same thing, he can have it if he wants it.

They give the store to another person for the second time! I felt terrible for the guy because of all the hard work he put into the store and how well he treated me. Things begin to go downhill causing a lot of change and a lot of pissed off people; I was the first one to walk out as all of the hours were cut, the new franchisee never spoke to anyone but would complain if we didn’t do things her way. I found out that 14 more people quit within a month.

16. The Ugly Ducklings

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I’m a shipwright and about 10 years ago I worked on a shipyard where one day, the owner decided it was a good idea to bring someone in to look at how we work to see if things can be done more efficiently and smartly. There was nothing wrong with that except the guy he brought in didn’t have a clue about what it takes to build a boat from scratch. One day, we had a meeting in the break room where the owner and this guy first asked the metal guys what their thoughts are on how to improve things. They said they need new welding equipment, and the owner responds, “No problem, we’re going to take care of it.”

The painters are next, the same thing. Then the mechanics, the same thing again. And then they got to us and things fell apart. Now here’s the thing that’s true for all shipyards I’ve ever worked on, shipwrights always come last when we need new tools or other things, but everyone always comes to us to solve a problem. We keep the place going, so you’d think we got what we asked for. Instead, the owner tells us we have everything we need, and we just have to improvise. We all looked at each other and we told them we’re done. We all packed our tools, got in our cars and drove home.

17. Flexing at the Wrong Time

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I was a line cook at an Olive Garden, where there were seven of us working the line on busy weekend/holiday nights running two windows. On a busy Saturday night, one of our lead line cooks was a little late; he was scheduled to start at 4:00 pm but he didn’t get there until 4:15 pm. It wasn’t a big deal to the rest of the crew as he was a reliable guy and would have shown up. Additionally, he was really good at working the window position which handles incoming tickets/orders and could prioritize everything to make it all run smoothly. This Olive Garden was very busy and a bad window cook could easily back everything up 2+hours.

Anyways, the lead cook was a little late and the new kitchen manager decided it was time to flex his position and fire the cook on the spot as he was putting on his apron to join the rest of us on the line. The cook that just got fired tells the kitchen manager to piss off and he bolted out of the restaurant. The rest of us were in complete shock, and now we’re all going to be screwed on a Saturday night; customers will be pissed, bar/waitstaff will lose out on tips, etc. That kitchen manager flexed on a wrong night; the 6 remaining line cooks, myself included, untied our aprons and all walked out in unison. It felt great, that was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

18. A Fainting Spell

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I once worked at a water park, but there was a small problem that often interfered with my job; I was anemic and had trouble staying hydrated. It meant that I could not work in one of the hot food restaurants so I got placed in the ice cream stand. Halfway through my second summer management, they decided the ice cream stand staff would also staff this rolling cart selling reusable cups, all good. There was one “team lead” that played favorites and also happened to assign who worked in the stand and who was on the cart. Naturally, whenever she and I worked the same days I was on the cart; it’s uncomfortable to stand in the heat in a polo shirt, but it’s a crappy summer job, so I didn’t care much.

During mid-summer, the temperature was in the upper 90s+, decent humidity and just miserable but prime water park days. I asked for an umbrella for shade, a bottle of sunscreen, and more frequent water refills. I was given more frequent water refills, and we got a bottle of sunscreen after another worker got sun poisoning during her shift, but no umbrella. So I decide to stand on the “wrong” side of the stand which happens to be the shady side and get reprimanded every time this lead walks by. For some reason, she likes to make me stand directly in the sun, and then I faint. My ice cream stand cohort comes out to trade places so that I can sit in the freezer for a few minutes. This lead comes and finds me and demands I go back to my post. This happens a few more times; eventually, I just decide I don’t need this $7.75/hr that bad and quit with no notice. My work bestie, the only person who worked the deli quits with me. Apparently, the following week, I saw several others quit. I got a job at a restaurant two days later and happily made $8.50/hr in the air conditioning for the next 3 years.

19. The Waiting Game

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We usually get paid every Friday. One Friday, the boss called us all together in a serious way and told us some sad story as to why he couldn’t pay us until the next Friday. We understood and were okay with waiting an extra week. Then the payday arrived, and our boss gathered us around and gave us another excuse, apologizing saying that the checks would for sure be there the next Friday. We were very upset, but what could we do?

The 3rd Friday arrives, and our boss is 2 hours late. The boss rolls in and apologizes for being late; he had been golfing and had a little too much scotch and lost track of time. He then starts a speech about how our checks will be even later than expected. We had waited 3 weeks to get paid, and many of us missed rent payments, ate ramen and carpooled to save gas. 3 out of 5 of us walked out right there and turned him into the labor board. He did eventually mail my check, but he talked so much crap about those of us that left to anyone who would listen.

20. Check Your Balance

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I used to work in a telemarketing sales job where the sales representatives were paid a base salary plus commission for sales goals. One day, the company brought us all to into a big conference room meeting which is usually not a good sign. They told us that our commission checks would no longer be paid as checks but would now be paid on company-issued gift cards. As you could imagine, it didn’t go over well, and some people walked out that day.

On the first day that the company issued gift cards were supposed to be given out, we got called into a meeting and were told that the cards have not yet arrived and were accidentally sent to another branch across town. When the cards finally show up a few days later, everybody immediately goes to check the balance; $0 on each card. People started quitting left and right, just gathering their things and walking out. The team leaders and managers were in full-blown panic mode, which eventually led to the closure of the office for the day until they had to just shut the office down for the day. A class action lawsuit was filed and approximately 5-6 years later, I get a settlement check in the mail for $2000.

21. An Empty Stroller

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I worked at Toys R Us a few years ago and the company had a rule where employees were not allowed to approach customers if they saw them stealing items. The employee had to witness the act, then get a manager who then had to witness it and since the only cameras that worked were pointed at the cash registers to make sure the cashiers didn’t steal.

One day, an employee was walking to the break room when she saw a woman put multiple things into her baby stroller which did not have a baby. When the woman attempted to leave the store, the employee who saw her, confronted her, and when she tried to run, the employee grabbed her arm. The thief scratched the employee in order to get away, leaving her with a bad bruise. About 30 minutes later, I was called into the manager’s office to be told not to go after thieves. An hour went by and the girl who confronted the thief was fired. She was well-liked by everyone, and since they cared more about their employees stealing than the customers, all but 3 people quit.

22. A Medical Emergency

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One of my colleagues wasn’t feeling well at all, so she went to the staff room to sit down. Another staff member decided to call an ambulance while our manager decided to berate her for stopping in the middle of her shift. I recall the manager calling her names, including a “fat lazy cow.”

My colleague had been working in that store for nearly a decade and everyone got on really well with her, so we were all furious. It turned out that she’d had a heart attack. Six people quit and one of the remaining staff members wrote a formal complaint about the manager resulting in her losing her job there.

23. Sign the Lifestyle Statement

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I worked for a university that got taken over in a hostile takeover by a religious institution. They came in and forced us to sign a lifestyle statement where we had to reject gay people, premarital, adultery, and a few more pages of nonsense.

I refused to sign the document and hunkered down for the mass unemployment that was about to follow. Then, out of nowhere, a position opened up the next day in my field at a university and I was able to land the job two months later. The school lost many faculty members soon after and well over 80% of its faculty in the year since they took over.

24. Sticking Around

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I worked for a company with approximately 70 people and one day, the management calls all of us into the meeting room to tell us that the job is relocating to the west coast (Oakland, CA) and if we want our jobs, we had to relocate and re-apply. They also said that it wasn’t going to happen for another six months.

Approximately half the employees quit on that very same day leaving the company significantly understaffed. I stuck around, had all the overtime I could ever want, and the best part was that no one cared if we did a good job or not because we were all going to be out of a job anyway.

25. Changing Things Up

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I worked at a high-end restaurant that was owned by a husband and wife duo. The husband had died a few years back, and the wife was tired of managing alone, so she decided to retire; selling the restaurant to a new manager that was going to keep everything the same that it was as everything was going very well at that time.

However, during the first sit down meeting with the whole staff and the new manager, he said that he was completely changing the restaurant to a cheaper mid-scale place. He also announced that he was going to completely change the menu to much lower quality food. The entire restaurant staff quit right then and there; walking out of the meeting. The restaurant didn’t even last a year before it went out of business. There was a silver lining: some of the chefs and servers pitched in together and opened up a new restaurant to match the original. It’s still there to this day, and it’s some of the best food I’ve ever had.

26. The Boss’ Daughter

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My husband and I worked for the same umbrella company, but in different departments. The boss’ daughter used an event to hide massive embezzlement and art theft and unfortunately, I was the fall person as my signature was on a lot of the paperwork. I could prove that I hadn’t signed any of the documents as the dates matched me being out of the country and video footage proved that there were 150-pound weight difference and different colored skin tones between the two people.

I was fired for ‘not being supportive,’ and my husband was threatened with termination due to ‘insubordination.’ Words quickly spread throughout the company and the entire division refused to work at the boss’ daughter’s wedding. The staff was told either work it for free or find a new job, so they all agreed to work it then spent the remainder of the time looking for new work. No one showed up to work at the wedding and the entire department quits on two consecutive days. The boss’ daughter had to move to another country to avoid fraud charges.

27. Feeling the Christmas Spirit

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I worked at Walgreens over the summer while I was on break from college. The holidays were coming around and it was my last Christmas before I joined the military and I desperately wanted to go home. The managers had many tactics for torturing us, including playing a holiday CD with 10 songs which were looped every 30 minutes during the six-hour shift. So many people kept shutting it off that they put a CCTV camera on it and threatened to fire whoever touched it.

The management was being incredibly short with everyone regarding time off and they later decided that they didn’t want to close for Christmas; dividing the time evenly so that every employee had to work on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Two managers walked out along with four other employees. Everyone was tired of how they were treating their employees, so it was almost a poetic revenge, seeing everyone quit the week before Christmas.

28. No Speaking!

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I used to work in a call center, and it was generally a relaxing atmosphere as far as call centers go. Seeing as you sat next to the same people, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week without ever moving, people could get a bit chatty when the phones were quiet. One day, they decided to completely crack down on the friendly atmosphere between coworkers. If you were caught talking, you would be reprimanded by the supervisor. Repeat offenders got their seats switched.

You were suddenly expected to be silent unless you were on the phone with a customer, no pleasantries, no asking questions about work unless it was to a supervisor. We were constantly being disciplined for interacting and being treated like children. Within a month, we lost 12 people, including myself. The department was cut in half and customers began complaining about longer wait times, and it was a disaster for those that stayed. When I was leaving, they told me how great I was at the job and tried to offer me more pay to stay since they were so short staffed, I just laughed.

29. And the Promotion Goes to…

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Our epidemiology department had a bright future since most of the people next in line for the supervisory roles had over 7 years experience and they all happened to be under the age of 30. At the end of the year, 5 supervisors were going into retirement and they trained us to assume their roles before their departure. When those positions vacated, 5 “walk-in” applicants got the jobs. They were either fresh graduates, or it was their first job in this field or a combination of the two.

After a month of doing all of their jobs for them, the original 7 all handed in our two weeks notices. The other staff members who were under our wing also resigned one after another. In total, there were 20+ people who left within those 2 months in addition to the 5 who retired. The workforce ground to a halt since they had to send the new ones to specialized training and even then, they couldn’t function as well as our teams. The new hires singlehandedly made a top 3 epidemiology unit into one of the worst in the country in under 6 months.

30. Picking Up the Slack

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The local casino owners who I worked for thought that the bartenders were stealing from the casino, charging people for liquor and beer without ringing it in, and putting the money into their tip jars. To make an example out of us and while the investigations were being conducted, 14 cocktail waitresses and bartenders were all suspended for two weeks without pay. Six other people, including me, were the only ones not suspended and had to work 100+ hours in that time span with no days off to pick up the slack.

The investigation showed that no one had actually stolen anything, and the people suspended weren’t compensated for their time off. My friends whom I’ve worked with for years all quit at the same time for the way they were treated. I got stuck working 6-7 days a week 14-hour days to cover for the loss with only one day off every two weeks, and I quit shortly afterward.

31. Cutting the Cord

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I used to work at a chicken salad restaurant as a food prepper and during the summer in the Deep South, the outside temperatures reached over 100 degrees every day. The AC in the kitchen was out and we had to steam over 200 pounds of chicken a day, making the kitchen equally hot if not hotter than outside. We put up with it because we had an army of box fans and a very sweet manager. Eventually, she quit and we got a new manager. He genuinely seemed to hate all of us and would be very angry if we weren’t working at a pace that he deemed appropriate.

One day, he decided that the box fans were against food safety regulations and took all of them out of the kitchen. Obviously, the next day when he wasn’t working, we put them back because, without them, the heat was unbearable and honestly unsafe. When he saw that we had put them back, he cut the cords of every fan while making a huge scene about throwing them out and how if we can’t handle a hot kitchen, we don’t deserve to work in one. Every prep food employee quit that day.

32. A Little Patience Goes A Long Way

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I worked for an electrical contractor for a decent sized company with approximately 100 employees, most of whom were licensed electricians. We were on a massive job renovating an office building and the foreman was about as calm and collected as you could ever ask for, despite having a lot on his plate. One day, his kids were sick, and his wife was out of town, so he had to stay home that day.

In his place, we got the general supervisor of the company. The new guy completely lost it within about an hour of the start of the day, getting in people’s faces and screaming at them. While I was doing my job and making solid progress, he came over and said something along the lines of “Were you born retarded or did your parents have to beat it into you?” I just stared at him for a moment, then grabbed my tools and walked off the job. By the time I got to my car, I looked back at the entrance and saw more than half of the crew doing the same thing. The company ended up firing that guy and gave his job to the aforementioned calm foreman. Everybody who walked was invited back, although not everybody returned.

33. Renovation Madness

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The company I work for is a pretty large corporation that owns 15 hotels. The geniuses at corporate decided to renovate all of their properties in the same year. The renovations took just over a year to be completed, and the hotels were losing a lot of money because of it. The guests don’t like to stay in hotels under renovation, so for an entire year, each hotel would have been lucky if it met 20% occupancy each night. They lost so much money in that year that they needed to do something quick to recover some costs.

In an attempt to save money, corporate decided to cut back on how many hours the hotel employees get, completely eliminate the janitorial and security departments, and get the managers to cover the slack. They worked out algorithms to determine how many hours the housekeepers and laundry attendants could work. The housekeeping department basically got 20 minutes per room, per day and the laundry staff gets one hour for every 10 rooms. When all these changes were implemented, the general manager at the property and 15 other staff members walked out. At my property, we’ve lost 6 staff members from all different departments, and our turnover rate on housekeepers is about 3 months. The big kicker is that now that we don’t have security working at the hotel overnight anymore, people’s cars keep getting broken in to, which is an even bigger deterrent for guests.

34. Feeding the Needy

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I worked at a vegan restaurant in Seattle where there was a homeless shelter a few blocks away. This meant that there were always a few homeless people around the area during the day. My coworkers and I had been giving away our free shift meals to homeless people during our breaks, walking around and looking for people who needed food but not at the restaurant. One day, the General Manager asked why I was a few minutes late coming from my break. I told him I’d lost track of time while talking to someone down the street and I’d given my meal to them.

He asked why I did it, and I replied, “He’s homeless and needs the food more than I do.” The manager got fairly mad and said, “If you feed them, they’ll just hang around here all day!!!.” That certainly wasn’t the case, as very few homeless people actually hung out in front of our restaurant. I told him that while on a break, with my food, outside the restaurant, I could share or give my meal to whoever I wanted to. In front of the whole kitchen, he said: “Anyone caught feeding homeless people their meals will be written up!” Now, this being a very liberal vegan restaurant, that statement did not go well with the staff. Within a week, half our kitchen crew had found new jobs, including me.

35. “I Don’t Like The Way You Look.”

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I was working part-time in a butcher shop; sometimes in the front and sometimes in the back. One day, I came from my afternoon classes straight to work and although I was exhausted, I still got changed into my work uniform and put my apron on to begin work. An hour later, the store owner walks in. He looked at me and then he ran, like literally ran into the office where the store manager was doing the books. A few minutes later, I hear the owner yelling, “Why is she still working here? You know I don’t like the way she looks and how she is, why is she still working here?”

Sometime later, I got called into the office. All of my other coworkers and friends stood there looking at me. I went into the office and I got fired because the owner literally didn’t like how I looked. I was in shock. Some of my coworkers were also shocked and two friends I made began screaming, “What the hell is wrong with him? Is he crazy? Is he for real?.” They just walked out, saying “if people are getting fired because of their looks, they didn’t want to be part of such an organization.” We were already short staffed and then 3 people left in one day. It was a disaster, but I already had some other jobs lined up. A few months later, the owner went bankrupt and had to sell his company to someone else.

36. Letting You Know Who’s in Charge

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I worked at a Wells Fargo bank branch where the newly minted store manager was a rude, know-it-all, 20 something-year-old. The staff at her branch had been working together for a couple of years under the previous manager and they had things running like a well-oiled machine. The new manager comes in and wants to let everyone know she’s the boss alienating the whole staff in the process.

By Friday afternoon, they had enough of her. All the staff, except for one banker, walked out. The lead teller called the district manager, the manager’s boss, and told her they weren’t coming back until the manager was gone. The district manager fired everyone who walked out because she can’t allow herself to be forced around like that. The other branches in the area force their people to cover our branch while new people are hired, trained, and brought up to speed. Once the branch was fully staffed again, the branch manager was fired less than two months later.

37. The Bounced Checks

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I was a baker at a small cafe that could have been a successful place, but the owners were a couple in their early 30’s comprised of an intelligent but socially inept woman and her manipulative bullying husband. I hung on for almost a year because I loved the work, I had a lot of freedom and they honestly paid me pretty well. But the husband would steal from the register, go to the restaurant next door to get drunk while he was supposed to be managing.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was when checks started bouncing and being given to us later and later. When we finally got them, about 6 of the staff of 8 quits. They then came after me saying I was responsible for financially ruining the business because I paid an electrician who’d done some work for us and I ordered too much peanut butter. After I walked out, the business ended up shutting down about 4 months later.

38. The Extra Hours

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I worked as a housekeeper for a golf resort which was severely understaffed; there were supposed to be at least 10 employees in the department, but there were only 4, including me. We had to clean out 246 rooms a day and because we were understaffed, we had to work overtime every day. We started at 7 am and the shift was supposed to end at 3 pm, but instead, we worked until 6 pm. The other housekeepers were pissed because our boss and inspector left at 3 pm leaving the rest of the rooms to us unsupervised.

Some days we left early since no one was watching us while some of us stayed behind because work still had to be done and if we didn’t do it then the next day would be a longer work. During one lunch break, we all decided at 3 pm when the boss and inspector leave, we turn in our uniforms and go home. Our boss didn’t care and just let us leave. The next day, our housekeeping department was shut down because there were no workers, so the owner hired a maid service to clean the rooms until he found more workers. In the following weeks, the other departments like the kitchen did what we did and the hotel shut down for good.

39. Keep An Eye Out

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When I was hired by the company, the owners requested that I monitor another employee, on the premise that he was stealing from the company and was bad at his job. Not long after I started, the owners had installed monitoring equipment and software on all of the company devices and in our office space without any notice. The owners didn’t like it when we would speak to each other, so they would call us into their office if the saw us talking to each other about things they weren’t okay with us discussing.

The staff would meet outside for “smoke” breaks to talk and we all found out that every person was hired to “watch” another person who was “stealing” or “bad” at their jobs. Because I was the one who figured this out, I was confronted and then fired. Shortly after nearly everyone else at the company (approximately 20 people) quit. The person I was hired to monitor filed a lawsuit and eventually sued them and won. The company has since gone under, but the owners are still running another company to this day.

40. Banning People From Making Friends

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Our boss actively tried to ban friendships. If co-workers became friendly, she would schedule them so they would NEVER see each other. “You’re here to work! Not to socialize!” She also banned everyone from coming into the workplace when they were not working. It was a pub. She banned socializing in a pub.

She became insanely paranoid when she learned four people were in a WhatsApp group. She said the only reason people who work together set up group chats is because they wanted to talk trash about her. She was actually kind of right.

41. “Who Are You? I Don’t Work Here”

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I worked at an amusement park, and one man wanted his child to go on a ride despite not having any tickets. The man was screaming at me for 15 minutes when I saw my boss walking by. I told the customer he could talk to the manager and proceeded to call my boss over.

My boss looked at me and said, “Who are you? I don’t work here.” He began to laugh and walked away. I had to deal with that angry customer without any help.

42. My Boss, The Culprit

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I’m a lifeguard and I usually put my lunch with my name on it in the lifeguard station’s fridge. When I went on my lunch break, my food would disappear.

Thanks to some fellow guards and a video camera, I soon found out that the culprit was none other than my boss, who had been stealing my food for the past two weeks.

43. An Emergency is an “Unplanned Vacation”

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I had a boss who refused to let me take an “unplanned vacation” to see my grandma on her deathbed. I quit on the spot.

It was strange because up until that incident, she was really cool and laid back. But when I asked for the weekend off to go visit my dying grandmother, she snapped and lectured me about how I needed to “plan” my “vacation” better.

44. No To Christmas Party, Yes to Vacation

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Our boss canceled the Christmas party and Christmas bonuses for the whole company because we “didn’t have the money for it.”

I found out later that the CEO and CTO used company funds to take a week-long ski vacation in Whistler instead of doing something nice for the employees. You better believe I spread that evidence around the office.

45. The Queen of All Evil

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I had just started working as a waitress for a restaurant. My boss had been working there for a very long time and had a great relationship with almost all our customers. In the beginning, she was very sweet and helpful, but toward the end, she became everyone’s nightmare. Little did I know, she had a history of sleeping with many customers, despite the fact that she was married.

She also had been stalking our coworkers’ social media to find reasons why we should be fired; she was successful with about three people. She and my other boss then got into a disagreement and she decided to quit. But before she did, she badmouthed the entire management team and company to every customer she had to chance to say it to. It’s safe to say we are very happy she is gone now and my workplace is much better off without her.

46. No Tipping

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I was working in a restaurant that switched from fast food to half full service, so I would refill water, bus dishes, etc. but customers would order food at the counter and carry the tray to their table. Once we switched, customers would occasionally leave tips out on the tables for us, which was awesome since we were doing twice as much work with no pay raise.

But then the manager put signs on all the tables saying “no tipping.” Maybe it had something to do with taxes or payroll, I don’t know, but at the time, it just felt like a huge crap move.

47. The Flirtatious Texts and Photos

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I once worked for a woman who would send me to get her some bubbly in exchange for her working my shift. She would give me various retail bags to put them in so I could sneak in what I had bought for her. On the plus side, she offered to buy me whatever I wanted!

To top it off, she would flirtatiously text her boyfriend and leave her phone openly lying around. On more than one occasion I would see text or photos that would downright make me cringe!

48. It Was “Accident”

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We had a bathroom at our store that our boss liked to keep to herself and didn’t want to share with the customers, so she always had a sign to close it off saying it was ‘broken.’ One day, a customer shopping asked me if she could use the bathroom; I was prepared to tell her, no, but then she pointed out that she was pregnant and that she had to go so bad that she was about to urinate herself. My boss wasn’t in yet so I let the customer use the bathroom.

As soon as she walked out from the bathroom, though, my boss, with perfect timing, got to work. She found out it was me and yelled and screamed at me in a store full of customers. I had never been so angry and embarrassed in my life, but had to hold my tongue. Later that day, I could still feel her hostility; she ‘accidentally’ threw something away and had me jump in the dumpster to go get it. After crying twice at work, I’m grateful to say I quit that week.

49. The Boss With Trust Issues

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I worked at a grocery store and booked a day off three months prior because it was my high school grad. I was told,  “Graduations can’t be on a Tuesday and if I didn’t show up to work, I would be fired.”

The same guy also texted me after I called in sick for the first time, saying, “Nice try faking being sick. I better see a doctor’s note on Monday.” I got a doctor’s note and had to spend $20 on it.

50. It’s Unhealthy to be a Vegetarian

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I once had a boss who would lecture me if I ever looked tired and blame it on the fact that I was a vegetarian. Then she would spend the following hour explaining why she didn’t agree with my lifestyle.

She believed it was ‘unhealthy’ to be a vegetarian and was never shy about making me feel bad for my choice. Needless to say, I didn’t last long at that job!