tell us your “straw that broke the camel’s back” moment with your job

by Alison Green on September 24, 2015

On last week’s post about the manager who told an employee to write a sentence 500 times as “punishment” for a mistake, a bunch of people asked about “straw that broke the camel’s back” moments — the time something so bad happened in your job that you knew you had to get out.

Of course, in a healthy environment, this isn’t how it works. In a normal environment, you decide to move on when you need new challenges, want to advance in ways that aren’t likely in your organization, or see a path somewhere else that’s better suited to you.

But in a dysfunctional environment, people’s reasons for leaving tend to be more about their manager or the company itself. That’s when you get people leaving because their manger insists on a doctor’s note to move their desk, or makes them give each other group feedback while standing in a line, or tries to stop them from using the bathroom.

So: Tell us about your “straw that broke the camel’s back” moment when you knew you had to seriously look for another job.

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{ 1,203 comments… read them below }

  1. Christy*

    When, after several years of refusing to allow details (temporary assignments) for her employees, my director took a detail in another office. Within weeks I had found my own detail (now allowed, natch) and I left within a year.

    1. annonymouse*

      Ah, yes.
      At my last job:
      * I ended up taking over the operations manager role at a fraction (5/8) the pay
      * Had my boss steal credit for an event I (clearly) singlehandedly ran
      * Was micromanaged to a ridiculous degree.
      * My boss would check my work on the database and my work emails remotely while they were on holiday
      * I was regularly blamed for his or other staffs oversights
      * actually got injured at work in the course of my duties and was not put on light duties or given workers compensation

      But the final straw? When he announced that he would retire once his son (13 years my junior – I’m 31 now) graduated from university. His son would take over his current role and he would still oversee everything and control all aspects of the business remotely. I was to train the son, get him to understand everything but still work as an office manager and not a branch manager.

      Combine that with the 3 hours commuting every day plus the excruciating pain I was in because of my injury and I walked away.

  2. Daisy*

    My husband was working at a tech start up with money issues. He would really push to be paid when we really needed money and it would still take a few weeks sometimes. He hadn’t been paid in about 5 weeks and he was told when he asked to be paid “that he wasn’t being a team player”. By asking to be paid.

    He got a lawyer shortly after and they settled for what he was owed + a little more.

    2. weasel007*

      The same thing happened to me. There was a constant bait and switch on when we would get paid. One day we were told we would get paid twice the next week, the scheduled pay check and a missed paycheck from a few months before (they had missed 8 in all). When pay day came, there was nada, and then they said “sorry, can’t pay anything this week”. I lost it. I called the CEO (we were pretty flat) and said this was unacceptable. He yelled at me through the phone and everyone heard it. I wasn’t a team player either, and was told to borrow money from my parents. Funny thing, turns out he was fired for using the corporate card as a personal card and for having TWO nanny’s on the payroll while we were all not getting paid. Karma does come around. I quit several weeks later.

      1. Nonniemoose*

        Oh my gosh that sounds like a nightmare. Does anyone have advice for how to weed out employers like that in a job interview?

        1. College Career Counselor*

          Ask a couple of open-ended questions of everyone you meet–what’s the organizational culture like? What’s the most challenging aspect, etc.? It’s not guaranteed to uncover that behavior, but in a deeply dysfunctional place, sometimes you’ll be surprised at what people tell you about the working conditions when asked.

        2. frothandfrippery*

          Sooo…I’ve got a brilliant friend who works in the retail planning industry…which is full of crazy people. She tests potential employers and asks a question in an interview, and then follows up later by asking the same question in a similar way but basically repeats herself–just to see how the manager treats her. Do they ignore the repeated question? Do they answer it without hesitation? Or in once case, she had an interviewer tell her rather condescendingly that he ‘had already answered that question.’ There was her red flag! Anyone who is that impatient will be an awful person to work for.

    3. Cucumberzucchini*

      That was my “final straw” too. Not getting paid. I was only staying because of the good, steady paycheck. Then one day they just were out of money. I got the same “you’re the only one who has a problem” speech that I knew they were telling everyone privately (because we all talked).

      But I was the only one that was aggressive about it and was the first to be paid back. I did get a lawyer and eventually got every dime of my back pay.

      1. I'm a Little Teapot*

        Also my final straw once. Non-paying boss also told me to get a roommate (he’d paid me a little over $250 in 3 MONTHS, so that’s not gonna cut it) and said he was doing me a favor because I wasn’t smart enough or hardworking enough to get a job anywhere else. He also told me all the other companies out there were big and evil or words to that effect and that he was a nice ethical guy “making a living, not a killing” (his favorite phrase). I wish I remember what my parting words to him were, but they were pretty blunt (if less blunt than what I really wanted to say, which would have involved ranting and obscenities). One month later…I’d found another job that actually paid regularly.

    4. Cube Farmer*

      This happened to my ex-husband. He was asked by his boss if boss needed to teach him how to manage his money better so he was not so dependent on his pay check. He was also threatened with termination if he continued to complain.

      1. Samantha*

        “Not be so dependent on his paycheck” – WOW. I’d love to know how that works. Receive a gigantic, surprise inheritance? Win the lottery?

        1. OfficePrincess*

          Rob a bank. If you don’t get caught you can cover your bills. If you do get caught, your food and housing budget drops to $0.

      2. brownblack*

        “That’s funny. I was just wondering if you needed me to teach you how to go f$%# yourself. You seem to be in great need of that.”

      3. Annonymouse*

        Maybe someone should teach you how to run a business so you’re not so dependant on people working for free which is illegal.

        I’d say it without thinking and get fired – no regrets.

  3. Muriel Heslop*

    As a HS special ed teacher, it was the day that my department charir told me, “you need to spend less time teaching and more time on your paperwork.” Later that day, she missed an ARD meeting because she was throwing up her lunch in the bathroom.

    Miss the kids; don’t miss the bureaucracy.

      2. Muriel Heslop*

        Sadly, it’s not the job anymore, in a lot of places. Special ed paperwork = funding so it’s often a lot more important to the administrators than the teaching is.

    2. Career Counselorette*

      Oh my God, this is the WORST part of working in a social services capacity. You don’t WANT to spend that much time on data entry and paperwork, but there’s so damn much of it that needs to be done.

    3. Z*

      I wished, oh how I wished, that it had been the final straw for my teacher friend when she was told that being assaulted by a student was part of her job.

      But sadly, she’s still there.

      (She was assaulted by a student, to the point where she was badly bruised. She wanted to speak to the police and her union rep. Administrator told her she should just deal with it, it was part of the job. She still spoke with the police and her union rep. Said administrator was not pleased.)

      1. Muriel Heslop*

        That is the WORST! I was told that it could happen to me and I had to take a restraint class. I knew I would quit if that happened, though.

        1. Z*

          A restraint class? Is that something specific to Special Ed? Unfortunately, my teacher friend teaches regular old high school English. It wasn’t a special needs student who hit her — unless you count complete disregard for authority/others/their future a special need.

          Actually, I think I would qualify that as a handicap.

          1. KSM*

            I think in this case it might refer to how to safely restrain special-needs students so that neither you nor the student is hurt.

    5. AGirlCalledFriday*

      Oh man, as a teacher I’ve had a few:

      1. My pay was docked by a grand to pay for some fancy faucet because someone when into the bathroom in my class and left the water on (staff and other students used that bathroom as it was the only one in that small building).
      2. The principal would yell at me in front of the class because a piece of paper was on the floor, or because I had sat down in a chair…then she started a conversation to fire me because I was using my phone to receive status updates on my grandfather who was in a car accident WITH her permission, so I immediately quit.
      3. I was working 13-15 hour days trying to learn new curricula, read books, do paperwork, and all kinds of other stuff above and beyond actual teaching which was required of me, and I had – if I was lucky – maybe 10 min the entire day to eat and go to the bathroom, and then the Vice Principal didn’t like that I had not implemented a program the way he would have done it (note – he was rumored to be a terrible teacher), lied to the principal about things I said (Telling the principal I said the kids were bad, when I had just said that they were unruly, and then trying to make the case that it was the same thing), and then told me that I should devote even MORE time to work. I noped it right outta there!

  4. AcidMeFlux*

    The day my insane boss came thumping into the office one morning and announced “I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and last night, while I couldn’t sleep, I decided to do it. From today on, this (holds up the file where we put things that no one can figure out what to do with) that has been called FILE-GENERAL, will now be called GENERAL-FILE”. I just looked at her for about 30 seconds and said “F+++++++++++K YOU” got my jacket, and split.

    1. Charby*

      “File General” sounds like someone’s office nickname, similar to “Excel wizard” or “Network guru”. It seems weird to make such a big deal about changing the name though, and the idea that she lay awake at night pondering this crucial task is just mindboggling.

      3. Charlotte Collins*

        I have a feeling that AcidMeFlux could tell a lot of stories about this boss’ inefficiency and lack of skill, but this was just the last straw. (Especially since it sounds like if anything was going to be done with that file, it should have to do with resolving the contents, not renaming it.)

        1. Jazzy Red*

          I had a boss who was crazy like that, too. Important business issues would fall by the wayside while he contemplated what style and color of ring binders we needed to use (they all had to match – we couldn’t recycle from other projects).

          Yeah, sometimes the last straw sounds pretty minor, but piled on top of all the seventy-eleven thousand other insane things, it’s just too much!

      4. TheLazyB (UK)*

        Have you never lain in bed at night entirely unable to get inconsequential work tasks out of your head?! Just me and Insane Boss?! Oh dear…..

        2. Elizabeth the Ginger*

          Oh, I definitely have – but I wouldn’t come in and tell my subordinates about it the next day like some Big Thing!

          1. BeenThere*

            That’s the distinction between normal and abnormal right there. Couldn’t have phrased it better EtG.

        3. Claire*

          A few months ago, I laid awake at night worrying the our slide pack which had just gone to print had inconsistent bullet points. It was a pretty major meeting, but it certainly wasn’t going to hinge on something so pedantic.

    2. Three Thousand*

      I can see myself doing this, and acting like a complete douchebag about it as well, but only to my SO, who has learned to tolerate such outbursts by utterly ignoring them. Certainly not to anyone who might reasonably think they were expected to do anything about it.

    3. The Department of Terrestrial Magnetism*

      These things do happen, though. I was once party to a discussion that went on for several days that concerned the naming of a set of 12 things. Should we name them

      XYZ, XYZ1, XYZ2, … XYZ11? Or
      XYZ1, XYZ2, XYZ3, … XYZ12? Or
      XYZ01, XYZ02, XYZ03, … XYZ12? Or
      XYZ00, XYZ01, XYZ02, … XYZ11? Or …

      The thing is, as dumb as it sounds, it actually wasn’t a dumb question, and there were arguments both subtle and profound to justify the various schemes. In the end, we decided on … actually, I forget what we decided.

      1. Stone Satellite*

        Whether debating the name (or naming scheme) makes sense depends entirely on the objects being named. In software development there are some names that matter a lot and you’ll be stuck with them forever … it’s worth a few days of discussion to make sure you get it right. Other times, it’s not worth more than 30 seconds of consideration to make sure your code is readable/searchable.

  5. Me2*

    Working as a temp on a very intense job, we were all working long hours, limiting breaks and lunches to get the job done. There were about six of us total, and I was the only temp, but just as eager as the regular employees to finish the job on time. We were all proud of the effort we were putting into the work and one day the supervisor walked up to us with a handful of $50 bills torn in half and said “I’m going to dangle this carrot, if you finish in time you will each get the other half.” I’m not a puppy, I’m not a toddler, I’m an adult who was already giving it my all. I gathered my belongings and on the way out the door told the supervisor’s boss (I’m guessing it was his idea to begin with) that I didn’t need to be bribed to do a good job.

        1. Oscar Madisoy*

          I think you can do whatever you want to currency, as long as the intent is not to defraud. In the case of coins, you see these machines where you can make stretched-out pennies with souvenir designs. That’s making the coins unspendable as coins, but since there’s no intent to (for example) make people think they’re not pennies but nickels, it’s perfectly legit.

      2. danr*

        Not as long as the correct halves were put back together, since there are serial numbers on each half. I could just see them not realizing that and there being a bunch of mis-matched bills in circulation.

      3. MommaTRex*

        If it is your money, you can do whatever you want with it, including throwing it in a shredder or setting it on fire.

        1. Allison*

          Not in the US you can’t, if you destroy money you’re effectively taking it out of circulation. The government can destroy old bills, but they need to be replaced with new ones first.

          1. MommaTRex*

            I’m probably confusing possible technical law with the actual enforcement of said law. No one is coming after you for tearing up your own $50.

        2. sunny-dee*

          Nope. It’s not technically yours — the physical currency is technically government property that is given in surety of Something (used to be gold) in the treasury. Defacing or destroying money is illegal.

          If anyone cared, which they don’t.

          1. Moksha Maginifique*

            Right. This is why we can’t smelt down old 100% copper pennies and then sell the metal at current copper prices.

    3. Cucumberzucchini*

      I would have taken a lighter to the half I was given just so they couldn’t have put it back together on my way out. Maybe. It’s at least nice to think about.

          1. Elizabeth the Ginger*

            My friend learned this when his son was a toddler – the little boy had been playing quietly in the kitchen, then proudly came into the other room to his parents and announced, “Look! I cut out all the policemen!” He had decided that George Washington’s hair was a policeman’s hat, and had carefully cut the portraits out of several dollar bills he found on the table.

            1. Mabel*

              Our puppy chewed up one $20 bill, and – thank goodness – we discovered the remaining bills next to him before he could get at the rest of them!

              1. Carpe Librarium*

                I used to work in insurance claims; one person called with the following recipe: private sale of jet ski for ~$1,000 cash + 3-year-old + home office shredder = *not* profit.

                Thankfully they didn’t need to worry about insurace, we advised them that as long as you have all the pieces you can take them to the bank and they’ll replace them with fresh notes and send the damaged ones to the treasury.

    5. fposte*

      The only other time I’ve heard of this practice, it was recommended as a way to pay a prostitute. Not exactly something that recommends it as a management practice.

      2. Three Thousand*

        Yeah, it’s a huge signal of contempt, disrespect, and flaunting of power. The guy probably heard about it somewhere and got all excited to try it out on someone.

  6. NYC Redhead*

    Not really a “straw that broke the camel’s back moment,” but I realized I needed to leave a job as I was walking into work in the morning with tears in my eyes- no day gets better from that. This was a job in which my manager would have to vacuum the office before we could start working (OCD much?) and took a nap on the floor in our shared office in the afternoon.

      1. OfficePrincess*

        Same, except for some stupid reason I stuck it out until I was having chest pain on the drive in and panic attacks at my desk.

        1. NicoleK*

          Same here. Panic attacks, chest pains, anxiety, stress. I seriously thought about asking my boss to let me go. I nearly had a nervous breakdown this summer.

          1. MaryMary*

            Anxiety that was bad enough to make me seriously think about going to a doctor and asking for meds…which made me realize the medication-free way to relieve my anxiety would be to find a new job.

            1. K.*

              Ditto. I was getting referrals for therapists that specialized in anxiety. I had never had more than garden variety “it’s the day of/before a big event, I’m nervous” anxiety before I worked there.

            2. embertine*

              I didn’t even realise that’s what it was after seven years of being ground down by crappy management… until I got made redundant and it was as if a giant 4-tonne bag of nasty had been taken off my shoulders. Worries about paying the bills? Nothing compared to the struggle of working for those sh*tlords.

        2. That Marketing Chick*

          Ditto. Chest pain, eye twitch, panic attacks and increase in migraines. The kicker? I actually loved what I did – but a few of the people I had to deal with (including the new CEO who I’m surprised didn’t make us call him “Your Highness”) made it unbearable. So thankful I finally got out of there!

          1. Boop*

            I had this exact same problem! Certain co-workers, new boss, and internal clients made work awful for a while. The actual job duties were fine, even enjoyable, but the environment went very toxic for a while. Things improved, although still have the occasional issue with co-workers and internal clients. As long as it’s not all the time I can manage, but if it becomes an every problem again I’ll need to start looking.

          2. Pixie stix*

            Ummm. I’m about there, but the eye twitching… was it like one eye, or did it sometimes involve like, that whole side of your face from your eye to your cheekbone twitching? Because I have been having that last more and more often, and I am thinking that it has more to do with the fact that I’ve been here for five years and am treated like garbage (ONE thank you in five years. ONE. And never have they ever said my name correctly. NEVER. In five years.).

        3. Annonymouse*

          Ah, the pain of working.
          I would be fine until I got close to the office / off my bus.

          Then the headaches/migraines started.
          And the nausea. And chest pain.

          Taking 2 nuerofen every morning just to start the day not a good sign. Also I started getting grey hair – I was 28.

      2. cwes*

        Mine wasn’t crying so much as the rising feeling of nausea that developed every morning as my subway got closer and closer to my stop. I’ve never been happier or more relieved than when I finally was able to put in my notice!!

        1. Lee*

          This first started for me as I’d been walking up the stairwell to my office. And then it started happening when I came within sight of the door to that stairwell. And then, finally, I began to feel sick just thinking about how I was nearing the corner around which was the door to the stairwell up to my office.

      3. Ethyl*

        I was fantasizing about getting into a car accident on my way in after being up all night dreading it and crying.

        1. Kelly L.*

          This didn’t happen to me with a job, but it did tell me I needed to leave a relationship: when I started fantasizing about falling down the stairs/off a walkway. Not fatally, just breaking my leg or something so I could go to the hospital and be left alone for a few weeks.

          1. Meg Murry*

            Yes, when you start wishing for “nothing fatal, but just something that would keep me in the hospital for a few weeks” is when you know without a doubt it’s time to go.

            Before that – if you start feeling dread on Saturday night, because tomorrow is Sunday, and that means you won’t get any sleep Sunday night worrying about Monday, also not a bad sign.

            Honestly, any time going to work sucks more than “gah, it’s morning and no one likes getting out of bed in the morning”, it’s time to at least start thinking about a vacation, if not moving on.

            2. popesuburban*

              I found myself fantasizing that I had mono again and I wasn’t just that run-down from my current job, because then I could rest for two weeks. Maybe go to the hospital for a night. Evey Saturday is tinged with regret because tomorrow is Sunday, and every morning is a struggle to get out of bed. I’ve been trying to leave for months, but I’ve only had one bite, so I just keep doing it because there’s no other choice.

          2. Dynamic Beige*

            I didn’t want to fall down or break anything… I used to drive home and wonder what would happen if I just kept on driving. How long would it take until I was missed? How far could I get? I would think about how to change my licence plate number to avoid detection or if it would be better to head for the border instead.

            2. Persephone Mulberry*

              I’ve done this as an intellectual exercise, not necessarily related to work or anything. It’s usually triggered by the realization that I’ve left my cell phone at home.

            3. OfficePrincess*

              I had those thoughts too, but on the way to work. “I could just miss my exit, I’ve got a good amount of gas…”

            4. Stephanie*

              Yeah, sometimes I’ll run out and get coffee during my shift. I’ll be driving like “Man… the interstate is RIGHT THERE. I bet I’d be halfway home by the time they noticed I wasn’t back…”

              1. dbryan*

                My moment came when I was riding the bus in to work. There were prisoners picking up trash along the highway. I thought, “That wouldn’t be so terrible…”

            6. JL*

              My train in the evening was on the same quay as an international train going to Dream Romantic City. I’ve thought more than once at he end of a bad day to see if there were seats free on that train.

              1. Boop*

                Lol – my Dream Romantic City is on the other side of the globe, but I have occasionally just thought about heading to the airport after work…

            7. Jazzy Red*

              It’s so reassuring to hear that other people have had this fantasy. Mine was to just keep driving west until the land ran out. However, my car wouldn’t have made it through the next state.

        2. Stephanie*

          Yeah, I fantasized about getting hit by the Metro and getting maimed. I was at a job that worked on a quota system basically and we had our billables targets reduced if we had sick leave or medical leave. I was like “Man. Think of all that write-off time I’d get.”

        3. Blanche Devereaux*

          This! When I fantasized about getting into an car accident or my plane crashing, it was long past time to leave.

        4. Rachel*

          This is kind of how I feel about being on a year working abroad as part of my degree, part of me keeps thinking oh if something like a car accident happens and I get a bit hurt but not too badly, i’ll be able to go home.

        5. Abradee*

          I experienced similar fantasies of getting in an accident or escaping Gone Girl style in a past horrible job–my so-called “dream job.” One time a coworker of mine ended up in the hospital for a week due to a pretty serious virus. My reaction? Jealously. I thought, “lucky her. Why can’t I get a grave illness so I can get away from this hellhole for awhile?” Seriously, the thought of being in the hospital was preferable to being at work. Unhealthy mindset due to an unhealthy job.

          1. Pearl*

            My mum told me I needed a new job when she found me throwing my guts up from stomach flu and saying, “It’s fine, this is so much more fun than being at work!”

        6. Butterfly*

          When my doctor strongly advised me to get a different job and offered to keep me out of work for an extended period time on medical leave to so. After 3 very, very, very long years of working at this place with an impossible manager and an even worse HR department, unfortunately the pharmacists and clerks know me by face because of the many prescriptions I pick up on a regular basis for high blood pressure, ulcers, anxiety depression and migraines. I wasn’t on any medication before taking this job.

          1. Stone Satellite*

            What an awesome doctor! I have this sneaking suspicion it would be some kind of ethical or maybe even legal violation, though … (IANAL, obviously)

            1. AnonaMoose*

              My psych also told me to quit, that it wasn’t worth it. I don’t think it’s a legal issue for a doctor to tell you to alter your life according to your symptoms, which is precisely what these MDs did for us. It’s not like they were spreading libel, more like ‘you do not react well to this particular environment. You should find a new environment.’. I could be wrong though.

            2. AnonaMoose*

              Wait, I just reread the part about keeping her out of work to find another job on the pretense that it’s medically related. I think that would be health insurance fraud, not sure of actual criminal behavior, though.

              1. Blue Anne*

                Really? Geez. In the UK if a doctor thinks your work is having a big an impact on your physical/emotional health they can sign you off work, usually for a couple of weeks but more if necessary. The idea of that being possibly fraud in any country is a bit shocking.

          2. AnonaMoose*

            OMG this is my exact story from ExJob. I had the BEST psychiatrist who just continued my FMLA until I felt comfortable to go back. I….uh…never did. Best decision ever.

            Still on the meds though. I think that job actually chemically altered my brain permanently. I have anxiety attacks, GAD, chronic insomnia and several health issues now, when before I used to run in races and had a very active social life. Bad jobs can really kill you if you’re not careful. My friend who is still there (in my same role) just had a heart attack. Still refuses to quit. *headdesk*

        7. abby*

          This happened to me a few times with old, old job. Also, I used to travel a lot and would cry all night before leaving on a trip. About the time the movie Cast Away came out, I watched it and was jealous.

      4. LizNYC*

        Me too. When I realized that my 9 a.m. Sunday stomachaches were from dread of going in the next day. And that every day on the car ride home, I had to rant about my workplace, otherwise I’d explode.

      6. brownblack*

        I only cried once during my worst job, and it was the culmination of . . . a lot. I didn’t last too much longer after that.

        1. AnonaMoose*

          Oooo giiirrrrrl, that is the worst. And having to pretend you’re peeing so people wouldn’t worry about the sobbing in the next stall. Flushing every so often, etc. Ugh, hated it.

    2. Tiffy the Fed... Contractor*

      Yep. I dreaded going to work every. single. day. It took me awhile, but I finally realized I didn’t have to be there, and that if I didn’t do anything to escape the misery, I could only blame myself.

      1. cuppa*

        I had a previous job where I dreaded Monday morning as I was leaving the parking lot on Friday afternoon. Knew I had to get out of there.

    3. AcidMeFlux*

      Oh, that too….(at a dfferent job) the evening I came home and my now-ex live in boyfriend (who was finishing college, so we were desperate for $) said, “Hi, honey, how was your day” and I was about to give the usual “yeah, okay” when out of nowhere I suddenly started sobbing hysterically and collapsed on the sofa. To his credit, he said, the hell with this, you give notice tomorrow morning, we can eat rice and beans till you get a better job, but you can’t suffer like that. Ugh. (FYI employer was a major Manhattan cultural institution, one of those places that people kill to get into. Hotbed of flesh-eating yuppies and preppies. Moral of the story, stay on your own side of class warfare.)

      1. On the Tenure Track*

        oh flashbacks.
        The corporate culture was sarcasm and screaming. I was an assistant and was supposed to intuitively know everything- who to go to for X, when to do Y without ever being trained. I was anxious all of the time. Crying at night. My supervisor would scream my name across a hall to my tiny windowless office. I cringed every time I heard her voice. Started looking for a new job 4 months in. Hired for a new job after 5.

          1. Museum survivor*

            As someone who has worked in three NYC museums and one in Chicago, I can tell you two of the NYC museums were horrible, horrible horrible. Screaming, dysfunctional cesspools of manipulative, petty people. (Neither was the Guggenheim.) Working at one of them caused me to have chronic head and stomach aches, a rash, and lose about 20 – 30 pounds from stress. (The latter being one of the only positives — I looked amazing, but was a nervous wreck!) I cried at my desk nearly every day the last few months I was there.

            My colleagues got ulcers, chronic headaches, the shingles, and anxiety attacks. The department of 12 (except the person who was the problem – the director) turned over three times in as many years. That was more than five years ago and the director is still there while countless great employees left because of her.

            The straw was when the director claimed my position was responsible for managing a program my co-worker had been running for the previous 2 years and wasn’t in my job description, and began playing mind games with me, making me think I was going insane. It took about three years to recover and even now, I have occasional flashbacks. Like when my current supervisor asks me to come to his office unexpectedly – I have to remind myself his is not irrational or going to ambush me like the miserable person I worked for at that place.

            Conversely, the museum in Chicago was one of the best places I’ve worked.

            1. Jazzy Red*

              I recently found a picture of myself taken when I was in my mid-20’s, and I WAS THIN! I didn’t even know that I was ever thin. But, it was during the lowest period in my life when I was super stressed and living on coffee and cigarettes (OK, and beer). Getting laid off from the job was a life saving event.

            2. Lyn*

              We have a 2nd in command here where I work who has caused about 20-30 fantastic people to quit in the three years she’s been here. And she’s still here. So sad.

        1. Oryx*

          I work in a small field so I know several people personally who have gotten “dream” jobs I interviewed for. With every single one, I’ve heard stories that make me breath a sigh of relief for not being hired.

        2. Pennalynn Lott*

          My “dream” job was at Microsoft. It is also the job that gave me heart palpitations, night sweats and difficulty breathing. I was let go in a round of layoffs in 2010, and I still haven’t fully recovered. (From the trauma of the job, not the layoff. The layoff was a huge blessing, since all my physical ailments up and disappeared within a week of being let go).

          1. Windchime*

            So funny you should say that. As a programmer, I always used to think that Microsoft was the pinnacle. The place that the cream of the crop went to work. I know better now; I have met a lot of people who have worked there and it sounds like a horrible, horrible place where they just burn through people. Good for you for getting out.

          2. catsAreCool*

            Microsoft gave a presentation at my college showing that people had sleeping bags under their desks. They said that people enjoyed their work so much, they slept there sometimes. If they hadn’t shown that, I might have tried to get a job there. So glad I didn’t! Glad you’re feeling better.

          3. Bon*

            I worked at Microsoft. 18 months in my boss’ personality changed. He did a total 180. A job I loved and was great at just left me crying on the phone to my parents every night.

            “When I was 20, I worked every hour God sent and asked for more. Kids these days just don’t want to work, they complain about everything. It’s all about mortgages, and cars, and savings. You want a social life instead of working four extra hours in the evening and keeping a UK and US standard working time.”

            There was no one to turn to there. I was in every morning at 7:30 and wasn’t out the door until 8 some evenings. It was 10pm by the time I got home and then back on a bus at 6am the next morning. I hated it by the end of it.

          1. BeenThere*

            Yay, this is always good to hear! I’m doing a bunch of interveiwing at various big tech copmanies some with very mixed reputations. I’m really nervous that I won;t be able to figure out which teams are the bad ones.

      3. the gold digger*

        (FYI employer was a major Manhattan cultural institution, one of those places that people kill to get into. Hotbed of flesh-eating yuppies and preppies. Moral of the story, stay on your own side of class warfare.)

        You cannot write that and then just stop.

        1. AcidMeFlux*

          Well, yeah, I can because frankly almost all of those dream job culture palaces end up swallowing whole and spitting out the tiny bones of the hopeful young, and it’s just about always the same damn story. Hmm. Mine? A year of a boss who used to make my younger counterpart take dictation (yes it was long ago) then make her cry by taking the letters she had transcribed and typed and rip them up “…because I can!”. A boss who once told me to – direct quote -“call all the boutiques on Madison Avenue because my wife lost her glasses shopping yesterday so find out where they are.”.(FWIW said wife had a PA and an au pair; our office was a publicly funded non profit). Where my more well off coworkers snickered at my wardrobe, my residence in a less cool neighborhood, and couldn’t quite get the concept that when payday rolled around I had to get my check cashed NOW so I could eat and afford subway fare. A million things more, every day. Like I said, the other side of the class war.

    5. Elizabeth West*

      Me too–when I got put on a PIP and then stopped caring. At that point, I made a major effort to improve, just in case, but I started looking. Oddly enough, I felt better once I quit giving a sh*t.

    6. Ros*

      Same, except that I was 7 months pregnant and needed to stick it out another month and a half in order to get maternity leave.

      Spoiler: I accepted another job shortly before the end of my maternity leave and never walked back into that building.

      1. Minister of Snark*

        My worst boss told me right before I was getting ready to leave for maternity leave at 8.5 months pregnant that “maybe we’d made a mistake” hiring me and when I got back from maternity leave, he would have to reconsider whether I would continue to be employed. Yeaaaaaaah, instead, how about I just spend the next 8 weeks looking for another job instead?

        Jerk.

          1. Minister of Snark*

            Considering his gripe was about my performance and not my pregnancy, probably not. (Never take a job from someone who refuses to give you objectives and tells you to just “anticipate his needs.” That’s the lesson I learned.) Getting angry at him for pulling this bull**** while I was arguably at my most vulnerable gave me the push I needed to quit and get another job.

          2. Green*

            Only if the reason they were doubting her was because she was pregnant. You can fire pregnant employees, just not for being pregnant.

    7. GS*

      Oh God, this. I knew it was time when, on the drive in, I told myself I could just close my eyes and hit the gas and run off the road and I wouldn’t have to go in. It was a dark time, but thankfully I left shortly after.

      1. Menacia*

        I drive over a bridge and through a tunnel to and from my job…have thought about the possibilities but then come to my senses. No JOB is worth the consequences of what might happen, and if I ever get to that point, I would rather, like another poster wrote, quit my job and eat beans and rice until I get back on my feet. There are ALWAYS options, and while it’s hard to think of them when we’re in the moment, it’s a good thing to write down and refer back to from time to time. :)

      2. MinB*

        Yep. To me it was fantasizing about running into trees. That, and then coming into work and having my incompetent ED who objectively works less than everyone else complain to me about how hard her job is. Ok, sure, I’m having a mental breakdown because of you but your job is hard. Sure.

    8. Anony-Moose*

      Oh gosh, yes. At one job I started having panic attacks every morning. The breaking point was when I overslept and realized I’d be about 20 minutes late to work (at a job where that’s pretty much fine). Except I started hyperventilating and throwing up. My boyfriend (who had only been dating me for like…2 months at the time) was like “yep. start job searching.”

    9. Nom d' Pixel*

      Not crying for me, but waking up with the alarm and having the first thought be “I don’t want to go to work”. That is a horrible way to start the day.

      1. Three Thousand*

        Exactly. I know I’m doing something I like when I’m not hitting the snooze button over and over.

        1. Quru*

          Strangely enough, the only way I managed to stop hitting the snooze button over and over again was putting my Nintendo 3DS next to my bed, Animal Crossing already open. And that’s despite me liking my job, but, you know: soft and warm.

    10. Maxwell Edison*

      I knew things had come to a pretty pass when I found myself planning to take my anti-anxiety meds each Thursday morning so I could get through my weekly one-on-one with my manager.

      1. Middle Name Jane*

        Been there, done that. I used to take my meds half an hour before any scheduled meetings with my manager (alone or with the rest of the team). Now I’m on an extended release formula I take every day, so I’m usually okay.

      2. Heather*

        THIS! Every time I crossed paths with my boss, she would give me an assignment with an impossible deadline. I could be at lunch, or in the middle of a conversation with someone else, it didn’t matter. Plus she had this weird habit of always sitting next to me in meetings, or standing next to me in group settings. I started moving around the room on purpose, but she would follow…then give me an assignment! She would also email/call/text after hours, and reprimanded me for not staying late or coming in on weekends to help my coworkers with their workloads (without overtime pay). I knew it was time to go when I started vomiting and having anxiety attacks while crying in the bathroom.

    11. AnotherAnon*

      Similar story here – my belly would start hurting around 2-3 PM every day and wouldn’t feel better until after I got home at 6 PM or so.

    12. Nashira*

      This is the position I’m in. Both the subject of the work and some of the staff trigger my PTSD, and I spend a couple days a week feeling suicidal from it. I’m job hunting but don’t feel like I can quit this job unless I start making serious plans of an attempt – I got fired from my only previous job, and I don’t want to have to explain why I would have quit this one.

    13. Ad Astra*

      Yep, crying because I didn’t want to go to work was my wake-up call to dust off the resume and get serious about leaving.

    14. HKM*

      THIS. So much this. At my old job I had to sit in my car outside and compose myself before going in.
      I would say “we are HUMANS with WILLPOWER but we still come to this building every day to be verbally abused? Whats WRONG WITH US?”

    15. jarofbluefire*

      Oh yep, all this sounds familiar: the constant dread, stomach cramps, nosebleeds, headaches, constantly on the edge of tears, sleeplessness….

      But the weird thing that pushed it over, in terms of physical symptoms? A months-long-recurring facial tic. That my doctor said was most definitely from the stress and warned me could become *permanent*.

      It stopped the day I gave notice. I just couldn’t bear the idea of being permanently scarred by a job that was, at best, just an excuse for bureaucratic nonsense.

        1. Beebs the Elder*

          Got one in grad school the year of my qualifying exams. Still comes back every now and then . . .

    16. Pennalynn Lott*

      For me it was eye-twitches in the parking lot at one job; then – decades later – heart palpitations, night sweats, and difficulty breathing at another job.

    17. crying*

      Me too. I would cry all the way on the drive to work, cry in the car in the parking lot, cry on the walk up to the door, run out of the building crying, cry randomly on a Sunday morning while getting groceries – when I resigned, I stopped crying.

    18. Lena*

      Similar – when I had a knife against my wrists because it was better than going into the office.

      I’m still with the same company, but I’ve moved to a different department and my life is indescribably better. I actually look forward to coming into work!

      Incidentally, the manager who got me to that point has just been reorganised out of the company. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

    19. Jen M.*

      I used to go home from my old job and cry in my bedroom, sometimes for hours. Only reason I stayed as long as I did at that pile of trash company was I knew that I would be let go with severance…eventually.

      Life is much better for me now.

  7. Holly*

    We had a team of three – two writers and one graphic designer who only knew a little bit of coding – tasked with creating a very big, brand new website for the company. In three months. With no budget. We were stressed out, exhausted, frazzled – I mean, every single thing we did was under intense scrutiny, we were redoing pages constantly, I had to help our designer code just because he was also being used for other projects….it was hard.

    The deadline was Christmas. The day before Christmas Eve, we were all at the office until 10 PM trying to get the website launched. There were hosting issues that popped up but the IT guy was at the airport and refusing to talk to us (he picked up the phone, said something snotty and hung up.) It was hell. Sometime around 8, the owner called my boss into her office and screamed at her for the website being too slow (the hosting issues) and basically called her incompetent, said she was severely overpaid, etc. My boss was in tears.

    That night I knew that nothing we ever, ever did was good enough for the owner. We were proud of that website and of all the work we had done together as a team, but none of it mattered. When we got back from holiday break my boss and I met privately and started a job hunt together.

    1. aliascelli*

      I was a motel housekeeper in high school and they were constantly firing people (hot tip: the people were not the problem). One day the manager called the housekeeping line and started berating the first person to pick up – who happened to be one of the best people left. Three of us walked off. It remains the only time I’ve done it.

  8. Cube Diva*

    I was essentially working for two people at OldJob- the Assistant Director and the Development Director of a tiny nonprofit. I was really struggling to do everything the job required, because it was essentially 2 1/2 full time jobs. However, the day the Assistant Director told me that my “enthusiasm would hurt me professionally in the long run,” I knew I had to start looking for something else. My enthusiasm was the ONLY thing keeping me going day after day. Goodness.

    1. Muriel Heslop*

      I was told something similar in my first job and it was the beginning of the end. I LIKE being enthusiastic!

      2. Katie the Fed*

        I had a boss like that. He told my problem was I cared too much and I had to let the system fail. Now as a manager I understand what he meant – that sometimes the only want to let the higher-ups know that things are unsustainable is to let tasks slip, but he worded it really badly.

        1. Red*

          Same. This comment made me realize that most of my job has become about planning ways to misdirect and manipulate people into following half-written rules instead of issues like accuracy, timeliness, and completeness. No wonder I’m so burned out. I’m really done.

          1. popesuburban*

            Oh. Wow. Yes, this is what I do. And I do get more done than any of the six people who held this position in the last three years (I became the longest-lasting when I hit seven months; I’d been here a year as of May), but it’s at the cost of my energy. Ye gods, it’s just so much *work* pulling strings and telling lies. I joke that I would win the Game of Thrones, because that’s how we work around here, but man, Westeros is every bit as lousy to live in as I suspected. Doing nothing but fighting, dealing with setbacks, tracking people, and taking flack sucks the life right out of me.

              1. popesuburban*

                It’s a specialty, high-end construction company. The other inside staff is great, but we are battling a department of technicians who are active liars when they’re not simply withholding information, and management who doesn’t see a problem with this, no matter how many times we prove that it’s happening. We communicate very well in the office, but routinely get thrown under the bus by the people in the field. I’ve learned to get results, but it takes a *lot* of work, and we all still get yelled at a lot.

        2. Margo Victory*

          I also had a boss that worded things poorly like that. I’m pretty sure he thought he was helping me keep from burning out. But what he said was, “I’m going to give you some advice as a friend now, not as your boss: you need to get a boyfriend.”

    2. AcidMeFlux*

      The whu fu? What does that even mean? You should spend the day with a paper bag over your head over a shroud?

    3. Charby*

      I can imagine that AD dressing down other employees too.

      “You’re a little too detail-oriented for the working world. Look at this email you sent out yesterday — not a single typo! Loosen up!”

      “Showing up early for meetings is a sign of weakness; you need to start strolling in 15-30 minutes after it’s started and demanding to be filled in on what happened before.”

      1. Cube Diva*

        Ironically, the Development Director was… um… “misdirected” with her attention to typos. The straw that broke HER back with my employment there was a small typo on our website’s header. That I had fixed overnight before she even got to work. But I emailed her about anyway, letting her know what I had done.

      2. Pickles*

        My mother has stories about her office manager telling her to loosen up – don’t call the doctor “Dr Smith” but “Bob” instead, say “hi” instead of “good morning,” etc. I can’t imagine those doctors’ reactions had she listened and called them by first names – having met the ones in question, most had the stereotypical specialists’ inflated egos.

      3. sarah*

        This comment is pretty old, but I found this thread and had to pipe in: my boss told me last week I’m too type A to fit in on his team, I should stop thinking so much. I’m in the wrong job, working for the wrong boss. The next day I started job searching.

    4. Bostonian*

      Were you by any chance a young woman at the time? That sounds like a classic example of gendered feedback.

      1. Cube Diva*

        Yes I was! The Assistant Director was also a middle-aged woman, but it definitely could have been based on my age and gender.

      2. Sarah211*

        I had feedback like this one time from an older woman. We had a staff meeting, and everyone without errors the past month got praised. I wasn’t aware of any errors but my name was not called. I asked for feedback, very nicely, saying I’d like to know so I can fix it (I had never received feedback ever, after 1.5 years). She scheduled a meeting with me and included my direct supervisor, where she chastised me for not knowing how to prioritize, asking questions (?), and generally not being complacent. My supervisor’s jaw was dropped too, so I knew it wasn’t just me. My supervisor thankfully tried to stand up for me, but then she was chastised too for allowing me to behave the way I do. I got another job offer within a couple of weeks, and giving notice made me feel so good! My body physically felt better, my mood improved ten times over, I slept wonderfully that night.

        1. Red*

          Gosh, this gave me flashbacks to working at Major Bank’s expense reimbursement audit group. Quotas, error meetings, call-outs for 0 error months… Brr.

  9. Annoying Girl*

    The day that my Vice President wrote ME up because the Chief Executive Officer got drunk and sloppy at a company event with clients. I was written up because I should have been watching him better.

    1. T3k*

      Wooow, if you could have gotten away with it, I’d have made some snide comment like “I didn’t realize my job description meant babysitting the CEO.”

      1. Jazzy Red*

        I was in a meeting one time, and we were talking about how hard it was to get people to send their information in on time for the reports to be put together (because they were always “too busy to do stuff like that”). We had a department calendar, and the deadlines are in everyone’s individual calendars, and it was extremely frustrating. One of the managers suggested that I call everyone 1 or 2 days before the deadline and keep following up until we got the information we need, and I said “I don’t babysit children any more”. This wasn’t the last straw but it sure was a big, poke-you-in-the-butt constant pain, and that attitude certainly contributed to the last straw.

      2. blakmac*

        I would have done it whether I’d have gotten away with it or not.

        A recent exchange with my boss’ boss…

        him: “You knew what the job consisted of before you took it.”

        me: “Yeah. But I didn’t know the company was breaking the law at the time.”

        Waiting to see how this all pans out.

    3. Mallory Janis Ian*

      Ha. I was once told by the dean that my primary job, related to an upcoming meeting of my former department’s professional advisory board, was to make sure my department head didn’t get on a plane and leave for any other meetings during that time (department head owns a successful private practice, so he would often fly out on private business at short notice and not be available for departmental meetings).

      So, the opening breakfast of the new event starts, and I call my boss to make sure he’s running on time for it, and he says, “What do you mean, ‘Professional Advisory Board?’ I’m in L.A.” I thought, “Holy Sh!t! I had one job, and now he’s in L.A. and all the board members are going to be mad, and the dean’s going to be mad . . . ” I get to the breakfast, and my boss is there, schmoozing with all the PAB members. When he sees me, he points at me and gives me the “Ha! Gotcha!” wink and a cocky smirk, the jackass.

    4. Minister of Snark*

      WHAAAAAAAT?!

      One would assume an adult who have been tasked with running a company would know how much alcohol to consume responsibly.

    6. Dovahkiin*

      OH MY ZORP. This could have been me at one of my first start-up jobs. One of the founders got sloppy drunk and extremely boorish – he started calling the junior employees by our um, identifiers (me: lesbian. graphic designer: haircut, webmaster: glasses). He passed out in a (stolen) golf cart and me and our poor graphic designer had to drag him to an abandoned conference room so he could sleep it off.

      The co-founder gave us a long, straight-faced lecture the next day on how we should have been watching him better because “everyone knows he likes to party.”

      3 of us straight-faced quit over the next month.

  10. (paranoid) Anon for this*

    When my boss printed out an email I had already been CC’d on and handed it to me. I was working in a library where people had been in their director level positions for 20+ years, using the techniques and technology they had learned 20+ years ago, and the director of the library was phoning it in. When I had that email in my hands, I realized this whole system was never going to change and that I should get out asap.

      1. HR Recruiter*

        One day I was freaking out because the internet was down and so I didn’t have access to something I needed asap. My boss walked over to a pile of 20 years worth of electronic reports he had printed and handed me what I needed. He gloated that as the old timer he saved the day. I said yeah but you’ve been killing trees for 20 years and this is the first time it was handy.

    4. LawPancake*

      Ugh, yes! My (thankfully) retired former boss would print out literally every single email he got. So I stopped sending him emails… I don’t think he noticed.

      1. Sadiemae*

        My former boss (a man in his mid-seventies) refused to read or write any of his own emails. (And this was only four or five years ago – not when email was brand-new. He said he didn’t “do” email.) He made me print them all out and give them to him. About 50-60 emails per day. Then he would write his reply or the action that needed to be taken on the printouts and return them to me. If it was a reply, I had to type the reply email, save it as a draft, print it and show him the printout so he could make sure I had it right before I sent it.

        He also made me call people to make sure they’d received important (or even semi-important) emails. Maybe 4-5 phone calls every day just saying, “Mr. Smith would like to know if you received his email about the Blair case…” People thought I was crazy. It was so embarrassing! I told him I could easily mark emails “return receipt” so I’d be notified they’d been received and opened, but he just blinked at me and said, “Just call. People like it when you call. It’s the personal touch.” Sigh.

    5. AnonymousFoDish*

      Today I explained to a friend that I’m working for a company that was founded in the 40s, acts like it’s the 50s-70s, and only just over a year ago realized they needed to update to the 90s. Old technology, old sexism, old racism, rolled into an academia/STEM hybrid run by engineers.

    6. JotoJo*

      OMG. I work at a nonprofit that offers classes that in the past two years has updated their systems (meaning finally made a website to attract clients). There’s this woman here who has been working for 38 years and she always criticizes the internet and the website in front of clients and yells about how the old way of paper and pencil was so much easier and faster. The crazy part is that the paper functions of her job that she idolizes over, is always incorrect and she loses the information. If she would have just written an email, those mistakes would have never happened.

  11. Katie the Fed*

    I had been deployed to Iraq for over a year (as a civilian – we deploy too!)

    I was exhausted and worn out. I had a new boss back home.

    I emailed the new boss and told him I’d like to take 3 weeks of leave upon my return and take some vacation, visit family, etc.

    He responded that the office had “put up” with me being gone for long enough and I needed to return as soon as possible.

    I got a new job quickly and he was stuck with filling my vacated position. AND I took my 3 weeks of leave.

      1. Katie the Fed*

        It did! I think they actually might have lost the position because of budget cuts.

        If he had worded it like “oh, I totally understand how exhausted you must be. We could really use you back to help on Project Y” I might have been willing to work with it. But he was just an ass.

    4. LBK*

      Holy hell. It would have been so hard not to write a snarky email back. “I’m sorry it’s been so difficult for you while I’ve been living in a war zone. I can only imagine how challenging it was to have to send me an email instead of being able to talk to me face-to-face – I’ve obviously been having a wonderful time being halfway around the world from my friends and family and everything that means home to me, so I’ll be happy to wrap up this luxury vacation and get right back to doing real work for you.” Accompanied by a collage of Liz Lemon rolling her eyes.

    1. Sadsack*

      I had the same feeling at my prior company, which was also my motivation for leaving. Just too many issues to explain why I felt that way, but I’ll sum it up by saying it was the feeling of being undervalued and working for a complete asshole.

  13. Meg*

    1. I worked 24 days straight, had one day off, then finished the rest of the month without another day off. My birthday was the following month, and I had already put in the time off request, still had to work on my birthday and then got yelled at for wanting to take time off (this was in the middle of summer and I had no coverage except for my boss who barely showed up the month of 24 days straight).

    2. I was promoted into a position with a higher pay scale and never (to this day) received the difference in compensation for the 1700 hours I put into the new position. When I only have coverage for 30 minute lunch breaks and have to cut 2 and a half hours at the end of the week because I was scheduled full-time with an hour for lunch, got yelled at for having 2.5 hours of overtime each week because I can’t get coverage for a lunch break, let alone 2.5 hours at the end of the week. I was actually put on administrative leave because I was racking up hours on hours of back pay because they still hadn’t sorted out my pay difference.

    2. Malissa*

      I almost forgot about my 29th birthday. I had to work to get payroll out that day because nobody would cover it for me, including my boss who knew how to do it. She then loitered around my desk all day talking with the other people in the office about how nice their 29th birthday’s were and how they did some absolutely fabulous things that day.
      The coworker across from me complimented me on the restraint I showed by not throwing my birthday pie in her face.

  14. Malissa*

    At a retail job long ago I was a cashier. The came up with the brilliant idea that the cashiers shouldn’t have water bottles at their registers, because the floor people couldn’t carry one with them. The registers were in an area where it got up to 85 degrees and we’d often have to wait an hour before we could even go to the bathroom after we told the supervisor we needed it. The floor people were free to move around as they pleased. They tried to talk me out of quitting. I told them if they reversed the policy I would stay. Didn’t happen.

    1. OfficePrincess*

      We had that same policy too. After I passed out behind the register from an ongoing medical issue that was exacerbated by heat and dehydration, we were allowed water and fans appeared the next day. But because I needed the money and employment in that area was over 10%, I didn’t quit.

      1. Bye Academia*

        It’s amazing how that works. I threw up during my first shift at my old retail job because we weren’t allowed water and I got too dehydrated. All of a sudden that wasn’t a rule anymore.

        I didn’t quit, though, because they did reverse the policy.

    2. Jennifer*

      They did that when I worked at a grocery store in high school. Totally changed the policy afyer I had been there for 4 months.
      I have hypoglycemia, so I keep a juice drink near me constantly. I even brought in a doctors note, and made sure I never took it out when I had a customer, only when I had a gap between. Still had a manager write me up for having it.
      Walked out right then and never looked back.
      (This same store would wait until Saturday 5pm, sometimes as late as 8pm) to post the next weeks schedule – which started Sunday morning – the next day- at 5am. Also, All students were required to be 100%available during spring break, despite my being scheduled for a week long intensive study class for AP exams, with documentation from the school system)

          1. Slippy*

            Brought to you by over-aggressive capitalism, and now a word from our sponsors at the Bank of Recessions.

    3. Not the Droid You are Looking For*

      I’ve never understood rules like this. As a customer, I could not imagine being offended at the sight of a customer drinking water!

      2. Charby*

        I think a lot of it is more about the image that management wants to portray. I honestly can’t remember anything about the last ten cashiers I’ve interacted with — not their hair color, whether or not they had earrings, what color their shirts were, whether or not they had a bottle water, whether they had five pieces of flair or only three, etc. etc. I don’t think most customers notice those details as much as they might notice the general overall impression of the store, which is what management is probably trying to regulate.

        I agree though, a “no water” policy seems silly. I don’t even really understand why a retail store needs to be kept at 85 degrees; it seems like that is just inflicting misery for its own sake.

        1. Not the Droid You are Looking For*

          It just seems like a such a weird line…like it’s unprofessional for humans to hydrate themselves :p

          1. OfficePrincess*

            Obviously, it’s not a good idea to chug it down while you’ve got a customer, but if someone walks into the store and sees a cashier or other employee taking a sip and has a problem with it, the customer is the one with a problem, not the employee.

        2. YawningDodo*

          Late reply is half a week late, but I recently went on a vacation to Disney World and I did notice that many of the workers (especially outdoor workers) wore water bottles on their belts. Seeing it made me think *better* of the place, because it would have been incredibly inhumane for them not to have access to water.

      3. Renee*

        I am guessing you didn’t spend much time on the other side of the counter. It’s actually worse now than when I was doing it, from the stories I hear from the kids. There are a few people who have odd notions that “the help” are beneath them, and don’t deserve nice things like breaks, fluids, politeness, or dignity. One of my girls came home with a take off being chastised by a customer for trying to make small talk, and literally was told that the help should serve, and not speak. I’ve heard other similar stories. This is also often why management doesn’t allow cashiers to have seats; apparently some people feel this implies that they are lazy. It’s actually rather disturbing.

        1. esra*

          No one who would deny a cashier a stool has ever been a cashier. That is one of my most hated conventions about retail work.

          1. pony tailed wonder*

            This is why I like shopping at Aldi. All the cashiers have stools. It makes it seem as if sensible people are in charge there.

            1. Stone Satellite*

              Agree. “Why make people pointlessly stand on their feet for 8 hours?” is such a logical question, it’s very confusing to me that no other retail store has caught on to this. My father worked in retail for decades, not as a cashier but in a position where he could easily have done it seated, but his boss wouldn’t allow it, and he has some pretty bad damage to his knees and feet from all those years of pointless standing.

            2. Someone*

              I just have to chime in here. ALDI is German, and as a German I’m amazed that cashiers would be denied chairs. When I’m grocery shopping I see cashiers sitting in chairs all the time, and it never occurred to me that this might be considered “lazy”. I judge their efforts by how quickly they can check people out.
              Chairs and water bottles for cashiers are the standard here, and I’m very happy about that!

      4. esra*

        Same here, but like so many posters, my high school cashier job had the same stupid rule applied. Half of us quit a week after it went into effect.

    4. Evil*

      We had the same policy at my job. Finally someone got the union involved and now we’re allowed to have them as long as they’re not placed near the registers where they could spill.

    5. JL*

      When I worked as a cashier, the excuse for ‘no bottles’ was actually that customers would think it looks unprofessional.

      I’ve yet to find a single person who finds water unprofessional.

  15. Bekx*

    I’d say that my first clue was in my interview when I was terrified of the owner. She was aggressive, demeaning, and dismissive but I was fresh out of college and it was a job in my field.

    But the part that really broke the camel’s back was when I was 22 and at my very first conference as a vendor. Owner’s son (who had a manager title but I couldn’t tell you what he actually did other than sales) told me (the graphic designer) to go to this conference because he wanted a pretty girl at the booth.

    He proceeded to ask me all kinds of questions about my sex life, my ex boyfriend, my dating experiences. He told me ALL about how his wife didn’t want to have 3-somes so they broke up for awhile and he dated all these other women. He and his wife are back together, and he told me allllll sorts of details about their adventures.

    I knew this was grossly inappropriate but I was trapped in a car or booth with him and no matter how much I tried, he would not let up on this. I was so uncomfortable telling him to stop, since he is basically my boss. I tried saying things like “No, I don’t know” or “I’m not comfortable sharing that” but I felt so much pressure having it be just him and I.

    There was no HR department, and his mother was not someone you could approach without getting screamed at. There were a lot of bad things that happened at that job, but that conference made me feel so disgusted and violated that I avoided him long after that conference ended. I was, and am, so glad to be out of there.

    3. MommaTRex*

      Reminds me of a boss who said he didn’t like watching sports for the same reason he didn’t like porn: he’d rather be doing it than watching it. I was grossed out. My eyes were on the door.

      1. Pennalynn Lott*

        I had a business meeting with the Fire Chief of a local city a year or so ago. Somehow Game of Thrones came up and suddenly he’s talking about how much he loves himself some naked, young Kahleesi. And how he hopes HBO never stops showing her tiny firm. . . “chest”, because that’s the best part of the show (all while cupping his hands in front of him, as though he’s feeling her up). He said it to me, a woman, with two of the women from his staff in the room with us. Not that it’s OK to say in a room full of men, but how gross do you have to be to say that crap to women???

  16. UniStudent*

    I had a part time retail job during the year, and got a second full time job during the summer break from uni. I told my retail manager this and asked to keep the retail job, which they said would be ok if I still had reasonable flexibility. I gave the manager my full time job schedule (shift work), so they would know when I was available to work in the shop.

    After about a month of working both jobs, I got scheduled for a morning shift in the shop one day, despite the fact that I was on 12 hour nightshifts the night before and afterwards (which my manager knew about). I was exhausted by the time I finished, when my manager had a massive go at me about my lack of flexibility.

    Never went back to that job.

    1. Charlotte Collins*

      Similar thing for me. I worked at very big, well-known retailer. I got a job there over the summer, then had to go to PT when school started (I was an instructor). They could not get my hours right. The schedule was always posted late, and I constantly had to let my supervisors know that I was scheduled for times I couldn’t work (I was available evenings and weekends, as well as some late afternoons, so it wasn’t like I had really limited time). The day that they posted an announcement that no time off would be granted from mid-October until January, I started planning when to give my notice. But once they had posted a schedule (late) for times I absolutely could not work for the third time in a row, I just called in and told them I wouldn’t be able to give my two weeks’ notice, as I couldn’t be sure they’d ever be able to schedule me a time that I’d be able to work.

      I ran into someone from there a few months later and found out that everyone who had been hired around the same time as me had been laid off the first week of January. So, not a decision I ever regretted.

      1. Jennifer*

        I’d swear reading this that you worked at the same (different from story above store I worked at. Very large retailer (lines around the store for black friday) and my only *unavailable time in college was Tuesday and Thursday I had to be off by 330 for class by 415. They would still schedule me until 5, both days, constantly. And when I tried to get it corrected, I was told it was my responsibility to get the shifts covered. Even though I had given my availability when I applied and again when I was offered and hired.
        (But wouldn’t schedule me on busy days when people were needed and I had availability like Saturday opening shifts-sigh) shortest jib ever – 5 weeks.

        1. Happy Lurker*

          Oh, how I do not miss those student retail jobs!! Reading all these stories is bringing back so many memories I had buried long ago.

        2. TheSockMonkey*

          Similar experience in retail-told them in the interview what my other non-negotiable committments were, asked them if it was ok to not work those times because otherwise I would need to look elsewhere, and they constantly scheduled me for those times. I lasted 2 weeks.

          1. popesuburban*

            I had a job in college that pulled this with me. I brought in my class schedule and my finals schedule when I interviewed, just to make sure there would be no conflict. I started right after Thanksgiving, doing gift wrapping and helping reset the store, and it was going okay. The day of my last final, during a massive blizzard that would shut the state down for nearly a week and necessitate the National Guard’s help, they stacked three or four progressively-snottier messages on my phone telling me to come in right now or else. The last one said “Don’t bother coming in,” so I didn’t. It blows my mind that they would ignore a schedule I went out of my way to give them and ask me to come in and wrap gifts when no one was shopping (at least, not for toys; a few brave souls might have braved the storm for groceries or pharmaceuticals, but not for a new Lego). Like…this is a part-time job while I’m in school, and also it is not worth driving through a howling blizzard.

            1. Kate Heightmeyer*

              My roommate worked for our university’s dining services. Despite giving them her class schedule every semester, they often scheduled her to work DURING class. I’m pretty sure she had at least one instance where she just didn’t go to work. She was still working there when I graduated and had even been promoted to manager.

              1. mm1970*

                when I was in university, for awhile I worked the register at the pizza place.

                I worked every Sunday, from 4 till 9.

                But whomever they had scheduled from 2 to 4 (we opened at 3) was a local in the city and never showed up. So my manager (a grad student) called me in at 2 pm. Every. Single. Day. I mean, I went, because it was still 4-something an hour. Until right before finals. I was in the computer lab. And he called me at the computer lab (there were 6 of them, he had to be really desperate). This was long before cell phones.

                That day I said “nope, I’ll be there at 4 pm”.

                1. CurrentStudent*

                  This gets me every time! With every job I’ve had so far, I’ve always mentioned explicitly in my interviews that I’m a student and would like to work at this job primarily to support my studies, and in no interview have they taken issue with that. I’m a good employee, and I’ve gotten the impression that they’d rather have me with the time I’m able to commit than not at all.

                  Somehow, though, it always comes up that I should skip class or sacrifice every last inch of my ‘free’ time (see: study and assignment time) to work, even though the whole point of the job is to support my studies. It’s even happened at my on-campus job, which is run and staffed entirely by students. The amount of times I’ve been scheduled to work for all or part of my afternoon genetics class is staggering, and school’s only been in session for 3 weeks.

                  I totally understand that the job or business is your first priority, and it’s expected that work should be one of mine, and it is – for the time that I have committed to it. When you hire me after I give my availability and I say that I’m a student, there is an expectation on my part that you respect that. Selling overpriced lattes to people who don’t see me as a human being is not a career choice, it’s survival.

  17. This is not me*

    When my then three year old daughter described my office as ‘Where Mommy lives’. I realized I was gone every morning when she got up, picked them up for school then went back to the office when my husband got home so I wasn’t around when she went to bed either. Saturdays and Sundays I ‘only’ worked 8 hours, so I’d see her a little more. It was quite a wake up call. I gave notice the next week and was quite amused when my boss kept scheduling me for things. “This Is Not Me will have this done by Monday the 18th.” “My last day is the 1st.”

    4. Ad Astra*

      In journalism school, one of my classmates had a mom who was a successful TV news anchor in another city. She told me that when she was a little kid, she and her brother would kiss the TV and say “night night mommy” before their dad put them to bed. I didn’t know that classmate well, but the way she talked about her mom never being around made me wonder why she chose to go into the same field.

        1. brownblack*

          Those jobs pay very well when you’re at the level of anchoring the 5pm and 11pm news in a major media market like Atlanta or Boston. If you’re in the other 75% of TV news personalities, or if you work in any part of the business other than reading news on the air (producer, camera, etc), you make $25K a year with long hours and terrible benefits. If you’re a journalist you may have to drive yourself to your locations while carrying and setting up your own camera.

          I’m not speaking about you specifically, but a LOT of people have really skewed ideas of what it’s like to work for local news outfits.

          1. LD*

            I can vouch for that. TV production was one of my first jobs and starting pay was really close to minimum wage. It was fun, but I couldn’t afford to move out of my parent’s home. Not to mention having to be at work at 5 a.m. to work the morning shows, and having that same schedule even on holidays….TV news doesn’t stop because your family is having Thanksgiving dinner.

    5. Anlyn*

      That’s a lot what growing up with my father was like. He worked the afternoon shift at the Air Force base as a civilian, but put in a lot of overtime. There would be weeks when I barely ever saw him, because I would be in bed when he got home and in school when he got up. I was 12 before he finally decided to stop working weekends; I think he realized he missed most of my brother growing up and didn’t want to miss the rest of mine.

      Problem with that is I was already entrenched in the “me, mom, and brother” dynamic, and felt like he was an interloper. Thankfully, we had a pretty good relationship as adults until he passed away.

      1. Minister of Snark*

        My dad was a workaholic young executive when I was growing up, going through an MBA program in addition to working and then golfing on weekends to make connections with clients. I have VERY VERY few memories involving him as a kid. I don’t remember him being at birthdays or my plays or sports. Mom was there for every bit of it for all three of us kids.

        When I was about 10, my uncle died and Dad returned home to help his dad run the family business, which gave him more time with us. We were genuinely confused as to why this strange man was suddenly insisting on parenting us. And Dad honestly didn’t understand why we were falling all over ourselves to spend this suddenly time with him. It was an awkwardness that continued until our late teens. And kind of does to this day.

    6. Another unnamed*

      When I was small (around 5?) I was being unbearable on a Sunday afternoon, as sometimes happens. My father said “Don’t talk to your mother like that”, or similar; my reply was reportedly “You can’t tell me off, you don’t live here any more”.

      Fortunately he was able to cut down on the hours without changing jobs, but… yeah.

  18. So very anon*

    In my current job I decided it was time to leave after I discovered one of the owners was committing blatant tax fraud after he and another owner asked me to audit the account where I would find it.

  19. Elle the new fed*

    Mine was at FirstJob after university. I worked with a woman who had been increasingly…. difficult. She lied to her superiors, mismanaged our clients and gave me falsified expense reports (thousands of dollars worth) to submit for her. I told my supervisor everything that was happening, but nothing changed until she ran off one of our biggest clients. When our department director called me in to discuss what she’d be told happened, I snapped and told her EVERYTHING this woman had been doing.

    Surprisingly, I left on good terms with the organization. That woman got fired eventually.

  20. AndersonDarling*

    My husband worked at an auto parts company that had a micromanaging manager. The manager would re-write procedures weekly, to a point that no one knew what they were doing day to day. Then the manager decided that everyone had to tuck in their shirts at work, including the guys wearing work shirts (think gas station button up front kind of shirts). That was it, he quit over a tucked shirt.

  21. Sascha*

    My moment was when my former director told my team in a staff meeting that we weren’t allowed to leave right at 5pm because it made her feel bad to see us “rushing out the door” to get home, like we preferred to be at home instead of at work. She instituted a rule that we couldn’t leave right at 5 – instead, we had to linger a few minutes. What made this even more frustrating is that she would often take long lunches and leave early.

    1. alter_ego*

      I can not imagine the level of insecurity it would take for me to feel bad that people preferred to be at home rather than working for me. and I’m an IMMENSELY insecure person.

      1. Lizzy May*

        Like Michael Scott isn’t that insecure on a daily basis. And he’s a mess. That’s crazy. I get being a constant clock watcher isn’t ideal but when my day is done I’m going home. I’m pretty sure I don’t get paid to be my boss’s friend.

      2. Charby*

        It’s not just insecure, it’s inhuman. Most people have lives outside of work, even if it’s just sacking out on the couch to watch TLC documentaries all evening. The fact that they want to go home doesn’t even really suggest that they are unhappy at work. Using that logic only people who are frustrated or unhappy at work should ever go home; the rest of us who like our jobs should just bring sleeping bags and toothbrushes.

        1. Sweaty*

          This is basically the attitude at my company, except it’s not so much staying late, but working from home in the evenings and on weekends. “What do you mean you don’t work until midnight, and at least 8 hours a day on the weekends?! You don’t have passion! You don’t care about the work!” etc etc.

      1. Sascha*

        She actually said “you act like you’d rather be at home.” Our response was gaping mouths. She had all sorts of little rules like that she created, and told us people “would kill…they would KILL…to work here.” She thought we were too ungrateful and didn’t love our jobs sufficiently because we complained about stuff sometimes.

    3. over educated and underemployed*

      Yesterday my boss dismissed us from a meeting at 4:50 pm with “you don’t have to go home…” (implied ending “but you can’t stay here, ” i.e. leave his office), and one of my coworkers almost yelled “wait, why can’t we go home?” (And then we all watched the clock until 5:10.)

      1. Sascha*

        Not that director, but I currently do! My current manager is definitely Michael Scott, I cry whenever I watch The Office.

    5. Ad Astra*

      Was this one of those industries where you’re supposed to be “passionate” about the work? When I worked in news, admitting that you’d rather be home with your spouse/family/dog/television was simply Not Done. If I was scheduled 7-4, there was no way I’d feel comfortable leaving before 4:15.

      1. Sascha*

        It was a private 4-year university, and many of the people that worked there had definitely drunk the Kool-aid. The attitude on campus was that you should be so lucky to be working at this AMAZING SCHOOL for little pay, bad benefits, and long hours. So while my director was insecure and egocentric, she fit in well with the culture, and that’s why she thrived (and I didn’t).

    6. Jennifer*

      Hahah, we practically have an avalanche running out the door here. They make it clear that we ain’t getting paid after 5, so…

    7. DeskDuck*

      I used to work for a place where we practically had a bell at the end of the day. Before we left we had to switch the phones over to the night message – so we had an alarm clock that was set to go off at 5:00 to indicate it was time to switch the phones over (No idea why – it was set up before my time. Probably someone set the night phones on early so there had to be a Policy. There was a Policy about everything that had ever gone wrong) so we would all get ready to go and stand around and stare at the clock until it went off like a bunch of high school kids waiting for the bell to ring. As soon as it went off all that was left was a cloud of dust. The owners were obsessive and stingy about our hours – so we ended up being obsessive and stingy right back.

  22. Knitting Cat Lady*

    I was a grad student for about a year.

    My supervisor was an abusive asshole.

    She insulted me and belittled me and threatened me.

    I also had to constantly chase her down for renewing my contract.

    I was payed for 20 hours a week. I was expected to work at least 60 hours a week, mon – fri, which brought me above the legal limit in Germany (10 h). And still I was asked ‘You’re leaving already?’ when I left after 11 hours at work.

    One day in a meeting I couldn’t do some relativistic calculations of the top of my head. I never memorized formulas, that’s what formula books are for. I looked the formula up and did the calculation she wanted.

    She called me stupid, incompetent, useless… you name it, she used it.
    In front of everyone in our group.
    She finished off by telling me if I ever messed up like that again, I should just kill myself because I was completely worthless.

    Again, we had an audience for that.

    I didn’t say anything.

    Then I went back to the undergrad experiment I was running. On the way there I called my mum at work and broke down crying.

    I found a new job, with decent people as bosses and colleagues, within five months.

    I handed in my notice at HR and then called her to tell her, as she was out of the country.

    She was floored. I had made so much progress and we were getting on so well with each other!

    Um, yeah. I had completely checked out and disengaged!

    Oh, how I hated that woman!

    2. Manders*

      Ugh, grad students have it rough. My partner is a PhD candidate, and the conditions he puts up with would have made me quit long ago. I’m so glad you found a better job.

    4. Bye Academia*

      I feel this so hard. Hence my username.

      If my degree weren’t dependent on me continuing to work in my lab, I would have quit a year ago.

    5. Anon grad student*

      I’m at a university where a graduate student recently committed suicide, so I’ve developed a heightened awareness of the stress and dysfunction that comes along with a lot of graduate programs. This kind of behavior from a research supervisor is beyond horrifying.

        1. Jennifer*

          I just read the ombudsman’s report for my school and they’re now including grad student abuse in their totals of things people come to them about. (That they can’t actually do anything about.)

    6. OneTimePoster*

      Yeah that’s grad school for you. I worked 80 h (on site, plus more at home), 3.5 years, the last 18 months of which I only took Christmas of (no weekends, no holiday, no nothing). My boss was an abusive asshole who was constantly gone, but had people in the lab reporting to him when we would come in and leave. Then he didn’t understand that I could not write my thesis in our 10 people office located next to the kitchen and my place next to the door.

      Getting vacation approved in the years prior to that was hard, because he would constantly manipulate all of of into feeling like we didn’t put in enough work.

      I stopped sleeping about 1.5 years into my doctorate. I got maybe 3 h a night 3 nights a week, if I was lucky. With all the accompanying joys of sleep deprivation. I had anxiety, panic attacks, crying fits. I was unemployed with the day I submitted my thesis (still hadn’t defended by that time). I was a mess. I still have anxiety attacks when I just think of seeing him or receiving emails from him.

      I got a PhD out of it and now I’ve been unemployed for almost a year, because finding an entry level position outside a lab is hard, since we’re being taught very few translatable skills and I’m qualified for nothing. I cannot go back into a lab, I’d break down.

      (All of this was in Germany, too, and my boss cared very little about the legal limits.)

        1. OneTimePoster*

          Thanks. The only reason I stuck with it was that by the time it got this bad I knew I would never start another PhD out of fear and anxiety. This job broke me, I’m easily cowed, usually, but these few years was just too much. It wasn’t so much about the money (which of course would have been nice to have more, but that’s the trade off), it was more about the blatant disregard for anyone’s emotional and mental health .

    7. BRR*

      I had a graduate assistantship in music performance while getting a different degree. My teacher was an asshole. He was terrible at playing and teaching, I only took this because it was tuition and a stipend. You could play really well and miss one note and he would say as you walked out the door, “Oh by the way, don’t forget to practice next time.”

      1. BRR*

        Oh so then I got a job offer that paid me more than my stipend even after I had to pay my tuition out of pocket.

    8. Sigrid*

      That sounds a lot like my graduate school experience. I stuck it out and got my PhD, but it was absolute hell, and if it had been a real job, I would have quit within a year. The power differential in academia is obscene.

  23. Quiet one*

    Incoming boss changed me from salary to hourly and micromanged time sheets. I had to travel internationally for work and as an hourly employee got paid for travel time. I very carefully arranged my flights to reduce the overtime that would be paid. On my last day away (Sunday in the usa, monday overseas) he berated me for not stopping into the overseas office – which I wasn’t doing because 1) the job was complete and 2) it would trigger a bunch of overtime due to my upcoming travel that night.

  24. Hush42*

    I once worked for a company whose owner would walk around the office screaming at his employees whenever something went wrong. He frequently told people that without him everyone would be starving on the street because no one would have a job (i.e. that no one else would be willing to hire any of his employees). It was an overall bad environment but the straw the broke the camel’s back was the day that, as I was on my way to work in the snow I lost control of my car and slid off the road. Once I got back on the road I turned around and wen’t home as I worked 40 minutes from my house and I was less than 15 minutes from my house so I wasn’t going to try to get to work again in that weather. I called my boss once I got home and told her what had happened and that I would try to come in later if the weather cleared up. She first told me that she thought another of their employees lived somewhere near me so she would confirm the weather with that employee (basically telling me that she didn’t actually believe me) and then told me I should try to come in right away despite the weather because “You’re doing so well and I wouldn’t want you to lose your job”. She never once asked if I was okay or if there was damage to my vehicle just implied that if I didn’t brave the weather, despite have just been in an accident due to said weather, that I might be fired. I didn’t go in at all that day, they let me keep my job but I quit at the end of that week.

    To be clear- I’m not the kind of person who refuses to drive in snow. I live in the snow belt and the past winter, despite it being one of our harshest in the past few years, I only missed one day of work due to the snow. I will drive if it’s snowing but not if the weather is so bad it dangerous to be out. Thankfully I now have a very understanding boss who was perfectly happy to let me stay home the one day in February when I walked outside and realized that there was so much snow on the ground that you couldn’t tell where the road was because it was all just white.

    1. Not the Droid You are Looking For*

      It wasn’t my straw that broke the camel moment, but my “strike two” was a situation where I had to drive home in a white-out, crying and convinced I wasn’t going to make it home.

      I was working for a major university and even though all the schools, city/county offices were closed, most business were shut down, and a TOW BAN in effect (where State Patrol does not permit any roadside service company to perform tows or winch outs, due to the dangerous weather conditions) we were still expected to come into work, or use our meager PTO to take a “vacation day.”

      I made it in, but finally at the 2 p.m. the weather was so bad that the highway department was actively asking people not to drive on certain roads that my boss said, “policy be damned” and sent us home. As I drove home, not able to see any distance in front of me, I questioned if any job was worth it.

      1. Hush42*

        The job I held before my current position was as a 911 operator. For obvious reasons we weren’t allowed to not come in regardless of the weather. Unfortunately for me I lived 45 minutes (I live in the middle of nowhere I’ve never had a commute less than 30 minutes) from the 911 center so I had a long commute. Unfortunately I was assigned the 4 pm to 2 am shift starting in January. The county that I worked for and had to drive halfway across to get to and from work had a policy that they would only plow the roads from 4 am to 12 am. Which meant that I was diving home at 2 am every day, two hours after the roads had last been plowed and two hours before they would be plowed again. I worked at 911 but the most stressful part of my day was driving home.

        After working the position that I described above and then at 911 I was floored when I started my new job and my boss was totally supportive of my being late or not coming in when the weather was super bad.

        1. Not the Droid You are Looking For*

          I worked at 911 but the most stressful part of my day was driving home.

          That is such a powerful statement.

          I think that day was so stressful for me because my other jobs had always followed the “if schools closed, we’re closed rules” and even when one tightened the rules (our local school district was doing a lot of preemptive closures), the minute a tow-ban went into effect or if there were an DOT road warnings, the offices were closed.

        2. KAZ2Y5*

          I’m kind of surprised that they didn’t have some rooms that people could sleep in just for times like that. Of course, I work in a hospital and fully expect to spend the night on conditions like that.

    2. naprujuj*

      One Friday or Saturday evening we were having an ice storm and my office building lost power. We had a sad UPS that, once it used up its batteries and once the electricity was restored, would not power anything until someone pushed a button (lame). Anyway, I got a call from my boss about it and I told her I’d head in the morning to push the button (assuming power would be restored by then). She asked why I couldn’t go in in now and wait for the power to come back on. I said, “You want me to drive in an ice storm to our building, climb six flights in the dark, and sit in a dark office until the power is restored?”. She more thoughtless than anything although there was another time where I brushed a live wire which shocked me and took down a rack of computers and all she wanted to know was how soon I could have them back up.

  25. Imperatrice*

    There were several straws, but one of the big ones was that a coworker started complaining to my boss (and her boss) that my office mate and I were leaving a plug-in fan on overnight in our office to keep air circulating during the warm spring/summer. My manager obviously didn’t think the complaints were warranted (she would tell us of the complaints in a “Sorry to have to do this” way, with rolled eyes) but still made it a disciplinary issue and gave us informal warnings over it, including emails with her boss cc’ed on it.

    After I resigned, I left the fan on every night until I left.

    1. Imperatrice*

      And after I resigned, our director never once acknowledged the fact that I was leaving – I had to point out in strategy meetings that I would be gone in two weeks. Like “This is not me”, they continued as if I wasn’t leaving.

      And the directors started indirectly asking others if they knew why I was leaving, which only fueled the rumor mill. It was a good reminder as to why I had decided to leave in the first place.

      1. AMT*

        Wow. Was there any particular reason your coworker reported the fan thing, or was s/he just trying to get you into trouble? Either way, that sounds toxic!

        1. Imperatrice*

          As far as I know she never gave a compelling reason why she felt it was necessary to make managers aware of it. I’m not sure if she was actively trying to get people in trouble, but she was (presumably still is) the type who gets involved in everyone’s business and thinks that everyone reports to her. I’m not sure she liked me much – but I’m not sure she likes anyone much.

    2. Minister of Snark*

      HAHA! I love the mental picture of you walking out, in slow motion, your hair ruffled by the breeze of dozens of fans.

    3. Bagworm*

      We’re not allowed to have fans at my current workplace because they are a safety hazard (?) and we have no control over the temperature. I tend to run warm but got so sick from overheating that I threw up. Now I where a little cooling towel around my neck when it’s too hot. Not very professional but I’m not going to make myself sick over not having a fan.

      1. Imperatrice*

        I could understand safety concerns, if there was a compelling one. But this was in a regular office building, a standard fan (not like a massive one or anything). It was a pretty large corporation – the cost of one fan being left on overnight would be nothing compared to running the server room.

        I hope your company sees the light!

        1. Bagworm*

          Thanks. Unfortunately, it’s the government so I doubt it’s changing anytime soon. I definitely agree that you should have been allowed to leave your little fan on overnight.

      2. Bridget*

        Ha, I’m the opposite! Our office is always freezing so I have a blanket on the back of my chair that I put around my shoulders when I get cold (which is pretty much always). Everyone tells me it looks like a cape because it’s deep purple on one side and white and fluffy on the other side. Also not super professional, but it’s so cozy and helps me concentrate on doing work instead of feeling like a popsicle.

  26. knitchic79*

    That would be the time when our sister center was closing and we were told not to inform any of the parents until the closing center’s director had gotten an “approved for transfer” list to us. Approved meaning: full pay only not parents subsidized by the government (at the time spots for subsidized kiddos werected tough to find.) We were flat told to lie to parents. When I pointed out that this could put families in dire circumstances, loosing a job cuz you lost your childcare and then your home when you couldn’t pay for that, I was warned that this was the way it was. When I further fought for the sides of not lying and for giving parents ample notice of the situation I was told that I was not going to be demoted as soon as the centers merged. Yeah, nope…I turned in my notice the next day. My boss, who followed me out, said our regional was in full freak out mode when she called her.

    1. manybellsdown*

      I also left a preschool job because of being told to lie. And commit a crime.

      A mother dropped her son off one morning and asked if she could stay in our class for a bit. “Sure!”, I said “Parents are always welcome to obser-”

      “Good, because there’s a cop in the parking lot and I lost my license with my last DUI.”

      So I went to my director and told her that this parent did not have a valid license due to DUIs and that we could not let her take her child from the premises in a car knowing that. And she looked at me and said “Well, I didn’t hear her say that, and maybe you didn’t either.”

      I stayed until my current class graduated and then I was gone.

    2. Melissa*

      I left a preschool job when we had an emergency that required an evacuation. The kids had their lunches brought to the building we evacuated to… the teachers git the leftover box of bagels someone happened to grab. After my kids were all picked up, (staff had to call, the director and owner refused to call parents to pick their kids up or tell them what was going on) I had to get back in the school to get my belongings and clean my classroom. My director and the owner were sitting in the owners office eating pizza they had had delivered. The teachers had split a box of day old Einstein brothers bagels. I have never felt so much rage.

  27. PoisonIvy*

    I asked for a Monday off so I could go shopping for some items I’d need for a work event taking place the following weekend. My boss hesitated and said, “That’s not the best time because PartyAnimal Coworker is often a mess after a bank holiday.” We worked in media, and PA was a journalist. I often wound up doing his job (Newsdesk) when he didn’t show up until late afternoon.

    I said, “So if I spend all weekend drinking and doing class A drugs, can I have Monday off to nurse my hangover too?” Probably not the most polite response, but I hadn’t taken a holiday all year, and I wasn’t being given time off in lieu for working the weekend.

    Boss agreed, to his credit and I got the day off. But it did show me that my employers were never really going to deal head on with PartyAnimal as long as I continued to cover him. I went freelance a few months later after having been at the company for five years. Still very friendly with my ex-employers and every so often they laugh about that day saying I had an excellent point.

    1. neverjaunty*

      Ugh. What IS it with bosses who load up work on the responsible people so they never have to do anything about the irresponsible people? And then they’re shocked when the responsible people quit?

      1. College Career Counselor*

        Because it’s more work FOR THEM to fire an incompetent jackass than it is to assign his duties to someone who will get the job done. Add a side order of “conflict-avoidance” for some bosses, and you’ve got a Management Crappy Meal.

      2. Charby*

        Short-term thinking. It takes effort to get rid of those guys. You might have to fill out a form or send out an email or have an awkward conversation and that’s, like, not fun at all. It’s much easier to just kind of work around someone dysfunctional than to either help them shape up or send them away.

  28. Manders*

    When my team lead threatened to write me up for accidentally using Arial 10 instead of Calibri 11 in an email. The program I was copying the text from used Arial 10; I hadn’t noticed the difference because those fonts look virtually identical in those sizes.

    This was in a call center, not something that was related in any way to graphic design. It made me realize that even though my call numbers were great, my team lead would always be looking for something to nitpick to prove I was a bad employee. I put in my two weeks, freelanced for a while, and ended up with a much better job.

    1. TheLazyB (UK)*

      Wow. I often have similar things happen in my emails. Overreaction much? Glad you got something better :)

      1. Manders*

        Strangely enough, the straw that’s threatening to break my back here is even pettier: I’ve shared a desk with two coworkers in a row now with chronic respiratory problems. I know they couldn’t help the constant sniffling and coughing, but the degree to which it’s annoying me made me realize that I’m not really enjoying what I do here anymore, and that’s being channeled into intense irritation about minor issues.

        (I’m mildly misophonic but I have an easier time tuning out annoying noises when I’m engaged in my work)

    4. Sweaty*

      Wow! Not like it was Wingdings! Those fonts are both totally readable. Actually, now that I think of it, our team is about evenly split between those exact fonts and sizes (either Arial 10 or Calibri 11- I think Arial tends to run big). Oh, there is one guy who has a tiny font, but he’s a director so we don’t communicate directly with him much.

  29. AnonyMiss*

    There was the boss who told me that he doesn’t recognize any such thing as “calling out sick” and taking an unpaid day. If you’re on the schedule, you’re on the schedule, no other opinion about it. On some level, I got his thinking, because we had a skeleton crew… on the other hand, I was making minimum wage, working part-time, with no benefits whatsoever. So one day I woke up with a high fever, took a big swig of Nyquil, and called in. Naturally, boss doesn’t answer his cell, so I leave a message. He calls me back in 15 seconds, saying he doesn’t care how sick I am, I have to go in. I explain that I already took medication, I won’t be able to drive, much less function for 8 hours, and I probably shouldn’t be preparing food. (!!!) He hung up on me. I didn’t go in. I think in her only sane act, our pseudo-HR person dissuaded him from writing me up.

    I signed up for college two days later, and quit in a month, when classes started.

  30. Camille*

    When, as an hourly employee, I was told I needed to keep my work phone on me at all times and check my email and missed calls on my days off, just in case I was needed. This was also accompanied by long phone with my boss about various assignments, while I was off the clock.

    1. Minister of Snark*

      My last job, I fully realized there was someone in the office who had it worse than me. Whoever was serving as assistant to my boss’s boss. I loved my boss, but her boss was a full-on narcissist. His secretary had been there for almost three months and one Sunday he called her at home and started screaming at her. She asked what he was talking about and he started howling about how SHE had failed to send his wife flowers on her birthday and now his wife was mad at him. She had NO CLUE she was supposed to do this. It wasn’t on her list of tasks and the birthday wasn’t on her work calender. The boss didn’t even mention it to her.

      She said, “How was I supposed to know I was responsible for ordering flowers for someone who doesn’t even work in our office?”

      He screamed that she should have just known and that he held her responsible and they would talk more about this Monday. She thought MAYBE he was putting on a big show for the wife at home, throwing her under the bus, so the wife wouldn’t get mad at him. But no, he walked in Monday morning, still fuming at her, telling her how incompetent she was to not just know when his wife’s birthday was.

      He tossed a hand-written list of dates she was expected to send his wife, mother and daughter flowers, (using the company expense card, mind you), including birthdays, Mother’s Day, anniversaries and Valentine’s Day. He snarled, “Here, I LAID IT ALL OUT FOR YOU, since you seem to need to be told every little thing I need you to do.”

      She handed the list back to him and said, “None of these dates are in the next two weeks, so I would need it.” And she quit right there.

      The good news was that when she quit, she was able to find a job very easily. Narc Boss was very much like Miranda Priestly in Devil Wears Prada. This guy was well known around our small town as a total jackass. When people see that on your resume, they say, “Wow, you lasted three months with that guy? You must be tough as hell!” And since her boss isn’t crazy, she’s doing very well.

    2. I'm Not Phyllis*

      I had this at one point too. I did it for a while (a mistake, in hind sight) but then I just flat-out refused to use my personal phone for work until they started to pay for it. And eventually they did!

  31. OriginalYup*

    When I realized I was never ever going to be promoted, and I was being lapped by newer hires.

    I was hired into a newly created job and when I asked in the interviews and early days about future scope for the role, my boss was all “the sky’s the limit!”

    Four years in, I’d delivered superhuman results on two separate enormous projects, hit every single benchmark for my regular work, and developed a bunch of new stuff. Yet every year, my review was “Meets+”. (Instead of Exceeds.) Every time I asked “What can I do to work towards a more senior position? What do you need me to demonstrate or accomplish?” they made vague noises about professional development. Every time I said, “Here are all of my achievements this year, I’d like to discuss growth,” they’d say “These are good, but not the most important things for the business.”

    I finally realized they just didn’t give a sh*t about my work as long as I did quietly and predictably. So I left. :-D

    2. FormerHigherEdManager*

      Mine is very similar. As a new staffer, I successfully lead projects I had zero prior experience with (database conversion), covered for my boss when she was out on maternity leave, was then promoted her job, increased our numbers by huge percentages, and then … got a new manager. I was told I was not meeting expectations. I asked my manager what those expectations were. He said I should come back to him and tell him what the expectations were. I thought I was going insane. At that moment I knew it didn’t matter what I did. I got an employment lawyer and a 2-week prescription for Xanax and negotiated a severance without even having another job lined up. Happily, that wasn’t the kiss of death for my career and I’m now in my dream job.

    3. SparkleBarbie*

      I’m in that boat now. I finally got the reclassification (I refuse to call it a promotion!) that I’ve been begging for, and when the director notified me, I didn’t feel excited, or happy, or vindicated. I’ve got an interview for a similar position at a much bigger and better paying company set up for next week.

      1. AnonAnalyst*

        This is my current situation. I’ve also tried to get promoted or at least get more responsibility at my company for some time; I’ve been told 5 times over the past year that I was getting promoted/put in a lead position for specific projects, and each time someone else ended up taking it over before the work even started. The last time, I actually got all the way to the first meeting with the client prepared to lead it, where I learned (along with the client) that the person I was with was actually going to be the lead.

        That was the last straw for me at this company. I actually was so frustrated that, for several days, I would end up in tears after coming home from work. And honestly, I was just furious with myself that I kept buying that THIS was actually going to be my chance. That experience just made it black and white that a) there’s no future for me here and b) it’s no longer a good position for me since it has made me go home and cry, on several occasions. I’m being told now that I’ll get the lead on something else and I seriously could not care less, because it clearly will never happen.

    4. Dynamic Beige*

      Sort of along these lines… I turned 30 and it was a moment when I looked back on my life at the company and couldn’t see a reason to stay any longer. I had already been passed over for promotion and there was no path to gaining the experience or skills or anything to be promoted. Literally none. No documentation, no formal agenda. The previous “promotion” had been an effective demotion for everyone who didn’t get to add Senior in front of their title. I’m not going to say it was all based on who was best friends with the manager, but it was close. So I made a plan to collect the year-end bonus (which wasn’t much, but the year was more than half over) and take the summer off. Like you, they didn’t care so long as I did all the grunt work no one else wanted to do.

      But then two things happened that confirmed that I had made the right decision. The first one was the meeting about how the Seniors were going to be put in charge of managing us. Instead of the year end review with Manager, we would be doing that with whichever Senior was assigned to us. Uh… HELL, NO! You’re going to promote a former colleague into being responsible for my compensation negotiation, knowing what my salary is, etc.? Yeah, when pigs fly am I going to let that happen.

      The second was when I volunteered for what was probably the worst project we had — our own AGM. I had all these ideas of what I wanted to do and it was going to be awesome. In a way, I saw it as a going away present to the company. That may sound big-headed or whatever but no one wanted that job, it was truly awful and I had some ideas for things that hadn’t been done before and were never going to get the chance with client projects because they were too “out there”. It was “tradition” that the newest project managers hired did that job so that they could get some experience without bungling a client job. I showed them the things I had done and they were laughing at it all, because it was *exactly* what they had had in mind. Uh… you’re project managers, where did you get the idea that you get to decide on the graphics? That’s not how this works. Long story short, they wound up taking over the entire thing and designing exactly what they wanted to see, which was based on a popular movie at the time and, frankly, a hideous idea. I had frequently made jokes before that time about how I was working as fast as I could, it wasn’t like there was a port on the back of my head where I could connect to the computer directly (CEO heard me say that once and was all “Ooo… that would be great!” with wide, hopeful eyes that just gave me shivers). I’m sure you can guess what movie it was that was released around that time that was very, very popular? Yeah, great message for a place that was essentially a digital sweatshop for a lot of the people who were there, let’s turn you into some sort of quasi-machine that interfaces with computers directly! Anyway, totally unprofessional but when I heard that these two new people, who hadn’t been with the company for 6 months, had taken the whole project away, I cried. Loud and long and hard. Right at my desk and didn’t care that my office mate saw. Everything I had ever gone through at that company — and there was a lot, I had never cried, I wasn’t going to give them that satisfaction. But that day, I broke. I felt it happen. And I was glad that I was leaving. For the next few weeks, I was completely detached. I handed in my resignation, it was accepted with no outcry like with other people no pleasepleaseplease stay, we’ll give you more money and a title! I got in a dig about something my manager had done to me at that meeting. It was a low blow, but enh, I seriously didn’t care any more. I did the right thing getting out, I should have done it sooner. The company imploded two years later.

      1. The Department of Terrestrial Magnetism*

        I’m sorry – what’s an AGM?

        > I’m sure you can guess what movie it was that was released around that time

        Ummm …. Brainstorm in 1983?

        But seriously – the one that drives me crazy is Minority Report. Everyone was splooging all over that vertical multi-touch thing that Tom Cruise was using.

        I don’t know what specific movie interface you’re describing that they wanted, but the Zion Traffic Control Space in the 2nd Matrix movie was sorta neat in its own subtle way. I mean, it was a vertical multi-touch thing like in Minority Report (ie, it would suck in real life) but the interesting thing is that it existed in a virtual environment – if you watch carefully, there are a few shots of the people jacked-in, sitting in those dentist chair thingies.

        1. Dynamic Beige*

          AGM = Annual General Meeting Like NSM = National Sales Meeting Sorry, I didn’t realise that this was lingo!

          It was the Matrix. Because those people just get jacked into a computer and their brains do all the work while they lie there kind of asleep. I actually didn’t go to the meeting, I was completely out of f**ks to give. I knew I was going to hand in my notice and so I just didn’t bother, there was no point hearing about what was going to happen next year. No one noticed I wasn’t there, or they didn’t bring it up if they did.

    5. Amalyia*

      I am currently in the same position. I’ve been at my current company for almost six years and I have been told over and over again that they want me to learn a position and to move into it, but while I have done the things they have asked of me in order to transition they always tell me that there is no moving me at this time or they come up with more things that I was supposed to learn, but was never mentioned to me at the time. This has gone on for 4 1/2 to 5 years and I am now looking for new employment. The final straw for me was my manager told me she would like me to learn how to do something very important for our department and then turned around a few days later and said that she wasn’t sure if she wanted anyone else to do it. This kind of flip flopping has been happening for years now and I just can’t take it anymore. I have taken on so much work for very little compensation in an effort to prove myself, but I know it has done me no good. I have a few jobs that I am looking at and I hope to find new employment soon

  32. No name today*

    At my last job, when I was *on vacation* sitting in an IHOP in Dodge City, I got an email from my manager. He was bugging me about fraud that he was trying to get me to commit on his behalf. I printed the email, handed it over to HR when I got back, and decided it was time to GET OUT.

  33. JiraMaster*

    Looking back, I think it was when my boss sat me down and told me that he was giving me a huge title bump (think “associate” to “director”)…but he couldn’t afford to give me a raise and there wouldn’t be any change in my job responsibilities.

  34. Addiez*

    This was after I quit – but certainly made me feel better. Through my time at the bottom of the totem pole, I was routinely disregarded by the head of our department. Like when my team hit our goal, she emailed to say congratulations to my boss but not me. When I quit, I went in her office to tell her and she said “I can’t believe you would do this to us after all we’ve done for you.” My boss had done a lot for me – but this woman was the reason I left. She did not one thing for me! Such a skewed view of reality.

  35. Anon_coward_today*

    I had been charged with developing a project. It took me over two years and $25,000 to deploy it. The day of the deploy, when it went public to much fanfare, my boss asked me to take it down. The only reason he could give me was that he didn’t like the font (which was easily changeable).

  36. Lizabeth*

    When I realized that the principal of the firm where I worked was a really, really, really good salesman. I got a call from a previous place I had interviewed at 9 months prior and jumped ship (after proper notice). This camel’s back was confirmed when the marketing director came to me in tears because she was told by said principal that I was leaving because she was “such a bitch”. I had said no such thing, in fact, told said principal to his face that I was leaving because of him!

    2. Dude*

      I quit an extra curricular in high school because the supervising teacher had sucked all the fun out of it, and found out from team mates that she was bad mouthing me from the front of her class room, telling team mates I quit because of them and calling me washed up and taking credit for my earlier successes.

  37. Anonie456*

    This isn’t interesting at all, but I realized it was time to leave my current job when my department head clearly started showing that she didn’t like me anymore, for lack of better words. It’s small things like saying “Hi” to everyone else in the office but me, or when she does speak to me it’s very dry . She used to be really warm and kind to me (and everyone really), so that’s what makes this behavior stick out more. She also used to provide me with regular feedback on the reports I create , but now she’s relaying everything to my direct supervisor. I suspect this change in behavior is because I expressed frustration that she told me that a project I was working on was fantastic behind closed doors, but once I presented the final project to the team, she essentially ripped everything apart in front of everyone. Oh well.

    1. Eric*

      Wow, that’s exactly how I knew it was time to get out of my last job, too. I had only been there for two months, and my boss stopped coming into my office and sitting down to chat about things, etc. I think the “last straw” for me was, one Friday, she literally went around to every person in the department and said “have a good weekend” EXCEPT to me. I mean, whatever, but man.

  38. YOLO*

    When the assistant on my team emailed me all “concerned” that a team meeting invite was coming from my calendar, because it might confuse the 7 member team into thinking that I was the one calling the meeting – and I don’t have the authority to call meetings. Given that I support the 3 senior-most people on the team – who told me to handle the meeting this way – and I sit by all of the senior team members (all of whom are very comfortable speaking up if they see something they don’t like), the only person who would be “confused” by this was this woman.

    That she could take the time out of her schedule to nit-pick an internal meeting invite while simultaneously claiming she was too busy to provide the info I needed on another project (one which I’d offered to do for her multiple times earlier) – and there were zero consequences from our manager – was the final straw. Stuff like this has happened the entire time I’ve been here, but I just gave up at that point. It’s made me realize the futility of trying to excel on a team where mediocrity and gaming the system by junior staff is rewarded. My attempting to do a great job means that I am held to a higher standard, while she can arrive late, leave early, be non-responsive to emails and calls, and generally slack off (she also has time to look up real-estate at work…but not get that info for me!). It’s a management issue that I just can’t take any more, but it’s also made me realize that I want to be surrounded by people whose work-ethic I respect.

  39. Swarley*

    Four or five months into my first post-college job, I came into work and was severely scolded by my manager and the director of a department for which I was responsible for staffing, for a task I had not done. The only problem was that no one told me I was responsible for said task, nor was it something I could have figured out on my own. This job had little to zero training, information was hoarded, and I was constantly dinged for not having X and Y completed when I was never informed that I was responsible for X and Y, even after I had asked on multiple occasions for information and training. I left after seven months to a large raise and a manager that turned into an incredible mentor for the next three years.

  40. anonanonanon*

    When I was written up for three ridiculous reasons:
    1. For not being a “team player” because I didn’t participate in the “baby parades” that happened constantly at work – where people would bring in their newborns or babies and everyone would huddle in a group and coo over the babies;
    2. I was also not a team player for not buying presents for the many baby or wedding showers we’d have at work (I have no problem contributing $5 or $10, but it was expected that if someone on your team was getting married or pregnant, you had to buy them a present);
    3. We had a “brown bag lunch meeting” that was supposed to be sharing new procedures or tips for work projects, but one person turned it into, “let’s share about buying houses/raising kids/planning weddings” which turned into a pile-on hounding me about why I didn’t have kids/when I would have kids, which turned into me finally snapping that even if I wanted kids, I can’t have them anyway. Which then turned into a bunch of coworkers giving unsolicited advice about how to deal with infertility (which is infuriating coming from people who don’t have fertility problems). When I told my coworkers and boss I was upset by this, I was told that my coworkers meant well (leaving printed out articles on how to “fix” infertility and making comments about how it explained “my lack of interest in babies” was not well meaning). That was the third time I was written up for not having “empathy” to deal with “coworkers who cared”.

    Also when two vacations were denied even though they had been approved months in advance. One was an out of state wedding where I was part of the wedding party, but my boss tried to make me cancel my vacation because a coworker and her husband planned a last minute vacation. The second was a vacation day I had approved months in advance for my thesis defense. My boss told me I couldn’t have the day anymore because a coworker wanted to take the day off to go see her son’s elementary school play.

    Basically, when I realized I was being punished for being single and without children (and not wanting children), I knew I needed to get out. The strangest part was that it was just my semi-large department that was this marriage-baby hivemind cult. The rest of the company didn’t seem to have this problem. We weren’t even in an industry that had anything to do with babies, marriage, etc. either. I’m all for people who want to get married or have children, but I am cool with being ostracized or punished because I don’t want those things. Especially at work where I was just trying to do my job.

    1. anonanonanon*

      I should add that I had some very lovely coworkers who were married and had children who were awesome and normal, but the bulk of this BS I dealt with came from my boss and a handful of her friends who were very cliquey and very disturbed by women who didn’t have husbands or children because they thought it meant something was “wrong” with them.

      1. Jane, the world's worst employee*

        Are you me???? I was in the same position at my former job. My (very intrusive) co-workers would ask me every single day when I was getting married. I told them several times (very politely) that I would be sure and let them know if my situation changed.

        One day, a coworker who really annoyed me asked me again. I replied very sternly, “Do NOT ever ask me again if I am getting married – I’m serious. We are not discussing this anymore.” I replied loudly enough that my other coworkers could hear as well. No one ever asked me about it again.

        I love marriage and kids and all of that, but personally, I don’t think it belongs in the workplace.

        1. anonanonanon*

          Yeah, agreed. I had a different coworker at that company who was over-the-top about marriage. She learned one guy was proposing to his girlfriend and was at his desk the moment she came in the next day to ask how the proposal went (nevermind that they barely even knew each other). There was another coworker who was engaged and then her fiance left her, and marriage-crazy!coworker needed to know ALL THE DETAILS. I and another coworker had to tell her to lay-off because the poor girl was distraught enough without some rando asking her about the details of her broken engagement. She used to wonder what “someone’s story” was if they weren’t married or have kids.

          I have no issue with people who are excited about marriage, but I don’t like when they think because they’re happily married, everyone who isn’t must be miserable. Plus, not everyone wants to discuss details with a random coworker.

          1. Charby*

            The way I see it, anyone who is close enough to you at work to ask you about your marital status, kids, etc. would already have that information. The fact that they don’t know if you’re married or when you’re getting married is itself proof that they shouldn’t ask you…

      1. anonanonanon*

        Oh, I did. I gave them such a rant, but turns out HR had heard the problems before and said there wasn’t much they could do about it. I guess people who had left the department before I joined had the same complaints, which was unfortunate because I had some good coworkers and good former bosses in that company, but that one marriage-baby crazy boss put a sour stink on the entire experience for me.

        1. Observer*

          HR sounds incredibly incompetent, then. Things do not have to be illegal to be within the purview of HR.

        2. LBK*

          IANAL but I actually think that could’ve been an illegal hostile work environment and their actions could have qualified as harassment. Sex-related discrimination explicitly covers discrimination based on pregnancy, which you might be able to flip to discrimination about not being/getting pregnant as well. There could also be a gender roles-related argument, which isn’t iron clad either but has worked in cases of discrimination based on sexual orientation – ie that a woman who’s attracted to women receives scrutiny that a man wouldn’t receive for being attracted to women because of gendered expectations about female sexuality. A good lawyer might be able to make a similar argument that you received treatment a man wouldn’t have received regarding being childless due to your manager’s sexist expectations for how women should act.

          (Not that it matters at this point, I’m sure, but I do enjoy finding times the EEOC may actually help people in bad situations.)

      1. neverjaunty*

        Right? I mean, how insecure about your husband and children do you have to be to freak out if somebody else doesn’t want the same thing?

    7. Jennifer*

      Omg I’m so sick of this! I don’t have it this bad, and I still am. I work around a *lot* of guys (primarily male field) and when I started, I was 23 and married about a year.
      Stupid coworkers/bosses:”Got any kids?”
      Me:”nope. Neither of us want kids.”
      Sc/b:”you’ll change your mind. Give it a couple years, that clock’ll start ticking so loud you won’t hear nothing else.
      (Repeat daily-weekly)
      I’m sorry I didn’t realize you knew me,my husband, my marriage, and my body better than me. My bad .

      1. anonanonanon*

        I’ve just started saying, “Why do you ask?” when people ask me if I have/want kids. It usually makes them uncomfortable or makes them realize how invasive and nosey the question is, especially if they don’t really know me. But whenever, someone does the “you’ll change your mind”, I either just tell them, “I can’t have kids!” or, if they’re really annoying, I say something like, “Yes, because after speaking with me for ten minutes you obviously know me well enough to make that assumption”. That usually shuts them up.

        I’ve just forgone being polite about it. In my experience, the “change your mind” speech usually comes from coworkers, extended family, strangers, acquaintances who just assume everyone wants kids and all women have that ticking clock. It’s annoying and I really wish people would stop with that mentality.

        1. Rachel*

          I don’t want children either and when people (who have children) tell me I’ll change my mind I like to smile internally and think “maybe, but you can’t”. I usually just say maybe though

      2. Collarbone High*

        When people are this rude, I have no qualms about saying, “But the cancer that took my uterus won’t!” If that makes people uncomfortable, maybe they’ll think twice about asking people about their reproductive choices.

        1. Anie*

          HA! I’m going to start saying this.

          (Of course, I laugh under the assumption that you’re joking. If you actually had cancer, I’ve very sorry you had to deal with that.)

    8. Anon nony non*

      I work in at a public university, Monday through Friday. I only work evenings and weekends under very exceptional circumstances. I knew that we had issues with weekend coverage last year, so this year I made sure I had other commitments that would prevent me from coming in on very short notice. The weekend I worked last year wasn’t appreciated by my boss or my coworker. One of the student supervisors called in while she was in the ER last weekend. My boss came in, first calling the other student supervisor, who declined. Her reasoning – it was her kid’s first birthday party. She then calls me, who is on the other side of the state at a beer festival with my cousin and his girlfriend. I told her that I couldn’t make it in because I was out of town. She then asked if I could leave then and come in as soon as I got back. I told her that I wasn’t in any state to be driving and where I was at. She was a bit irritated and I got the feeling that she thought my reason was too irresponsible. My cousin and his girlfriend couldn’t believe how rude she was and that it was more irresponsible for me to decline for mine and everyone else’s safety on the roads. The cousin and his girlfriend have been together a long time and are not children people. The girlfriend had been in other jobs were she had to cover for coworkers who felt their kids’ soccer/ballet/football etc entitled them to leaving early and time off at others’ expense. Her response – the kid won’t know if mom had to leave his first birthday party early because he won’t remember that as an adult.

      1. MashaKasha*

        I have two children. Ages 19 (20 next month) and 22.

        I can confirm that the kid will not remember his first birthday party. Hell, I can’t remember if either of my kids had a first birthday party. I think one of them did, or was it both? Not sure.

        They should’ve told the mom to calm down and make it up to the kid by taking him to a good brewery for his 21st. Now THIS he will remember.

      2. anonanonanon*

        Seriously. Like I said above, I have no problem switching a meeting time if someone needs to pick-up kids or covering for them when their kids are sick, but I’m not canceling my plans or staying late just because they need to go off and see their kid’s events. Especially if it means I don’t get the same perks for my life events. (Also, parents don’t need to be at EVERY game/practice/etc. My parents had to miss loads of my events as a kid and I turned out fine. I was happier that I got to be doing the even and if they could make it to at least some of the events, it was cool. I wasn’t going to fall apart if they weren’t at every game or recital.)

        But yea, your example is pretty ridiculous on your manager’s part. It’s telling that she wanted you to drive to work even after you said you weren’t in any state to be driving.

        1. Anon nony non*

          My other hourly coworker ended up coming in. He understands how our boss is and asked if I had any extra samples in her honor. He also thought that it was rather petty that the student supervisor couldn’t come in because of the baby’s birthday party. He has kids and is not a fan of how some parents make too much of an effort for their kids’ birthdays. It’s a bit surreal to him how much parents can spend on kids’ parties once they are in school.

          Both my parents worked and didn’t make it to every activity or event that my sister and I were involved in. They were more involved than most, especially given that I was rather talented in one activity in high school. My team won the state tournament my senior year. By then, more parents were coming even though it wasn’t the most exciting spectator activity, but because we were beating larger schools and schools from the Chicago area. It would have been nice to have them not come to everything because of how parents can be, especially parents who saw that activity as an extension of their kids’ coursework.

          1. Mabel*

            I don’ t know… I don’t think it’s OK for a manager to tell someone that she should come in to work when she’s in the middle of her child’s 1st birthday party. I’m not sure why some of us think that she should have come in. The boss was there, and she should have covered – sometimes that’s what you have to do when someone is sick and no one else is available on short notice. FYI: I’m single and don’t have kids, and I’m not in favor of single/non-parent people having to pick up the slack for colleagues who want to go to their kids’ events unless there’s reciprocity. I just don’t understand why commenters seem to think the student supervisor should have come in on short notice. (I’m not familiar with these job titles, so maybe that’s why I’m not getting it.)

            1. MashaKasha*

              I’m not familiar either, but it sounds like student supervisor 1 and student supervisor 2 were taking turns working Saturdays. On student supervisor 1’s day, she was in the ER and couldn’t come in, so they called #2, who was her backup for that weekend.

              It sucks that there are only two people on rotation, if that’s really the case, but if that’s correct, I would’ve scheduled the party for a Sunday then. (assuming none of them had to be at work on Sunday.) I was on call 6.5 years and hardly ever scheduled anything during my on-call weeks. Definitely not anything that I couldn’t walk out of on a moment’s notice (didn’t go to the movies or plays, didn’t travel etc) But in our case, it was an entire week 24×7 Monday to Monday, not just a Sat., and we had three people on rotation, not two. So, while both Sat and Sun were out during your on-call week, it was relatively safe to schedule a party during an off-call weekend, knowing that, even if the person on call ends up in the ER, the other person could cover for them while I’m unavailable.

              It’s pretty complicated and is pretty much the reason why I left that job. (That, and getting calls in the middle of the night got really exhausting.)

      3. ChelseaNH*

        If she was throwing a party for her kid’s first birthday, it’s quite possible she had guests and didn’t feel right about running out on them.

      4. TootsNYC*

        True, but the mom will remember. And all the relatives will remind her for years.

        However, it won’t be the world’s worst thing. I missed my son’s first Christmas, and it was fine.

    11. Chocolate lover*

      Ridiculous and asinine aren’t sufficient to describe that situation, but they’re the closest I can think of!

      I’ve opted out of having children, so working some place like that, we’re they’re constantly throwing things in your face and butting in, would drive me insane. Don’t get me wrong, I went over and smiled at a coworker’s new baby this morning, and I like hearing the occasional story about their kids. But not all the time, and not if they started questioning my choices and/or giving me advice.

    14. AW*

      That was the third time I was written up for not having “empathy”…

      And that’s when I shot him, Your Honor.

      My head just about exploded reading that. You get harassed about your infertility and YOU’RE the one who lacks empathy?!?!

  41. Nonnymousie*

    When the Big Boss chose the one day I’d taken out of the office in months and that my immediate supervisor was dealing with a very sick child to demand a whole pile of complicated information from us on why we were behind on our revenue targets. I should note that this came after weeks of us trying to get her to turn materials around to make sure they still fit with her constantly changing expectations and follow up with prospects who insisted on speaking with her, only to be told she would get right to it and we didn’t need to worry, or to get blown off because of her personal commitments – which were, of course, sacrosanct.

  42. J*

    A client overheard my manager tell another co-worker my husband and I should not have children because we were not financially secure enough (so give me a raise!). I was 5 months pregnant. Left shortly after the baby was born.

  43. Lucky*

    This story goes way back, but I love it because it was the first time that I really asserted myself as an adult. I had been waiting tables in a restaurant for a few years and, during the summer before my junior year of college, I had trained and worked as a bartender. Time came to go back to school and I put in my notice. Then, the day after my last day, the bar manager fell sick and asked if I would cover her shifts over the weekend.

    As those of you here who’ve worked in restaurants know, restaurant management attracts some real glassbowls. This place had a real power-mad glassbowl manager, Bud. It took me years to realize what a predator he was – sexually harassing the women, racially harassing the Latino, Black and Filipino staff, and generally stirring up discord between the front of the house and the back of the house. He was awful.

    I show up for the happy hour shift and find that both the bar manager and the dinner shift bartender are out sick. So, it’s me and a new hire, who I’m supposed to train (when I’ve been bartending for all of three months) and we are slammed. This is in the late 80s, so I’m making *blended* margaritas, sex on the beaches, long island iced teas — all very time-intensive — while the new hire opens beers and pulls bottles of wine. As the dinner service ramps up, I send the new hire upstairs to the wine cage with a list to restock, since we are almost out of wine, and call a busser over to bring me more ice.

    Now, I had started here as a busser, and always pulled buckets of ice for the bartenders. I had been asking the bussers for ice all summer. I tipped out the bussers for doing this. It was totally a thing. But Bud decided that this night, he was going to take a stand for the bus staff. The busser told me that he wasn’t allowed to bring me ice. I call another busser over, same question, same response. “Sorry Lucky, but Bud says we’re not allowed to bring you ice tonight.”

    Finally I see Bud and call him over and ask him what was up. He replies that the bartenders are relying too much on the bus staff and I need to take care of it on my own. I try to explain that I’m covering two shifts, since the new hire is completely untrained and has been up in the wine cave for half an hour, and he just gives me his good-old-boy grin and says “not my problem.”

    So, while he watched, I walked over the tip jar, dump it in my apron pockets, grabbed my hand bag and left, stuffing a bunch of bills into the nearest busser’s hand on my way out. I like to imagine that there was applause as I walked out the door, though that may have been in my head.

  44. TaraT*

    When I was told by my boss that there was really no place for my position within the company and that I should just ride out my pregnancy with our *great* (read incredibly shitty) benefits and then look for another job. There were many other things leading up to this point, but this was within two weeks of him being promoted despite his absolute inexperience in fundraising and total lack of understanding of his job. I’m now very happily in a new position with three weeks until my due date and actual good benefits.

  45. Samantha*

    The day my boss took me into a separate room and started screaming into my face while tears streamed down my cheeks: “I AM GOING TO HAVE TO BREAK YOU DOWN AND THEN BUILD YOU BACK UP!”

    It was sales, not the Army. He was also at least six inches shorter than me (I was maybe 5’6″ wearing heels) so he had to like look straight up while yelling. If I had known then what I know now, I would have burst out laughing and quit on the spot, but alas, it took another few months for me to move on. I’ve been at Next Job seven years and there have been occasional pain points, I would never tolerate anyone screaming at me ever again. In what universe is that appropriate?

    1. Lizabeth*

      What is it with the guys that short????? I’ve only known one guy that was shorter than me that was totally secure about himself. The rest (in the work place) take the opportunity to dump their crap, insecurities, etc. all over women taller than them.

      3. NurseB*

        Actually my husband is 5’2″ and would NEVER behave like this person was described. Please try not to stereotype short men. It is discouraged not to discriminate or stereotype very overweight people, I see no reason why this should be any different.

      4. short man*

        Wow, what a generalization. I am 5′ and don’t behave that way, and we read regularly on AAM about guys (and women too), supposedly average height, who also behave like as*holes. And people often feel free to make fun when I can’t reach something or pretend to talk over me as if they can’t see me when I standing next to them. No, not funny.

        1. Charby*

          I think the main difference is when a taller person acts that way, it’s because they’re a jerk; if a shorter person acts that way, it’s because they’re short. Kind of weird when you think about it — even Napoleon himself wasn’t all that short, so it’s probably one of those stereotypes that come out of nowhere that we internalize without really thinking about it.

      5. James M*

        I think any short person can have a propensity to comment on others’ heights. Just the other day, as I joined the queue to get coffee, a person much shorter than myself said “Wow! You’re a big fella ain’t’cha? How tall are you? You gotta be at least 7 feet.” My pre-caffeinated brain halfheartedly attempted to shuffle words into something witty, but quickly gave up so I replied with “Uh,… close enough.” I’m 6’1″ btw.

        1. The Department of Terrestrial Magnetism*

          i can’t remember where I read it, but – tall woman at a party, getting really tired of people commenting on her height. Some guy turns around, looks up at her, and says “how’s the weather up there?” That’s all she can take. “It’s raining,” she says, and spits on him.

          I don’t know if it’s a true story, but my family is generally tall – I’m 6’2″, my sister is 6′ tall. She tells me that being a tall woman can be a lonely existence.

      6. AMG*

        Perhaps you should enter a race, ethnicity, religion, or marital status there in place of ‘short man’ and see if the sentence still makes sense. Apology accepted, by the way.

    2. Kelly L.*

      People thinking they’re the Army when they are not the Army is such a huge red flag. Sorry you had to deal with this jerk. :(

  46. NicoleK*

    Me: New coworker isn’t working on anything that I need her to do
    Boss: It’s reasonable for you to have expectations for her…..
    That’s when I knew that my conflict avoidant boss wasn’t going to do anything about it and I needed to leave.
    Weeks later….nothing has changed.

  47. Not me*

    I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was when the other person in my position was let go. And then that person’s work was given to someone who has been here since before I was born, who was effectively already doing two full-time jobs. She left within six months. As far as I know, she hasn’t been replaced, and I don’t know who’s filling in for her.

    I’m still here, but ugh. Ugh.

  48. Wee Wee Leaks*

    When our executive director decided to hire someone above myself and my supervisor, and the job description was well below what either I or my supervisor have accomplished in our careers…

  49. City Planner*

    There was a lot of tension in my workplace between my department director (who was also my direct supervisor) and another department director that I worked with quite a bit on projects, which eventually escalated into outright conflict between the two of them. The conflict spilled over into a meeting with an outside vendor where the two of them sniped at each other, which was very uncomfortable, and my boss started dragging me into it. Eventually, the other director stopped speaking to me entirely (I literally would say hi to him in the halls and he wouldn’t respond), even though we’d had a good relationship to start. I kept expecting my boss to be fired – and he did, too, because he cleared out his office of any personal affects – because the other department director was the clear favorite with the CEO, but nothing ever happened. Ultimately, my boss went to the CEO to complain, and I ended up being sucked into a meeting with my boss, the CEO, and the board chair in which I was asked to give details about the problems with the other director — and I *knew* that anything I said was going to be reported verbatim to the other director. That meeting, and feeling like I was trapped in a web of toxic relationships that no one above me had any backbone to address, pushed me to start looking and I was out of that organization in about 6 months.

  50. AndersonDarling*

    When I was asked to hand wash dished left in the breakroom sink. The job search could not have commenced faster!

      1. Dynamic Beige*

        At my first job, I was expected to wash all the dishes every week. We had no bathroom or kitchen in the office, so I would take them home. And then my ancient dishwasher broke. So I had to wash everything by hand which, in case you can’t guess, I hate with the intensity of a thousand fiery suns. I accidentally broke the glass coffee pot because I was doing the dishes angrily and wasn’t paying attention. I was horrified. It took me a week to find a replacement, during which time everyone went without coffee. I don’t think I told them that I broke it, I was too embarrassed. BTW, did I mention I don’t drink coffee?

    2. I Am Not Your Mother*

      I didn’t wash other people’s dirty dishes. When they started to smell, I threw them in the garbage.

      1. mm1970*

        ha ha me too! I don’t know who the offenders were. At one point we had 150 people, half in my building. And we were open 24/7. There were at least a couple of people who would leave their dishes in the sink. I’d put up signs (that apparently were not PC enough). I’d send out emails.

        Eventually, I just threw dirty stuff in the trash. If it was a very nice plate or mug or something, I’d wash it but put it in my desk drawer. A few people got upset that we were running out of plates, etc. (note that what we used was whatever employees brought in from home or from the thrift store). So they’d bring in more and complain. I simply said (me and a guy also did it) – tell whomever is leaving their stuff dirty to wash their damn dishes.

        We’ve had three layoffs now. I’m pretty sure whomever it was (the few people anyway) got hit on round 2.

        At my previous job, we had a problem with people leaving food to mold in the fridge. So I put up signs there. I’d go through the fridge every week (I brought my lunch every day), and had a system – if it hadn’t moved and wasn’t labeled, after 3 days I moved it down to the bottom shelf (but near the front), and Friday afternoon it got tossed.

        My best friend told me that the day before I returned from maternity leave, a few people said “OMG mm1970 is coming back tomorrow, we have to check the fridge!” (It actually wasn’t too bad.) Usually there was one woman who would bring a sandwich and fruit, but never ate the fruit. I found moldy peeled oranges a lot.

    3. Rebecca*

      So when I first got to this job, we had real dishes and silverware in the break room. Cleaning the break room was rotated between departments, each department ended up covering the break room once every 6 weeks or so.

      In general, people treated the break room the way they would treat their own kitchen at home: put dishes in the dishwasher, ran it if it was full, wiped up their spills, etc. So “cleaning” the break room really just consisted of making sure it looked presentable in the morning and again in the afternoon. Of course there was the occasional disgusting dish left in the sink or whatever. One day I walked in (during my department’s week) and my coworker was just throwing dishes in the trash! They had apparently been left in the sink with dried food on them and she was like, “I do not get paid enough to scrub other people’s dishes!” I could not stop laughing.

      Now the dishes and silverware are gone and the dishwashers have been locked up.

  51. Hermione*

    During and shortly after college, I worked at a law firm in the family law department. While I had started as a student assistant, after four years I was doing the work of an administrative assistant/back-up paralegal in my department (without the pay raise). The main assistant had (obnoxiously, characteristically) timed her vacation for ten work days coinciding with two different trials and the due date for a state supreme court appellate brief (vital to our case being considered for appeal).

    After working 45 hours the week prior, I had put in three 14-16 hour days during her second week away preparing our attorneys for court, pulling together and editing (and re-editing 2-3 times) the exhibit books and other documents needed. I’d also been assisting with formatting, printing and binding of the 13-14 copies of the appellate briefs and had delivered them to our associate attorney roughly a half-day earlier than expected. He’d dropped them off to the clerk to be docketed, given me the copies that needed to be mailed and/or filed, then gotten back to work for the trial. An hour passes, and I notice that he hadn’t signed our copies. I bring them into him to sign, and ask offhandedly if he had also forgotten to sign the docs he’d just dropped off to the court as well?

    Turns out? He had forgotten to sign them. He LOSES it on me, unleashing a tirade of shouting about how he can’t prevent every problem and why I was so stupid that I (expletive) didn’t think to (expletive) ask him if he’d signed them before he (expletive) went to court and to (expletive) call the court and find out if he could (expletive) sign them if he made it down there before the end of the day.

    I scampered off, called the clerk’s office, who laughed at me and said “sure, he can come down, no big deal” and quietly popped my head into his office to tell him that he could go sign them. He grunted, grabbed his coat and walked out of the office.

    That was the minute I started job searching.

    2. neverjaunty*

      How do you FORGET to sign things you file with the court? That’s like forgetting to put on underwear in the morning.

      1. Hermione*

        I mean, I wanted to ask, but the shades of purple he was turning from accusing me of his idiocy dissuaded me.

        1. anon for once*

          Oh, I’m sure he was definitely in “I cannot admit I made such an elementary mistake” mode, but FFS.

  52. boop*

    EVERY DAY!

    The big one, I can’t say since I might dox myself. But since the Big One, I haven’t had the option of leaving (even retail won’t interview me), and watching every one of my coworkers quit to better pastures and then give me that heartbreaking look of pity really hurts. What also hurts, is that none of them have been adequately replaced so I’ve been doing the work of 3 people at times which, btw, isn’t office work. So yeah. Every damn day.

    The cashier job, though… that moment was after some weeks of crying in the parking lot every morning (as someone else mentioned above). I’d decided that I’d rather lay in the street, and that I didn’t need money in order to do that, so I quit without a job lined up and eventually ended up with this new nightmare one.
    I’m back at jumping-off-a-bridge territory, but now I have a spouse to support, so quitting hasn’t been an option. SIGH

  53. Stranger than fiction*

    Can’t think of any for myself but have a doozy about my significant other. He was working a very toxic job where he was working for an irate tyrant of a boss; 80 hour work weeks because boss had given him a second full time job on top of his own; boss refused to collaborate or give any direction then would scream when work didn’t turn out the way he wanted; boss gave a coworker credit for one of his projects in front of the entire company, etc
    The straw: one day in a department meeting, boss interrupted my SO in the middle of his presentation and said about the different team members “so youre Jewish, you’re Muslim, I’m Hindu, what are you?” And my SO said “I don’t discuss those things at work” and boss said “oh so you’re an atheist?” He resigned the next morning and had a long chat with HR.

    1. Stranger than fiction*

      Forgot the best (worst) part – a week before, boss had yelled at him that he needed to respond to customer “red alerts” quicker and when he asked how much quicker boss said within 7 minutes! 24/7! Even if he’s in a meeting with another customer!??

  54. AndersonDarling*

    Ops- that was “dishes.” And everyone would eat oatmeal and leave their gooey gross dishes. Arrgh!

  55. Briar*

    I worked in a restaurant once where the owner told me things weren’t working out. I thought she was firing me so I asked if she’d like two more weeks of work or is today my last day. she said two weeks and looked confused but that was the end of the discussion. the next day, a coworker pulled me aside and explained that I was supposed to beg to keep my job! I said I’d already started looking for a new one, no thanks. my last day, the owner said she was sorry I was leaving!

  56. LS*

    When my clearly misogynistic, rude boss told my 23 year old female coworker her first day back after her father suddenly dying 5 days previous, that “she needed to get her head in the game” when she didn’t have sales meetings set up.

    That was the day I mentally checked out of that job and focused desperately on my job search. It was such a bad workplace that I had only been there 5 months at that point – and I still think (years later) I should have just quit after 3.

    2. Lou*

      Oh man that happened to me when my auntie died boss decided to review my contract just before the funeral because I’d not been performing to her satisfaction that week.

  57. Paloma Pigeon*

    When I was given a verbal warning and put on a PIP for an issue at our largest event that was a result of my manager’s error.

  58. MT*

    The day my boss told me to take an invoice, scan it in my computer, alter the total and submit it to our insurance as a claim so “we could make some money off of having items stolen off site”
    It took a year until I was able to get out of that office, but I knew from that day on, when your boss asks you to commit insurance fraud, but he doesn’t think it’s insurance fraud, it’s just him getting what he’s due, it’s time to document, document, document and be prepared to run.
    There were other similar things like this, this was not a one time deal.
    But I’m free and never ever working anywhere like that ever again.

  59. Bella*

    I had to let an employee know that he could not abbreviate city names on his logbooks over a text message and he texted me back a bunch of explicit insults. I told him to come into the shop for a meeting with myself (HR) and the General Manager. The employee the ripped up the written warning and the General Manager took his side and said that getting him in trouble for that was petty. I had to remind them both that the meeting for the names he called me, not for the log infraction.
    I didn’t quit though.

  60. MashaKasha*

    My third job in the US in as many years. After moving here and being out of work for 4 years prior, I had to start over at entry level, and so had to keep changing jobs to quickly move up to something that would match my skills, degree, and experience. I found this job through a newspaper ad. It was the late 90s and they were a dotcom startup.

    When they gave me an offer, I initially turned it down. The pay was lower than I wanted and I wasn’t crazy about their utter lack of benefits and their downtown location, which would’ve required me to spend a couple hours a day sitting in traffic, and pay crazy $$ for the parking. My future boss was on the phone with me for a half hour, trying to talk me into accepting the offer. I agreed after he threw an additional 5K in. But his main selling point was “we’re cutting-edge here, after a year with us, you’ll be a seasoned web developer and won’t have trouble finding good work anywhere.”

    On my first morning, in a staff meeting, they make me stand up and tell everyone, “This is Masha. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s going to ” (a town 65 miles from my home and 40 miles from the office.)

    Come to find out, the company owner was friends with a guy who ran a small consulting company – just him and a developer. His only client was a manufacturing company in (far-away town), where the developer maintained their aging Windows app. The developer had suddenly quit, he needed a replacement asap, and I was it. My new employer had contracted me out to this guy. On my usual day, I’d come in to the downtown office, pay for parking, work from there for a bit, drive to far-away town, work and attend meetings there, come back, pay for parking again, stay late, pay a special event parking fee because we were next to two large sports arenas and on a day of a big game or concert (which was almost every day) you had to pay extra for every 15 minutes your car was parked there after five PM.

    I was initially told that this assignment would be temporary, and would only take 50% of my time. They even gave me some web work to do. Then three months down the road, my boss says “I’m sorry. (consulting dude)’s shit comes first. It’s going to be 100% of your time, and you’ll be doing it indefinitely.” I sent resumes out on the same day and was out of there within a month.

    In the meantime, I’d paid several hundred dollars in parking fees and paid for a root canal out of my pocket (no benefits, remember.)

    1. James M*

      …the developer maintained their aging Windows app. The developer had suddenly quit…

      This is one of the most common Big Red Flags in software.

      1. MashaKasha*

        Right, which is why it never came up in either of my interviews, or when they called to make an offer. They did drop hints like “would you be opposed to occasionally working with a Windows app?”, “would you be okay with occasionally driving to a client’s site?”, but never came out and said what they were hiring me for.

  61. Mimmy*

    Mine is probably tame by comparison, and I’ve mentioned this job several times: 15 years ago, I had a job at a wholesale factory. The job was sold to me as involving data entry and some phone work. Lo and behold, I get there, and I’m the RECEPTIONIST!! I knew I did not want this job the minute they hired me, but I took it. Long story.

    Anyway, it was okay the first day or two, but it quickly unraveled from there. The woman who was training me was extremely moody – one minute she’s all nurturing, the next minute, she’s all annoyed at something. One time, I came back to my desk to see her SCREAMING at someone on the phone (I think it was whoever she ordered lunch from) right in front of a visitor who was looking for a job. Also, the director’s personality was extremely intense. I think he got into it with either my trainer or the billing person, I forget who.

    I don’t remember what broke the camel’s back, but I think it might’ve been yet another argument between me and my trainer. But I just couldn’t take the intense personalities, the boring work, the abusive callers, and the hordes of people who’d come in looking for work. I just decided to call out the next day. Mercifully, they let me go that day.

    Very toxic, traumatic job :(

    1. Mimmy*

      The sad part is, I started this job on my FIRST WEDDING ANNIVERSARY. My husband was also starting what turned out to be a toxic job that very same day.

      It’ll be 15 years next Friday. Wow.

  62. Kelly L.*

    A few of mine, from different jobs:

    -When someone called me to try to get me to come in as a sub, and I found myself about to cry (food service).

    -Not getting the day of my mom’s wedding off when I’d requested it and been promised it, and knowing none of my co-workers would sub for me, because they never ever did (retail).

    -Realizing I needed to move cities to take my long-distance relationship to the next level (this was a happy one, though bittersweet to leave there) (office).

    -Getting called back by a job I’d written off, which would pay a lot more than the one I was at, and then getting the offer (library).

    1. Anx*

      I feel you on those requested days off. It is so frustrating. And other people sometimes don’t understand that you really CAN’T take the day off.

  63. Rebecca*

    When my PHB told me that I could expect no further increases in compensation, ever, because I make enough money, and others don’t make as much as I do and they need to make more. I’ve been looking for a new job ever since. At the current rate of no raises and increased health insurance costs, I estimate by the time I’m eligible to retire (in 15 years) I’ll owe the company money for the privilege of working here. In the same breath, she told me I need to make sure to stay on top of process improvement and think about how I could help other people.

    So, while my physical body is in the chair, pushing the buttons, in my mind this job is no longer my circus or my monkeys. It’s just an inconvenience that I have to put up with M-F in order to fund my life. And not coincidentally, I’m all out of good ideas. Go figure.

  64. Margot, Terror of the School Bus*

    The supervisor/junior management team at the specialty cosmetics/bath products shop where I worked contacted our District Manager after our Store Manager, who was was supposed to be dividing her time between our store and two new locations, hadn’t been at our store in more than a month. DM did nothing, and when we contacted the other stores SM was supposed to be working with, they hadn’t seen her in weeks, either.

    About two weeks after that SM called her favorite shift lead at my store to tell her that she wouldn’t be able to write the schedule this week. According to Store Manager, her husband had served her with divorce papers over the weekend and she was calling from a mental institution’s front desk, where her mother was having her committed.

  65. Semi-nonymous*

    Being asked to sign a retroactive ethics statement saying that I and the company had acted ethically in the past year, when in fact, it had not. From fudging data to flat out lying to the customer to being asked to remove hazardous chemicals from an MSDS for a product that in fact did contain those chemicals, to being asked to create backdated false calibration records, to unethical billing practices (telling a customer you will credit them for a shipment they received of unusable material, and then constantly “forgetting” to issue the credit, among other things) – this company was awash in ethical issues. Most of which I refused to participate in, or did so only when order to in writing by my bosses, but it was bad. Really bad. A handful of the things were borderline (oops, we forgot to calibrate the equipment on day 30, but we did it on day 32 and backdated it rahter than fill out 27,000 pages of corrective action paperwork – not great practice, but not the very worst either), but a lot of it was downright give you and ulcer, make you cry awful.

    Apparently the ethics statement was part of a Sarbanes-Oxley related law/policy passed in the country of the parent company, but it was ridiculous. Luckily, a group of us got together and collectively refused to sign. It was bad enough that we were forced to sign things that were untrue (see backdated records above), but signing that we were operating ethically was the straw that broke the camels back for most of us. The management finally allowed us to tack on a “signing statement” of all the things we had seen, so that we could sign the statement, but it was bad for a while there.

    We all started looking for jobs at that point, but it was mid-recession in a very depressed area, and there wasn’t much out there. The final, final straw for me that kicked it into “I don’t care where I go but I can’t stay here” was when corporate (non-US) HQ flat out ordered us to violate US TSCA laws “because it’s a stupid law”. While I agreed in principal that the law and the chemical we were talking about was stupid and wasn’t going to cause anyone any harm (it was a variant of a known chemical, and was being used in other products, but not in the way we were going to for TSCA registration purposes), I wasn’t willing to do it, and luckily my boss and her boss backed me up.

    And thank god I got out of there, because the person that made the call to violate the law was then transferred to the US not 6 months after I left, and would have been head of my division. I’m pretty sure I would have had a target on my back once he got there, because apparently he got called on the carpet in front of the whole division about the whole TSCA thing and was embarrassed. Apparently it wasn’t embarrassing enough not to promote him a year later though!

    I heard through the grapevine that they got caught in a lie 2 years later by their biggest customer, and rather than fess up and deal with it, they blamed it on my former boss, who had left a year after I did, and told the customer that they had fired her (they hadn’t).

    I am so glad to be out of that industry!

  66. Bye Bye Bye*

    As the Office Manager I was tasked by the President of our org to do things to boost morale (we cycle through really low morale and times of high morale), organize fun little parties etc. Ice cream Sundae Day was coming up and I thought that would be a great opportunity to bring people together, we have a staff with a sweet tooth. I e-mailed our CFO to clear it with her (expense wise) and she replied “OK but I thought you were too busy.” (I would have gotten the ice cream and supplies on my way into work on my own time)

    Prior to that: We were strongly encouraged to speak up if we were overwhelmed and the week prior I had said something to the effect that I had a lot of projects with a near deadline so I just needed some time without anything new to clear up what I had going on, my boss even said it was good I spoke up. Not sure if that was the best strategy looking back because it pissed off the CFO but I am in my 20s so still learning…

    Fortunately I did get out of there! But that moment was really eye opening of what I should put up with, how I wanted to be treated, also not feeling like morale was my responsibility and obviously there were other things that added to my recognizing I needed to get out. But that was the moment and it was one of the 2 times I have ever cried at work I think I was so overwhelmed and her response felt like an attack.

  67. The Optimizer*

    It’s been a long time since I had one of those moments, but here it is:
    I worked in a small insurance office with about 35 people. The majority owner was a tyrant who dictated the weirdest dress code I’ve ever seen (boots are not to be worn with skirts and socks must be pulled up all the way are just two examples) and expressed blatant nepotism and favoritism (1/3 of the staff were her family, 1/3 were friends and the other 1/3 were nothing to her).
    We were very busy and I did my job well but wasn’t allowed to do overtime because she said so. Friends and family were allowed as much as they wanted and were able to to do overtime on the account that was otherwise 100% assigned to me. I then had to spend time cleaning up their messes, which made me more behind and led to more overtime for them.
    My entire claims department, at the request of my good manager, once even dressed in black and sat in silence for the company holiday party that we were required to attend or take a vacation day. We were also pretty much required to contribute for a Christmas gift for her, which she made it very obvious that she disliked, and did she reciprocate.

    The worst part was that she smoked and since she made all the rules and the office was located in an unincorporated part of the city, for the majority of the two years I worked there people could smoke at their desks (I called the city and OSHA and was told nothing could be done).

    I tired to reason with her partner, who was a very nice man, but since he only owned 49% of the company, he had no power to change anything. She then brought in a new partner which made equal shares for everyone. My roommate also happened to have been his assistant at his former company, so I knew him pretty well and filled him in on many of the issues I saw with the company. He did make some changes, such as only allowing smoking in the company break room, but that made the break room unusable for me. I would dash in to grab my lunch from the fridge and would emerge reeking of smoke. I had to eat lunch in my car because I wasn’t allowed to eat at my desk.

    The smoking situation was not going to change, and that was pretty much it for me. I told them that things needed to change on various fronts (the OT issue, smoking, more money, etc) and if it didn’t, I was out (she literally laughed at me when i said this). I gave them two months to meet my very reasonable requests, started looking for a new job and turned in my resignation when they didn’t make any of the changes. They then begged me to stay, offered to top the salary of the new job I got and give me everything I had been asking for . I told them at this point that it wasn’t about the money and never was so NO. I ended up working with the daughter of someone I had worked with there and they hunted me down at my new job and asked me to come back more than once, which I took great pleasure in laughing at.

    2. BeenThere*

      Smoking! Indoors!!!! Surely that has to be illegal? Of all the times I’ve read something on AAM this would be the thing that I would think was illegal. Then again gonig to casino’s in the US surprised me as well.

  68. Kristin*

    After over a year of working 7 days a week as a social media manager (I had to check and respond multiple times a day, so it was hours of work with no real weekend) I knew I had to get out when the following happened:

    1. I was soundly chastised for taking just over two hours to reply to a message on a Saturday night, and told I “must not care” since I had not responded in time.
    2. They said they would take away work from home Fridays after I confessed I was stressed and called in sick/work from home on a Thursday. Their solution to my stress which I was trying to be honest and forthright about (never having a break from relentless, high-pressure, highly visible work will do that!) led to them taking away the one small relief I had.

    1. pop tart*

      I would be really surprised to find out that we did not work for the same company! I worked for a place that did that kind of stuff all the time, they were the WORST. I called in sick with strep throat once (my boyfriend said it was “the sickest he had ever seen a person who was not hospitalized”), had a doctors note and everything and my boss called and texted me repeatedly asking me to have my boyfriend just bring me to work if I couldn’t drive. That is NOT how that works!!

      1. Not So Sunny*

        “my boss called and texted me repeatedly asking me to have my boyfriend just bring me to work if I couldn’t drive. ”

        Now I’ve heard everything.

        1. pop tart*

          RIGHT? It was shortly after that I ended up walking out, I posted an extremely abbreviated version of the story below but it was bananas and super toxic. Every day I had to send an email to the owner of what I did every single minute of the work day (how many emails replied to, how many applications reviewed, etc), AND we used Basecamp so she would check exactly what I had been doing. I have never seen such micro managing.

  69. TryingToSleep*

    I was once working two jobs. My primary job consisted of many overnight shifts, and I was able to get those scheduled regularly. My other job was purely supplementary, supposed to be part-time, and a bit of a nightmare.

    There were always scheduling issues, such as getting scheduled for 40 hours instead of 20, getting scheduled to start immediately after my other job’s shift ended, and getting scheduled for days I said I was unavailable (specifically Tuesdays and Thursdays).

    Eventually, it seemed I communicated my schedule needs well enough (which I was also clear on during the hiring process), because my schedule was perfect for the following week.

    On Monday, I worked my primary job overnight (to Tuesday morning), went to sleep around 8:00 AM. Around 9:00 AM I was woken up by somebody pounding on my door over and over again. I was in a groggy panic, because the pounding was obviously urgent and I had no reason for anyone to be at my door. I was expecting an emergency.

    Instead, it was my manager. They’d come to my home because they were unable to locate the client (disabled adult) and thought they might be at my place (what?) because I was scheduled. I reminded them that I didn’t work on Tuesdays, that we’d had multiple meetings about that in the last two weeks, and that when I’d checked the schedule on Friday I was clearly not scheduled for the day (I had my schedule for the week written down to verify).

    Not only was this the last scheduling issue I could handle, but it was the last time I could stand to see the client treated that way. They needed 24-hour supervision, which the company knew (and knowingly couldn’t adequately provide), so there never should have been a situation where a staff member left the client alone without a replacement already on site. (I felt truly sorry for the client. They were not prepared for living on their own, but it was being done by their family due to some life insurance payout requirement. We didn’t have enough staffing to supervise him properly, let alone teach him the life skills he needed to acquire independence.) And, oh yeah, they showed up at my home to wake my up for a shift I wasn’t scheduled for. I quit on the spot.

    However, my (former) manager contacted me the following week letting me know if I wanted hours again then all I had to do was call into the front desk and let them know. They acted like the whole incident didn’t happen, and didn’t actually terminate my employment for another 6-8 weeks. At that point I received a letter that said because I hadn’t been scheduled for so long I was being released.

  70. Kirsten*

    There were three main things (outside of the many, many other things) that gradually escalated my hatred of the place:
    1. On my second day of the job, where I had been hired to start a music therapy program, they played a video in orientation that completely bashed music therapy and lumped it into the same category as trendy “therapies” with no training or research to back them up.
    2. When my micromanaging boss refused to let me continue going to the psychology team meetings (which was how I was supposed to get referrals for my services), even though it was the only functional team at the place and outside of that meeting she literally would not allow me to do what I had been hired to do.
    3. When my boss informed me by email that she had scheduled me to work on the 4th of July without checking with me to know that a friend had been planning for months to visit that weekend (and despite no one else with my title having to work that day, or have the boss make their schedules) and then promptly left on vacation so there was no way for me to talk about it with her.
    It was a horrible place and gave me actual nightmares for months after. They had 9 turnovers within a couple of years in a department of 12, so there were a lot of us who were pretty happy to get out of there.

  71. Workfromhome*

    In my early 20s I was a rep for a food company. Part of my job was to go into stores check the stock, confirm damaged product and take orders. I had driven over 3 hours to get to a group of stores and walked into the first one only to be told “You’ll have to leave..your company has not paid us the credit were due for damaged product in 3 months you are not allowed in here>” Went to the next store SAME THING.

    When I called the bosses (family owned husband and wife) they suggested that I open an account under my name and write checks to the store if it happens and that they would then reimburse me. When I wrote a latter telling them that I was not willing to be personally liable for company expenses and that I could not perform my job duties if I can’t go into the store that told me I wasn’t a team player ,didn’t want the company to succeed..maybe I wasn’t a good fit anymore.

    I ending up leaving without another job lined up I was so concerned about my reputation being assocatied with them.

    Funny thing is that karma came into play (and yes this a true story). The bosses eventually defaulted on a bunch of government loans for expansions that never came about. The company went bankrupt. A year later I was in a new job and walked into a convenience store and when the clerk rang in my purchase who was behind the counter..my old BOSS!. They ended up having to move and were living upstairs from the store and he was working as a cashier (not owner of the store. cashier)

    It doesn’t happen nearly quickly or often enough but sometimes people get taught the lessons they need.

  72. AR*

    When I was unable to get a hold of a client, the boss (a CPA) told me to forge the client’s signature on an IRS form so he could complete the transfer of the business from Sole Proprietor to LLC. I didn’t sign it of course and he later forgot about it. I found a job shortly thereafter.

  73. Sara*

    I was working for a woman who was slightly unstable to say the least. A coworker and I were chatting before a meeting started and he said something about how someone had dinged his car in the parking lot and didn’t leave a note. I said, “Ugh, I’m so sorry, I hate people.”

    For the record — I do not hate people. I’m very good-natured, I have been well-liked at all of my workplaces and have even been honored by the city I live in for volunteer work I do with low-income kids.

    My unstable manager called me into her office after the meeting, saying she had heard me say, “I hate people” and that she’s now worried I may be a terrorist or the next version of the Boston bombers. She then made me promise to her that I would not commit an act of terrorism. I was so confused, so she made me repeat it back to her, “I will not commit an act of terrorism.”

    I put my resume together that night.

    1. Sara*

      Oh! I forgot to add. When I mentioned to her that no one would ever expect me to commit an act of terrorism, and listed off my many non-terrorist achievements, including the youth group I lead, she said, “That’s why I’m so concerned. I don’t want these poor kids to be lead by a terrorist.”

      2. CollegeAdmin*

        …listed off my many non-terrorist achievements…

        I feel like I shouldn’t be but I’m laughing hysterically at this.

      3. MegEB*

        I feel bad laughing at this but it’s so ridiculous and absurd that I can’t help it. The part where she makes you repeat “I will not commit an act of terrorism” like you were in grade school is the weirdest part IMO.

    2. Allison*

      What the hell? That’s such an overreaction! “I hate people” is a super common thing to say when someone does something crappy. A guy working at Dunkin’ Donuts said it to me when we realized some jerk had taken my grilled cheese, and I thought nothing of it!

      1. Creag an Tuire*

        This sounds like a bad episode of Batman.

        “Mild-mannered Allison Sandwich was going about her business when some jerk took her grilled cheese. ‘I HATE ALL PEOPLE’, she cried, and from thenceforth became the terrorist mastermind known as THE GRILLMISTRESS. (Holy Cholesterol, Batman!)”

      1. LQ*

        Makes me wonder if the opposite is true. You just get someone to say it and there it goes.

        I say I hate people all the time, my boss and my boss’s boss say it about me all the time. (Though my director says he knows I secretly don’t actually hate all people because I do work in an place that is designed to help them.)

  74. alter_ego*

    I quit a job after two days because when I mentioned to the store manager, who didn’t interview me, that I couldn’t wear the clothes from that store (it was underwear, no one would know what brand I was wearing) because it didn’t fit, a fact that I had mentioned in my interview, in case it was a deal breaker, she lost it. In effect, she asked me why they’d hired someone as fat as me. “A body type like *yours*” was used multiple times. When I told her the next day that I was quitting, she was SHOCKED. “Everyone here loves me! They’re all so nice to me! They threw me a baby shower! How can you say that you didn’t appreciate the way that I spoke to you! It was the truth!” Thank goodness I didn’t actually need the job at the time, so it was really easy to walk away.

    3. "Jayne"*

      I don’t know why people use “it’s the truth” as a way of justifying saying something bad about someone or being rude. Just because it’s true doesn’t mean it’s okay to say.

  75. justcourt*

    Almost 6 years ago, I started a job in an entry-level position at a large health care organization. Going into this job, I knew that one of my co-workers had a lot of issues with other employees, but I had no idea just how awful she was.

    It started off with little things. She randomly refused to answer questions and made comments under her breath about having to train me. Then she started flat out ignoring me. For example, after about a month on the job, a patient had a question that I couldn’t answer, so I asked my co-worker. She walked right past me without acknowledging me right in front of the patient.

    A few weeks later she confronted me about my “attitude.” And by confronted me, I mean she backed me into a corner (literally) and went on a screaming tired. I was crying by the time a nurse stepped in and rescued me.

    Then there was the music. This woman only listed to one CD. She had multiple copies that she listened to at home, in her car, and at work. She had a small CD player under her desk where she played the CD on a loop all day, every day. She actually wore down a copy from playing it so much (I didn’t even know that could happen). It was so awful hearing the same music everyday, all day for nine months. It’s hard to explain it to people who haven’t experienced it, but it was like torture. I would have dreams about the songs. Towards the end if I was having a hard time tuning the music out, I would get tears in my eyes. I know from people who still work in the department, she is still listening to that CD and has been for over 10 years.

    What finally pushed me over the edge was her habit of putting trash on my desk. When I started the job there was a small trashcan right behind my chair and right underneath the fax machine. Faxes fell into the can all the time, and I would constantly knock the trash can over and have to clean up trash from the ground. I finally moved the trash can a few feet away, and apparently that was very upsetting to my co-worker. She was so upset that she started walking out of her way to put trash on my desk even though the trash can I moved was closer and her own trash can was closer than both my desk and my trashcan. It took me about a month to work up the courage to confront her about the trash (she routinely flew off the handles at co-workers, our boss, and patients), and when I did she lost it. She started yelling at me about how the trash was my responsibility because I moved the trashcan. And that’s when I started looking for another job.

        1. CollegeAdmin*

          I’m actually a huge Nickelback fan (I know, I know) so I’m giving you huge props for that. 10/10, would laugh again :)

      2. Lucky*

        I’m betting on the Titanic soundtrack, though I’d like to imagine it was the Chipmunks Christmas album, just because that would be hilarious.

    2. MashaKasha*

      I need to know what the CD was.

      I also kind of need to know why she’s still working there and there’s been no disciplinary action ever taken. But mainly the CD.

      1. MashaKasha*

        Also, I get it about it being like torture. An ex tried to pull it on me once on a road trip. It was his all-time favorite band. After the CD circled around three times and started on round four, I said “can we see what’s on the radio? I’m afraid I’m all (band name)’d out.” He was NOT happy. But neither was I by that time.

        1. Kelly L.*

          My sister did this with a Hanson CD when we were teens. I think I needed an exorcism after about the fourth time,

            1. Jo March*

              I had a friend who filled a whole CD with MMMMBop, and would drive around in his red Mustang, blasting it. He was a football player type, so it was extra awesome.

        2. ElsieD*

          I once listened to 1 CD for over 50 repeats while on a road trip. It was on an iPod, so it’s not like it was the only thing to listen to. I just really liked the CD.

          (I still really like it and listen to it. Constantly, for 10 years, though? That would probably wear on me.)

        3. That a song, was as merry*

          I worked at a seasonal Christmas store, and we were required to play the CDs that we were selling. Well, by around the 20th of December we had run out of all but a rather insipid version of The Nutcracker Suite–which was played over and over and over….and we were on at least 12 hour shifts. It took me *years* to stop cringing every time it came on the radio at Christmastime.

      2. justcourt*

        It was a Paul Overstreet CD. He makes country music. If I hear his name mentioned even now I feel a jolt in my stomach.

        She’s still there because of office politics. Neither HR nor my boss would do anything about her. I know my boss wanted her gone, but he didn’t have a backbone and the organization wouldn’t back him. HR was probably sick of her shenanigans, and I know they were sick of processing new employees for the dept, but she she had protection from one of the doctors.

        1. MashaKasha*

          I just checked him out on Spotify because I had no idea who he was. You have my deepest sympathy. I’d have maybe lasted through one day, then I’d have had to strangle someone.

          1. MashaKasha*

            I listened to two or three songs yesterday (well, to ~60 seconds of each, to be honest.) Something about a wife and something about giving thanks. Which one was the one hit?

            I get the obscure part – very hipstery of the coworker. She liked Paul Overstreet before he was popular. Also after he stopped being popular.

      3. The Strand*

        This sounds exactly like my dad. My parents separated for the first time in the late 1960s, some time after he had purchased the album “Days of Future Passed” by the Moody Blues. Twenty years later my mother would still talk about him playing Side 1 over and over and over again. She would fly into a rage if she randomly heard a few dirge-like bars of “Nights in White Satin”.

      1. justcourt*

        I wasn’t going to share this because it’s pretty bad, but she had multiple copies at the office (I guess she wanted to avoid wearing out another CD during the workday). I found one once in a cabinet (I think she loaned it to someone from outside the department), and in a moment of panic/anxiety/insanity, I put it in the shredder collection box waiting to be picked up and industrially shredded.

    5. I'm a Little Teapot*

      In my last apartment, I had a neighbor who listened to the same slow jazz piece with heavy wall-shaking bass over and over and over at all hours including 4 am. It was not just the same album but the same song. Then suddenly he blasted Metallica for two weeks straight, and I was so happy because it wasn’t.that.song.

      2. AGirlCalledFriday*

        Oh no…I had a boyfriend who used to listen to the same CD over and over again for weeks because he was reading a book series and HAD to have the same music playing over and over in the background (one was Metallica). These series could be a few books or like 20. It drove me nuts, but I bet it was worse for any neighbors of ours!

    6. Brienne of Teapots*

      Re: the CD. I’ve been there. For my nightmare coworker it was the original Broadway cast album of “The Producers.” I occasionally asked if she’d put something else on and was told, “the person who worked here before you had no problem with this music.” I’d sometimes get in earlier and put on my own music and every single time she’d pitch a fit about how terrible it was, no matter what it was.

      It’s been nearly 15 years. I’ve never seen the musical, but I’m pretty sure I could still sing every word of every song.

      1. Dynamic Beige*

        ABBA. It was always ABBA. Coworker would put the CD in, start playing it, sit down, check her calendar and be all “Oh, I have a meeting” and run out leaving the CD playing. She would come back “I never got to listen to this!” put it in, play it, check her calendar/go for lunch… I never was an ABBA fan before but I loathe them now. I would get up and stop it as soon as she left.

        I don’t care what you listen to, just do it with headphones or earbuds or whatever. Don’t blast your taste all over the place.

        1. MashaKasha*

          I had a boss who did this. We were in an open office and his desk was next to mine. He’d go to a meeting and leave the same damn CD playing for all of us to enjoy. He was from Canada and it was a Canadian band, something something deep sea? Ah, Great Big Sea, thank you Google. Rob, if you’re reading this, none of us cared for Great Big Sea.

          1. Dynamic Beige*

            Could have been worse… could have been Nickelback! Or Avril Lavigne, or Justin Bieber, or Bachman Turner Overdrive or…

    9. Athena C*

      That was actually the straw that broke my back and finally got me to buy a house. The people who moved in right under my old apartment played the same Mariachi CD all. The. Time. At the loudest volume they could (so loud their doors, and my floors would shake). No one would do anything, and it always skipped at the same damn spot. It drove me insane.

    10. Ad Astra*

      I worked at a movie theater the summer before “Rent” was released. In the lobby, the TVs played previews for coming attractions, which typically involved dialog that we in the concessions area couldn’t hear well enough to notice most of the time. But the Rent trailer was just “Seasons of Love” in its entirety. I heard that song about 525,600 times before I quit for other reasons. I still get twitchy when I hear the opening bars of it.

      1. Dee*

        Ha!! I was also working in a movie theater at the same time, and suffered from the same affliction.

        Almost as bad was the music they played before the ads in each theater—every month or so we’d get in a new mix of 6 songs by no-name “emerging artists” that someone was trying to launch into the mainstream, which we had to hear every time we were cleaning. I’m sure I’ve never heard any of those songs since, but they were really pretty life-ruining.

  76. Allison*

    When asking my manager for assistance on a project of his he had delegated to me, he told me I wasn’t qualified to do my job. He then went to a bar for lunch and never came back, which I was stuck answering “where’s manager?” and fielding all the project related questions. This was after he had told me they were thinking of promoting me, but wouldn’t give me a raise because everyone needs something to work for.

  77. Never Again*

    When the CEO lambasted our department assistant for being the only one in the office. Our small team travelled all the time to international project sites, and the office had also instituted a flexible Friday summer policy where if we worked 9 hours a day we would get every other Friday off. One Friday, several were on travel and myself and another had taken our flexible Fridays. Our program assistant, a superstar who went well above and beyond, was the only one in the office and the CEO lit into her when he found the rest of the department empty, demanding she know where everyone was, and be able to explain why he should continue to pay people who aren’t in the office. She was distraught and I then had to prove to him that the rest of the staff were in fact working. Since he had approved all their travel in the first place, and we tended to work people 12-14 hours a day while in the field in difficult countries, it was even more insulting.

  78. TheLazyB (UK)*

    When my boss emailed me, telling me off for…. doing exactly what he had instructed me to do, and calling me unprofessional. Which was bad enough, but half an hour later I discovered he’d bcc’d in all the rest of our team. I cried. Took me ages to get another job as I had no self confidence left after that :(

      1. TheLazyB (UK)*

        Oh but if you bcc you get a dual layer of reaction, first the upset that your boss would do that at all, then the shock that actually everyone else knows too,then the shame and the wondering if everyone else also agrees. It’s not as much fun getting all that in one lump of horror.

    2. LeighTX*

      I had a boss cc the entire company on an email lambasting me for spending too much on a company lunch . . . when he had picked the restaurant and chosen the menu. That was my camel’s back moment.

      The amount I’d spent that day was about $30 more than what was normally spent on company lunches, BTW.

      1. MashaKasha*

        He probably got into hot water for spending major $$$ on that lunch and stupidly decided to get out of trouble by making it look like it was all your fault. That would tell me he’d probably throw a subordinate under the bus in a more serious situation, too. So I would’ve left, too.

  79. Drea*

    Working at a non-profit, I expressed to my boss that working 70 hour weeks was starting to take a toll on me and she said that if I wanted a vacation I needed to go crazy and be hospitalized, because that was the only way she would ever approve the time off.

    2. Creag an Tuire*

      I’d be tempted to reply: “Fair enough, then. WHARRGARBL! KRUYKA!” :: knocks everything off boss’s desk ::

  80. Ros*

    When I was told I wasn’t getting a raise because “your manager likes to send emails on Saturday nights after her kids go to bed, and she complains that you don’t answer them fast enough.”

    … I was 24 and single. Lady: if you sent me an email at 11pm on Friday night, you’d get an answer by noon on Sunday. At 11pm on Saturday, I was either in bed or at the pub, and neither location was good for business. (Also, I was already putting in 80+ hour weeks, so, F U.) I got a new job within a month.

  81. some1*

    I’ve talked about this before – at first professional job, my supervisor left and new sup was promoted from a different dept and a first-time manager. New sup had already been friends with one of my teammates since forever, and she quickly became New Sup’s pet. They went to lunch together on the regular (no other teammates invited), teammate was made Team Lead for no discernable reason, teammate got every task that she didn’t want to do taken off her plate, and first choice of vacation (New sup had this idea that no more than 2 team members could be out the same day without the world crashing down, which was just not true.)

    All of that was annoying and unfair, until the day I got pulled in to a surprise meeting with New Sup and Teammate. Teammate basically had a laundry list of things that I had apparently not done, done wrong, etc., going back to when I started before New Sup even started with us. Maybe one or two legitimate issues, the rest were things like, “Wakeen said you gave him a dirty look in the file room.” or “Two weeks ago you were 5 minuites late coming back from lunch.” If that wasn’t bad enough, every time I spoke, Teammate would mimic what I said right back to me in a whiny voice in every response (you know, like 5-yr-olds do; this woman was 45 if she was a day). New sup sat there and let it happen. I should point out that this was a Union job and Teammate was in no position whatsoever to discipline me over ANYTHING even if any of this had been legitimate.

    I started job searching that night. Got a job within 2 months

  82. Anon for Today*

    After 1.5 years at my first job post grad school, I just realized one day that nothing would change. We’d always be underfunded and under-resourced and disorganized, and the organization would continue to leave us in a building that was flat-out dangerous and falling apart. the project leads would never be able to get it together enough to actually execute the incredibly ambitious plans they had (if we’d even gotten the staffing complement, which we wouldn’t have due to lack of funding). I also realized that my boss was ultimately not willing to advocate for herself, her staff, or the program as a whole to get the things we needed to have to be successful.

    And then, to add insult to injury, I had been performing work well beyond my title and pay grade for over a year, only to be told that “union rules” meant that I wasn’t eligible for promotion. Whether that was the truth or whether it was an excuse, I don’t know, but that was the catalyst.

    Within a month I’d had three interviews and three offers and left for a 30% salary increase to a much more interesting, challenging and stable job.

  83. Episkey*

    There were many incidents. I was a small business with an owner and about 6 other employees, including me.

    One that sticks out, though, was that my cat died very suddenly & unexpectedly one day — she was only 6 years old, and it was a shock. My husband & I had been at the emergency vet clinic for a couple of hours and then had to drive to Madison, WI to bring her to the clinic at the university vet school. Madison was about 2.5 hours from us, so we didn’t get home until around 11 pm that night, exhausted and devastated.

    I still went into work the next day. After a couple of hours, the owner of the business buzzed me on the phone and told me that my “voice didn’t sound cheerful” when I was answering the phone and I needed to step it up. No shit I wasn’t all rainbows & ice cream that day, asshole, my cat just died. I was like, “Done.”

    1. Jenniy*

      My supervisor didn’t want to let me go to the on site clinic after I hit my head on a piece of machinery. He tried to convince me that it was the heat that caused the whole thing, and if I sat in his a/c office for a while I’d feel all better and not need to go get checked out (it was summer and out shop was not air conditioned but that had nothing to do with hitting my head or fear of a concussion )
      Then he insisted on writing on my clinic sheet that my dog and lizard had both died that week, so he thought I was depressed
      Even the clinic person couldn’t figure out what that had to do with anything.

  84. KimmieSue*

    Almost 15 years ago, I was recruiting for a start-up. We’d hired about 250 people in two years and were looking to expand the senior leadership team. We started to have discussions and negotiations with some external head hunters to help.

    After a meeting with one in particular, my boss (HR DIRECTOR) told me that I had been too soft on the terms with the headhunter. This was dumb as the terms were industry standard and similar to what others had quoted. He then told me that he needed me to be the “bit%# recruiter” that he knew I could be. I sat there, jaw completely opened, stunned. Then I stood up, told him that no one ever talked to me like that and that I effing quit. I grabbed my purse, photos off my desk and I left.

    Next day, the CEO asked me to meet him off site for coffee. He asked for my version of why I left the day before. I told him. Turns out that his executive assistant had witnessed some of the exchange that I had and what she saw and heard didn’t add up to the story the HR Director was feedback about my departure. I think he was saying that I just couldn’t handle the pressure of the start-up environment. I explained to CEO what really happened. He refused to accept my resignation but gave me the rest of the week off (think it was 2-3 days). Promised me that I’d report to him directly and not have to interface with the HR Dir (I knew that would likely not be possible).

    Came back the following Monday. HR Director fired and gone. I got to help recruit the replacement (who I ended up loving to work for) and I stayed for another three years. Mostly very happy years.

  85. Carrington Barr*

    A co-worker was bullied to the point where he was so in fear of losing his job that he did something unsafe.
    He died as a result, and he endangered several other co-workers in the process.

    No action whatsoever was ever taken against the manager and director responsible for the bullying. The week after his funeral, my entire department started our job search.

  86. losing my marbles*

    I was working for a small publishing company—a deeply dysfunctional company. They were a terrible employer: the company wouldn’t pay professional people with subject matter or publishing industry expertise, quantity was always more important than quantity, troublesome mistakes were not being caught or corrected if they were even noticed, and on and on. Our authors were always complaining about parts of the process—including but certainly not limited to the ugly book covers, which were always a standard template with different stock photos and different colored type randomly selected by our “graphic designer”.

    In reviewing recently published books for a task, I noticed that one of our (nonfiction) releases on studies about aging and memory had marbles on the cover. As in, the graphic designer thought it was funny/cute that the subject was old people “losing their marbles.” I’m not sure that the authors, who were international, caught the idiom behind the choice. They didn’t complain about it to me, anyway. But it made me angry—at the carelessness and unprofessionalism and also the lack of checks that made such a mistake possible. I brought it up to another staff member who let me know that it actually had been noticed previously (but not before publication), that it was “hugely controversial”, but that nothing was going to be done about it. The company refused to spend more time on a cover or any money on a reprinting, which I thought would be the professional thing to do.

    I had already had my foot out the door for awhile—working part time for another business who’d offered me increasing hours. So, I asked them when I could start full time.

    1. Q*

      I am not defending them but maybe they did it on purpose, hoping someone would raise a stink and they would get a lot of free publicity and get their name out there.

      1. losing my marbles*

        Nope, there was nothing strategic about this, other than not investing in fixing this problem (or even the workflow that would lead to it).

  87. Cupcake*

    After a challenging year that included multiple layoffs in my department, a global merger and taking on the work of 3 people, I had my annual performance review. The company used “360 Reviews” to get comments from a wide variety of people to get a good sense of your work and to minimize bias from your boss or peers. I received fantastic comments from everyone and I had been looking forward to the meeting.

    My manager, who came from the “other side” of the merged company, sat me down to say that “nobody ever scores higher than a 3 out of 5” on their overall assessment, despite the fact that I had previously received 4/5 in other years (pre-merger). Despite the glowing praise and her even telling me I had gone “above and beyond” my score remained at 3 and my annual raise was…..0.05%. Not even 1%!!

    I explained why I disagreed with this assessment and said that if my score wasn’t going to change, then I should at least get a higher raise due to exceeding my performance goals, saving the department some money (with visible proof) and to compensate for “all the extra work you took on during the merger” (her words). She said, “You really shouldn’t complain. You do still have a job, you know.”

    BOOM! That was the f-you moment that made me say, outta here!

    1. KimmieSue*

      I worked for a company that did that!!!! As a manager, we were actually mandated that we couldn’t only use the top ranking for 20% of the team. Regardless of their actual performance!

      1. Kelly L.*

        I’m so glad stack ranking has started being soundly ridiculed in the last few years. What an awful concept.

  88. Minister of Snark*

    I had been submitting reports to directly to my boss for six months. Detailed, in-depth, comprehensive reports. For six freaking months. Boss happened to read another source’s report, which was basically summarizing my work, and then sent me a three-page long rant email about how this was the first time he’d heard about this issue, why was he just now hearing about it? Why had I let this slip past me? Why was I so lazy and unprofessional? Didn’t I care about my job? Was I really content just collecting a paycheck for doing nothing?

    I had put up with the low pay, the dismissive-to-the-point-of-being-abusive treatment from the management, and other indignities, but being accused of being lazy when the truth was my boss couldn’t be bothered to read his employees’ work, that was the thing that made me go home and start looking for a new job.

    1. LeighTX*

      Did you respond by printing out your previous reports, highlighting and flagging all the sentences you’d written about that issue, and leaving it on his desk?

      1. Minister of Snark*

        Ack! Yes, I can’t believe I forgot that part. My response was to send him an email with links to every report I’d done over the last six months, dated, which said, “As you can see, I have submitted reports on this subject on these occasions over the last six months.” and then I went to my direct supervisor and submitted my resignation, explaining exactly why I was leaving. My supervisor was very upset, because I was not the first person to leave for these reasons, and I was a solid employee.

        My boss, author of the email, saw me in the hallway in my last couple of days and said I would be back within a year. (Due to the limited number of local employers in my field.) I said, we’ll see. (Ten years later and nope.)

    2. Q*

      I feel you. I used to do a specific report everyday and email it to my supervisor. He went on a two week vacation and I stopped sending it since it was time sensitive and wouldn’t matter to him when he was out of the office. I continued to do and act on the report but after he came back I decided I wasn’t going to start emailing him again and instead wait and see how long it took him to notice. Six months! It took him six months to notice he wasn’t getting a report that he was supposed to be reviewing everyday!

      1. Victoria*

        At one point I was filling out six reports a day, raking up 90-120 minutes per day. Most of these reports were duplicate information, just sorted in a different way.

        One day I got irritated enough that I just put “IF ANYONE IS READING THIS REPORT PLEASE CONTACT VICTORIA” in several of the reports in 26 point font, and then stopped doing the reports.

        That was several years ago.

        No one contacted me.

    3. Kethryvis*

      i had a similar situation; CEO asked me for a report showing monthly numbers for my department, to be sent to him no later than the 15th of each month. The first month, i completed the report and sent it on the 15th. A week later, he asked me for all those numbers plus an additional set, asking why he hadn’t received the report. I redid the report, sent it, explaining i’d sent it before, but i’d recreated it to add the additional numbers.

      Month two, i create the report and send it, again around the 15th of the month. A week later, another email comes, asking again for all those numbers AND again another set, asking why he hadn’t received it. I scowled, again recreated the report with the new numbers, stated i’d sent the original on X date, and here it was again.

      Month three, i send the report a week and a half early. Sure enough, around the 20th i get an angry email demanding these numbers and that “i shouldn’t have to ask for them every month when i’ve already asked you to send them by the 15th.” I forwarded him the original email WITH report, stating i’d already sent it. At least this time he didn’t ask for yet another addition to the report.

      Month four… same deal. Again. i finally say “I’ve been sending this on or before the 15th as requested every month. However, it seems to be being missed. What can i do to ensure that you’re getting what you need when you need it?” He finally admitted that he would take my numbers and copy/paste them into a whole other sheet, and having two sheets open was just too much, and could i just paste the numbers directly into the email?

      Fine. Once i started doing that, suddenly he stopped saying he wasn’t getting my numbers.

      Sympathies. It is so frustrating when you’re doing all the work asked for and more, and no one notices.

  89. TheExchequer*

    I have two stories!

    Temp Job #1 (and the origin of my pseudonym here): They bounced one check, so they overnighted me a replacement. I ended up having three checks bounced all at once. Yeah, that was fun. Though, actually, I was very new to the workplace, so my last straw ended up being when I took the check to the issuing bank and they couldn’t cash the check because there were no funds in the account. (You can find the story on AAM here: https://www.askamanager.org/2012/11/what-to-do-when-your-paycheck-bounces.html and the update is here: https://www.askamanager.org/2012/12/update-from-the-reader-whose-paychecks-were-bouncing.html)

    The job I had last: The epitome of “There ain’t no crazy like small family business crazy.” My boss was late with my commission check. Then late with my paycheck. Then continually late with my commission check. He constantly berated me, telling me that “everyone but you is allowed to make mistakes.” (Could not make that up if I tried). And as my boss and the owner of the company, he would have closed door meetings with his wife that almost always turned into screaming matches. They put in writing that they would not pay for overtime. (Let’s just say California takes a dim view of that sort of thing). When my commission check was late for the third time, my boss told me he was too overwhelmed to pay me on time, but still added duties to my role without getting me on board. I started looking for another job at that point, but the absolute last straw was when he then pulled in my highly underperforming coworker in an open door meeting and let my coworker off the hook for urgent emails that went unresponded to for a week while berating me for a minor typo kind of error and not being perfect. It was so bad, a different coworker (who knew I needed the job to support myself) later asked me why I hadn’t just quit on the spot. (Said boss later went on to try and ask me for $700 on my last day because of an error a client made. Um, yeah. No. I love my new job, I love my new job, I love my new job).

    1. BookCocoon*

      I worked for a friend’s mother for a summer, who was flipping houses. She gave me a paycheck that bounced right before I went on vacation for a week. I expected while I was gone she would figure out the mistake and send me an apology, but she didn’t, so when I returned I e-mailed her to let her know it had bounced and asked if we could get it sorted out before we scheduled my next assignment (I was painting the houses). She wrote back lambasting me for being so rude as to imply that she would not correct the error and pay me what I was due, and implying that I was never going to get another job if I was that rude. I didn’t know what to do so I wrote back and apologized, and asked when I could pick up a replacement check. I drove the 45 minutes each way to her house to pick up the replacement check. That check also bounced. At that point I was done working for her. Eventually her daughter, my friend, wrote me a personal check for the amount, apologized for her mom being crazy, and said she would recoup the funds from her mom later. It was several years before I spoke to that friend’s mother again.

    2. TheLazyB (UK)*

      I remember that thing about everyone else being allowed to make mistakes but you! So glad you got out.

      1. TheExchequer*

        Yeah, that particular phrase seems to have stuck to a lot of people. Like gum to a shoe or something.

        I’m glad I got out too!

  90. xarcady*

    My very first job after college, at a very small family-owned business. This didn’t happen to me, but to a co-worker. Her father died. The only time off from work that she took was the day of the funeral. The afternoon of that day, the owner was yelling to her over the phone about how she should be back at work–the funeral was in the morning, why the Heck wasn’t she back at work Now!?! And he yelled at her in person when she showed up the following morning.

    New as I was to the workplace, I knew that was toxic.

    Many jobs later. After 8 years of sterling performance reviews, I went in for my annual review and was presented with the choices of: going on a PIP which I was told I would never pass, taking a much lower-ranking position in the company, or quitting. When I asked why, 5 examples were trotted out, all of them issues I had tried very, very hard to correct with the owner of the company (another small, family-owned business), but had been overridden on by the owner every single time.

    “You never got Employee X up to speed.” “Well, I did tell you that we needed to let him go during his probationary period because he could not do X, had no knowledge of Y and got worse at Z as his training progressed.” Things like that, where the owner had conveniently forgotten that I had, indeed, tried very, very hard to fix the problem, but the owner herself had prevented me.

    I was given two days to decide what to do. When I told the owner I was quitting, she stared blankly at me for a moment and then turned to the HR rep in the room and said, “I wasn’t expecting that. What do we do now?”

    Turns out that everyone they made a manager in that company lasted less than 3 years before quitting, because the owner simply could not let her managers manage by themselves, but kept over-ridding big and small decisions.

    1. Manders*

      It’s horrifying how many of these stories are about employees taking a very small amount of time off for bereavement or not “bouncing back” from bereavement within a few days.

    2. Chriama*

      Question: what do you think the owner was expecting? That you’d be demoted, take a lower salary but continue to do the same level of work as before? Or did he just want you to beg for your job as some kind of ego boost?

      1. xarcady*

        She clearly thought I’d take the demotion and lower pay. She claimed she wanted to work with me, to find a job that “better suited my skills.” My department was turning out twice as much work with the same number of people as before I became manager, my staff was much better trained than before, and I streamlined several processes that saved the company a hefty sum of money. I thought my skills were being used quite nicely, actually.

        Every time someone quit their job at that company, she was shocked. It was a pleasant place to work, as long as you were in the lower ranks. The higher up the ladder you advanced, the more she tried to micro-manage you. She was very invested in the company, and had a difficult time releasing any control over larger issues.

        1. xarcady*

          Oh, and after I left, they replaced me with a new manager, and assigned him two assistants. Three people to replace me.

          1. Arielle*

            When I left my last job I was replaced by two people, each of whom were individually making more than I had been. This after three years of my boss telling me that he couldn’t afford to give me a raise.

        2. Minister of Snark*

          The company i mentioned above (the “Why are you so lazy?” email) was a small family owned business and they were always genuinely confused as to why anyone would want to quit. If you were indeed, a family member, it was a great place to work. You could get away with all sorts of shenanigans without consequences. But if you a non-family member, you were held accountable for your actions, the family members’ actions, the economy, the weather patterns caused by El Nino, the Red Sox batting line up, and whatever else they could pin on you. All the while telling us how worthless we were as employees and how they could replace us in a second, but no one else would ever hire us, anyway.

          But resignations were always met with “But why would you ever want to leave this family?”

          If that was how my family operated, I would put myself up for adoption.

  91. Anon for this*

    I think I’ve told this story before.

    At my last job, we were on an incredibly tight deadline for one of our software products. Every week we had demos of our progress, and new tasks to complete by the end of the week.

    One week we had a ton of work we were expected to complete – so much that I was still well behind on Friday, as was one of my coworkers. So after I went home, I got online and worked until around 2 AM. I woke up Saturday and worked all day until the same time. I woke up Sunday and worked until around 4 PM when I said “you know what, that’s it, I need at least *some* break time before I have to go back to work tomorrow”.

    I went in the next day to find an email from my boss saying “if anything breaks or isn’t complete for the demo this afternoon, someone’s getting fired”.

    …

    My coworker and I were less than impressed, he raised a big stink about it during our morning meeting, he got pulled into a number of meetings with higher-ups, and the afternoon’s demo was eventually called off. The two of us (and several others) all made our way out of the company within a couple of months.

  92. Adam*

    My current primary area is customer service/admin. My director and her assistant began discussing lists of things to transfer over to me to ease their load. All of these things would fall under editing and publishing. I wasn’t opposed to it, but both my manager and I agreed this was a huge change to my job and things like my job title and pay should be discussed as part of it. My director didn’t think so.

    It’s not that bad of a situation, but it did hammer home that after five years at this place no matter what I do it’s not going to lead to anything better than what I started with.

  93. unagi*

    Three months of backbreaking work against the clock. My reward? $1.29 “chocolate”-flavor truffle on my desk. The men got bonuses, of course.

    2. Stephanie*

      Ugh, reminds me of when I would get an extra dollar for opening up a credit account at a retail gig. They were so patronizing about it. “If you open up a Teapots R Us account, we’ll give you a dollar! CASH!” On occasion, it was a candy bar.

      Also, I’m with Katie that that’s sexist and probably illegal.

      1. Former Cable Rep*

        Ours was $2 for each account, and we were “encouraged” to sign up for the card ourselves. Then the policy changed and we were written up if we didn’t get a certain number of credit accounts opened every month. The carrot was tiny, and the stick was liberally applied.

    4. Artemesia*

      Well, as Miss Manners noted decades ago the habit of giving women cookies and men money is an old one — that ought to end, but often doesn’t.

    6. Lano*

      Ugh – I’m so sorry to hear stories like this. I experienced a similar situation after dedicating over a year (and around $8,000 out of my own pocket) to earning a very difficult and well-respected industry designation/certification while working full time. The male at my firm who earned the same designation as me had his fees reimbursed after passing the exam while I (a female) was presented with a cake! I’m currently interviewing to get out of here asap!

  94. SP*

    I worked in the equine industry for several years, and part of my job entailed evaluating horses for a therapeutic horseback riding program. Once, a horse bucked me off during its evaluation; I landed hard and broke my arm.

    I was out for a couple of weeks because I had surgery to repair the fracture. When I returned to work, my boss accused me of purposely injuring myself. She also ignored explicit instructions from my doctor regarding my limitations while the arm healed (e.g. no riding, no lifting more than 5 pounds) and dismissed my concerns while insinuating I was simply trying to shirk my duties.

    I resigned a few months later; I was happier unemployed than working for someone who blatantly disregarded my well-being!

      1. SP*

        It was a very cool and rewarding job, but the low pay combined with an abusive boss and loooooong hours led me to quit! I now work doing web management and marketing for a tack store, so I am still very involved with horses in general (only now with plenty of time to ride my own)!

  95. LadyTL*

    I was working in fast food and was the cashier. They had the register in this little alcove with no real air circulation. I have severe perfume allergies and brought up some coworkers were applying perfume on at the register and it was making it hard for me to breathe. My manager’s solution was to put raw bleach on the floor. I was supposed to stand in the bleach fumes and perfume for another 6 hours. I clocked out for the day right then and there.

  96. Famouscait*

    I was the general manager of a small ballet company. The artistic director and founder was a brilliant artist but terrible business woman. The company was broke, so she secretly took a new job that would require her to move half-way across the country. She wanted to keep this a secret (until when?!), so when it was time to release the new calendar of classes and rehearsals for the season, she only used “her” initials to designate her classes. She told me (secretly, of course) that this was because the temporary director she had hired – who would actually be teaching at these times – luckily had the same initials as she did. I don’t know if she was ever planning to tell her dancers and parents of the change in leadership or just let the new director walk in on the first day because I quit shortly after that secret conversation.

    1. Jenny Islander*

      I may have witnessed a similar last-straw moment back in junior high, come to think of it. I was in the brainy kids’ homeroom. From the moment we walked in and sat down, the teacher was looking at us funny. The bell rang; he leaned back in his chair and asked us what we wanted to cover in the coming year. “Harder math!” said Lynette. “I like making stuff balance and building tiny buildings,” I said. As the responses piled up, his expression got stranger and stranger. Then he asked us what class this was!

      And then he explained why. Apparently that year the school district had decided that teachers for brainy kids and teachers for emotionally disturbed kids should be put into the same line item and furthermore there was only enough money to hire one person…who naturally would be expected to teach all of the kids covered under that line item. Guess what his specialty was.

      He did his best to nourish and stimulate our young minds and so forth, and as far as I know he did a good job in the classroom for the emotionally disturbed kids too, but he didn’t come back the next year.

      1. Jenny Islander*

        FTA that he had not understood until the first day of class that “you know, we put your job on the same line item as the Extended Learning Program” meant that the Extended Learning Program was something completely outside his field and he was expected to teach it anyway.

  97. anon anon.*

    when i tried to quit oldjob my terrible, miro-managing boss wouldn’t let me (he gave me my letter back to me!) and spent the 6 weeks of my notice trying increasingly hard to keep me on even though the funding rules wouldn’t allow me to work the job anyway. he had offered to turn my position into a union position and give me benefits and more hours, which would be paid from the units own budget. my straw that broke the camels back moment was when i accidentally found our operating budget on our shared drive while i was looking for another file and learned that a) i had been lied to about our events budget: i had been told we had no money and my boss basically forced a man who had retired for family & health reasons to unretire to cater our lunch to save $300 by pestering him incessantly (and he wanted to try to get the same dude to do our event the next year, when he’d been retired for a year at that point!), and b) that the budget for my position wouldn’t cover the wage and hours he had promised me at all! when i did the math i would have gone from making $17 an hour to $6.25 (which isn’t even minimum wage here).

    i could handle him stealing all of my work as his own and taking all of the credit, but there’s no way i would get paid less than legally allowed for it. i reaffirmed my desire to quit, and on my last day my boss spent my entire exit interview trying to convince me to stay. it was very odd.

    in the end i think i came out on top – less than a year later that boss was fired mysteriously and left the organization in disgrace (you basically can only get fired or theft, inappropriate conduct with students, or badmouthing the org in public) , while i have a job in a totally different dept with the org, with way more responsibility and influence and a higher pay grade than my old bosses position was. in the 3 months i’ve been there i’ve been upgraded from a cubicle to an actual office, offered to find a way to pay me more cash, and i even get to hire my own worker! all in all i think leaving worked out for the best.

  99. Katie the Fed*

    the common theme here is that if you treat people with a shred of dignity and respect, they’re less likely to up and quit on you with no notice.

    1. fposte*

      And also that stuff you’d put up with in otherwise good jobs is stuff that sends you packing in otherwise bad ones.

  100. K-rock*

    The bathroom backed up (again) and this time flooded the entire first floor, where I worked. This happened over a weekend where we weren’t staffed, so no one knew until Monday morning and it had had time to soak through everything.

    They grudgingly allowed us a day working at home while a reclamation/cleanup company mopped up the initial blast. When I came back the next day, I had to listen to huge fans whirring and squish around on the wet carpet. The place smelled like a wet dog, and yet they still expected us all to dress in nice shoes and businesswear, despite the fact that we spent all day in the back office where no customers ever came. It was already a dead-end underpaid admin job where they micromanged everyone, so the flood (and the unbending reaction to it) was the last straw. I quit that day.

  101. Erika*

    On my first day as an admin at a law firm, the woman training me took off for a few minutes to handle something. I was sitting quietly at the desk, waiting for her to come back, and one of the partners came up and asked me to fax something. The fax machine was unlike anything I’d seen before – an absolute behemoth – and you had to punch in case codes for billing. I had been instructed not to touch it by myself.

    When I told the partner – very politely – that it was my first day and it would be a few minutes until the other admin could show me how to do it, she told me that it had to be done immediately because it was already late and that it wasn’t her fault that I was a “f-ing idiot.”

    I left right after that; worked there for a grand total of about forty minutes.

    2. neverjaunty*

      You were wise. If one of the partners treats a brand new admin like that, it’s only downhill from there.

  102. squids*

    When the department head announced that they would be hiring an unpaid intern to do the work that I had proposed, wanted to do, was capable of doing, and had time for, but was told I couldn’t do because my job was officially rated as less skilled.

    (I’d just earned a professional degree, which was not officially needed for the job, but which I’m pretty sure they needed someone with in that office. I understand the reluctance to change job descriptions, but they also made the mistake of hiring three people in the same month who had higher qualifications than necessary, and we all left within 6 months for better suited positions.)

  103. Ann O'Nemity*

    In high school I worked as a host in a steakhouse. My boss was the manager of the front of the house, but all he did was drink at the bar and chat up the patrons. When I had to take a week off for foot surgery, I had to beg and bribe co-workers to cover my shifts because my boss straight up refused to leave me off the schedule that week, even though I’d known about the surgery for weeks. A few hours after surgery, my boss called to tell me that I needed to come in asap because the person who was supposed to cover for me was sick. When I told my boss that I was heavily medicated and not able to stand, he totally flipped out. After listening to him scream for awhile and telling me to get my lazy ass out of bed, I just hung up.

  104. Wilton Businessman*

    I was employee #2 at a small software development consultancy. In the beginning it was fast and loose and we would each normally BILL 55-60 hours a week (which meant a 65+ hour week). But we loved it. Employee #3 was just as fast and loose and together the three of us brought the company from essentially and built a product that setup the company to this day. We would do anything to make the company successful and killed ourselves doing it.

    Three years into it (two weeks before bonuses were handed out), owner comes to us (about 5 employees at the time) and says “I want everybody to sign these Non-Compete/Employment Agreements in order to get your bonus.” I read it and not only was it a 2 year non-compete, but laid out maximums for bonuses (which was about 1/3 of what I was getting), laid out a set Vacation schedule (which was non-existent as long as you got your work done), and instituted a 1 month notice period. At the end of the week I told him “no thanks” and was out within a month or two.

  105. Smartcookie*

    After years of budget cuts, layoffs, chaotic reorganizations, etc. I attended a mandatory 2 day training session….with no agenda. The CIO kicked off the session by saying that the organization was held back by employees internal issues and interpersonal challenges, and that this training was to help break down our own fears about being high performing (the only plausible explanation for an underperforming company is head case employees, apparently). The “training” was basically group therapy- and included practicing affirmations, meditating, documenting a self esteem staircase, and my personal favorite, examining childhood traumas to understand how they influenced us as adults. It was a weeks long effort to have these trainers go through the class with hundreds of employees. The first day I told the trainers that I wasn’t interested in exploring my daddy issues at work, and reached out to a recruiter over lunch. I was gone a few months later.

    1. AndersonDarling*

      “fears about being high performing”
      That is the best load I have ever heard! I can’t wait to use that and make people bust out laughing!

  106. AnonyMustBeJobSearching*

    I had been casually looking for awhile, because there were already red flags. But there was a definite nail in the coffin moment.

    It’s a small office, and when things get slow, admins are expected to start calling customers. Not quite cold calling, but very similar. Things were slow. Management was blaming the sales reps for the slowness. Finally, they said they wanted us to start calls, and explicitly stated that we would get commission from any sales we made. This was stated in a weekly team meeting, written in their copy of the minutes, and I had written it down personally, as well.

    By this time, I knew their track record, and I didn’t have faith that they would follow through with said promise. A more senior employee more “in the know” encouraged me to record my results, though, which convinced me that maybe they were serious this time. I ended up bringing in $2k of orders for the month, and I put my name on those accounts. Not much, but not bad for someone who doesn’t have training or interest in sales.

    We were never asked for any report, but I thought maybe management looked up accounts under our names in the system. I got my paycheck, and no extra money or mention of commission was made. I sent my results log to management and inquired what was going on. They said since paychecks had already been made, it was too late to apply it to the current month, but check back next month.

    The next month, I submitted the papers again to upper management, and I made sure I did it before payday. They told me they would have to discuss it and get back to me. At the end of the day, they finally brought me in to tell me that they could not give me commission because the company wasn’t making $X/day, which is what they would have to make to pay us commission. I reviewed my notes from the original meeting and no such parameters had been mentioned in the meeting; it was just “make the sales, get commission.”

    After that moment, I knew I was done. For a company to specifically make an announcement like that, and then pretend it never happened when someone holds them to their word was reprehensible to me. And still is, because I’m still there, still job searching.

    1. AVP*

      REALLY curious to know if the regular sales team are getting commissions or not. If not, I would imagine that’s why sales aren’t as high as owners would like!

      1. AnonyMustBeJobSearching*

        They’ve always gotten commission, though non-exempt gets a lower percentage. I got screwed either way, I just don’t know by how much. They didn’t include a percentage or other details in the meeting, which should have tipped me off that they were full of shite and it wasn’t worth the effort. But even 10% of my sales would have paid for a good grocery run or a few tanks of gas.

  107. TotesMaGoats*

    Prior to going on mat leave (by about 5 months) was promoted in title, pay and responsibilities to oversee about 8 locations. Told I was the only person that could handle this. Total trust and faith in me. Yada yada. Everything went smoothly into mat leave. Came back from mat leave and having a catch up with my boss. Bigger boss has decided that you won’t have oversight of 2 locations anymore. But don’t worry, you still keep title and pay. Just less work. Yay. He actually apologized to me because big boss had no rationale for it and it was wrong. That was the straw. It got worse in that more responsibilities kept slipping away. Things I’d done for years with no reason for it. Just that big boss had something stuck in her craw.

    About 3 months before I finally get things rolling to get out, I get the 2 missing locations back. But not with the public apology I was promised. I walked out without looking back.

  108. MashaKasha*

    I’ve got a couple more.
    – I was a secretary at a small private school. One of the jobs I took to hold us over when I was out of work following my son’s birth. At the end of each quarter I had to type up the students’ report cards. They were in essay format. Each teacher wrote them by hand in a notebook and turned them in on the day before last day of classes. There’d be a notebook for say math, a notebook for history, one for language arts etc. I had to type them up in a text file, sorted by student name instead of by subject, print five copies on a super old matrix printer, so they could be handed out to each student the next morning. Second time I did it, my boss said “drop it off at my apartment when you’re done. I’ll be sleeping so just stuff them in my mailbox”. I had to walk across our small town at three AM to put the damn things in his mailbox. The next morning, I told my husband I was quitting that job and it wasn’t up for discussion.

    – I was on call 24×7 and had to plan all my activities around the on call schedule. A group of 20 friends wanted to go on a camping trip together and all 20 agreed to plan it during my off-call week. A friend from another social group died unexpectedly the Friday before camping weekend. Funeral was on Saturday. I felt I couldn’t bow out of the camping trip that 20 people had planned around my work schedule. So I had to go camping, leave the campsite on Sat afternoon, drive back to town for the wake, miss the funeral, and drive back before the campground locked its gates for the night. That was when I decided I couldn’t handle being on call and needed to get out of there.

  109. HRChick*

    I worked in project management for a government contractor. When I came onboard, I was replacing a young woman who, it had been determined, was unable to keep up with the demands the position. She was being moved to another position that was admin assisting, which is what her background was in and what she had been determined to be able to handle. Even training me, she was horrible and did not understand half the stuff that I ended up having to teach myself.
    Fast forward a year and a half. My manger tells me the young woman’s government manager wanted her to get more money and so they’re promoting her – to the position above mine. She’s going to be a higher rank than me and get more money than me because her government manager likes her. But that’s not it – the young woman’s resume was very weak. She only had experience in being an admin. He wanted me to REWRITE her resume to make it look like she was eligible for the new position. According to her own resume, she wasn’t even qualified for the position she was in, much less a project management position above mine.
    I refused. My manager ended up doing it, after failing to pressure me into doing it because of my background in HR. He changed all her job titles to some kind of management and added a few things. “Beefed it up” he said. “Lied” I said.
    That was just one of the issues in this Good Old Boys club, but it’s the one that inspired me to job hunt more seriously. I’m very happy in my current job.

    1. HRChick*

      I forgot the best bit – looking at the young woman’s new job description, I realized I had long ago exceeded the current position I was in, so I asked my boss for a promotion. I pointed out all the things in the rank above mine that I was doing (which was all of it). But he said no. Not any research, let me ask HR. Just no.

      So, the woman who wasn’t even doing the job could get the promotion but the person actually doing the job could not lol

  110. Jerzy*

    At a previous job in a legislative office (of a different political affiliation from me, though who knows if that played a part) I was a bit of a whipping boy for the rest of the staff. This was likely because the elected official we all worked for was such a harsh mistress, the place was filled with anxiety and anger most of the time.

    Early one morning (around 1 a.m.) I received a rabid text from the Senator that was rambling about how she didn’t have the documents she needed for the following day. She had just arrived home from what was probably her 4th vacation that year, and sent a blast text in the middle of the night to everyone in the office expressing her outrage.

    The thing is, there was one person who had been given that task, and he had failed to do it. He was also the Chief of Staff, so it’s not as if it was anyone else’s responsibility to make sure he did it.

    When I told the Senator that this was CoS’s responsibility, and, frankly, that I thought it was inappropriate for her send a blast email in the middle of the night to her entire staff, she told me that it’s all of our jobs to make sure she has what she needs, which I guess meant that there were no personal responsibilities??? Did this mean that someone else would get yelled at if I didn’t send out press releases on time? Doubt it. She didn’t want to admit she was wrong and from there on out decided we were no longer friends (can’t understand why she thought that in the first place), and began treating me like some sort of traitor.

    After one year of working there I had started looking for a new gig. This happened about 1 1/2-2 years in. After that, I ramped up my search an got a job offer within about 6 months.

    1. Alternative*

      Am I understanding this correctly? You were a junior staff member for an United States Senator (!!), and you told her that you “thought it was inappropriate for her send a blast email in the middle of the night to her entire staff.”

      Are you serious?

      Her Chief of Staff failed to do something, so she emailed her staff about it – and you feel this is her fault? And then you, a low ranking employee, called her to task for asking about it? I get the impression that you are bitter that she no longer treated you as a “friend,” or ever treated you like one to begin with. It IS all of your jobs to get your boss what they need. And sending an email requesting it is not unusual or inappropriate at all. Frankly, your telling of this situation makes you seem quite unprofessional, and insubordinate.

      1. Yet Another JD*

        Being a Senator does not make one infallible. Yes, the situation could have been handled in a different way/ more professionally, but frankly, the boss was wrong.

      2. Kat A.*

        I agree with Alternative 100%.

        Also, one of the benefits of email is that it can be sent at any time without necessarily waking up an entire staff. It’s not like she called everyone in the office in the middle of the night. I’m often up working late and may send emails at 3am. (Likewise, all my coworkers and managers at every job I’ve held since the 1990s have all done the same.) And if a junior employee told me that was inappropriate, I would think that employee didn’t understand workplace norms.

        Now in this situation, where a senator needs things ready on time, sending emails as soon as possible no matter what the clock says is even more understandable.

  111. Bwmn*

    For a few months on every Friday I’d be anxiously talking to my mom about how I was terrified that on Monday I’d end up getting fired. Then one Friday, I’m walking home from work with the miserable realization that I’d never get fired.

    Once the idea that ‘not getting fired’ was somehow a punishment, the light bulb finally went off that it was really time to leave.

  112. pop tart*

    The owner of the company screamed at me “YOU ARE TOO F***ING STUPID TO WORK FOR ME” at me when I failed to read his mind. He honestly said to me, “I understand that you were told to do one thing but you should have known that I didn’t mean that and I mean this instead.” Haha. No. No I shouldn’t have.

    1. pop tart*

      I should add that it was an EXTREMELY toxic work place and the owner was a known sociopath – everyone who worked there and left has a story similar to mine. I was on a business trip at the time so the next day I went in and quit and had the most satisfying conversation with the co-owner that left them speechless and dumbfounded. The best part was that I was super calm and collected the entire time while they scrambled to try to keep me around and screamed profanities at me on a conference call while everyone else in the entire office heard their meltdown. I have a sleep app on my phone and my best night of sleep for the past three and a half years was the night after I quit that job!!!!!

    2. LeighTX*

      The same boss I mentioned in a thread above once told me in a review that I needed to do a better job of knowing what he was thinking. I wasn’t the only one he said that to; and no, we weren’t part of the Psychic Friends network!

      1. pop tart*

        I had to be like, this is where you said, in writing, this was the outcome of the job. If that is not the desired outcome, you need to communicate with me what that is. I did not create the company, I do not run the company, I cannot go back in time and do those things with you, so you need to use you words like an adult human for best outcome (subtext: you dick).

        1. LeighTX*

          LOL! In my case, I was waiting on a job offer (that came the very next day) and so I just smiled and nodded during that review. I so badly wanted to ask, “Can you guess what I’M thinking?” (hint: you’re a dick)

  113. kac*

    I had a great job, and then my boss left, and my great job slowly turned into a terrible job.

    My new boss worked in the UK, while I was based in the US, so he rarely actually saw me in action. He generally thought I was young and charming, but not a hard-worker or a person of substance. He thought I was full of bullshit, but had everyone else snowed. (I know this because he told his boss/the director, who worked in the US, and with whom I was very close.) My boss’s opinion of me was not changed by the fact that I was the strongest performer on my team (sales, so measurable), was regularly the last person to leave the office, and leading new initiatives.

    All of this came to a head when I sent what felt like 18th email over a series of months to my boss, attempting to finalize the workflow and commission structure for a new initiative he wanted me to roll out. He called me up and started yelling at me–in my cubicle, in front of all my colleagues–for being so insistent about this issue. This was not the first time this happened, either. I legit had to use the phrase, “I am not comfortable being spoken to like this.”

    Needless to say that I got off the phone and realized I needed to get the hell out of there. I called HR, he had to apologize to me, and I had a new job within six weeks. My current boss is the best boss I’ve ever had–incredibly supportive of me and regularly challenging me on the areas for improvement.

    Man, bad bosses, though. Just recounting that story got my blood boiling.

  114. Becky B*

    When I realized that in my extremely small department, one person was chatting online on a dating app all day when she wasn’t blatantly sleeping at her desk, two others went out on many, many daily smoke breaks, and another spent her time lingering around the HR department “to pick up interesting gossip.”

    What did my supervisor do? Allow them to pass all the piling-up work to me and the remaining coworker who was also actually working. She would also make sure the sleeping coworker was allowed to stay sleeping, and would anxiously baby her.

    An opportunity came up in another department on another floor of our company. I applied, and really hated that we were forced to check the “Let your supervisor know you are applying” box when I sent it through. Sure enough, once she found out, she stood out in the hallway outside our idiotic cube-quad and exclaimed loudly, “WHY DO YOU HATE ME?” At that point, I hadn’t told any of the others that I was applying. They sure knew now!

    Yes, there was a lot more dysfunction going on than just my anecdotes here. But I rocked the interview and didn’t let the desperation show, and got the flock out.

    1. Becky B*

      Forgot to add, I did try to raise the issue of the workload imbalance several different times. One net result was the sleeping coworker became extremely “hurt and upset” and tried to file a complaint against me to HR. My supervisor ended up bringing us two into a meeting room with her to have us make up. !!

      Just recounting all this makes me thoroughly glad that I took the skills and experience I gained and moved on.

      1. YOLO*

        I just don’t understand management like this. They drive away the good workers and then what happens to the work? The slackers aren’t going to – even if they were able to – suddenly start doing it.

        1. Becky B*

          It was a puzzlement to me, too, and then when the giant sweep of layoffs came, they kept all the “strategists” and got rid of most of the doers, leaving the remaining doers to double or triple up on the work. Yeesh.

      2. Alli525*

        Man if someone had tried to file a complaint against me to HR because I complained that s/he was sleeping, there would be a world of endless pain in for that coworker. I would take on vacuuming duties, play music, “accidentally” leave my foghorn ringtone on (and leave it at my desk and call it a few times from outside the building), loud watercooler conversations, humming…

  115. Jane, the world's worst employee*

    In a long ago job, I worked for a nonprofit. My boss was a complete micromanager and a liar. Our department was very much understaffed, and boss and myself were doing the jobs of about six employees. She would promise work to clients without consulting the staff members’ schedules to see if it was even feasible. Sometimes, when she knew that the work wouldn’t get done, she would hire freelancers and pay them – out of her own pocket, all because she didn’t have the guts to tell the clients that their requests were unreasonable and we didn’t have the resources available.

    I knew it was the beginning of the end when she called me into her office to take the fall for her on a project. Long story short, she got a call from a client to design some sort of brochure and instead of going through our creative process, she decided to create it all on her own. (Note: she had no graphic design abilities.) Her boss found out about and called her into his office. My boss told Big Boss that I did it. I told my boss in no uncertain terms I would *not* be taking the fall for her. Her response, “Why do you have to be so ethical? Can’t you just take the blame for this one?”

    1. fposte*

      I can’t imagine what I would say in response to that question–it would take me forever even to close my dropped jaw. What on earth did you say?

      1. Jane, the world's worst employee*

        I pretty much said, “Yeah, I’m not comfortable taking the blame for this…especially since I had nothing to do with it. This really goes against my belief system.” Shockingly, she didn’t take this comment too well and started plotting to get rid of me (and was successful) from that day forward. Luckily, I started job hunting early on and got a new (and much better paying job) a few weeks after I was let go.

    2. kac*

      Whaaaattt??! That’s not even about “ethics.” That’s just basic self preservation!!

      Glad it’s a long-ago job.

      Reading all these posts is making me want to give my current, excellent boss a hug.

      2. SL #2*

        My excellent boss is currently on a short-term medical leave and would probably be in pain if I gave her a hug, but the thought is definitely there.

  116. Devil's Avocado*

    I work for a non-profit that I would classify as a very healthy work environment. I started thinking it might be time for me to move on within a year or so, but then I had one of these moments.

    Mine was seeing management make a decision regarding a client that was unethical, inequitable, and didn’t follow any defined process. They basically allowed themselves to be blackmailed – the client said “If you don’t give us this money, we’re going to badmouth you to the entire community.” So management gave them the money in a way that was totally against board policy. I then watched management tie themselves in knots to explain the decision to the board, and to present it in a way that was only half true (I attend the board meetings.) The kicker was that in the process, the two people responsible totally convinced themselves they were doing the right thing, and our ED has said to me multiple times that he would make the same decision again if he had to. Even now, months later, I’m so disgusted by this.

    I’ve been actively job hunting and am really hoping to find something soon. This incident has caused me to question the entire nature of our programming. (Sorry if this comes across sounding bitter – had a board meeting this morning where this came up again, and it made me so angry to listen to all of the justifications and half truths.)

  117. T3k*

    Where I currently am, I started looking almost immediately after I started full time when I asked about benefits (long story short, took the job out of panic due to being laid off abruptly from the last one so didn’t even think to ask about benefits beforehand). Was told they don’t offer any, then the next day my boss goes “I’ve been thinking about you asking about benefits. You can have the holidays off.” -__- Pile on to that:
    -boss and a coworker get into almost weekly yelling arguments (she says they’re just talking loudly, but anyone can tell you, they’re yelling… including one customer that happened to come in and they didn’t see him)
    -dealing with an incompetent coworker who doesn’t show up until late afternoon and then proceeds to flood me with work, when I’ve been sitting there bored for some 6 hours and now have 2 hours left of the day to do it all. Boss says she’ll get rid of this coworker, but it’s been 5 months now.
    -insects, everywhere. I mean, it’s one thing to have that occasional fly in the office, but I’m talking about small mosquitos that keep re-appearing after I’ve killed 4-5 of them. 2 months ago, I was getting 2-3 new bites on my arms every week from them. There’s also house centipedes in the office (killed 3 of them so far in a 2 week span) and the boss is all “it’s no big deal.”

  118. AggrAV8ed Tech*

    The day my boss freaked out because I wasn’t in the office…because I was in the hospital witnessing my daughter being born. (And yes, I had requested the day off months in advance because we had scheduled the C-section and it was approved.)

    I didn’t even take any time off when my son was born 3 years earlier because, thankfully, he was born on a Saturday.

  119. HappyWriter*

    When I had been busting my butt for 8 months to elevate a company’s communications from 2 poorly written and designed newsletters (think a basic Publisher template with clip art) into a full suite of digital and written materials–website news stories, press releases, a professionally designed digital magazine that was winning awards left and right–only to be told that “Yes! We’re going to add another position to the department to share the new workload. And the new position will pay more. And eventually that person will supervise your role. But No, we don’t think you’re ready for that level yet.”
    And so is the story of how I became a full-time freelancer. And that company still depends on me to write their award-winning magazine. For at least double what they were paying me as an employee.

    3. Broken Hearted Over Work*

      I think that’s my only option – freelancing. I’m in the same business: communications. I’m also thinking that my best clients might actually be the companies that caused me so much pain when I worked for them. I’d love to hear how you made the transition into freelancing and got your first jobs!

  120. These are the droids*

    first post-school job – when I got a talking to for wearing inappropriate shoes. I had only been told no open toe without hose, so I found some shoes that were closed to but open on the side and were intended to be worn with bare feet. Turns out women weren’t supposed to show any bare skin other than arms and above, hose was required to cover anything that could be construed as naked flesh. In the trucking industry (office/admin area of it, but still)

    Second post-school job – there was a lot of toxicity going on, but when our CEO broke a bone bad enough that they were away for 3 months. It was the best time for me and my coworkers, we were way more productive, way happier, way more efficient without the CEO around.

  121. Shiarah*

    In my first programming job, I was the junior-most programmer on a small team of 7. Everyone else was at least two title levels above me. One of the senior programmers was lead deployment coordinator, and I was his official backup, though everyone on the team had the tools and knowledge to deploy code if needed.

    One particular week, the senior deployment lead was scheduled to be out on Friday for his daughter’s wedding. Then my grandmother passed away–and her out-of-town funeral was also scheduled for Friday. I requested my one day of bereavement leave allowed for grandparents per company policy, but because I was the “backup deployment coordinator,” the director balked. He did eventually grant the day of leave, reluctantly–IF I took my laptop and work phone with me. To my grandma’s funeral. JUST IN CASE an issue came up and they needed something to be deployed. Never mind that there were no regular deployments on Fridays, and the other 5 senior programmers in the office could have easily handled any “emergencies” that came up.

    I took the stupid phone and laptop, but pushed back just enough to make it clear that they would be turned off and left elsewhere during the funeral services. I also mentally checked out of that job right then, and left a few months later for a MUCH less dysfunctional job.

  122. Ama*

    My boss called me in after the meeting where the senior staff was finally going to finalize the job description for the development staff we badly needed (after having me manage our nascent donor database — with no development background whatsoever — during the eight months it took them to get to the final job description meeting), and said they’d decided to just hire a couple of student workers for me to manage — which, under our university restrictions for student workers, limited me to 20 hours of help a week during the semester.

  123. ali*

    I was told one year (during the economic collapse) by my boss that there would be no raises or promotions and that I was lucky to have a job, especially because “you’re not even a very good graphic designer” (I was a print designer/web developer at the time). There were three people in my department – me, an event planner, and our manager. I came in to work about a week later and they were both celebrating and I asked why. The manager had gotten a promotion (with a big raise) and the event planner had gotten a raise. Then I was given my parking pass for the month, and it was demoted to the lot 5 blocks away (in a bad neighborhood in the middle of winter).

    I couldn’t take my boss both not thinking I’m good at what I do (I am really good, and she saw my portfolio before she hired me) and flat-out lying to me about why I wasn’t getting a raise.

  124. Dorth Vader*

    I was a director at an after school program that was run through a corporate third party. I was the highest ranking person on-site with a regional director above me and other staff above her. I was 22, right out of college and there were red flags all around during the interview process and first six weeks. Flags included the fact that my boss’ boss left very suddenly one day about 4-5 weeks in, about 3 months after she’d been hired.
    The last straw was when I made a decision for my site based on school rules and my own observations of my kids. I banned Rainbow Looms after several arguments between kids (plus they couldn’t use them at school anyway, so why bring them?). One of the women working under me ran into my boss after this decision and complained to her about it. The boss reversed my decision and verbally eviscerated me for it. A few days later I quit without notice by email on a Saturday night.
    Obviously I was not the most professional person in that situation! But now I know better than to take any job I’m not 95%+ comfortable with.

  125. Jamie*

    One of my co-workers confided in me that our human resources executive was referring to the office in which I pumped breast milk as “f-ing disgusting”.

  126. Tom*

    Worked for a small business, managed by the owners. The owners were planning to move, so they were starting to train me on how to run the place, including representing our business to leaders in the community. A few weeks into training, I asked if there was going to be a raise in pay to match the increasing responsibilities. One of the owners scheduled a meeting with me, during which they chewed me out for not being grateful enough for the job, and pointed out the many awesome perks of working there, such as having breaks and bringing my personal belongings into work with me. They took back all the additional responsibilities and assigned them to other workers. I actually enjoyed working there more after the owners moved away, but only stuck it out as long as I needed the paycheck for.

  127. Amber Rose*

    After the owner died, I took over his daughter’s work so she could focus on running the company. Suddenly I had over 50 long term projects to manage and no time to be trained on anything. I was yelled at for every mistake I made, or if I asked questions, or if I tried to get time lines figured out. On top of that I was still expected to do all my previous work, setting up new projects, answering phone calls and scheduling the field crews.

    After a year of this I was actually getting pretty decent at it despite bad burnout. But then, due to the long term nature of the projects (anywhere from 6 months to 30 years) a bunch of mistakes I’d made in those first couple weeks were discovered, and my boss said, “you’re demoted to office assistant. You’re not allowed to do anything unless I tell you to. Throw out all your business cards.”

    To my credit I did not act on my first instinct, which was to tell her “good f—ing luck” and walk out on the spot. I went back to my desk, drafted a terse resignation letter, and arranged my last day in roughly 2 weeks.

    What gets me, what really gets me, is that she was surprised that I quit. Downright floored.

    1. Alice*

      I’m surprised by how many terrible bosses are surprised when people quit. It’s like they expect you to have Stockholm Syndrome or something.

  128. Brett*

    When they suspended merit raises for ten years shortly before I got my first review? Nope.
    When they implemented a new 12-month post-employment restriction by ordinance? Nope.
    When they quietly added the phrase “In the past and perhaps in the future, performance reviews and potential annual wage increases were linked…” to the performance review manual? No.
    When they passed me over for pay grade review because I’m the only person in my title? Not even then.

    When they extended the pay freeze again through 2020 and announced it in the minutes of an internal meeting instead of informing employees directly? Somehow that finally made it click that I needed to go through all the bureaucracy of getting out of here.
    Yeah, that was finally the straw that broke the camel’s back.

  129. Nicole*

    When my boss forgot to tell me she changed my schedule. I was sound asleep when she called to tell me I was late. I said I wasn’t supposed to be in until later, I was looking at the schedule right now. She stated to yell that I must not know how to read. I went straight into work, with the copy of the schedule, and she said oh yeah, I changed that, maybe you do know how to read. I was out of there within a month.

  130. BookCocoon*

    I worked at a small firm where operations were driven by the president’s ego. He would micromanage me and tell me how to do my work, except he didn’t actually understand my work so whenever he met with a client he would bring me in to do the talking so he didn’t sound like a total idiot. My direct supervisor was such a control freak that she refused to give me any work to do, no matter how much I asked, unless it was a project that had become so f-ed up that no one else knew what to do with it. Oh, also, I was brought in to manage a program that had been going for the past 10 years or so, but no one mentioned that it was run entirely by donations and that the outgoing manager had failed to seek out any funds because she was leaving, so I was supposed to raise about $60,000 in my first month, and all of the past local sponsors backed out.

    I only lasted a few months total, but the final straw for me was when we were sending out a survey via postcard and the incentive was going to be iTunes gift cards, so I found Apple’s approved language for using iTunes gift cards in a contest involving third parties, and put that on the postcard. Then the president decided he wanted to give away iPads instead. I showed him the information from Apple’s site where it explicitly said you could not give away iPads as an incentive to third parties, as well as sent him several articles from companies who had been targeted for trying to do just that. Rather than agreeing that we couldn’t do iPads, he said we should remove all the language from Apple on the postcard so it would look like we’d never even looked at Apple’s site and didn’t know any better. That was the proof I needed that this guy did not care about acting ethically as long as he got his way.

  131. Dr. Ruthless*

    Summers and holidays when I was in college, I worked retail. The summer between finishing undergrad and starting my PhD program, I was back. (I’m smart, goshdarnit–that’s what I’m trying to say).

    I was cleaning up my station (the cash wrap) at the end of the night, and I had to put the anti-theft sensors back in the back room. Sensors come in two parts–the pokey part and the flat part, and are stored separately for obvious reasons. I put the pokey parts back in the bins with their compatriots, and I went to put the flat parts in their bin, but it was totally, 100% full. To-the-brim full. So I set them down (in a shopping bag) on the floor right next to the bin. A manager saw me do this and hurried over, whereupon we had this exchange:

    Her: “Where do those go?”
    Me: “Well, they’d go in this bin, but as you can see, it’s totally full, so I put them next to the bin.”
    Her: “Did you ask the stockers where they should go?”
    Me: “Um, no, I just put them where they always go when there’s not room”
    Her: “We work ~with~ the back stock team, not ~against~ them. Hey {stocker}, where do we put the anti-theft devices?”
    Stocker: “Um, they’d usually go in that bin, but it’s full, so just leave them in a bag next to it, and I’ll use them first.”
    Her: “Ok, now we know. Now we know.”

    The patronizing language, the passive-aggressive “we” language, coupled with the complete lack of being like, “huh, I guess I effed up with this one. Sorry for being weird!” meant that I’d turned in my resignation within a week. (This was, truly, the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was also deemed once that we weren’t allowed to talk AT ALL during the post-store-closing cleanup, plus a lecture about colors).

  132. AnotherHRPro*

    One day I was working with an executive on a presentation and he picked up the laptop I was using and threw it across the room. I had a new job within the month.

  133. Tlake*

    The day I asked my manager for help covering my phones for the day, in order to be able to finish some tax reports and filings before a deadline, only to be called to the owner’s office and lectured about why I wasn’t doing my job and how my manager wasn’t there to be my assistant when he went to complain to her. This was on the same day I got pulled from my lunch break mid- sandwich bite in order to fix his mistakes on a customer’s travel itinerary that had them headed to the wrong country, with hotels booked on the wrong days and city, and I should also mention the names on their planes tickets were also mis-spelled. I gave notice that day and never looked back.

  134. JenVan*

    Lady lawyer boss wanted me to work on July 4th (not common in that area of law), with no A/C in building, in TEXAS. Couple days later, she got “loud” with me and THAT was it. She was running for a public office and didn’t have a lot of (read: ANY) financial backing. She ended up using a client’s trust money for her campaign, and since we never seemed to do any real work to bring in money, she was unable to pay it back for a while. Client kept calling asking when she could get her money, I asked boss and she snapped at me. Two days later I gave my three weeks’ notice. An enormous weight was lifted of my chest. I ended up working 70+ hours per week those last three weeks, but every single day I went in with a smile knowing I was going to be done soon!

    1. neverjaunty*

      She ended up using a client’s trust money for her campaign

      Holy snot.

      For the non-lawyers out there, it’s a running joke (and not entirely incorrect) that if you’re a lawyer, you can commit murder and maybe still keep your license, but if you touch a penny of your client trust fund incorrectly, sayonara.

      1. JenVan*

        Very true. The reason she still even had that portion of client’s settlement money is a story for another time. She mixed all of her IOLTA and operating money together. I shudder thinking about it …

        Lady went through associates like mad. I stuck it out for almost a year, but between:

        the political campaign;
        setting up various dog rescues;
        representing clients who had less than zero chance of succeeding so she could get on television; and
        knowingly practicing without an active license

        it was time for me to go. She paid me only a portion of my salary one time, and ONLY one time. I said if that ever happened again I couldn’t come to work the next day.

        I ended up quitting without something else lined up. As a new-ish lawyer in a not so great market, I should have been terrified, but I wasn’t. I felt like a punishment was being lifted. BF and I took a trip to Mexico shortly after that to decompress, then returned and found a new job within a few months. I was super lucky.

    2. TL17*

      Noooooooo! Good thing you got out of there! The fastest way to get in trouble is to misuse client money. Yikes!

  135. JMegan*

    I was working in an owner-operated coffee shop, and I had been there for just a couple of months when they hired a new manager to “clean things up a bit.” And he did indeed clean up! During the eight-ish weeks that we were there together, eleven people quit or were fired – including myself, the person who quit a few hours after I did, and the owner’s wife. It was a bloodbath.

    There were lots of issues, of course, but the final straw for me was a scheduling issue. When I first started in February, I said to the manager at the time that I needed to have the May long weekend off to go to a wedding out of town. He said that should be fine, but to check in with him again closer to the date. In the meantime, he left and the new manager arrived, and I had the same conversation with him. Then I reminded him again when it actually came time to schedule that weekend. He said he couldn’t give me Friday-Saturday-Sunday, but he could give me Saturday-Sunday-Monday instead, which was fine.

    Then when I got to work the next day and saw the posted schedule, I saw that not only had he not given me the extra day that he had promised, but he had also scheduled me for three “clopen” shifts for that week, where I was closing one day and opening the next. I was furious. It’s a little thing on its own, but in the context of all the other crap that he had pulled (including telling me I needed to be “prettier” when I was at work), it really was the last straw.

    1. KAZ2Y5*

      He fired the owner’s wife? Or she quit? Neither one sounds good for his future! I hope he wasn’t there long after that.

  136. Lia*

    Sales rep job that decided instead of making our own schedules, corporate would — and no longer reimburse for travel time. I hit all of my accounts in a pattern I’d designed to save them a ton of money on mileage, which had won me praise from superiors — we had to see accounts on certain timetable (like every 2 weeks, monthly, quarterly, etc, but they had previously never cared if it was a Monday or a Thursday). So, my travel time was going to conservatively quadruple, cost them a ton in mileage and hotel reimbursements, and none of it would be compensated for me. I noped out 2 weeks later and actually never worked a day of the “revised” schedule.

    Another job when I spent an entire, rare, family vacation hunched over my laptop to get an “urgent” project done that was assigned to me 15 minutes before I left for the trip, only to find out my boss lied to me about the due date (even though I was going to be back well before it was actually due, and had never missed a deadline), and didn’t even look at it for a month after I returned from the trip.

  137. Nobody Here By That Name*

    Came down with a severe viral infection. Had a doctor’s note for a week which I had faxed to my boss so he would see the proof that I was under orders to stay home. Forced myself to go back into the office the next week even though I wasn’t well yet (I needed the money). Upon my return my boss told me he needed advanced notice if I was going to be sick and out for a long period of time.

    As I’m unaware of any ability to schedule one’s infections, I moved on to job searching.

  138. GS*

    I stayed at a job a good 2-3 years after I’d reached the logical end. It was a very small business with offices in multiple states (~25 employees) and I’d started as an intern and worked my way up to Senior Vice President (though their definition of SVP would be closer to Manager in similar consulting firms). My job responsibilities grew exponentially every year, to the point where I was essentially our office(s) manager, HR manager, IT director, only IT helpdesk, marketer, web developer and sole admin assistant to CEO, COO, and 3 SVPs. Alone. I also managed a very successful internship program that we used to feed our entry level analyst pool, and an entry-level freshman internship program for data entry and “welcome to the workforce” style educational experiences. For at least ~50k under market rates. My last employment verification asked me 4 times whether it was a typo on their sheet I was paid so low.

    Anyway, one day they let me know we’d be adding an additional office in a new state (my home state) that I was also now in charge of building and managing. I let them know that we had now reached the time that we needed to split off some responsibilities to a new person so I could focus on managing the recent college graduates they insisted we hire to be “office managers” in all our offices (all of whom had no actual administrative experience) and the more strategic side of our growth. They disagreed, as I “spent too much time talking to people instead of at my desk working” and wouldn’t be so overwhelmed if I didn’t. (I was managing at least 5 people at the time, and supporting a dozen, so of course I’m going to talk to them.) Then my annual review was the most negative review I’ve ever received in my life, with no bonus or raise.

    The straw that broke the camel’s back? They came to me 2 months later exuberant that they had finally decided to hire me support: by allowing me to hire an intern whose only role was to support me. I explained (again) that interns are MORE work, not less, and that we needed a permanent, professional new hire. They disagreed. I stood up, shook both their hands, thanked them for my 8 years of employment, and quit. They were flabbergasted. It felt simultaneously great and terrible.

    They still haven’t learned. I’m told they’ve gone through 6 people in 3 years, a mixture of firings and resignations. Their new answer has been to split the work up amongst teams of interns, led by a “senior intern” who is on their second internship rotation, who are all managed by a 22-year old recent graduate an SVP met at a conference and randomly offered a job to on the spot.

    1. chillgamesh*

      Hey! I was replaced (full time-exempt) by a “senior intern” after I quit my old horrible job! I always felt bad for that girl.

  139. Sara The Event Planner*

    During college, I worked as a receptionist and admin assistant for a landlord/real estate agent. To this day, he remains the most bigoted, misogynistic, totalitarian, and just generally mean-spirited person I’ve ever met in my life. I was never given any training on office policies or procedures and was expected to read his mind. If I completed a task even slightly different from the way he expected, he would throw a complete temper tantrum (yelling, swearing, throwing things, knocking over tables – he once ripped out the little entry bell above the front door because it was annoying him). If I asked for clarification or further instructions, he told me I was wasting his time. He also made incredibly ignorant, and often racist, remarks about his tenants, particularly those who received housing assistance. The final straw was when he told me I was no longer allowed to wear (perfectly appropriate) skirts or dresses to the office, because his “psycho” wife would accuse him of cheating. I looked him in the eye and said “I think I’m going to leave now,” and walked out. His jaw almost hit the floor. A few months later, he saw my engagement announcement in the paper and sent me a congratulatory text, also letting me know that he was way in debt, his properties had been seized by the bank, and he was sorry for being so “stressed” all the time. I didn’t answer.

  140. AcidMeFlux*

    May I say, if it’s not too off the mark, that; I’m old enough to have seen (in the media etc) if not personally experienced, a lot of the changes of the last 5o years; the civil rights movement and the ongoing struggle for equality and dignity for african-american and other minority groups, 2nd wave feminism and the realization that domestic violence, job discrimination and rape culture are still pervasive in our society, Stonewall and LGBT rights and same-sex marriage, the acceptance of the seriousness of environmental issues, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the freeing of Nelson Mandela and the political change in South Africa….just to name a few things….so many things have changed in the last half-century (though not enough!) but at least there is a perception in many issues that people,whoever they are, deserve better.

    Then, I look at the above testimony and see the kind of ugly manipulation and bullying that so many of us have had to and still have to suffer just to make a living. I guess some would say that some of this is due to human nature. Maybe. And part of me knows that the working world is complicated for a lot of people now because of the economy, outsourcing, weakened union powers…. it’s all a long story.

    But I do like to think that as we share stories like this, a consciousness can grow that whatever the realities and the needs of the business or service we work for. NOBODY should be humiliated or abused just because they need to make a living.

    Over and out, friends. Back to correcting student papers….

  141. EA Extraordinaire*

    The 3 jobs I held before getting my current position were by far the worst I’ve ever had, and there were so many “straw that broke the camel’s back” moments in all 3 that it’s impossible to choose just one. There was the time my manager at Crappy Job 1 told me to my face that I disgusted her because I was overweight. And the time she told me that she hated gay people…did I mention I was the only out gay man at this very conservative association? Yeah, that was fun.

    Let’s see…manager at Crappy Job 2 was a certifiable sociopath. An SVP at a major medical center. She threw staplers at my head, referred to me constantly as “Mary” in front of her colleagues, had me run to the liquor store to get her booze, but the best was probably the time she called me on her cell phone from the women’s room ordering me to bring her a tampon.

    After mercifully losing that job (due to the elimination of my position after my boss was let go due to restructuring), I was hired back at the same organization a month later in a completely different department. I had 2 really awful managers in Crappy Job 3. The first was so miserable that I regularly heard her screaming obscenities from her office every time she received an email from someone she despised, which was basically everyone. I would spend the majority of my days talking her down from a ledge. Two “straw” moments stand out with this person…there was the daily conversations where she kept trying to fix me up with her friend, which were just incredibly awkward and not wanted in any way. I ended up going on a double date with this person and my boss and her partner just to placate her and make it all stop.

    The second was when I received a phone call in the office from someone who only spoke Spanish. My boss told me that Awful Coworker B spoke Spanish and that I could transfer the call to her. After calling Awful Coworker B and confirming that yes, she did indeed speak Spanish and asking if she had the time to speak with this person, I transferred the call. 15 minutes later Awful Coworker B came storming up to my desk, forcefully slammed her hands down on my desk, got right in my face and demanded to know why I just assumed she spoke Spanish. Never mind that my boss told me she heard her speaking Spanish on many occasions, or the fact that I just asked her 15 minutes prior if she spoke Spanish. No, apparently that never happened. So after being lectured on the fact that not all people of Hispanic origin speak Spanish, she marched to HR and filed a complaint against me for being a racist. I’m not kidding folks, I can’t make this stuff up.

    The second manager in Crappy Job 3 came in after the first manager was let go after yet another altercation with Awful Coworker B and it was quickly apparent she wanted to clean house. You can imagine that the environment at work was extremely stressful; tension was high and tempers were short. I was constantly stressed which made my asthma flare up. Well, I made the mistake of trying to gasp for breath during a staff meeting, which the second manager took as me huffing loudly and being disrespectful, instead of, you know, trying not to die. So from that point forward I was on her list. She literally stopped speaking to me. There were 5 people total in this department and she totally froze me out. I was given the job of scanning thousands and thousands of documents going back years in a room away from everyone else. Staff meetings were held without me, this person walked past me in the hallway daily without speaking to me or acknowledging me in any way, my email access was eventually severed (while I was still working), and I was being written up for things that never happened.

    So…while all this was going on, I was interviewing like a mad beast to get the heck out of there, and I landed at my current position, which I’ve been at for 4 years. Sure, it’s not perfect, but no job is. But there are no staplers being thrown at my head, no trips to the liquor store, no one gives a hoot that I’m gay, I like all my coworkers, but most importantly, my work is valued and appreciated by my boss. I had to go through several monsters before I found a good one, but at least I have a lot of great stories to share.

    1. Beware of the Leopard*

      You are a survivor!
      I was still flabbergasted by the order to bring a tampon when the racism accusation came into play.

  142. Nope nope nope*

    I was a direct report to three different people and one of them was exceptionally clueless. She once asked me to forward any important documents to her as an email attachment instead of saving them on the company’s share drive because it was “too hard to find them there.”

    Anyway, we had a meeting that happened every week on Thursdays, which was very important, and was the official roll-out for any number of publications we were responsible for. She was on vacation and asked me to present her projects at the meeting, which is something I was totally fine doing. Then she emailed me the Tuesday before asking how the presentation went. She’d been there for years.

  143. Dr. Pepper Addict*

    The worst job I had was a place with an awesome boss and co-workers, it was just the work that was so stressful. We basically had to call business owners and inform them there was a license they needed for their establishment under the law, that almost none of them knew that they were obligated to have. Most of them thought it was a scam because it isn’t something people are familiar with. Our orders were to call these companies on almost a daily basis and threaten legal action if they didn’t comply with the law. As you can imagine, those conversations were extremely hostile and as a grown man in my 30s I was reduced to tears on more than one occasion from the berating I took over the phone.

    The straw that broke the camel’s back was a call a friend of mine got. The guy on the other end told him, “I looked you up on Facebook so I know what you look like. I looked up the address of the office where you work. I have bought an airplane ticket to your city and am coming there to slit your throat.”

    After I heard that I knew I had to get out because people are crazy enough to do something like that. I have a wife and kids after all! I am glad to report that guy did not show up and hurt my friend however.

    3. Michelle*

      I currently work with a lady who was a supervisor for the cable company call center. She frequently tells stories of customers who would call up and threaten to kill the employees/reps because their cable had been turned off for nonpayment.

  144. AFT123*

    I used to work in a call center at a major US financial firm, and our management told us for annual reviews, they could only give out xx number of 5’s (highest score) and xx numbers of 4, and the rest were 3 or less. If you didn’t get a 4 or 5, you didn’t get a raise, and only about 3% would be able to get a 4 or 5. Well, as the top rep in metrics, I had previously gotten a 5, but the following year, despite still being on top, I was told I had to get a 3 because they needed to spread the 5’s to people who had gotten 3’s the previous year. So, no raise for me. What a terrible system.

    1. F.*

      I’ll bet you worked at the same “major US financial firm” that I did, though I was not in the call center. They used an ’80/20′ system for raises. 80% of the money was to go to the top rated 20% of the employees, and the bottom 80% of employees had to split the remaining 20% of the raise pot. Being the department admin, guess where I was always rated. :-(

  145. DarcyPennell*

    After years of putting up with a coworker’s poor performance and full blown tantrums (I mean red faced, yelling and crying) I told my manager that it was difficult to work with her because I was constantly afraid I’d say the wrong thing and she’d yell at me. My manager looked me right in the eye and said she had never seen this coworker yell at anyone, and the coworker said I yelled at her, and then spent the next half hour dressing me down for inappropriate behavior. This was a bald faced lie. I’d been there many times when my coworker threw a tantrum in front of our manager. I’d seen the manager try to calm her down. My manager lied to protect a disastrous employee and pin the blame on me. I still don’t know why she did that. I started looking for a job that night. The problem wasn’t the coworker, it was the manager who refused to manage. (Got a job a few months later and I LOVE it. I guess I should thank that manager for pushing me out!)

  146. Rin*

    I actually really loved this retail job, but I had to leave when I realized that the scheduling system would never change. I had been there a while and would always take people’s shifts. When I was a few months pregnant, I asked to have Sunday afternoons off, so I could take prenatal yoga classes). The first Sunday, I couldn’t get anyone to cover for me, and I just kind of broke down, like, “I want to do this one good thing for my body and my baby, and no one is helping me, even when I help them.” I had another job at the time, too, so it was okay, but I miss working there.

  147. Argh!*

    When I worked every Saturday & Sunday for two full months in addition to the regular work week, and my boss wanted me to get overtime pay instead of time off during the week.

  148. Cinderella*

    I was working as a supervisor at a bank and above me there was a service manager and branch manager. They did not get along and the workplace was stressful and awful as a result. I got my annual review and it said “Cinderella fails to keep the office clean for example she does not pick up and wash dishes being used by staff at their desks.”

    I went above both of them to have my review rewritten because that was some garbage. Then the branch manager claimed that he didn’t know that was in there. I pointed out that he had signed off on the document. I was late looking at that point but the boss a few levels up wrote me a much fairer review. I wasn’t surprised since this was an office where I was told to be perkier and where my manager said to the entire staff that I was a disappointing hire.

  149. AuntHelen*

    I was working on a TV show in an extremely demanding role where we only had 8 people staffed in what should have been 10 positions. The showrunner was extremely picky and refused to hire anyone else, but it resulted in my coworkers covering double roles, turning episodes around in half-time – all unpaid. Then the showrunner decided to use half the season’s episodes to make a long-format “movie” and assigned 4 of the 8 of us to work on it. The four he chose were already his “favorites” and were overworked and burned out from getting assigned the unpaid extra work. He sent the rest of us home for ten weeks, unpaid, even though we were asking for more work. I should note that out of the 8 of us, three were women, and we were all sent home. He split the rest of the crew up this way as well (and again – all the women were sent home while the men stayed and worked).

    When I got back from hiatus I was immediately told I would work for a month and then be sent home for another ten weeks. I had already been talking to another show about freelancing to make up for my lost wages, but I went to the new gig and explained the situation. They offered me a permanent job immediately with a promotion to director and a big raise. I put in my notice the same day.

    I still haven’t watched the “movie.”

  150. Nerdling*

    I worked in retail as a third key holder in college. The assistant manager was in the university’s marching band, so I worked all those shifts that fell during football games and band camps, since the AM wasn’t available. This at one point meant cancelling a planned trip home to see family because band camp. Mostly the job was good, but the final straw was that, after telling me it was corporate policy not to hold a position for an employee over a summer or semester to allow for internships (which, totally their right), I was scheduled a solid 40 hours for finals week because the AM couldn’t risk her scholarship. Never mind that I was also taking finals and had a scholarship of my own to keep. After having busted my ass for them for almost a year, including coming in one morning puking my guts up because I couldn’t get a hold of anyone to open for me, I was done.

  151. FairyGetStuffDone*

    I worked for an university for almost three years. During that entire time my team, my direct manager and her manager would bully me for a myriad of reasons. They always praised my work, but criticized my clothes, car, husband, health issues, diet, weight, etc. Nothing I did was right. I was micro-managed to the point of being required to arrive at work 15 min early and leave 10 minutes late, I had to check out of my desk and ask permission to use the restroom. I tried for over two years to get a transfer to another department. I would have good interviews and when I followed-up with the managers afterwards they would make excuses even though I knew the position was still open.

    One day after a particularly brutal week one of my co-workers came to me in tears with a stack of papers. She started sobbing and apologized profusely for her part in any of my bullying and admitted that it had been eating at her the way our team and managers treated me. She had printed over 300 emails from pretty much my entire tenure -email strings with my co-workers and managers making fun of my weight, wishing I would die, making fun of my kids and husband, writing a chain story where my husband became a derange psychopath and killed me, my manager shared my doctors notes and they gave me a nasty nickname. There was even bashing of me applying for transfers and my manager describing how she kept getting me blackballed and laughing about it.

    It was like unlike anything I had ever read. I felt compelled to read them all. I tried to act like nothing was wrong until I could get into HR to file a complaint the next day, but kept having to leave to be sick. They opened an investigation and pulled every single participant in. During the investigation they found that my manager had also been altering my time cards to remove the early/late times I was required to be there, basically all the OT had been crossed out/initialed. I was offered a leave with pay, as well as repayment for the back OT. During that time I found another job and never looked back. I did consult an attorney who I agreed I could sue them, but it would take years and my life would be dragged out for public knowledge. I opted to agree that they all receive various punishments (because they wouldn’t fire them) however, the best thing that came out of it was that my manager was demoted an would not be allowed to have subordinates in the future. I ran far, far away from them.

    1. LeighTX*

      This is so, so awful, but I think the worst part is that no one was fired. I know it’s hard to get fired from academia, but COME ON.

    3. Carrie in Scotland*

      That is so terrible I don’t even have words.

      I’m happy you are far, far away from them now.

  152. Ex teen goth*

    It wasn’t so much one thing, as a succession of things over the course of a week which broke me at an old job. I was part of a team of 3 running an adult education centre. We would have 20-30 adult learners in each day, and ordinarily we would have a 2-1 split – 2 staff tutoring & engaging with learners, 1 member of staff doing the admin for the centre (booking appointments, enrolling new modules etc, compiling funding paperwork etc).

    I was already sick of the job anyway – targets which were based on maximum capacity & zero problems (and therefore unattainable), pressure from management to speed learners through courses they weren’t ready for, micro management and monitoring by mid-level managers. But this one week took the biscuit.

    1 member of staff, Adam, was on annual leave for a month, which had been planned & approved – no problem, myself & Lavinia could cover for the duration. I arrive on Monday morning and open up – 9:30 rolls around and Lavinia isn’t at work. 9:45am I get a text from Lavinia to apologise for not being in. I reply asking where she is/if everything’s OK and she tells me she’d been signed off sick by the doctor for a week. She’d already told our boss, who had neglected to say anything to me at all.

    So whilst trying to deal with the 20-odd learners turning up at the centre for the first time, running through the induction, fire safety, how the course would run, and all their identification & enrolment paperwork – all on my own – I find time to ring the boss and ask about the coverage situation. We were fully booked that week and there was no way I could cope on my own. But I had to. No-one was coming to cover, I needed to cope with the entire centre on my own.

    Great. I explained to the learners the situation (as objectively as I could, although I was seething that much I’m sure the learners knew I was royally p*ssed off) and they were pretty good about the whole thing and very patient.

    Tuesday I turn up to work and try to get on with everything. A mountain of paperwork was gathering but I figured I could take that home each evening to complete, as the important thing was getting the learners through their learning. At 11am that morning, out of the blue, my boyfriend of 4 years text with “we need to talk when you get home” and essentially broke up with me via text whilst I was at work. I was trying not to cry all day, and when I got home that evening me & boyfriend called it all off and I moved back in with my parents that evening.

    Still, I was trying to hold it all together. Any other time I’d have taken a mental health day to recover from the shock of the breakup, but I couldn’t so I didn’t. I carried on like a trooper. The Wednesday was busy and stressful but I got through it.

    Thursday, I arrive at the centre at 9am to see a learner already waiting to speak to me (learners were due to arrive at 9:30am). I open up, grab a coffee and talk to the learner (he was having personal problems which were impacting his courses). We finish the conversation, he has changed his mind about quitting the course and tells me I’d see him the next week to finish his coursework off. I then boot up my computer – this is about 9:10am.

    As soon as I log into my emails (and so show as “available” on the IM system), my manager phones me and starts screaming at me about being 10 minutes late, especially when I’m the only staff member in the centre that week. I tried to explain that I had arrived on time, but had to speak to a learner and it would have been rude & unprofessional for me to boot up my PC and make the learner wait. Boss refused to believe me and told me I’d get a first warning for my lateness.

    Later that day, she did indeed issue a warning, and asked me to print, sign, scan & email her back the acknowledgement form (standard procedure in the company, face-to-face manager contact was rare). I was flabbergasted, and that truly was me done, after that entire week of bullcrap and then to be given a warning for not even being late. I did as she asked, printed and signed and scanned the form. I then emailed her, attaching both that form and my resignation letter.

    It didn’t get better – I worked my 4 week notice begrudgingly. Lavinia didn’t return to work as she was too ill, and my last day was the week before Adam returned from his holiday. I worked all 5 weeks completely on my own, trying to juggle learners, administration, crazy bosses. I didn’t have another job to go to but I was glad, after I left I spent a good 2 months recovering from that hellish workplace.

      1. Ex Teen Goth*

        I finished on the Friday, Adam came back the next Monday so no lack of coverage. He’d been half way around the world in Australia with no contact, so had no idea what he was walking into. I really do feel bad for the mess I’d left him, but I’d done the best I could without any support.

        The centre closed about 3 months after I left. Adam was given a work-from-home position with the company (he’d been there for 8+ years). Lavinia never returned, she was too sick to go back to work before the centre closed, and so the company laid her off as her position was no longer required.

  153. Snarkus Aurelius*

    My boss turned on me one day and started harping on minor things.  After a few months, she escalated.  One day, she didn’t like the way I walked.  Another day, she argued with me about the weather — as in I said it was raining and she snapped and said it wasn’t.  

    Then there was my writing.  She would go on about how terrible it was, but she’d never give me specific suggestions other than, “That’s not my vision.”  One day, another coworker, who she liked, wrote something and asked me to run it by her.  I did without context.  Boss went on and on about how it was bad writing and to start over.  I said, “Okay, I’ll let Jill know.”  She got this horrified look on her face, froze, and then threw the paper on my desk.  She never approved it.  I switched up the names on drafts once or twice after that.

    That’s when I learned anything with my name on it was terrible.  On my last day, she wouldn’t shut up about how awesome I was.  I cut off all contact the day I left.

    1. I'm a Little Teapot*

      OMG, I’m not the only one who had a boss that criticized how I walked!

      How does someone that petty get into a position of power in the first place? Or does all the pettiness start afterward?

  154. Angry Anon*

    When the management and coworkers didn’t provide an autistic return-to-work placement with clear instructions, subsequently berated the placement and mocked them and their mannerisms behind their back, and then presented their “concerns” to the placement company, ultimately resulting in the autistic person not being recommended for future employment elsewhere.

    I’m still very angry over this and it’s been almost a year.

  155. RestaurantWorker*

    My first job was as a dishwasher at a restaurant/bar/banquet hall/golf course. I had to quit because my paychecks would bounce… not once but twice.

  156. Natalie*

    At a previous job, they decided part time employees were no longer eligible for benefits including health insurance. This was before the ACA, so they could do that. Nearly all of their staff was classified as “part time”, but we still worked about 35 hours a week, five days a week. When I asked my boss about it, she swore up and down that the full-timers worked a lot more than us (which seemed unlikely because then they’d get OT). The last straw was when she pointedly started letting the full timers go and keeping me late, so I was clocking just under 40 hours each week.

  157. Sioned*

    Aug. 11. (After only two months on the job.) I have a lot of experience in my field, more than my co-workers in many respects, and I’d been brought on after the closure of my prior company to revitalize the smallest of five projects here. It was a small company, just about 20 people and two owners.

    The job was not ideal, but I was doing an excellent job and feeling pretty good about what I was doing. I had a ton more original, interesting, work in my projects than the others that week, plus I’d helped out a co-worker with some material even when I didn’t have to. I was working away by myself that aforementioned day when the elderly owner wandered in and stood by my desk.

    He’d been talking to a local … shall we say, political hack … who told him that I was doing a lot less than my predecessors and co-owners and “everyone” noticed. Owner told me he was “very concerned.” I “had to look at this.”

    He never looked at my publication. He didn’t talk to my supervisor to see how I was doing. He heard criticism from one of his beloved political types and immediately started bad-mouthing me. I had been working my butt off for that place. (There were other problem too. But this was the straw.)

    I re-started my search that day. Found a great new job and gave notice recently. They are very, very puzzled about why on earth I’d want to leave …

  158. Michelle*

    I used to work at a federally funded preschool. The center manager was inept, awful and told me that she was just here for the paycheck. I used to come in early and stay late to try to finish the massive amounts of paperwork required for a child to go to preschool. Not to mention the fact that we were supposed to help anyone that lived in the household with the child. Even creepy, alcoholic, no job “Uncle Joe” who wanted help to quit drinking. I managed to get him into a treatment program and he got kicked out. Of treatment.
    My final straw moment was when I was called to the head office and *screamed and cussed at* by the big boss in the hallway for not helping Uncle Joe get into another treatment program when I was out of town at *mandatory* training the week before. I felt the tears forming and suddenly something in me snapped, I told boss that nobody, not my husband nor my parents, cussed at me and I certainly was not going to get cussed and screamed at in public for something I had no control over (Uncle Joe’s drinking). I handed her my badge, said “I quit and kiss my a**”, walked out and immediately felt a sense of relief. The Uncle Joe situation was just one of many, many issues that caused to walk.

  159. Marina*

    When my manager capped off a week of telling us all that if we felt like our workload was too high, we needed to work more hours, by giving my sick coworker a round of applause for staying til midnight the previous night. Shockingly, the project she had stayed to finish turned out very low quality, and my coworker got sicker and ended up having to take a full week off work. That’s the not the kind of “productivity” I want valued in a workplace.

  160. Rat Racer*

    I was hired to do program evaluation, grant writing and other program management-type things for a department of public policy in a university. The program at stake was a new charter school started in inner-city Baltimore. It was so short staffed and poorly run that my boss kept moving her staff out of the university offices and into the classrooms. When she asked me to be a Hall Monitor and try to shepherd kids into class and “intervene” where there was conflict (i.e. break up fights), I gave up. I get the whole “no job is beneath you” mentality – esp fresh out of grad school – but I thought that meant filing and xeroxing.

  161. Maxwell Edison*

    I had been looking for another job for a while, but what made me decide that I would leave before year-end whether I had another job or not was:

    In my review, I was told that I was not cheerful/positive enough, did not make eye contact with people when I walked down the halls (I tried to explain that this was because I was heading to the printer or to the bathroom and wasn’t planning on engaging people in conversation, but this got me labeled as “defensive” – my manager’s favorite word), and that I tilted my head too much when I walked down the halls. After this, whenever my manager was around, I would pretend to be balancing a book on my head whenever I walked anywhere, and in meetings I pretended I’d had a glass of wine so I’d have a vague half-smile on my face. I also timed my anxiety meds so that they’d be working in time for meetings with my manager.

    Because of the review, I was put on a PIP (I freely admit there were valid issues, as I was burned out and disengaged). It was a month and a half before I actually received the PIP paperwork giving me my deadlines for meeting the desired goals (one deadline was just three weeks after I received the paperwork).

    I adjusted the date I planned on giving notice to before most of these deadlines, and never felt happier than when I gave notice. I would have liked to hold out for layoffs (I had been there for over a decade and would have gotten some sweet severance) but at this point I didn’t trust the company to not fire me even if I completed the PIP to their satisfaction. They had already tried to fire one of my coworkers using vague accusations of “insubordination” and “not a team player” and putting her on a PIP, and I felt fairly certain they had the same plan for me.

    Once I quit, I was able to go off anti-anxiety meds; also, I magically lost 5 pounds and my next dental checkup was the best it had been in years.

    What’s really amusing is that in the next round of layoffs, about 4 months after I jumped ship, my manager was let go. Also, every single person in my team is now gone thanks to quitting or layoffs. If management at that part of the company were captains of the Titanic, they’d back up and try to hit the iceberg a few more times.

    1. VictoriaHR*

      Your feedback from your review sounds a lot like feedback that I got when I worked at an insurance company for several years. People actually complained that I didn’t verbally say hello in the halls, I’d just smile/nod. So the F what?? Granted, I’ve since been diagnosed with Asperger’s, but at the time it boggled my mind that anyone gave a crap about any of that. IMO people that worry about whether others make eye contact with them in the hallways, are part of the problem.

      1. Mrs Erdleigh*

        I had a manager drive 3 hours from head office to lecture me after a colleague on a video conference meeting thingy I’d sat in on the previous week had apparently remarked to her that I “looked sad”. When I asked why this person couldn’t have simply rung/ emailed/ whatever to enquire why I “looked sad”, the manager informed me that this was not permitted. All inter-employee concerns had to be routed through her. She then proceeded to criticise my body language (defensive according to her) and my “worrying” non-smiley demeanour before finishing off with a burst of faux psychology “insights” into my character that she’d evidently gleaned from Cosmopolitan magazine or some other such reputable academic journal in the amateur psychology field.
        I quit that day and went back to milking cows for a living. My foray into the corporate world was brief, but illuminating, and wild horses wouldn’t drag me back into it.

        Your last line made me spill my coffee by the way. Absolutely fabulous. Thank you.

  162. ITChick*

    At ex-job we were grossly understaffed. We had 2 consulting companies come in and do a full review of systems and processes and come back with a staffing plan that showed we needed almost twice the staff we currently had. Everyone was working 10-12 hour days, vacation time was denied because there were too many projects and deadlines, one coworker was told she’d have to pick a different date for her wedding because they couldn’t give her the week off for the ceremony and a short honeymoon. She quit immediately and that left me in even more of a bind. Another couple of months went by and the organization (which was a very sizable hospital in the ‘burbs of a large metropolitan city) decided to convert medical systems. The new vendor flat out said we had to increase our staff or the project would fail. Upper management hired 2 people. That’s it. 2 months into that project, I turned in my notice and have never looked back.

    From what I heard the project failed and after 3 years of implementation, they gave up and are on the same old system.

  163. Shell*

    I was an undergrad student, working in a professor’s lab. First time was during the summer of my first year. Second time was during the school semester of my fourth year. Both times I was working under the same grad student.

    My professor was very, very hands-off. Didn’t really check in except very occasionally because that was the grad student’s job (my project was related to his thesis). I worked insane hours both times–8-12 hours per day. And during my second stint, that was on top of a full course load. I basically woke up every day, went to school (class), took an hour lunch break, then spent the next 8-10 hours in the lab, then bussed home (after midnight, and the commute was about 1.5 hours). Somewhere in there I fitted in sleep, eating, homework, and the rest of my life (I had none. My then boyfriend was very neglected, though to his credit, he was very, very understanding).

    The grad student was the type of guy who was all talk, who was fun to have a beer with, but utterly useless when it came to actual work. My reception as a first year in the lab was rather chilly (partly because I was a stupid first year, partly because the other students–rightly or wrongly–probably figured a first year being brought in by the lab’s worst slacker wasn’t going to be much better than he). I couldn’t deny the stupid part, at least compared to them, but their opinions of me warmed considerably after I demonstrated I was quite willing to do work. In fact, one of them–who didn’t even care for me all that much–once said around 8 PM, “why are you still here? Dumbass Grad Student isn’t even here, and you’re an undergrad. GO HOME.”

    With that background, the last straw came in two parts, very close together during the stint in my fourth year:

    1) Dumbass Grad Student asked me, very seriously, what the deadline for dropping the lab course was (the second stint during my fourth year was for a course), after telling me I should come in to work every weekend (which I refused, on account of studying for all my other classes, since I couldn’t do any during the week). When I asked why he asked, he said “I don’t think you’re putting in enough effort. Better a Withdrawn on your transcript and lose some money than have Prof fail you out.”

    2) One day I worked late (12:30 am kind of late) and, in my rush to catch the next bus, accidentally left the cap off a bottle of acetonitrile. Not a big deal as that bottle could’ve been left for workups or other uses in which it didn’t matter if it had a bit of water vapour contamination. Dumbass Grad Student sent me numerous texts during class, went on a power trip saying Prof will be So Mad, I’ll have to distill it dry again (something expressly forbidden), blah blah melodrama. When I pointed out that last week he broke a SHITTON of glassware (far more expensive than a bottle of acetonitrile) and no one freaked out, the jerk RIPPED into me, swore at me, and generally went into an abusive tirade.

    I reported him the next day to the prof and was gone (got moved to another project). I didn’t even clean up my fume hood. The prof didn’t even let me explain, just moved me. Though he did ask me how I had worked so well with him the first time (in my first year).

    My reply: “I let a lot of things slide that I shouldn’t have.”

  164. Tiffy the Fed... Contractor*

    My husband worked for a large manufacturing company (Huge name. You’ve definitely heard of it). The working conditions were awful. Terrible supervisors who belittled the employees. Morale was crazy low. When the employees tried to unionize (they had failed in past attempts), the supervisors went on a huge smear campaign of unions.

    At break time, my husband was talking with a coworker. A manager (not my husband’s) came up to them and berated them for discussing the union at work (they weren’t talking about the union). Later that day, my husband’s supervisor came and told him that he wasn’t allowed to discuss the union at work. If you don’t get the sense yet, management was a bunch of paranoid douchebags.

    We were moving in a few months, so he stuck it out rather than trying to find a new job. But, boy, did he hate it.

  165. Sunshine Brite*

    One was a direct care job where I’d had 5 managers in the 1.5 years of employment there. I reported things that happened with the residents according to policy but never got the written follow-up I was supposed to get with abuse concerns. It later dawned on me that they never actually did anything internally about them. I should’ve called the external line but they wanted companies to resolve issues first if possible. Then as part of ‘cleaning up’ the place they brought on a couple of higher ups who were successful elsewhere in the company who started managing everyone out who they disliked. I got written up for too much phone use which yes, according to policy I used my phone too much while my residents who didn’t like to do much watched tv or I read for grad school. I stupidly cried for like half an hour and tried to pull it back together for the rest of my shift. So many bad things had happened in that time as a result of mismanagement on 3 different levels that there was no salvaging that place for quite some time due to the mix of staff and clients.

    But the timing suspiciously happened after I confronted a coworker about only taking out the easiest client and leaving the rest to us and her decision to restrict a client’s activity and complete an unplanned hold. She responded by standing over me screaming at me until I took out my phone and started looking anywhere but at the crazy (I know, it was a nervous response, I wasn’t really sure what to do and neither was our third coworker). I told my manager a diluted version of events which I shouldn’t have done but I didn’t want to seem like a troublemaker since these new higher ups already didn’t like me.

    My last job I was supervised by a micromanager who drove me up a wall and didn’t trust me to do a thing. Anyone really. Nurses and social workers got it the worst though. She would take the keyboard and write emails as us sometimes. She pretty often asked us to cross over into ethical gray area and hated any time anyone pushed back. She was really old school and had only worked there her entire professional career and was the only one at her level without grad school or a license that she was bound by.

  166. Miss M*

    Finding out the hard way that there is no confidentially in filing grievances against a colleague who routinely complained and bad mouthed me to other people. Even as management was told by those who heard it and forwarded emails she sent about me. The second time, she found out about my grievance she threatened to file a complaint about me. No response from management at all about it. After a long search, I found a job a year later. And the colleague actually emailed me to find out where I was going. Deleted it immediately.

  167. Tagg*

    I used to work at a commercial printing company. There were a lot of straws on this camel’s back (the CEO was certifiably insane) when I found out that Large Photography Company that Starts With a K was refusing to service our plate-making machine (y’know, the machine we need to make the plates to print our client’s materials) because we owed them (K) /tens of thousands of dollars/ in back service fees. This was about a month /after/ they laid me off for two weeks because they couldn’t afford to pay me.

    I could see the writing on the wall, so I left about a month later when an old college friend advertised that she needed a roommate in a completely different city 3 hours away. I gave my two weeks, they begged me to stay, I said nope, and left without anything else lined up.

    Best thing I’ve ever done for myself. I found out later that they went bankrupt and closed about 6 months after I left.

  168. MaryMary*

    I was managing a team that was missing a team lead and had been for months, so I was acting as the lead and the project manager. It was difficult to hire externally into the lead role, so leadership’s plan was to have me grow an analyst into the role over the next 12 months. I had a big, visible project for client A, as well as a huge “secret” project that the prior PM told the client was complete, but that the team had actually been doing manually for a year and a half. I also had ongoing, contractual work for clients A and B. The account exec for client B was trying to convince them to let us do a large revenue generating project. I was very concerned about my team’s capacity and communicated due dates, internally and externally, to have the project scoped out and a drop dead “go or no go” date if we were going to complete the project by the end of the year. The client blew the go or no go date by six weeks and the AE told them we could get it done by the end of the year anyways. I asked my manager about additional resources and was told the entire department was at capacity (which it was). I didn’t quit on the spot, it took me until the next weekend to figure out I had enough savings to get by if I quit without having another job lined up. I put in my notice the following Monday.

  169. APH*

    I worked part time retail after college. Right after starting, I got a full time offer at a job I wasn’t wild about, but would pay the bills (which I accepted). Not wanting to leave the retail company on a bad note, I stuck it out for 11 months.

    I requested my birthday off (and a few days surrounding it) because I was going to be out of town, and was told that was fine. Lo and behold, I was scheduled for the day before I’d be back. When emailing the manager about it, she told me I didn’t request that day off and I’d have to find coverage. I did and gave them 3 weeks notice when I got back (because I wanted to be around for a product launch) where my last weekend would be the weekend after Labor Day. I requested Labor Day weekend off several weeks prior (due to friends being in town), but (again) was scheduled for that day. At that point, I emailed the manager and told her that would be my last day. She proceeded to tell me that can’t be my last day because I was already on the schedule for the next week (a lie, she hadn’t sent out the schedule and hadn’t made it at the time of the email). I asked her to send it to me so I can get necessary shifts covered, she said she would later. I wasn’t even scheduled for any shifts by the time she sent it out.

    She was literally insane. It’s disappointing because I did like the job a lot aside from her. She ended up leaving the company a few months after I left.

  170. Liz Lemon*

    (This happened to my coworker, Jane.) Our boss had a one-on-one meeting with Jane and told her about 18 things she was doing wrong and then 1 thing she was doing right. Boss ended the meeting by saying, “Now, you know that I love you, Jane.” Boss waited a few seconds, then said, “I love you too, Boss” meaning that Jane was supposed to reply back that she loved Boss. (They were both women and it was totally non-sexual.) Still, WTF!

    1. Sascha*

      Sounds like something my former director would want us to say. She was desperate to be loved and told how awesome she was. (And how we would all “KILL” to work for her! ha)

  171. Dorothy*

    As an attorney in a small firm, I was routinely told by the office manager how to do my job. I was screamed at when I questioned what she told me to do, or flat out told her I couldn’t do what she told me because of xyz law or abc ethics rule. The final straw came when she required that I assist in the cleaning of the office, along with the support staff, every Friday afternoon. This included cleaning the break room kitchen and mopping the floor. I was the only female attorney, and the only attorney asked to assist with cleaning duties. I interviewed with a competing firm shortly thereafter and then, exactly a week after that interview, I was fired. Good riddance!

    2. TL17*

      I, also as the only female attorney, had to put up with shenanigans like this from an office manager. Only, she told me I had to take over receptionist duties while ours was at lunch. None of the men had to. When I asked if Big Boss wanted me to do that she got flustered and stomped away. She also threw something at me once. Alas, she quit not too long after, so it resolved itself.

  172. A Girl Named Red*

    My first job out of college was a hybrid role of data analyst/customer service and support/office manager/sales/admin assistant. I was working at a company that had previously had 250 employees but we were only a team of 30 when I joined. I had a colleague who was hired the same day as me for the same hybrid role as well. Not surprisingly, she and I were both overworked and underpaid.

    About two years after I started, we held an all-hands meeting where the CEO gave us an update on the state of the business. He told everyone he had been calling our clients one by one and asking them what value our company provided to them. He was surprised to learn that literally every client listed me and my counterpart as a real value-add and said, verbatim, “Apparently A Girl Named Red and [coworker’s name] actually do something around here!”

    I updated my resume when I got home that night and was out within 3 months.

    1. VictoriaHR*

      May I ask why that was a reason to get out? Sounds like the CEO gave you a shout-0ut as a high performer at a company-wide meeting. Or was that because there was nothing said after that about a raise or promotion?

      1. VictoriaHR*

        I think I might have answered my own question – the CEO was saying that his own opinion was that you actually did work, that wasn’t what the clients were saying. My bad.

        1. Hermione*

          The opposite, I think. She left because the CEO had no idea of her value and when it was pointed out to him (repeatedly), he jokingly pointed to it in a staff meeting as a “hey, did you know AGNR actually does great things? Me neither!” Super condescending.

      2. A Girl Named Red*

        The way he said it was in a tone that suggested he was surprised we “actually did something”. He didn’t see much (if any) value in us or our work and seemed to think we just sat there gossiping and shuffling papers all day. My coworker and I were both disheartened that after 2 years at the company he needed clients to tell him we were valuable.

        And no, nothing was ever said about a raise or promotion. We had actually had benefits cut a few months prior (10 days PTO down to 5, $0 paid by the company for health insurance) so it was time to leave.

  173. Gallerina*

    I’ve had 2 at my current job, the moment where I stopped caring and the moment when I realized that I HAD to look for a new job.

    The moment I realized it was time to get out actually happened this week – my unhinged boss was hostile towards me for taking off a day for Yom Kippur and heavily implied that it wasn’t a real Holiday and that I was just trying to blow off work. Realized that I cannot work for an anti-Semite and I need to get out of here ASAP.

    The stopped caring moment was when I covered up a bunch of his screw ups over a very important event only to have him chastise me and attempt to humiliate me in front of a client for something that he had completely made up – that I was leaving early (I wasn’t) to go and get a mani-pedi (I wasn’t), when I had just finished for the evening and was planning to head straight home and go to bed.

  174. Cheesehead*

    Mine was when my supervisor wouldn’t consider me for a promotion because she ‘forgot’ that I was eligible (and presumably didn’t care that I’d been working my butt off).

    Entry level job, paid the lowest amount on the pay scale for my position. I did a lot in that position, and taught myself things that nobody else in my position knew, to support a new product. I got to be known as somewhat of an expert, and this was a nationwide company. I was flown into another district to help with the implementation of new product with a tough client. I solved a BIG problem that they had, really a deal-breaker type of problem, and at that point knew more than the technical diagnostic staff. At my 2 year review, I thought it was pretty much a given that I would be promoted out of my entry level “Techie Level 1” designation, to a Level 2. I met the requirements and did more than people that I knew were level 3s. See, being paid at the bottom of the pay scale, I wanted this promotion b/c it meant a minimum $1000 raise (which was a lot at the time). I had been busting my butt with that promotion in mind. However, during my review, no mention was made of me moving up….not a word. And being young, I didn’t ask, although now I know that I could have and should have asked (strongly). I naively thought my accomplishments would speak for themselves. I had 2 bosses, and I was taking boss 2 to the airport (she wasn’t local) right afterward and I brought it up then. She said, “Well, you have to be here 2 years to move up to a Level 2….oh (wheels turning)….I guess you have been here 2 years. (yeah, duh). Well, let’s take a look at it in six months.” Boom! End of discussion. I was floored, b/c I figured that by not even considering me for a promotion for 6 months, she would have been taking money out of my pocket (had I been promoted). I lost a lot of respect for her, to not admit her mistake and make ME wait 6 months b/c of it. I quietly started looking right after that, and had a new job a couple of months later. Boss was shocked! I would have loved to tell her that her flippant comment was my last straw in starting to look, but not wanting to burn bridges, I said something like that there was no career progression available for me. Well, it was true.

  175. Alston*

    I had a bad accident, broke both arms, and was in the hospital for almost a week, and out of the office for 6. My coworkers called and asked what hospital I was in and said they’d collected money to get me flowers. No flowers came. A week later I had to go in to fill out some FMLA paperwork, coworkers asked my address so they could send flowers to my house, and told me about the cool arrangement they had picked out. No flowers came, one of my coworkers told me later that no one could get it together to order the flowers so they just returned the money to everyone…..

    My boyfriends coworkers however did bring me flowers. Go figure.

    I was already disliking my job/the chronic disorginization, this just was the tipping point

  176. Meredith*

    I was working as an intern for the whole company, and the project management team had a full-time position that was open, but I didn’t qualify for it with my current experience. So I offered to work mostly for this team’s leader so that she could train me for the position, and she seemed on board with the idea.

    Several times, she teased the position, practically waving it over my head. In the meantime, she assigned an elderly temp to give me directions on specific projects. He frequently forgot steps and told me after the fact, causing me to go back and redo 50 items at a time because of one step. I tried to explain this to my “supervisor” without placing blame, but she ended up getting irritated with me anyway. I finally fixed the problem, but then she would call me in for other stuff to do and get mad at me when she didn’t explain it very well and I asked for clarification. She also made a remark to one of my coworkers that I didn’t seem very interested in the job since i wore earbuds all of the time, but a) I asked her if I could do this, partly because b) the team members around my cubicle were loud and annoying as all heck, and c) the work was repetitious and monotonous and I wasn’t frequently called on by anyone else for anything anyway.

    So I spent all this time helping a very ungrateful and poor team leader, when mother departments could have used my help and would have been a lot more pleasant (and yes, I worked out the deal to work for this one leader Almaty exclusively so she could train me for the position). And once or twice, when she was advising me one-on-one, she said something along the lines of “I hate entry level people. They’re so useless and have no skills. We pay them too much.” -paraphrased

    Um…duh? Entry level people are trying to get a foot in the door. Also, I was in that kind of position at the time, so it came across very much as, “I don’t hate you, but seriously, entry level people are the worst, right? So pointless!”

    My internship lasted longer than it was supposed to, but it finally did run out and what do you know? There was no position available anymore, because of budget or something.

    I had to leave because my internship was finally up, but at this point I would have quit anyway. At least I heard afterward that her team members were quiting and moving positions left and right because she is such a crappy manager. Bitter but completely accurate side note: her team was the least productive in the entire company, but she always acted so busy and self-important.

    Glad to be out of there!

  177. super anon*

    Not quite what was asked, but I turned down a freelance copyediting project this week, which I haven’t done since I started freelancing – it’s too hard to say no to the extra money, even though I don’t need it! I’ve kind of been stuck in a scarcity mindset since my LAST “straw that broke the camel’s back” moment at a retail job (which was depressing and not funny), so turning down work now kind of makes me feel drunk with power, lol. The facts:

    1. The managing editor has ignored my last three emails asking about my check for the last project (I got it eventually, but still)
    2. I’m being promoted into a new role at my day job and my October is filled with weddings, travel, and my high school reunion
    3. The project is 120,000 words (previous ones were 40-60k)
    4. The kicker: The project has already been edited, but the author was not pleased with the work. In the email, the managing editor included a memo from the author in which he ranted in all caps about completely routine style changes made by the last copyeditor, saying they would make us “look like fools” and insisting on his way (which, uh, really would make him look like a fool because it’s totally wrong).

    So sorry, I would love to take this on, but my schedule and work commitments mean that I just won’t be able to make it work. Thank you so much for thinking of me and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. *facepalm*

    1. Maxwell Edison*

      You were definitely right to pass on that job. I’m freelancing full time now, and have learned that it’s OK to say no sometimes (fortunately most of my clients have been great so far).

    2. MsChanandlerBong*

      Ugh. I feel you on the “we’ll all look like fools” thing. I had a coworker absolutely lose her mind one time because one of our editors changed her text to say “chief executive officer” instead of “Chief Executive Officer.” It’s technically NOT capitalized, unless you’re using it in a certain way, so the editor was right. But my colleague went on forever, literally stomping her feet and waving her arms, about how she’d been in the corporate world for 20 years, and if you didn’t cap chief executive officer in a memo/email, you’d be laughed out of the company. That may be true, but our style guide trumps her past employers’ memo preferences. She went on for hours about how we’d look stupid if anyone ever read that particular article.

  178. Middle Name Jane*

    Here’s the irony.

    2011–suffered a sexual assault and began therapy. My job has really good mental health benefits–none of that limiting the number of therapy sessions they will pay in a calendar year. And I only have a $20 co-pay.

    2013–panic attacks began to skyrocket due to increased stress at work (combined with the aftereffects of the assault that put me in therapy in the first place. Got prescribed anti-anxiety meds.

    2015–still in therapy, on meds, still in same job. I looked for a new job and had a lot of interviews and was a finalist candidate, but never managed to get hired. I just accepted a promotion at work (increased stress–I know). But I opted to take it because the salary was good, and I need the generous health insurance and mental health benefits. Even though my job is one of the sources of my panic attacks! And I just got prescribed an anti-depressant too. I know it’s crazy to stay here.

    1. Lisa*

      I’m so sorry that you are dealing with this. Since you need the good benefits, have you thought about moving to a university or hospital job? They tend to pay a huge % of premiums with low co-pays. They also tend to be only 40 hour weeks with awesome vacation time too.

  179. Kris*

    The boss gave us a teamwork lecture. He felt we weren’t working as well together as we could (which was true).

    His teamwork lecture consisted of telling us he had once had an employee (direct subordinate) who would follow him into the bathroom to have discussions while he (the boss) was trying to use the facilities. Boss said that the same employee also opened his work mail against his wishes regularly. Boss said, “I put up with that and got along with him. We got the job done. Even if you guys don’t like each other, I expect you to put up with each other and get the job done, no matter what.”

    During this lecture, I was thinking something along the lines of, “This guy has no concept of healthy boundaries or basic management responsibilities, and will not react well to me establishing reasonable boundaries.”

    I was very right, and I have never regretted leaving that job.

  180. WhiskeyTango*

    My boss at my last job was completely incompetent, frequently to a dangerous degree. His boss seemed aware, but she would “fix” his incompetence by assigning his work to other members of his team. He was a passive aggressive jerk, so he would respond by taking it out on the person who fixed the issues he’d created, including trying to put me on an unofficial PIP. When I pushed back on the PIP, and went to HR because he threatened to fire me for not complying, he was told he was no longer allowed to have 1×1 meetings with me.

    Anyhow, his job involved working with regulators and auditors, so there were many implications to our company if he “misunderstood” them, so we couldn’t just let the natural consequences flow. It lead to a huge number of issues and many people on his team were upset because we would spend a great deal of time and effort fixing a problem that didn’t need to exist to begin with, only to deal with his anger as a result. His boss knew what was going on and would support us in private, but wouldn’t do anything about his behavior (or incompetence.)

    For many of us, there were plenty of reasons to leave, but the “straw” for me was when it came to light that he had lied on his resume about his experience, education and licensing status. His boss and management were well aware of it, but took no action. At that point, I decided that I had a “conflict of values” with my employer of 7 years and decided to move on.

  181. From National Search to Last Straw in 2 weeks*

    I was hired for what seemed like a great job in a national search, and I moved halfway across the country for it. I was really excited about the position, and I loved the new community in which I was living. Two weeks after I started, a manager outside my reporting line, whom I had barely met, came to my desk and started yelling at me for doing something that my boss had asked me to do. When I told him, “Boss asked me to do this and she approved it before I sent it out,” he responded, “she should know better.” He continued to yell for several minutes about how these things were under his authority and I should never do them without his approval.

    Boss overheard this conversation (everyone in the department did), and said that Angry Manager’s behavior was a known problem, and that he was probably just confused because my position was new, and some of his responsibilities had been reassigned to me. She said she would discuss with Big Boss.

    Later that day, I was contacted by a recruiting firm for a really great opportunity. Normally, I would never have expressed an interest so soon after beginning a new job, but given what had happened, I thought I should at least speak with the recruiter and keep my options open.

    As the months went on, things went from bad to worse. Angry Manager continued to harass me over “his” projects (which had been assigned to me), Boss was a total wimp about it, and Big Boss completely enabled him. In the meantime, I interviewed for the new opportunity and it was the best interview experience of my life. It was a great fit for me and resulted in a fantastic offer.

    I was at the bad job for about 6 months in total, and I wouldn’t have left over the one incident with yelling, but it was clearly part of a pattern that wasn’t going to get resolved, so I got the hell out of there. I was the first of three people to leave that year shortly after being hired and moved from other locations.

    The worst part is, when I think about my interview there, I try to think about what red flags I missed, and I just don’t see any. It seemed like a great opportunity and culture. It scares me to think it could happen again. I am eighteen months into my new new job, and it’s still a great fit for me. I was recently promoted. I can’t believe my luck and I will always be grateful to that recruiter who emailed me at just the right moment.

    1. Dynamic Beige*

      This happened to a friend of mine… they found a job online, applied for it, did the interviews, got the job, relocated and when they got there, things weren’t quite the sunshine and roses they had been lead to expect they would find. Someone came up and told them a few months into the job that the boss had such a bad reputation, they had to hire someone from outside of the continental US because no one else in the industry would work for him. I do not believe that my friend’s interview included said boss… but some people are really good at hiding the crazy.

  182. SJPufendork*

    When I was asked to put an extremely high performing, non client facing IT person (who worked in a server closet by herself) on a PIP for wearing socks with her shoes while having the audacity to wear a skirt. The COO who saw her entering the building in the mornings thought that attire should be a firing offense.

    (The same COO had me and two other staff members crawling through a 15 foot small tube during a remodeling effort. my office was at one end of the building that wasn’t effected and he was too cheap to add more space to the temporary digs. So my 15 foot crawl while dragging a laptop bag was oddly enough NOT the moment I said I’m done.)

    2. Beware of the Leopard*

      I find it easier to put up with personal injustices than to not stand up for others.
      You had your very own hamster tube to your office? That is every 6 year old kid’s dream!

  183. Lisa*

    Job #1 – I was in love with the bosses son, and I was going crazy that he wouldn’t make a move. I realized that I was only staying there on the hope that he would one day marry me. He passed away last year. I miss him everyday, and its my one regret that I didn’t talk to him about my feelings for him.

    Job #2 – When a recruiter called to tell me the great opening she had. She used the company abbreviation, and didn’t realize it was my company and my job title, that my boss was offering at 30k more than he was paying me.

    Job #3 – When each company tweet had to be vetted by the director of marketing.

    Job #4 – (Same as job #3 – I went back after 6 months at job #3) – I asked my director what it would take to get to 100k. She said ‘i don’t know, you tell me’. I knew I would never make more than a director that couldn’t advocate for herself.

    Job #5 (current one) – At my review when the dept head said that I couldn’t be promoted until the team grew, because there can’t be two directors when the team is only 2 people. So assuming we need 5 more hires to justify 2 directors…and each hire must have 3 accounts, well that means we need 15 new accounts for me to be promoted. The last new client we had was over a year ago. It could take years for us to gain that account load. They are not actively selling our service, so I am now interviewing. They also took away our vacation time when the company was bought and even though I had a great review, I can only expect COL increases nothing merit based. I will just fall more and more behind in terms of career path and salary than my peers if I stay. I’m grateful that the dept head was honest, but it is sad – cause I do like it here, but new acquisition made it so no one gets promoted. You have to come in at a high salary with a good title. You won’t earn it here it seems, and they don’t keep up to market rates in the other markets that are not in the middle of nowhere where headquarters is located.

  184. Mena*

    Six months into a new position I find myself working for a person that constantly tries to find fault with me/my work. She isn’t interested in the value I bring; she is focused on revealing weaknesses. I am frustrated and wondering how I can be successful.

    Then, a colleague in a senior position with the firm tells me that I am paid more than my boss. The CEO wanted me and offered me the salary I was seeking, even though it was more than the salary of the person to whom I was to report. Her anger and resentment created a no-win situation for me.

  185. Q*

    It might be happening right this minute. Management will only give me temps for my team and they keep quitting because the pay rate is ridiculously low. I spend three months training each one and then just as s/he is ready to go it alone, they quit for a better job. Its exhausting. I just lost another one on Monday. He was really good and they actually made him a job offer for a permanent position…at less money than he was making as a temp. He was so insulted he didn’t even give notice.

    I think the only reason I haven’t just walked out yet is because I owe money to my 401K and want to pay that off before leaving.

  186. A Teacher*

    I worked as an athletic trainer for a larger physical therapy corporation in the Midwest before I became a high school teacher. When I started, we were a small company of 8 clinics that exceeded 100 clinics in the 4 years I was there. In that time, the CEO and other high level staff lost focus of who and what they wanted the company to be. They would have scare tactic meetings where they would say we were “lucky to be employed” and justify cuts in benefits and no raises for 3+ years and cuts in bonuses for the lower level employees for 3 years straight despite record profits, bonuses and raises for all management, and rapid growth of the company. They made a move to freeze the contribution to the 401k system and changed our evaluation system so it was “harder” but couldn’t explain how. The straw that broke the camels back was when I, as an employee that had been scoring 92-95% on ALL quarterly and yearly evaluations (we were evaluated 5 times a year) for 4 years straight went to a yearly review and my score dropped to 87%. and my boss couldn’t tell me why. She just kept saying “we made it harder” so instead of getting 90+% of the bonus I would be eligible for, I would get 87%. I had the highest referral rate in the department for 2 years running and had done extra work without complaint. When I asked what I needed to do to get my numbers back up, she said “I don’t know. Its just harder now.” She then went on to tell me how “I had the best score in the department and they cut all of our scores because they could.” After that we also found out they were going to freeze 401 k contributions for at least a year, cut our salary by 3% and raise our insurance costs. Oh, and they decided to switch us to an UnderArmour based drifit shirt for our uniform and they’d buy us 2 shirts, but they got us a “reduced cost of $65 for each additional shirt we ordered.” The CEO thought UnderArmour would be awesome to wear. This is the same company that would badmouth each employee that resigned to entire departments and then in our monthly 1 on 1s. Needless to say, I quit my job right after Christmas with 4 days notice (had to wait for school board approval) to go work at an alternative school with suspended and expelled kids that liked to cuss us out and we had fights weekly. I was happier there than in my old job–my boss told me “I’d never work as an athletic trainer again.” Yeah, didn’t happen–still do it part time.

  187. VictoriaHR*

    Mine was more of a straw in regards to figuring out what was “wrong” with ME, not with the workplace. I’d struggled a lot in various employers, I’d be able to fake it for a year or so and then I’d start slipping and having interpersonal issues at work, then I’d get written up or quit in frustration.

    At my last employer, I was a contract recruiter. Everything was going well until my beloved cat died. Suddenly and late at night, when I had a job fair the next day that meant that I’d be there for 12 hours and had to be “on” the whole time.

    I failed spectacularly and was exhausted, depressed, and did an overall bad job of being “peppy” and “with-it.” The other people working the fair complained to my manager. One of the hiring managers in particular. My manager talked it over with me, I explained what happened, and she said she understood.

    I felt bad about what had happened, so I went to the call center manager’s cube and apologized. This was only 2 days after my cat died so I did tear up while explaining the situation, so I apologized for THAT and said I was very sorry and had received the feedback and it wouldn’t happen again. She seemed fine.

    The next day, my manager called me and said that that call center manager had complained AGAIN that I’d “gotten emotional” on the call center floor” and that she “felt confronted.” As a result I got a formal written warning.

    At that point I had had it with trying to get along with everyone because obviously there was something that I was doing that was not what this company wanted me to do. I’d suspected that I had Asperger’s before but everyone in my family/friend circle had shrugged it off and assured me that I was “normal.” This time, I went through my company’s EAP, got a referral to a counselor, and went through the process of being tested and assessed for Asperger’s (basically high-functioning autism, indicated by interpersonal and social miscommunications). Yep, diagnosed in November 2014.

    When I got the diagnosis, I emailed my department’s director to let him know, just to protect my own ass against being fired for things that I did due to the Asperger’s. He promptly forwarded my email to another manager and copied me. I was like, “um that was private” and he apologized, but the damage was done. I also told my direct manager on my own and she was like “uh ok” and never asked me what needed to be done to accommodate or whatever. It was treated very badly. I still felt like I wasn’t accepted by the company. Since I was a contractor, I just looked for another job and left.

    The job I’m in now is wonderful. They’ve known about my Aspeger’s from day one and the boss said “what can we do to accommodate you” before I was even hired. I just asked to be told point-blank if I was doing something wrong and allow me to fix it, never assume that I can just tell what’s going on if it’s not said, etc. I’ve been here 6 months and for the first time in my adult life, I feel like I can truly be myself at work. It’s amazing.

    1. J-nonymous*

      The job you’re in now sounds terrific! Congratulations that things are working out much better for you.

    2. Anonymous today*

      You sound just like me. I just lost another temp job for no apparent reason but suspect either BPD or Aspergers might be the issue, since I have always had issues with interpersonal interaction. I’ve had many different mental health diagnoses over the years, but haven’t seen anyone competent for treatment in about a decade. I think it might be time find a good psychiatrist and start from the beginning.

      I’m happy you got your diagnosis and are in a good, understanding work environment. Do you have any tips for someone still struggling?

  188. Mockingjay*

    I had been on a software project for three years doing real tech writing for the test team. I designed the test events, wrote the test plans, and analyzed the results and wrote up the final reports. The test lead was delighted with my work, the customer was happy, all was right with the world.

    Test lead, being a great person, gets promoted. New test lead is promoted from the test team. (I had applied for the position, but was turned down because my degree was “nontechnical.” Funny, the new test lead had no college at all.)

    New test lead spends his days trying to do my job, instead of his. He decided that he was in charge of documentation. (Not that he had any authority to do this. He wasn’t in my reporting chain.)

    He stayed after hours and “reconfigured” – that is, broke – the SharePoint sites that I had designed and implemented 2 years prior. Got pissed off when the Sysadmin and I changed it back and he complained to the boss. (Boss was passive-aggressive and didn’t like confrontation, so nothing was done.)

    He demanded daily updates from me and my team on document status. Why, I don’t know, because I had built an electronic document schedule on the main SharePoint page which was updated daily. The entire project status was visible at a glance. He changed (broke) that too.

    The final straw was when he sent out an email with a new document workflow process attached. My only roles were to provide a blank template and to run spell check on the documents. Because I couldn’t review or edit, the number of technical errors in the documents soared.

    After weeks of trying to resolve things and being told that I was unreasonable, I was fed up. My boss, who at that point was labeling me as the problem child, transferred me to another, short-term project.

    A month after my transfer, former boss comes and apologizes to me. Documentation quality was horrible and the customer was not happy. Other key people had left as well – driven off by the jerk.

    When the short-term project was over, I was asked to return. But the jerk was still there, so I declined. I was promptly laid off. I don’t regret my decision.

  189. Lanya (aka Camp Director Kim)*

    One day, my CEO told me she could get a volunteer to do my job.
    I saw red, but said nothing, and left for a wonderful new job 2 months later.

    They had to hire 2 people to keep up with the work I had been doing.

  190. Anon-aplanner*

    When I showed up for the national awards luncheon for a huge national award a plan I had written for the office and none of the senior staff showed up. Not the Director, the Deputy Director, or the Acting Director. I sat through the luncheon at a table with seats reserved for 5 with only myself showed up, surrounded by tables and tables of other organizations and leaders who were thrilled to be receiving this award for their efforts. After inquiring by email and phone call, where were they? and when would they be arriving, it turns out it ‘slipped their minds.’ I realized then that none of them had any idea how hard I had worked and frankly didn’t care and couldn’t be bothered. I started applying for new jobs that night.

  191. Anon Accountant*

    When an employee who didn’t show up for work, call off or complete assignments received a 60% hourly pay increase (think for example from $30 to $48/hour) and continued to have his work reassigned. All he had to do was show up to get paid. Then the boss said funds were tight and wanted to reduce our hours to save cash.

    It was April and he was watching movies or YouTube videos and laughing hysterically while we were scrambling to meet April 15th for clients and get extensions prepared. He kept his job and the boss thought he was the greatest person on earth.

  192. anon for once*

    Sometimes it’s the little straw, not the big one.

    Years back I worked at a company that had all kinds of dysfunction, including being severely understaffed and overworking everybody. Firing was very arbitrary and tended to be on whether somebody had personally annoyed the bosses or they didn’t like that person, not performance. So rather than actually discipline people who screwed up and slacked off, they’d simply pile more work on the responsible people. Of course this didn’t mean that being a responsible person guaranteed raises, promotions or even being recognized for hard work.

    There was a regular event where one person would prepare a presentation and a different person might actually go and do the presentation. Afterward somebody had to fill out a short form setting out the results of the presentation and give it to the big boss’s secretary. I noticed that whenever I was involved in one of those events, the secretary would bug me for the form, even if I hadn’t done the presentation and so had to go ask the person who did what happened. I finally asked her which person’s responsibility it was to handle the form, and she said “oh, it’s both.” In other words, that she was just going to ask whoever she felt would get it to her, because if a slacker failed to do what they were supposed to do, there were no real consequences.

    The big boss always professed surprise when a responsible person left. Nobody else did.

  193. TeapotMarketer*

    I was working 70-80 hour weeks, my boss would constantly text me or, worse, call me crying at 3 a.m., I was constantly being told I couldn’t do anything right… The peak of my work stress coincided with a miscarriage. I can’t say for certain the two were related, but after two years of trying and fertility treatments, I was devastated. And done. A few months later, I found out I was pregnant again during a business trip. I composed my (immediate) resignation letter on the plane ride home, stopped by the office, cleaned out my desk and never came back. I now have a lovely little girl and a job where I don’t want to jump off a bridge every day.

  194. Anon1234*

    I worked for a supervisor who thought the best way to get the most out of every employee was to berate the best workers for the smallest of mistakes, thereby “scaring” the others who didn’t pull their weight. His thought process was that of they saw the best workers getting reamed, they would try harder to avoid the same fate.

    Also, I had a specific start time later in the day, I was, at the time, in college and class obligations that I needed to take care of during the day. I was asked to come in early ine day when they were supposedly short handed. I told them I would try my best to come in early and then asked what time they wanted. As I said, I had obligations already and told them I may be in a little after that time, but would still come in early. I showed up about an hour after they had suggested, but was still in 2 hours earlier than my shift started. They wrote me up, I was basically disciplined for coming in early too late.

  195. Merry and Bright*

    My moment was when I was on holiday in Wales and my office manager texted me to say the petty cash box was 3 pence short and did I know anything about it.

    I lasted another year there somehow.

  196. spek*

    I was working in the field at a job site in Nashville for 3 weeks in November. We all worked 12 hours per day for the last week in order to complete the project the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I was at the airport waiting to fly home to California when my boss’ assistant called and told me that the holiday flights were too expensive, and the company was just awarded a job in Albany. They had canceled my flight, and rented a car for me – since I didn’t have to be on site in Albany until Monday morning, it was plenty of time to drive there to start a 12 week project that would also leave me in upstate NY over Christmas. I hung up, used my company card to fly home and never spoke to anyone at that company again except through an attorney.

  197. SouthernBelle*

    When during my annual evaluation, my supervisor asked if I was on birth control. Being young and at my first real job, I answered “not at the moment” instead of saying none of you business. She quickly followed up with “well, you should because your kinda a b**ch, when you aren’t.” Uhm…okay, I left soon after.

  198. J-nonymous*

    I was a new manager in a small IT department reporting to the director of IT. I managed a team of sys admins who worked on very different platforms. There were lots and lots of other problems with the director, but the one that sticks out the most was when I had a one-on-one with her, I told her I had some concerns about how my team was functioning. They got along okay, but they weren’t really working toward the same goals and that the team didn’t feel like a cohesive team. I qualified my remark by saying that prior teams I had been on (or led) had been focused around a particular product or development area, so I wasn’t sure if what I was experiencing in this team was normal.

    She (the director) took that opportunity to belittle my question, saying that an experienced manager would know that not all teams are alike and that I shouldn’t be asking her how to address the problem because she didn’t see it as a problem at all. It was a very awkward one on one, to say the least, and I didn’t bring up the topic again.

    Fast forward 2 months when she gives me my performance evaluation (reviews were given at the same time each year, but I had only been with the company for about 5 1/2 months at this point). She tells me I’m not meeting expectations because my team “is getting along ok, but wasn’t working cohesively or working toward common goals.”

    I didn’t push back; I was too stunned to say anything. I actually *almost* admired how she achieved the trifecta of Bad Boss Behavior by belittling my idea, which she later stole & acted as if it were her own, for the sole purpose of using it to criticize my performance.

    Anyway, that’s when I realized that I couldn’t manage around her bad behavior. At the first opportunity to leave, I did and I gave a pretty scathing (and fully documented) account of her bullying tactics. She was ousted about 6 months after I left.

  199. CCoventry*

    I was the Accounting Manager and did handled both the business and personal finances of the owners–a husband and wife team. The wife was very difficult to work with and high maintenance. She had clothing shipped a few times a week from Escada in NY and then would send back what didn’t fit. At the end of the year when she got her AMEX annual statement and saw that she spent $100K on clothing, she said that it wasn’t true. She wanted me to call them to tell them they owed her an $80K credit. Keep in mind she was reviewing her statements every month and approving the bill. Another time she had a contractor do work on her house. She had agreed to a price but then when the work was done (and she admitted to me she was happy with it), she wanted me to tell him that she was only paying 75%. I hated being put into that position. The final straw came when I had my performance review. She said that I was doing great work, but since I left on time every day, she was only giving me a 1% raise. I asked her if there was anything that I didn’t finish before I left and she admitted that I always finished my work. I realized that I couldn’t work for someone like this and sent in my resignation by email.

  200. Omne*

    Years ago I worked for a supervisor that had a different way of looking at things, to put it mildly.
    During the year in question I had taken over four programs and completely revamped them and massively expanded them. I also created another program that was wildly successful. So, time for my annual review and I figure it’s going to be pretty good. I go in and I get a “meets expectations”. I looked at him went over all of the things I’d accomplished in the past year and asked him why it was only a “meets”. With a straight face he said ” I had high expectations of you”. So I responded ” If I had been a total slug and accomplished all of that would I have been rated higher”? He sat there for a minute and said “yes”.

    That was when I started looking around and got out of that division.

  201. Anonynon*

    When I was in college, I worked in one of the dining halls for 3 months. One night in December in upstate NY, I fell down a flight of metal stairs outside the employee entrance because some Mensa staff member decided that washing down those stairs with a hose before we all left for the night was a good idea. You know those cartoons that show the character’s legs completely leaving the ground and going over a person’s head? That was me. The pain was so bad that I went to the ER, and despite muscle relaxers and other fun pills, couldn’t sleep without pain for a week. When I told the manager of the dining hall what happened, I got a “That’s too bad. You should really be careful.” I quit on the spot and never looked back.

      1. Bridget*

        Ah, my sister went to college in Potsdam. I went to see her in a show in April and it snowed. It was 50 degrees at her graduation in May. I don’t understand why anyone would want to live up there.

  202. Lou*

    Well basic pettiness, feeling like school, manager slagging subordinates off to other subordinates. Then there’s the fact I realised I’d never have a Sunday off because she hired her brother and he doesn’t drive. What broke the camels back and made me find another job and fast (I’m now a baker at Marks and Spencers) was the two faced and manipulation. The group chats over facebook meaning you never left work! Just wanted to go to work do my job and go home.

    And what made me glad I left (despite guilt tripping me, twisting my words and making me feel bad when I handed in my notice) was the fact that she defriended me because I defriended and blocked a customer who wouldn’t stop trying to message me, despite putting up boundaries like ‘I don’t talk to customers on facebook’ he kept insisting.

    I think I could go on.

  203. ThursdaysGeek*

    The company got a new manager and he wanted 50 hours a week minimum (we were salaried). The company added a time clock and even those of us where were salaried were supposed to use it. The new manager moved me to being a tester (instead of a developer) and then put me on a PIP because I wasn’t doing as well as he wanted. (It’s a different job, one I didn’t know, and I was certainly trying).

    The last straw was at a company picnic when he told a story about a “5 dollar lawn mowing job” (link to follow) where $3 was a good job, $4 was excellent, and $5 was so perfect it wasn’t possible, and how he wanted us to be doing $5 dollar jobs and to look at our priorities. I looked at mine: my mother-in-law was dying of cancer, my god-daughter needed time, and he had completely unrealistic expectations, and decided my priorities were with my family. So I gave notice.

    1. ThursdaysGeek*

      The story is found at https://www.lds.org/manual/aaronic-priesthood-manual-2/lesson-24-the-blessings-of-work?lang=eng.

      And while he was telling it, I was thinking an alternate story, about the boy’s little sister, who the same day the boy was earning his $5 dollars, was also out mowing lawns. But she mowed 2 lawns for $3 each, then mowed another lawn for free for a lady who couldn’t afford it, then went swimming with friends. She earned more money, did more good, and had more fun, because she set reasonable priorities and wasn’t trying to do an impossible job for an impossible task-master.

      As soon as he said to set our priorities, that job was over for me.

  204. squids*

    Remembered another one. At 18 I was working in housekeeping in a long term care facility, and it was the sort that you don’t want to put anyone you care about in. Lots to dislike in terms of the environment, the scheduling, etc, but one afternoon I broke up a physical fight between two residents (dementia + physically frail, mobility aid as a weapon), and then got written up for that, because I was not allowed to make any physical contact with them. No allowance made for my having prevented serious injuries.

    I was freaked out by the situation for a long time (18, female, physically quite small, my first exposure to a situation anything like that.) Quit about a week later to do more hours at my lower-paid but much more laid back other p-t job.

  205. Jules*

    Ah, the straw.

    With less than 24 hours notice and no financial compensation, I cancelled my Easter vacation to write a pitch for a HUGELY important project for my boss, let’s call him Tywin, who was in the running to design a new wing for a world-famous museum (which I can’t name because then you’d know who I worked for…). The pitch was 25 pages of very carefully crafted text written by me and expertly tailored to the client on which I burned plenty of midnight oil, plus a cover letter that a senior colleague, let’s call him Theon, was supposed to write. Theon, of course, refused to cancel his vacation and promised to write the text on the train….which, of course, meant he sent me about six very lame and generic sentences three days later than he’d originally promised.

    On Sunday night I sent the document to my boss Tywin for final comments, complete with lame cover letter and a note that the cover letter needed to be completely rewritten because Theon hadn’t supplied text, and would Tywin please write a personal cover letter instead, as I thought that would be well received by the client. On Monday morning, Tywin summoned me to his office (where he was being filmed for a ‘day-in-the-life’ documentary, no less!) threw the document at me (literally) and called me an f*%^ing incompetent moron for writing such utter drivel. Well prepared for this (he has a bit of a reputation), I asked whether he was objecting to the tone or the content. His response was that he had no feedback because he’d stopped reading when the cover letter was such completely useless shit.

    I went back to my desk, called the competitor who’d been pursuing me for six months (from my office phone!) and resigned three hours later. In a sad defeat for karma, Tywin got the job….although a friend in his office later slipped me a copy of the pitch they eventually turned in, and somewhat gratifyingly it turned out to be mine, word for word.

  206. ITWorkerBee*

    At my first job, I had an accident in the warehouse, and had cut my face (and had a concussion and ended up with two black eyes). My boss called the coworker that drove me to the doctor, and told her that “don’t let her get a tetanus shot if it’s OSHA reportable”. (I got one anyway) Then I returned to the office to gather my things, and my boss popped out and said that he had to fill out paperwork with me about the accident, but he had meetings so he asked me to sit in the office for four hours (with a head wound) and just wait for him. I declined and went home. I started job hunting that weekend.

  207. Dr. Johnny Fever*

    Half a lifetime ago, I was an assistant manager at an “adult boutique”. That means exactly what you think it means. I loved my job, the people, and the education but I had to leave after 3 incidents in quick succession:

    1) I refused to accept a used product, without packing or receipt, from a frequent customer. He waved it in my face yelling about how much he spends. I told him he didn’t really spend that much since he returns most of what he buys. When my manager came over, she accepted the return and berated me because didn’t I know how much he spent with us?

    2) I am bi and butch. I catered to lesbians and bears, power couples, bisexuals and other LGBTQ people because I was approachable as “one of them”. I also assisted timid women who resembled me more than my femme coworkers and manager (No men at our store). I was told by our straight, male owner that I needed to wear makeup and dress sexier to attract straight male customers. He had no concerns about losing the “freak” customers who were my regulars since he they “weirded” him out anyway.

    3) I closed alone one night after the bars closed, and was nearly assaulted by a man trying to steal an $8 tube of Maintain. I came in the next morning after a sleepless night demanding my manager to pull the tape, get him banned, and press charges. She then told me that the security video inputs were broken; the security tapes I diligently started on each one of my shifts had been recording snow for 6 weeks. She didn’t tell me because she didn’t want me to worry.

    I immediately walked to the open check-cashing store next door with the help wanted sign, applied, and was hired in a week. I put in my two-week notice effective the day before Valentine’s Day (the biggest sales day of the year). That year, it fell on a Saturday, our highest volume night of the week. They scheduled me to work it anyway. I got paid the Friday before, walked out the door, cashed my check, and never returned. I have no idea how they handled that Saturday night shift without me.

    I stayed at the check-cashing place until I got a break in my career field and am now a leader in my organization. My company champions LGBTQ rights; one of the reasons for my success is my acceptance and awareness of our diverse employee population.

    The boutique? It closed 18 months after I left. The “freaks” left, the straight guys did rentals only, and the loss in sales put the store under.

    1. VictoriaHR*

      Damn, any one of those would have done it for me. That is terrible! Good for you for getting out and being successful.

      1. Dr. Johnny Fever*

        Thanks! I would never trade the experience and cultural education. It’s amazing to reflect on how much idiocy I was willing to put up with in my younger years.

        Gives me great stories to tell after a few beers, not to mention all the related trivia :)

  208. Chocolate Teapot*

    I was moved into a more specialised role, which I thought would be a great way to advance, but I was routinely not informed about what my boss was working on. I would ask for work and told to be patient. Then, he informed me that there was not enough work for me to do and so I was being moved back to the position I had before.

    So I was annoyed but decided to make the best of it, and keep taking the paycheques. Suddenly, with great fanfair, it was announced somebody else in the company would be doing the specialised role, and wasn’t it a good thing she was so brilliant and there was nobody else in the company who could?

    I’m not bitter.

    No really, I’m not.

  209. AMT*

    Some of these stories are just SO horrendous! I haven’t had anything quite this bad happen to me, but I had been at one job, in a CPA firm, for about 3 years. I had grown to hate it there, which was sad as I’d loved the work and the people initially. The third tax season was just awful and I couldn’t wait to get out of there, but didn’t want to leave until after April 15 and dump all of my work on everyone else. I stayed longer because my husband had some medical stuff going on and I needed to take a month off to care for him, and they were ok with that so I took off all of May basically; planned to start a job search as soon as I got back. On my second day back at work I was fired because they knew I wasn’t happy and that my husband and I wanted to move out of state to be closer to family (which is not really possible when you have no job/money…. we couldn’t move for another three years). My work was fine, but being unhappy was apparently not allowed? (I was still pleasant to everyone and got along with everyone and with clients and stuffed down the depression as much as possible but whatever… ) The point where I knew that I absolutely had to leave that job though was in the middle of tax season – I would go to bed and dream all night long of numbers, of adding receipts up on an adding machine and never getting things to add up properly. So all day long I was miserable at work dealing with numbers and then ‘worked’ an additional 8 hours in my sleep – it was awful, I felt like I never got any rest!

  210. Kathleen*

    When, while in a 95% direct services role, I realized I hate direct services.

    (Not my employer’s fault, they were actually a great organization to work for. I should have never applied, but I was young and didn’t know what I wanted and didn’t want.)

  211. Carrie in Scotland*

    Way back in my early 20’s I worked in a national bookshop chain (you know, the one that’s still around). I’d been unhappy for a while but then my mum became sick and then died (within 8 weeks).
    At this time the company was undergoing some change; one change was the “ideal rota” so instead of having say 5 full timers and several part timers, you’d have 3 full timers and then everyone else on a decreasing scale. To do this, we basically re-interviewed for our jobs and scored.
    I was the last one to be re-interviewed. It was something like 10 days after my mum had died, maybe 3 or something since the funeral.
    I was awarded the contract of 28 hrs a week (from 35).
    About a month later I took 2 months off (unpaid) due to stress, anxiety and having panic attacks, which I contribute to that situation.

  212. Lou*

    This will probably come across as petty. But I was disheartened that I only got a card and a box of doughnuts for my birthday when everyone else got gift cards and expensive jewellery for their birthdays. I don’t know made me think I wasn’t valued as much :/

    1. Isben Takes Tea*

      I feel you. There’s a difference between being petty and genuinely feeling that you’re not as valued as other people. While everyone else got cupcakes on their birthday, the “treats” provided in the kitchen for my birthday were crackers and cheese, since my birthday was right after the holidays and “people”(?) wanted a break in the sugar. (Not a straw for me specifically, but it’s hurtful, even if you still love your job and everyone at your job.)

      1. Lou*

        I think I read your story before. It’s disheartening because you feel no effort has been made for you. They don’t have to eat that cake, but you need to feel appreciated. Yeah I think if I wasn’t a meek and mild person and assertive like others I’d have made the issue known but it was one of those things where I thought ‘I won’t be here come Christmas time and I’m not giving money for presents again’. I stuck to my guns to esp when there was talks of boss’s brother getting a Halford’s gift card just a month after my birthday. I was like ‘ok, i’ll give but only as much as the donuts costs’. LOL the Halford’s gift card never happened.

        I wondered if it was a passive aggressive office dig than me that they got me a box of donuts. I work in a place now where we only give leaving presents etc.

  213. Not telling you this time*

    One morning while I was walking into the office, I saw my boss walk from her office into a coworker’s office, and before of the people in that office could have said a word, she started shrieking at them. Telling them not to piss her off, among other things, and then finally telling one coworker to “go to your office and stay out of my face” repeatedly and pointing in the direction of his office. As if he was her 8 year old being told to go to his room. Having witnessed extreme aggression/hostility in my family, that kind of scenario gets me completely wound up, stressed out, blood pressure up, etc. That was the morning I decided I was done. She had already been causing undue stress and anxiety for everyone, because she would turn on people in a heartbeat and fly off the handle.

    There were other reasons it was time for me to make a change, but I had been lazy about it. But after that episode, I knew I couldn’t take it anymore, for my own piece of mind. I applied to a new job within the week, and gave my notice a few months later.

  214. JAM*

    I had been “promoted” but got no raise, still had to do my old job, and now had to do the job of an EA who didn’t like doing her own work. Somehow I was fine with that. Then one of the lazy people on my old job team decided she was done working so I had to cover her too. Then my boss decided he wanted a lot of unnecessary media attention and now I had to be on-call during all my lunches. Keep in mind I was hourly and making under $30K/year. Still somehow I was okay because maybe one day I’d get a raise.

    Lazy fell asleep in the break room and didn’t come back to work. When called on it, she denied she was asleep and missing for 2 extra hours. Her reaction and her performance finally got her fired. I was thrilled; she wasn’t doing work anyway so now either we could get a replacement for her or even my old job or heck, maybe I’d even get a raise and have my promotion be real on paper.

    Nope. The boss’s boss told him he had no power to fire people (he was an acting director and not yet elected) and to top it off “others had done far worse and not been fired” so we had to bring her back. I was angry because I saw no end in sight to my exhaustion if he had no power to fire people then could he promote them? The answer was no. I had been coming to work every day and sitting in my car crying, hoping a car might smash into me, anything to help me and yet every day I cleaned myself up, walked in, and kept a smile on my face while doing my job. I couldn’t do it anymore. I came back that same day from a very long lunch and applied for a bunch of jobs and I got hired on by one of them.

  215. nope*

    At my first job I was working under a micromanaging owner who had the annoying habit to treat (and talking to) every one of her employees like four year old mentally disabled kids. Everything you did, she checked compulsively – complete with “baby talk”.
    The breaking point for me was when I requested a day off and she wanted to know whether I was working elsewhere. I said no. Later that evening she called and demanded to know why I wanted that day off, what I wanted to do and again if I was working for another business. I told her my private life was just that – private – and quit.

  216. Marzipan*

    I think, in my last job, it was when I looked at the front page of the local paper in the office, and realised the story was about one of our former residents being arrested for murder. Took me a while to find the right job to move on to, but that was when I knew I should.

  217. CV*

    When I took off a day of work for the funeral of my best friend’s dad. I had approved it with my direct supervisor who said it was no problem and don’t worry about it. But when I came back to work, a higher up kept making snide remarks about me not being at work even though she knew why I had to take the day off. Only job I’ve left without giving notice for.

  218. AnonymousForThis*

    This is a few jobs ago. I had a new senior manager coming in and he was told I was one of the few valuable employees he had. He told me this to my face and also told me he noticed that I wasn’t getting paid anywhere near the salaries of others on my team. He said it was a priority for him to adjust that and it would be done by x date.

    In the meantime, he ended up hiring someone else to be my manager who I just was not a good fit with. The deadline for the salary adjustment passed so I followed up about the status. The new manager said, “Don’t be a martyr. It’s not like we pay you that much less than everyone else.” Yeah, just 25%.

    Current job, similar situation. Was promised raise. Even put together a report on market salaries for my position and presented that along with results from the past year. Was told, “if you get another offer, we’ll beat it, but we just don’t know what you’re worth.”

  219. Mike C.*

    The owner of my last terrible job gave an all hands meeting in mid 2009 to announce that he was revoking the company 401k matching policy to “protect us from market instability”. I was in my late 20s at the time. Around the same time, he started bringing in his insane art collection. Hundreds of pieces, regularly rotated throughout the office. It was quite difficult to take concerns over cost cutting seriously when I was sitting next to an actual Dali lithograph.

    To make matters worse, he had additional piece delivered to the office in huge crates – apparently this is what happens when you cut corners on labor and lab equipment. We liked to guess what was in each one. I most proud of this huge box that came in – I guessed it was a harp and I was correct.

    1. Rock*

      So many of these stories, and this one in particular (a HARP) realllly illustrate the discrepancy between what “eccentric” business owners experience and what… the rest of the world experiences…
      I used to work for a Crazy Old Man. No harps (or art), but he was insultingly cheap, and exceptionally mean-spirited. He asked me if I’d gotten permission to charge my cellphone and use the company’s electricity, and told me not to wear high heeled shoes because I sounded like a Clydesdale.

      1. Mike C.*

        He was so cheap with the salaries that I had come to a point where I wanted to start a union. The rep I met with asked about our wages and benefits and laughed. He wasn’t being cruel but he pointed out that the grocery store cashiers his union represented made more than the analysts testing food for contamination.

      2. Q*

        Yep. I used to work for a place where we were not allowed to use their electricity to charge our phones. Crazy.

    2. CollegeAdmin*

      …he was revoking the company 401k matching policy to “protect us from market instability”.

      I just…what? Because if you have no money saved for retirement, you can’t lose any in a market lull? Please tell me you did not work in finance because that is just idiotic.

      1. Mike C.*

        Nope, food safety. I’m certain he was just lying to us, because as the market got better, the match never came back.

    3. The Department of Terrestrial Magnetism*

      I’m going to guess that he was lying about why he revoked the 401k plan. I know I’m being all hand-wavy, but 401k plans are subject to some kind of validity testing … *sigh* I know so little about it, I’ll say no more. But still: I’d guess this guy simply couldn’t admit fault, thus “market instability”.

      I won’t even pretend this makes me anything but an awful person, but – jerking me around and pissing me off and then sitting me next to a real Dali would just be a really, really awful idea.

  220. Otter box*

    I haven’t had time to read anyone else’s, but this was mine at my last job at Big US Wireless Retailer as non-sales staff:

    The new iPhone was only a couple months old, and we had very limited availability and customers would call ahead to know whether we had the model available that they wanted so that they didn’t waste their time coming in if we couldn’t sell them a phone. I would always answer this truthfully with some version of either “no” or “we have a small number at the moment, but it is first come first serve so I can’t guarantee how long they’ll last.” Well, I got in trouble for this because my manager wanted me to tell customers that we didn’t have any phones, even if we really did, if the customer wanted it on a kind of plan that my manager didn’t want to sell. This meant that instead of answering a simple yes/no question with a straightforward answer, I had to grill them on what type of plan they wanted first and lie if they wanted the wrong type of plan. I was not comfortable with this as it appeared to me to cross the line between positioning certain plans favorably, and outright lying. I voiced my objection and was asked whether the “team” was my first priority (I said the customer was my first priority – wrong answer apparently), and was then told that we may need to reconsider whether I was capable of doing the job (after 3 years of being a top performer in my role).

    I doubled down on finding a new job that night, and three weeks later had a job offer.

    1. AMT*

      My husband works for one of the big wireless companies, they are absolutely hideous – he is miserable there, management forces him to lie and trick customers to make certain types of sales, then writes him up for violating company policy for doing what they told him to – absolutely horrendous people.

  221. Bri*

    Not for me but for my Boyfriend. He was working at Best Buy (This makes everything so much more ironic.) and he asked for a day off. He downloaded his schedule on his phone and he it was showing him as not working on that day I screenshoted it because I like having a copy of his schedule. He went in a week later and his schedule was totally different and he was now working. He asked his boss why as he had already purchased his concert ticket for that day and was told that he had always been scheduled for that day and he was mistaken about having the day off, He then showed him the screenshot I took and they told him that the online system was not reliable that he could only go off of a schedule that he printed in store and implied that he had altered it. I told him I couldn’t take it anymore and now he has a much higher paying job with much better hours.

  222. Boston Strong*

    My company in general was evil, but the last straw was this: my office was based in Boston, but the company was headquartered outside of Massachusetts. The Friday after the Boston Marathon bombing, the Greater Boston area was pretty much entirely locked down while the authorities searched for the bombers. We were not even supposed to step outside our homes, let alone travel to the office. Several of us (myself included) were also at the finish line when the bombing took place and were still reeling from fear and anger. Generally speaking, it was not a productive week or day for us. We “worked from home” but mostly glued ourselves to the news and waited around for SWAT teams to bang on our doors.

    Alas, the next week, our office lead received a very antagonistic phone call from the head of our company saying it was unacceptable for us not to have gone to the office the previous Friday and that she was extremely displeased with the lack of productivity while we worked from home. We all needed to find a way to make up the hours. Some of us were required to call our partners to apologize (who, for the record, did not understand why we were apologizing). We never received a single word of sympathy from the company head.

    I’m happy to say I was only there for another few months. I’m at a new job in a totally different industry, and I couldn’t be happier. At the very least, I can say I learned some lessons on how to be a better boss! And by better, I guess I really mean “not abhorrent.”

    1. I'm a Little Teapot*

      Wow. I live in Boston too and worked at a hospital at the time, so I tried to walk to work because I thought I was supposed to be there – but a police officer stopped me and told me to go back indoors. How did your company expect you to get to work – teleportation?

    2. Sioned*

      At a former job of mine, my region had a major weather event. (We’re known for our snow, and for dealing with it, but this is extreme, and somewhat out of season.) The area where I lived, about a 15-minute drive my workplace, was one of the hardest hit. I couldn’t have gotten out of the driveway if I’d wanted to, because there was an immense tree down across my drive way. My neighborhood looked like a tornado had swept through. We didn’t get power back for eight days. There was a driving ban o for a number of days. (While my profession is one where you can reasonably be expected to work in emergency situations, it’s not essential like hospital, police, etc.)

      I called in that morning (you know, tree), but made it to work for the rest of the crisis. Nice Boss said he wasn’t making anyone who hadn’t made it in the first day of the disaster take personal time.

      The corporate office, based down South in much warmer climes where nary a flake of snow was seen, explicitly told him they would not allow him to do that. If we were such lazy employees we couldn’t make it, we’d have to use personal time.

  223. Carrie in Scotland*

    Two more:

    1) Part time in a small library that really should be closed (due to lack of people using it) but hasn’t as it’s in a deprived area. Realised that one major contribution to my depression at the time and going to CBT counselling for was directly related to that job.

    2) The job after that one I had two straws – the first was I got a new manager who didn’t like me/we didn’t get on and she also didn’t know what we did as her previous position had been eliminated. I had a meeting with her because I’d called in sick and left a v/m. She wanted me to call in to her at 9 am and update her about my work (even though she had email access to my work emails). The second was when one of my team who had dyslexia was re-assigned to a completely new admin. I thought he’d need more support – the job was proofreading reports – and so did the he. He pushed to get an experienced admin. I had another meeting with my manager and her manager about “not supporting my fellow admin enough”. Sometimes I look at the published reports on the web and feel happy that there are mistakes in them.

  224. Amy*

    My previous job was at a company where my boss tended to act about half her age. She was cliquish, always choosing a “favorite” employee and treating everyone like crap. (She actually hired me as a second assistant BECAUSE she was fighting with her current assistant, then three days after I started they made up and she basically stopped talking to me.) She liked to be in her office with the ‘favorite’, where they would close the door and gossip/trash talk everyone else. She also spent most of the day on her computer on facebook playing games. She was nasty and vindictive and she didn’t like me, for some unknown reason. If she decided she didn’t like you, she made your life hell basically. Nothing could be done about this because she WAS the head of HR, so you couldn’t even go to HR about anything she did.

    Anyway, the straw that broke the camels back came after a Manager whose office had been in the same room (and who was good friends with my boss) got fired, in part because another coworker and I offhandedly mentioned she hadn’t been doing one of her job duties. It turned out to be the final notch on a long list of job errors, and she was fired. My boss blamed us, and so did she. A couple weeks later, I started receiving anonymous calls at my desk from a woman accusing me of sleeping with a colleague in another department. The phone calls were harassing and full of derogatory remarks. When I reported them to my boss, she kept telling me she would “look into it” but did nothing for several days. When I finally went over her head and spoke to someone else, they looked into it and found out it was the former manager calling and harassing me, and presumably my boss had known this and decided not to look into it because she hated me.

    Anyway, that was the last straw. I started looking for new work, got a new job, and put in my notice, the end. Well, almost the end. There was a whole debacle after where I never got my final paycheck because she kept claiming it was “in the mail”. After a month I ended up having to talk to the same person above her, who cut me a check that I had to go pick up in person. Ugh. Leaving that place was the best decision I ever made.

  225. LisaKC*

    I moved across country with my husband and found a new job. With in a year I was laying awake all night and shortly after that I started crying everyday on the way to work.

    After reflection I realized that that company was filled with negative energy/people –
    Mean girls backstabbing each other.
    Horrible management – that treated everyone like children.
    Bosses son was lazy, yet had plenty of time to sexually harass.
    Constant complaining by coworkers about every.little.thing.
    Boring, such painfully boring work. After being told in the interview that I would be so busy.

    I promptly started a work search and was out of there within a month – I love my new job, I’ve been there a year now. I almost felt like I had PTSD after that working environment. I continued being friends with a few people from there and met for drinks a few times. The entire conversation was about how horrible the work environment was, but they were staying. I ended up dropping them as friends after that. Shortly after that they accidently included me in a group text where they were complaining about what a horrible person I was – lol. I learned many, many valuable work and life lessons from that whole ordeal.

  226. Bagworm*

    First job, at a second-run theater. The manager would sleep in the office for days at a time (not sure if he ever went anywhere else or had anywhere else to go) – no showering, no laundering clothes. His office walls were completely covered in pictures of naked (and mostly naked) women. You always tried to be off on pay day because the last few people to get to the bank had their checks bounce. Final straw, the manager dropped a ladder on my head when we were changing the marquee. He would let me go home or even sit down to recuperate. When I did get off, straight to urgent care. I had a concussion.

  227. Amy M.*

    I worked for a national bank as a personal banker. On a day that we were required to stay late and cold-call potential loan prospects after hours, I received a call from my 8 month old daughter’s daycare saying she had a 103 degree fever. I left work to pick her up and her temperature had increased. Needless to say, I ended up in the hospital with her where she received steroid shots every hour to try to get her temperature down. In the middle of it all I called my boss to let him know what was going on and where I was and his only response was “You’re still coming to the call night tonight, right?” I transferred to another department very shortly after that, that was definitely my breaking point!

  228. FEPhilly*

    a former supervisor told me in a performance review, “i don’t really like your face.” i left the next week.

  229. LabTech*

    My boss and I were arguing over whether I should have picked the highest point or the same wavelength for a zero, not-even-really-anything-there signal for an experiment we were running. The nothing-really-there peak shifted slightly, so I decided to take the max and just make a note of exactly what I was doing in the lab notebook. Well, I was told afterwards this was obviously, utterly wrong.

    Normal, professional, competent me wouldn’t have any preference as to which without good justification, since we didn’t have any established lower detection limit. Welp, after my boss telling me I was wrong for every minute decision I’ve made for 6 months straight, even when I followed his directions – even his written directions, which he would then deny writing despite the words in his hand-writing being right in front of him – I suddenly did care. A whole lot.

    We spent hours arguing over a completely trivial point, because I knew if I backed down he would claim it’s an obvious detail that I should have known and go on about how incompetent I am. Eventually, there was a break in the arguing and I used it to take my (now very late) lunch. I came back, boss was no where to be found, and I got back to doing work. He then comes in an hour later, asks if I can help him find something in the lab downstairs, and reinitiates the argument unprompted, telling me I’m a smart Alec.

    It dawned on me that the entire reason he asked for me to go downstairs was to insult me and resume arguing. (The downstairs workspace doesn’t have people in adjacent rooms, so fewer people would overhear.) That’s when I decided the day he picks another meaningless, drawn-out fight with me is the day I hand in my notice. He lasted two months before doing it again; I printed out my Two Weeks’ Notice over lunch and never looked back.

  230. platypus anonymous*

    I got threatened with disciplinary action by a person who was not my manager, for something that I had cleared with my boss at least three or four times. In the following meeting with said person and my boss, I was explicitly told, by both of them, that person was not my manager. No other explanation or clarification was given, even though I asked.

    1. Jenny Islander*

      The job I got straight out of college, a super-sweet-talking but mean and nasty coworker nicknamed Cindy the Poisoned Cupcake very sweetly told me that if I didn’t move her tasks ahead of all the others on my list she would make sure that I didn’t get my paycheck. Note that I was basically the secretarial pool for a 10-person office and prioritizing all that work took up a major part of my day. I was so green that it took me the rest of the day to summon up the courage to ask my actual boss, that is, the boss of the entire office and signer of all paychecks, whether I was going to get paid.

      She asked for an explanation, got one, and immediately called Cindy the Poisoned Cupcake into her office. After which Cindy cried all over me about the terrible stress she was under because blah blah personal stuff that was not my business I tuned it out.

  231. CityDweller*

    I worked in a satellite office of a large public utility company. City employees are the worst because it’s nearly impossible to fire someone based on incompetence or not meeting job requirements.

    Among the highlights:
    1. When my boss cried during a staff meeting that we “weren’t doing enough to make her look competent to her boss.” (There isn’t enough data in the world to accomplish this task, honey.)
    2. When I spent Christmas Eve helping my boss Google the specific brand of caviar that she had on a trip to Sweden.
    3. When my boss railed on my co-worker and I for being too friendly and talking to each other during the workday. (We literally shared one chair and a desk; all that talking was our weekly run-down to catch each other up on action items.)
    4. When she refused to speak to the department head about an IT warning I received for inappropriate computer usage because I was searching hotels for her personal trip to Thailand.
    5. When another co-worker screamed at me for ten minutes because I sent a confusing e-mail about picking up W2 forms, and none of the managers came out of their offices to see what the problem was until AFTER it was over. (The e-mail was “Please pick-up your W2 forms by COB today.” He yelled at me for ten minutes because I didn’t explain what would happen to the forms the next day.)
    6. When it became clear that none of the managers cared about the welfare of their employees or utilizing their talents to the department’s benefit.

    A couple months before I had planned to quit, she fired me because I was “being antagonist to her and talking to her with an attitude”– which was totally true and I’m still surprised that she picked up on my tone.

  232. I'm Not Phyllis*

    In my last job, my direct supervisor (and the head of the company) and I didn’t get along from day one – I had been there about 2 1/2 years before she got there. I don’t think she knew what my position was actually for (a management position, and I was basically supposed to be her right-hand “man”) so she used me basically as an overpaid admin assistant – I filed stuff and got coffee. Not that I think I’m above that by any means (it just wasn’t my job), so I was doing it while looking for other work. I was looking for something better, so I was taking my time.

    After she was there for about six months we had our AGM which took place in another city. I flew out two days before the meeting (at her request) and flew home the day after. During that time she refused to speak with me (and I was supposed to be her right-hand person) – she wouldn’t answer my calls or my texts or my emails despite the fact that I actually did have some work-related items that she needed to be aware of. We did have one set up but she stood me up – I waited for an hour – and wouldn’t respond to any “where are you?” texts or calls. The only day she acknowledged that I was there was on the second day, when breakfast was late and she wanted me to track it down. So, basically it was four days of travel to be completely ignored, most of which I spent trying to help other staff so that it wouldn’t be a complete waste of time and money.

    When I got home, I knew I needed to get out fast (last straw!), but unfortunately I wasn’t in a financial position to up and quit. As luck would have it I received a job offer (same position with another company) less than two weeks later and resigned immediately after signing my agreement.

  233. Lady in Pink*

    A well known staffing agency placed me in a temp to hire assignment at a small family owned company. I had to share an office with my boss “Darla”, who I quickly discovered had an anger problem. Very small things set her off. For example, one day she yelled at me for 1) not operating the hole punch “properly”; 2) using a green binder clip instead of a black one; and 3) accidentally pushing the wrong button on the printer/copier. I wanted to walk out and quit that day. But, I decided to stick out the temporary portion of the job and then not accept a permanent position if offered. Even though she criticized my toner cartridge changing technique, Darla was happy with the accounting work I was hired to do. It was disappointing because I enjoyed the work, but couldn’t accept a job where I’m yelled at all the time for stupid things. Luckily, Darla’s boss decided to hire his wife for the permanent position and my assignment ended. I was able to move on to the next assignment and a good boss.

    1. xarcady*

      I was once written up for putting paper clips on batches of paper incorrectly, so I feel for you.

      That was the extent of things, but for the two years I remained there, my supervisor would “just happen” to wander over when I was paper-clipping large amounts of paper and make sure that I was putting the paper clips on correctly. (This was in pre-computer in the office days, hence the large amount of paper-clipping of documents.)

      For those who are wondering, the large part of the paper clip needs to be in front, and the smaller part in back, of the bunch of papers that you are holding together.

      1. Jerry Vandesic*

        I have to agree with your boss on this one. We once had a near fatal paper cut tragedy due to a miss-clipping of some very dangerous legal papers. Everything would have been fine if Percy had simply followed our well documented paper clip protocols. I still see the blood when I walk by that conference room.

        1. ConstructionSafety*

          Percy can only be held accountable if he had the four hour paper clip training, watched the video, and passed the test.

          1. Jerry Vandesic*

            That’s the tragic thing about all this. He did go through the full paper clip training session and passed with flying colors. He claims that he was distracted by a coworker who was coughing and loudly blowing her nose, which caused him to reverse the polarity (our internal way of describing miss-clipped paper clips).

      2. Ron Skurat*

        I was once admonished for using two staples instead of one, since of course we small business people are SO opressed by the gubbmint.

  234. Anon Accountant*

    This was a recent final straw that had me almost to the point of walking out. After having 2 surgeries and being out for 6 weeks my boss complained to me about my work not being completed while I was out. I was hospitalized for 11 days and he called me repeatedly while I was off to inquire about “status” of work. Well you are the one in the office and I wasn’t so…

  235. Dirk Gently*

    In my last job, my boss used to travel a lot. One time, we had two grant proposals due while he was away on a two-week trip. Every time we had a grant due, I always asked him for outlines and never got them – instead, everything would come through last-minute.

    This time, I had to come into the office for loooooooong (10 am – 8pm) days on the weekend before the grants were due, having not heard from him for days, and doing my absolute best to guess what he wanted to put into the proposals. At 5pm on the Sunday I got a scathing email about how the last drafts I’d sent him were nowhere near where they should have been, I hadn’t included the diagrams that he wanted (which I didn’t know about), the focus was wrong, etc.

    I literally almost walked out never to return. I put my coat on and everything.

    Luckily I decided instead to take a few deep breaths and step out for a coffee. I then came back, sent a polite (that’s “British polite”, i.e. actually extremely passive-aggressively snarky) email pointing out that at no time had he ever told me what the focus of the grants should be and which diagrams should be included. His reply was very neutrally worded and included the information I’d been asking for from the beginning, and we managed to get the grants submitted on time in a form that he found acceptable. The scathing email was never mentioned again.

    He was basically a good guy and we got on fine most of the time, but when he was difficult he was reaaaaally difficult. I’m much happier in my current job!

  236. MadameLibrarian*

    In college, I spent two years working as an electrician for the school’s theaters. My second year, my supervisor left (not sure if fired or resigned or what) and a new person was hired for my third year. He had me go through the application and interview process again, which was annoying but I understood, and proceeded to dick me around for a solid month (and this was a work-study job – thankfully I had another, but it was a solid half my hours I was missing), saying he was “pretty sure” he’d ask me back. Every time I asked him about it he got annoyed, including the leave-me-alone eyebrows. Eventually, when I got a job offer, I accepted but pointed out two hours I was no longer available to work (I hadn’t told him because, see above re: eyebrows). He sent me a super passive-aggressive email retracting the offer and saying he would work out a schedule fix. The next day I was in for some other reason and we got into a disagreement about chair placement in the house (not his area, and one I had more experience in due to house management). He ignored me and did it his way, and I went back to my computer and wrote a resignation email, to which I got no response. Shame, as I really enjoyed that job, but enough was enough.

  237. Seal*

    I have a few:

    At one job years ago, my more than a little inept manager inexplicably got promoted to a different department. I got stuck cleaning up his messes, including taking the lead on a major RFP where he had pretty much dropped the ball. My stepping up covered his boss’s backside, too, and she knew it. Because of my seniority and the fact that I was doing my former boss’s job already, everyone – including me – assumed I’d get his job. Imagine my surprise when the day after the RFP was wrapped up my boss’s boss informed me that she was giving the job to someone else. She didn’t even have the decency to tell me in person, either – she left a voicemail. I quit on the spot.

    At a later job, my boss – a department head – got promoted. He told me repeatedly that I was the only person he was endorsing to take his place. This dragged on for a couple of months. Then one day he called me into his office to tell me that my coworker – who we had previously agreed wasn’t never going to be up to the job – was in fact being made department head because he had a particular degree and I didn’t. Even better – it turns out I was never considered as his replacement in the first place; my boss had been lying to me all along. While I didn’t quit on the spot time, I immediately ramped up my job search and within a few months landed a job that was more or less the same as my boss’s job. Karma got this guy in the end, though – a few years later he was fired for stealing and lying to cover it up.

    At my current job, my last straw moment happened fairly recently; I’ve once again ramped up my job search. Another department head and I were supposed to be collaborating on a project. When I raised concerns about the direction and outcome of said project with my fellow department head, she started withholding information and excluding me from meetings. Since I couldn’t do my job that way and because the outcome of this project will have a far more significant and visible impact on my department than hers, I brought my concerns to our boss. This man, who makes at least twice my salary, got mad at ME because he had to get involved with our project and actually manage his staff. His solution is to let the other department head – who has a long history of this type of behavior and has left a litter of failed projects and angry coworkers in her wake – have her way. For whatever reason, he is more afraid of reining her in than he is of compromising my integrity and that of my department; I suspect it’s due in part to the fact no one has ever quit over this issue. Joke’s on him!

  238. Gigantes*

    We had a PT temp receptionist who everyone disliked. He constantly complained about his job and not having enough to do, would refuse extra work we gave him because it wasn’t part of his assigned tasks, and couldn’t even do his assigned work competently. His primary job was to sit at the front desk and press a button to open a locked door- he couldn’t even do this. He would wander the hallways or “network” with other employees, all the while a bunch of lab techs are ringing a doorbell, locked out of the office. This guy got several complaints from every department in the building.

    When we asked that the admin supervisor find another receptionist, he refused to fire the temp because he “always got to work on time.”

    And now I work elsewhere.

  239. Colorado*

    …was in airport bar for work travel, received a text, text was picture of my back, sitting at bar in the very moment. Nothing else, just a picture of me, from Boss. Never saw him, he never approached me. I froze and did not reply. This was the straw, not the stack.

  240. Boononymous*

    I had been buying media for an agency when 2008 went bust — our CFO hadn’t managed funds well (in media, at least 85% of what you invoice your client is paid out to vendors) and the company happened to lose their credit. And I mean ALL OF THEIR CREDIT. I had to stop buying media on credit and start buying it with cash up front; this isn’t easy to do and essentially created more work for myself, my vendors and our accounting department. Also, since we focused in direct response media, our clients were actually losing leads and paying more for the ones they did get — all around it wasn’t a good scenario.

    I loved the work I did, and there wasn’t another opportunity like it where I live, so I told myself it shouldn’t take more than three years for the company to restore their credit and I should stick it out. Three years of buying media with cash up front is enough to drive anyone mad, but I stayed true to them until they dropped the last straw a little over 3 years later. Mid-2012 I was invited into a meeting with the CFO and a few others, expecting to hear the news that we were out of our “credit hell”… only to learn that it was a meeting to figure out HOW to do it.

    I was furious that no plans were set into action up to this point. I put in my notice the next week without having another job lined up; I just couldn’t be involved with them any more. They were broken in many other ways, but this one just sealed the deal for me — not surprisingly, the company closed its doors at the end of 2013.

  241. Dana*

    Long ago at FirstJob, I worked as a pharmacy clerk at an independent store. I was there for over 5 years (as a teenager!) when the owner retired and we were sold to a local chain. We were a cute neighborhood pharmacy/general store type thing and our staff was super long-term and loyal. The only other person on staff who had been there less years than me was younger than I was and was going on 3 years.

    We were sold to CheapChain because they agreed to keep on all the staff at the same pay rate. First came the little things, like bringing in new products and ditching others. Then they changed our punch clock into a fingerprint scanner so we couldn’t punch each other in and out (?). Then they rearranged the store, which pissed off a lot of elderly regulars. Then they rearranged the pharmacy counter to make it one long big one with a drop off at one end and a pick up at the other (the best part? the store had started with one long pharmacy counter and the handyman/pharmacist had been tasked with cutting a hole in the middle and creating two different sides to improve efficiency). Then of course, no yearly raise like we’d had. I was making $8.42 an hour when minimum wage was $7.25. Then came a big store-wide meeting in the morning, which was unheard of. It fell on a payday and the rumor mill was buzzing that we were all getting pay cuts like other stores had gotten. I vowed to walk out of that meeting and not work my shift if we were getting pay cuts.

    Guess what?

    Retroactive pay cuts!! That paycheck included the two weeks prior at our just-announced-today lower pay rates.

    The CheapChain owner was there, telling us that everyone had to make sacrifices, including himself (gag), so I didn’t have the balls to walk out of the meeting since I didn’t know if I was going to stay in the pharmacy business and he/his family was pretty influential in the area. But as soon as that meeting was over, I told the schedule maker to not put me on the next one.

    It felt so good to “righteously” quit, though none of the higher ups cared. (I already had a second job delivering pizza so I just took on more hours there.)

    Shortly after I left, they started just firing people. My mom had worked there for 16 years and they fired her one Friday because “her services were no longer needed”…and have pretty much had a Help Wanted sign up continuously for the last few years.

    1. KAZ2Y5*

      I’m so sorry. Big Chain Pharmacy is more like that than most people realize. I wish there were more independents around!

    2. Chriama*

      Aren’t retroactive pay cuts illegal though? I guess you wouldn’t have known that (or, given his influence, wanted to press the point). Anyway, I’m glad you got out of that!

    3. Minister of Snark*

      After I left my first “grown up” job , I continued to freelance one task each month because i was one of the few people qualified to do it. I negotiated a price for this task with my boss. About a month after I left, my boss was fired. I continued to freelance and was paid my agreed upon amount until the replacement came on board. My next check was one-third of the agreed-upon fee. I called my new “boss” and asked if there had been an accounting error. He said, oh, no, he decided that my negotiated fee was unreasonable, so he decided to reduce it by 66 percent. Without telling me.

      And when I objected to this, he informed me that I should be happy to continue doing this task at one-third of my agreed upon fee as a service to the client. (Nope) and that there were plenty of people out there that could do it (wrong again) and if I didn’t like it he could replace me within a week. (Hahaha, no.)

      I quit right there. He did not find someone to replace me. The clients I served were supremely pissed.

  242. Anonymousssss*

    I’m excited in a grim, dark way to actually have a story to share. (I don’t know if these will be used in a top ten post, but please don’t share this one because it mentions other people’s stories)

    My first non-temp job out of college was a non-profit going door to door canvassing for money and memberships. The first couple of months were okay, then we got a management change and things got…bad. Gaslighting included “it’s all a numbers thing, if you just get out of your head and speak more normally and don’t get psyched out and let go when people say no and smile more then it will work and people will talk to you.” I would get panic attacks and feel anxiety in the pit of my stomach when I was about to approach a house, and I’m confident people could tell, but we never got any training that wasn’t just “act more natural and don’t worry so much.” Because the people who were successful were good at persuading people of things, they several times talked me out of quitting even though I very much didn’t want to keep trying.

    The sad thing is I didn’t realize how toxic it was, even when I was basically on probation for not bringing enough money, and the last week I was there I was stopped by the cops–even though canvassing is legal there, they told me to stop because they were getting calls about someone soliciting, and said they would arrest me if I knocked on another door. My boss told me I should have gotten arrested and they would have fought it and won. I should have walked out then, but they had to fire me for not bringing enough money and I thought it just wasn’t right for me.

    I later found out that boss had refused to let people with disabilities take a day off from walking around and had told one of my coworkers who got a surprise period to “canvass up a tampon.” Also, for years afterward I’d have bad dreams where I was being forced to try again, even though I didn’t want to. Now I’m on medication for anxiety. Ironically, I’d had treatment then I probably would have done better, but now I can pretty much never do door-to-door or ask strangers for money again, because triggering.

  243. Num Lock*

    Previous job: When they put me in charge of multiple store departments, but told me there was no money for additional department heads, so I got to make $0.40 – $7 less an hour than everyone else with the same level of responsibility. (There were a few people with some serious longevity who made about double what I did, but the base rate for my position was $0.40 higher.) Went home, immediately looked at job listings and saw the posting for my current position.

    Current job: When I realized my manager was much more pleasant to work with and less apt to discipline me if I stopped trying to increase my skills or access training.

  244. Eric*

    I was a teachers assistant at a school for the learning disabled. The teacher left the room in the hands of my equal coworker (except she was union, I was not.) We were in the lowest functioning class. A child with cerebral palsy was having a bad day and tried to bite her. She slammed the girls head on the desk. She screamed..room full of teachers. Big trouble. Every friend I had instantly turned on me when I told the truth (it was self evident anyway and, well, the honest/honorable thing to do.) I was instantly the non-union scab who was scheming to get her fired so I could get in the union. Quit days later.

  245. KAZ2Y5*

    At one pharmacy I worked at (in a galaxy far, far away…) I had one technician who was assigned to help me specifically. One day I came in after 2 days on jury duty and the tech started screaming at me about how lazy I was and how she had to do everything and she was tired of it. I was honestly in shock and had no idea what had even brought this on. I honestly can’t remember much of that day (I have really tried to block it out!) but I do remember my boss talking to me. He told me he was sorry the tech had done that, but that she had been talking to him for a while and that I really was kind of slow. I was still so shook up that I just stared at him and didn’t say a word.
    I honestly don’t think I was slow, or goofing off, or whatever. But I wouldn’t know because my boss apparently didn’t think it was worthwhile actually having a conversation about it. I decided then that I couldn’t trust him to not go behind my back about any issues he might have with me and I started looking for a new job that night.

  246. other rick*

    My last firm was bought by a publicly-traded corporation with lots of funding, and it became clear that all the work I had put into developing myself for promotion from within was for nought as the new management preferred to bring in outside talent and keep technical people in technical roles, while laying off internal QA. My client-facing role was taken away, and my office moved an additional forty-five miles away from my home. The guy management hired for customer service had no interest in servicing them.

    Seeing him dismiss the hard work I had done to keep clients in a shrinking industry was my last straw. I took my core clients and some of the best QA in the industry with me to my new, much closer job.

  247. hnl123*

    Great topic. The last job I had, I quit in 6 months because of a straw on the camel’s back moment.

    Our company president was known to be a bit…. irrational, impulsive…..

    One Monday morning, we come into the office, and the ENTIRE FLOOR of the office is painted blue, including partway up the walls.

    The office furniture like cabinets, doors to the kitchen counters, extra couches for sitting on, were destroyed, and piled in the Big conference room. The conference room, which can hold up to 50 people, was piled to the CEILING with about a hundred garbage bags filled with contents of people’s desks, including their personal items. The only things basically remaining in the office were our desks, chairs, and computers, and phones.

    Oh, and 6 people were laid off/quit.

    We were no longer allowed to use shelves or cabinets, and were forced to pile things on the floor. We weren’t allowed to use mailing labels, or legal pads, or plastic utensils, or splenda or anything.

    It took three grown men THREE days to clear the clutter piled high in the conference room what our president did himself in one weekend.

    I…. quit after that. I didn’t see a future there.

    4. DaveH*

      That boss was almost certainly Bipolar I, and had a full-blown manic episode; AFAIK there’s nothing else quite like that mixture of crazed energy and complete loss of judgement.

      Sometimes bipolars can be fairly successful for a while, because the manic energy can let them do more or less superhuman feats… but then there’s that loss of judgement. Not somebody you want at the top.

  248. AnonPi*

    I worked as an intern for a division in city government that handled the city recycling programs. This included the battery recycling, which involved us going around town to pick up batteries from bins placed in stores (stinky, smelly, covered in food/ice cream/bugs you name it, batteries). And one of my tasks was to carry, pick up, 50-60 pound buckets of batteries to sort through them before shipping them off. Well one day when I was supposed to go into work in the afternoon after class, I had the misfortune of having an accident on a field trip resulting in me injuring my arm – literally could not feel it, move it, nothing. So I called and told the director (it was just a 3 person office) that I didn’t think I’d be able to come in today and work because I had hurt myself, and my main task that day was to sort batteries and I couldn’t pick up the buckets. I got chewed out from one end to the other, told I was irresponsible, badgered about coming in, etc. I was near tears, so I offered to come in (even though I could. not. feel. my. arm.) if I could do office work or something. Instead I got a smart ass reply to nevermind it’d be a waste of time and they weren’t going to pay me to do nothing. Oh and then some time later, I needed a second part time job to make ends meet, and the recycling coordinator guy had offered to give me a reference. Except then he purposefully gave me a bad reference (to a very important may have been career changing internship) because he was afraid I’d quit and that was his way of making me stay. Needless to say all my fellow class mates noticed a difference in my attitude when I quit, I was so much better off.

    Now I find myself in a similar position at current job – I’m miserable, and don’t like myself when I’m here. I’d been looking for a new job the last few years anyways, but last straw though was my supervisor making fun of my weight in front of coworkers. I told my former supervisor who was still hoping I’d get hired on (I’m a subcontract), that I wouldn’t take it if it meant staying under this team leader. It’s not worth my sanity and health.

  249. Dasha*

    Hmm, my two bartender stints in college were awful. One was a really small bar, a friend called me and said someone had just quit and they were desperate. I think his mom knew the manager/owner or something?. I said I would come in and help out and see how it went. I meet the manager and the first thing she says is something like you’re young why are you coming in here on a Saturday night? How will I know you won’t flake out? I was like, well, I’ve been a bartender before I understand how it works. Why wouldn’t I want to work the weekend that’s the best time to work. I had a food handlers and server permit with me so I was able to start right away. I told the manager I had to take a medication (pill) 3x a day by mouth or my blood pressure would go out of control and I would pass out. I told her I could just take my purse to the restroom and do this or I could do really quickly behind the bar BUT I absolutely had to take this at a certain time to maintain my blood pressure. Every time I would try to go to the bathroom she would come up for some excuse for me not to like go do this, go make nachos, and every time I would open my mouth to protest she would be like and do it NOW. Finally, while I’m trying to choke down my medication she’s yelling at me for drinking (water) behind the bar. I calmly remind her, I WILL PASS OUT if I do not take this pill due to my medical condition and I’ve been trying to take it for 30 minutes now I can’t wait any longer!

    Then she expected me to run to each table as soon as a patron put out a cigarette and clean their ashtray, OK kind of crazy but if that’s what she wanted so be it. She then said NO EMPTY glasses, if someone is half way empty ask them if they want another drink. Uh, the way it was laid out people could easily come to the bar and order another drink if they were out. BUT whatever so I go around asking and whatnot one man who has an empty drink says he’s fine but he’d like to keep his drink and munch on the ice so please don’t take his glass. I said sure and go back to the bar she then starts yelling at me and pointing to his table, HE HAS AN EMPTY GLASS YOU DIDN’T CHECK ON HIM YOU ARE LAZY BLAHBLAH. I started to explain that hey, he doesn’t want another drink right now and actually you can’t force drinks on people and you can only legally serve them so many but I realized she was insane so I said some choice words and grabbed my things and left. No wonder she had been left shorthanded, I’m pretty sure anyone else would have been thankful for someone to come in right away/last minute to help out.

    Second bar, the owner would never let anyone take off work, even if you were dying. One girl came in with a 101 fever once. A few months later, I think I ended up with pneumonia and was in the hospital. I think my mom had to call in for me because I was so ridiculously sick. He said if I couldn’t come in then I was fired. He was such a jerk too when I went to go pick up my food handler’s card and final check.

    Let’s see, I also worked at an insurance agency for like two months(?) it was also summer in college before I was leaving for grad school. It was a part time, minimum wage job, and they never paid me on time- my check had been late every time even though I hadn’t been there very long. Any way a hurricane hit my area and we all had to evacuate. I fled to a city three hours away. They wanted me to come before my area was cleared so I just quit. There was no electricity, some people didn’t have water, no stores were open, etc. I figured it wasn’t worth it for a part time minimum wage job that I was only going to be at maybe a few more weeks.

    I’ve worked A LOT of crazy places. I think the older I get they’re still crazy but just not as bad. I really wish workers in America had a little bit more protection…

    1. Ron Skurat*

      Jeeze Louise what state do you live in that they can get away with this? I must be spoiled; in CT, MA, and CA the DOL would be in their face with no delay.

  250. xprgirl*

    My straw that broke the camel’s back was my first job out of college and my boss told me to made copies of all the press clippings we got for an event we did publicity for. It was clear that she wanted it done that day. I worked on that project until almost midnight.

    The next day, exahausted but proud of myself, I was called into my boss’s boss’s office and taken to task for working 6 1/2 hours of overtime the night before. My boss swore up and down that she had NOT told me to stay. Boss’s Boss “generously” decided to pay me overtime for half of the time I’d worked. 24 years later, it still sticks in my craw that my boss just sat there and lied right to my face like that.

  251. Elizabeth West*

    I have a couple:

    I was hired at The Helljob Family Business to schedule a service they offered and work reception one day a week, which the receptionist had off. I ended up doing it 3-4 times a week because receptionist would call in sick, her back hurt, etc. She did this because she did not want to work with Evil Coworker on the sales floor. This person would bitch at you, yell at you, gaslight you, and treat you like crap. I heard she bullied a brand-new salesman so badly that he walked off the job in tears after three days. I literally could not even do my own job when at the desk, because the computer up there didn’t have all the software. So I sat there and did homework. My boss didn’t care.

    One day Evil’s daughter called and I put her on hold so I could find Evil (I had instructions to fetch her if family called, even if she was with a customer). Before I could do anything, the daughter hung up. She called back later and I transferred her. After the call, Evil came over to me and in front of a customer, loudly berated me for hanging up on her daughter. I quietly told her that I do not hang up on people, that her daughter had hung up and was not even on hold for a full minute, and that I did not want her to speak to me that way again. She backed down and was decent to me for about two days.

    But by then, I had decided to leave–I wasn’t doing the job I had been hired to do, and NO job was worth being treated like that. There were other crap things going on with my boss, who talked about people behind their backs and complained all day about her baby weight (she had a toddler) while constantly eating snack foods and illegally ripping DVDs on my computer, but overall, the job just sucked. So I quit a few days later and then soon after I found Exjob, where I worked for six years.

    ———–

    The other was a job in an accounting office where I was hired by a husband/wife team of owners to man the front desk. They told me part of my duties included doing some personal stuff for their large local church–just envelope stuffing, and occasionally sorting materials for Sunday School, etc. I was familiar with the church; it had a good music department and I knew the pastor’s daughter. I didn’t mind that at all.

    After I was hired, I was told I had to do a client company’s payroll, despite having no experience or knowledge of any accounting (and you know about my dyscalculia). As if this weren’t bad enough, on my third day, the wife screamed at me for stamping a check with the wrong stamp (a mistake I offered to rectify by going back to the bank). She didn’t want me to; she just screamed at me.

    I went to her husband and quit on the spot. He was very nice and tried desperately to get me to stay, but I told him no, I couldn’t really do the payroll thing (and wasn’t qualified to anyway), and that I did not want to be treated like that. He said it would never happen again, and I said, “Even once is too much. I’m sorry, but no.” I felt bad about letting him down because he was nice.

    They gave me a paper paycheck for the time I had worked and the wife wrote on it, “Come back and see us.” OH HAIL NO.

  252. Chris*

    I went to my manager for a one-on-one. I sat down and flat out told him that I liked my job, felt engaged, enjoyed the work, and enjoyed the company. I told him that while I was good with where I was now, a few years down the road I may want to change my role in the organization, so I wanted to start exploring some options and prepare myself for the future. He responded “you are great at your role right now, one of the best I have ever seen, and that is where you are going to make all your money in this organization. You should keep doing what you are doing for the rest of your career.”

    I had a job interview the following month, followed up shortly by an offer. I took a paycut, but the long-term prospects were so much better, I didn’t even think twice.

  253. MeUnplugged*

    I am a woman, my boss at the time is a man. He gave me feedback to wear makeup and do my hair. Now, I am not some dirty, unkempt, wild-haired person. My hair is always clean and brushed, but no, I don’t put it in buns, or french twists or spend an hour a day on it. And I don’t wear makeup. I never really learned how, and so the few times that I do wear it, I always feel weird and self-conscious. Plus, ain’t nobody got time for that.

    But really, it was the fact that he wanted me to look pretty (he didn’t say that, but you’ll have to trust me it was his intent) that 1) made me immediately lose all respect for him and 2) realize I had to start looking for a job where my appearance did not impact my performance. I am not a model or an actress, and my face does not impact the quality of my work or my ability to do my job.

    That guy was a sexist jerk.

    1. Alice*

      Oh man, that sucks. Reminds me of a preliminary phone interview I had once. The first question he asked me was “You wear makeup, right?”. The second was “What kind of outfits do you think you’ll be wearing to work?”

      1. Pineapple Incident*

        AAAAAND that’s roundabout time to whip out “Well I think you and I are pretty far apart on what matters to the substance of this role, so I’m going to withdraw my application. Thank you for your time! *click*”

  254. Anon4This*

    1) Veterinary technician job – we were severely understaffed, so it was often a looooong day to get all the hospitalized patients treated, daily procedures done, and remote calls made. I frequently chose to stay in the hospital and care for the hospitalized patients rather than go as an extraneous person on remote calls. At my first review, I was told that people weren’t sure that I was particularly interested in the animals, because I wasn’t going out on calls. Clearly it made more sense for me to go out and stand around at a call than be back at the hospital ACTUALLY CARING for patients.

    2) Different vet tech job – I took this one to get away from the previous one. Coworkers turned out to be very cliquey, and I am NOT a cool kid. Ever. So I felt ostracized, not to mention the overall hospital morale was abysmal. At the departmental Christmas party, my boss handed out ornaments to each member and gave a little spiel about what made each of us special. When she got to me, she said I was “A world-champion sigher! Give us a demonstration!” Somehow that was all she had learned about me in 4 months. Also, when I mentioned that I wasn’t a huge fan of beginning to play Christmas music all day every day starting on December 1st, I was told that “that makes us think that you don’t like us”. And the coworker who, on a daily basis, explained how I was wrong about $THING that I actually had a lot of knowledge about – for instance, the degenerative hereditary disease that runs in my family. She was shocked that I thought I would know more about the thing that killed my aunt than she did from watching a Nova episode.

  255. Tilly W*

    In my mid-twenties, I was super excited to get a job at a Fortune 500 company. Shortly after starting, my director (and boss) had surgery resulting in pretty serious pain drugs. She insisted on working while on these drugs (months after the surgery and before I realized she had a prescription drug habit) proposing terrible ideas and tasking me to carry them to completion. She was a strict yogi and had to make her 5:30 class every day, which meant at 4:55 she would saunter over to my desk and unload her unfinished projects for the day, asking if “I could stay a few extra minutes.” In reality, I would be there hours after she left on average, basically doing all her work. I too wanted to work out in the evening but after a one-hour commute each way, that wasn’t going to happen and I gained 20 pounds of stress/irritation/can’t get to the gym weight.

    The day before she left on a week-long yoga retreat, she went over some projects that I needed to carry through while she was out (at 4:55 when she was on her way out). She worded one task as a simple post to the company intranet announcing a new website. The next day the supposed website link didn’t work so I contact IT to troubleshoot the issue and find out the website was never created, she had never created content, asked a developer to build it out etc. The website simply didn’t exist. So I called her to clarify because this was a deliverable that she had promised to our senior management. The end result? I was put on a PIP for not following directions and not following through on directions! Mind you, I had sat in several meetings where she had talked about all this work she had been doing on the site, when she had nothing. I think my PIP was her excuse of why the website wasn’t done. I should mention our group VP was terrified of her after it came out that she had sued a former employer and got a healthy payout. So really she got away with anything. The PIP was the straw after I had worked late almost every night to enable her to go to yoga.

    Wow, this was a ramble but therapeutic. And it must have been the prescription drugs because she is a great reference for me.

  256. Alex*

    I was a grants manager for an arts organization, and my manager took a few days off for personal travel (he was gone maybe Tuesday through Thursday). During that time, I wrote a very long grant proposal that was a new concept for our organization (as in, close to 15 pages of new text about the artists we were going to work with, the concept for the performances, and none of it was something I had written before). I finished before he came back and started working on the next grant in my list. When he came back, he told me that he wasn’t sure what I had spent my time working on, and that sometimes he felt like I wasn’t working for him, I was “working against” him. It was the last in a long line of WTElfery that was the point that I knew I had to get the heck outta dodge. Luckily I moved on shortly after, and I’ve been happy ever since.

  257. Scuttlebutt*

    Geez…I suppose I had some college jobs that were rough. lol The two that immediately come to mind:

    1. I worked for a branch of a large corporate organization. I came back from vacation (a couple of days before Christmas) and my paycheck BOUNCED. When I confronted my manager, he screamed at me and said I was lying and to get my bank on the phone because they had been mistaken. Of course, my bank, in no uncertain terms, said it had bounced due to lack of funds. He screamed at the poor banker lady. Once we got off the phone he said I was forbidden to speak to corporate and that he’d pay me part of it in cash and figure out the rest later. (This wasn’t the first time checks were messed up and he’d tried this before) When I said I wasn’t comfortable with that (yet again) he flipped out on me and said, “Then what are you accusing me of?!” I said, “I don’t know but it sounds like something is making you feel a bit guilty. I don’t want to be a part of this.” And walked out.

    2. I worked at a law firm very briefly and part of my job was to run some errands so there was soda, water, plates, etc. for clients. I had an inbox that the attorneys could leave requests for something specific. One day, there was a note scrawled on a paper plate that said, “This plate is too small for my sandwich. Buy bigger plates.” The same day (or very shortly after), one of the partners called me to his office saying I obviously needed some guidance and a checklist of things to do since there had been a complaint that the swizzle sticks in the conference room were low during one meeting.

    I quit the next day. At least I laugh about it now (and still have the pictures to prove it!).

  258. Bend & Snap*

    Hmm hard to say.

    When my boss told me nobody in the office liked me?

    When he took four months to approve my vacation, then told me I was taking too much too close together and that if I wanted to get promoted, I’d cancel it–and then didn’t promote me?

    When he slammed his hands on my desk so hard he rattled the walls because he was throwing a temper tantrum about something a client did?

    When he screamed at me in front of the entire office over a problem he’d been neglecting to address?

    The first one got me casually job searching, the last one got me the F out two months later.

  259. Leah*

    My boss told me that he was going to bomb my daycare center so I could get my mind back on work. This was on my first day back from maternity leave and the first day my 10 week old daughter had been in anyone’s care but mine. I decided that he he wasn’t really just an exceptionally demanding boss with a difficult personality; at that moment I began to realize he was possibly a sociopath.

      1. Artemesia*

        If he had said that to me, I would have been the ‘wrong person he said it to.’ I would have had the FBI on the phone the second he walked out of my office

    7. The Department of Terrestrial Magnetism*

      *sigh* no, no, no … The boss is a serious jerk – although I’ve been reading all of these stories straight through and compared to some of the other bad behavior described, I think he’s about a 4/10 – but turning someone in to the cops over a stupid and frivolous ‘threat’ is not the way to go here. Personally I’d favor an immediate response along the lines of looking him in the eye and saying “Only a huge asshole would say that.”

      Your mileage may vary. And yeah, sure, if you *REALLY* thought he might try to plant a bomb, call the cops. But this guy was just being an ass.

      1. Leah*

        It was pre-9/11 so the climate was different and making bombing and terrorist jokes wasn’t the offense that it is today. Once my daughter was born and my priorities changed, I began making major changes to be able to stay home with her. It took two years, but we did it. I left in 2001 shortly before my son was born. I went back to school while my children were little and switched fields entirely.

        On the other hand, I was still working there on 9/11 and he was extremely irritated with us for being horrified and watching the news all day. He was not a US-born citizen and had lived many places, and told us terrorism was no big deal and many countries dealt with it all the time. I know that sadly that is true, but the day I feel that terrorism, no matter where it is, is no big deal, is the day I hope someone tells me I’ve turned into a giant ass.

        He still works there and has gone on to offend, demean and ridicule many others, but he produces sales so that’s all that matters. I’m just glad I broke free. I hear from a former co-worker who is still there from time to time. Some of the stories she has hold me make me wonder if he is sane.

  260. Colleen*

    I worked as a receptionist in a high end hair salon. Every day, we would print out tickets for all the scheduled clients. They listed the services the client was scheduled to have and the price. If the stylist or colorist needed to add another service, they would write it in along with the price and return the ticket to us before the client checked out. After we checked the client out, we would rip up the ticket and throw it away. One time, the owner’s assistant forgot to add a $350 haircut to a client’s ticket so she wasn’t charged for it when she checked out. The owner, who was a really unpleasant and reactionary person, came over and either explicitly told me I was stupid or implied it. We had already torn up the ticket so we had no way to prove the haircut hadn’t been added it. The owner gave me another ticket and made me read the entire thing out loud to her to ensure I could do it correctly in the future. My co-receptionist knew that I was in the right so from then on, we stopped ripping up the tickets and kept them until everyone had been paid for those services. Up until then, the stylists and colorists would blame us if they felt we had made a mistake, but after we started saving the tickets, we were able to show proof that we had done exactly what they asked us to do. After that, there wasn’t a single time we pulled out a ticket and found ourselves in the wrong.

  261. HM in Atlanta*

    When my boss showed up at the funeral home after my dad died, to tell me that I had a lot of work left on my desk.

  262. brownblack*

    Kind of a long story but it feels good to type it, now that I’m out of this situation.

    For about 4 years I was development director for a community organization, with its own executive director, that was housed at a university; the executive director reported to the University President. The ED was an extraordinarily dramatic person with a short temper; he would scream and scream when he didn’t get his way.

    We had a few times of year that were demanding on the staff (12+ hour work days for weeks in a row). One day during one of these times, one of our top donors (like, multiple millions of dollars) called me very concerned; evidently my boss had blown up at him because the donor was VERY KINDLY hosting an event for us and the ED was upset that the donor had invited someone the ED didn’t like. (This is the kind of nonsense I had to deal with all the time.)

    While I was on this phone call, the ED theatrically comes to my door and demands to see me. I hang up and go into his office thinking he’s going to want to talk about this issue. Instead, he immediately starts screaming – I mean, SCREAMING – because I had written talking points for the University President to address attendees at some event and I hadn’t specifically included a point acknowledging the contribution of my ED.

    I was dumbstruck (though not surprised), white as a sheet, and could hardly catch my breath. I turn around, open his door, and right there at the door is the donor I had JUST been on the phone with, who I’m supposed to take to coffee and talk down from his anger at my ED. I realized at that EXACT moment, once and for all, that the ED was a force for destruction in my organization more than for good, and I had a new job about 8 weeks later.

    1. brownblack*

      I should add that this was at least the 25th time he had screamed at me this way. This was also a couple weeks after he did my first performance review in almost 3 years and filled it with absurdly negative details. I was in the middle of formally contesting it with the university when I got a new job and left.

  263. Red*

    I found out that my role was being redefined to include tax management work I had previously been barred from doing; giving me the correct system access would have required a title change (a promotion). The particular work is all about accurately analyzing foreign nationals’ tax status and observing our international tax treaty obligations. Upper management was unwilling to give a promotion (and the concomitant raise). Their solution was redefining my present entry-level role to triple my duties without raising my paygrade or changing my title. Now I have an untenable amount of work and very little time in which to master the new duties I’ve been assigned.

    I was also pulled into my manager’s office along with a (now transferred) co-worker who was not pulling her weight in the office. We were both lectured about evenly sharing work and lambasted for missed deadlines, then dismissed. When my co-worker left for lunch, my manager called me into her office and told me that the previous talk hadn’t been meant for me because she knew I had been doing my best to pick up the slack, but she had to lecture both of us for fairness’ sake.

    Everything else would be too identifiable, alas, but starts falling down the personal safety rabbithole.

    1. Slimy Contractor*

      “Had to lecture you both for fairness’ sake”??!!??? What’s fair about getting lectured for someone else’s shortcoming!!??!!!???
      (My punctuation should give away my feelings on this.)

      1. Jenna*

        Oh, I guess I have a story like this, too.
        When I was young and in college, I found a summer work study position in Tennessee at a craft school, many states from where I live. Mostly it was fun, and an excellent opportunity to experience a completely different place.
        However, at one point the person in charge of all of us work study folk called us in for a meeting and yelled at us for something that had been not completed that weekend. It had not been something that I was involved in, but, we ALL got yelled at. I’d been having a rougher week(first time away from home on my own plus a few other things), and, I looked around the room and realized that the people who needed to be listening to the long and loud rant looked like they were not even listening. Our boss was an ex drill sergeant, so, ignoring him took some talent. I came to the conclusion that this would happen again, and I wasn’t going to be able to fix it.
        So, I quit.
        The boss did say that the yelling wasn’t aimed at me, and that I was doing fine, so, I suggested that maybe he didn’t need to yell at me. I still wasn’t staying. I went to visit my brother in Alabama for a bit and then flew back home.

  264. leftie*

    A supervisor in one of my first jobs once gave me a profoundly unfair performance review where I was accused of not having completed the objectives of my position, which led to my explaining everything I had done to surpass them (highly technical field, protein purification – I was expected to optimize the protocol for 3 proteins in a collection of different viral strains and I managed to purify 9, before the deadline); to make matters worse, once he realized he would not get me to grovel, he started sexually harassing me. In the conference room, doors closed. The lab members were only the two of us and HR did nothing on account of his stellar reputation with his peers. I still stuck out for the remaining month of the contract and then I bailed overseas.

    1. Steve G*

      I didn’t pick up you weren’t native, the only error was that you “stick out something.” There is no “for” in there. The last sentence should be “I still stuck out the remaining month…” But that’s it.

      – Former ESL teacher

      1. Steve G*

        You usually add an “it” in there, like many English phrases. i.e. “to stick it out.” “I stuck it out.” “I stuck it out for another week….”

        1. leftie*

          Exactly, that’s what I meant (I’m a Portuguese native speaker). Thanks, Steve G and VideogamePrincess, for the empathy and correction!

    2. VideogamePrincess*

      Didn’t notice a thing. Sounds like you are a competent person who had a terrible, unfair boss.

  266. Abby*

    I was working at a small, healthcare non profit as the executive director. One day I was working in the clinic when a dentist passed by me and said, “You need to get a man to do that for you.” When I glared at him, he said, “well I just mean so you can protect your hands for typing.” When I later complained to the board I was told that he and other dentists “hated women” but that there was nothing they could do.

  267. Mary (in PA)*

    Mine would absolutely have to be the time I got pressured to come back to work less than a month after having brain surgery…combined with when I found out that the company was paying the lease on the company president’s brand-new, bright red, meticulously maintained and detailed Audi.

    The whole situation made me realize that no matter what I did, I would never be part of the old-boy upper management team, despite actually being hired at that level; I would never have an actual marketing team to manage, so I would be expected to do the job of about five people at once; and that none of my ideas for improvement would ever be implemented, much less taken seriously by anyone who could do anything about them.

    (I got fired about three months later, after the company owner ordered me to illegally add people to our marketing email lists without their consent and I refused to do it. All things considered, this was actually the best outcome that I probably could have hoped for.)

  268. nerfmobile*

    At my first professional job (about 20 years ago) I was working in computing support for a department at a major university. It had been a dysfunctional situation for a while, mostly director pitched against staff. About 6 months previously the director had hired an old friend of his who had been having a rough time – going through a bad divorce, but also [the rest of the staff was firmly convinced] in the midst of a major cocaine problem. She had sporadic attendance, was dazed a lot of the time, and generally not very functional. The director had recently decided to do a job rotation, and I had essentially switched roles with this co-worker, going from supporting the student computing lab to supporting faculty. I wasn’t thrilled about the switch, but was looking forward to spring break and going a conference I’d been long anticipating. I gave my co-worker the directions for what she would need to do to refresh the lab over break – nothing too complicated, mostly a lot of re-installing software, and mentally washed my hands of the work – it was her job now. And then about a week before spring break, the director comes by and tries to guilt-trip me into staying home from the conference so I could support my co-worker in case she had “problems”. I don’t respond well to guilt-tripping, so I spent the day telling my manager and the director that if they wanted to tell me not to go to the conference, I wouldn’t go, but I was not going to “voluntarily” agree to stay home in order to support my drugged-out co-worker in work she should be fully capable of doing for a role that I was officially no longer responsible for.
    So, end result, I didn’t go to the conference. Co-worker managed to do the work without needing my help. And I spent the week sitting at my desk writing my resume. I started a new job 6 months later, and it was like my leaving opened the spigot on that department – by a year or so after I left, another 6 people (out of 13 or 14) had found new jobs too.

  269. Sparty07*

    The straw(s) that broke my camels back was a change in our Controller. The new one decided to make changes to our set processes that our system would not support. These included new data the system was never designed for, multiple iterations of forecasts with very minor tweaks (which required 1-1.5 days each iteration to complete), lack of appreciation of extended works hours, the outsourcing of most lower level accounting and finance jobs to a 3rd party in India, and no job growth at all.

  270. WT*

    I rarely comment and mine is not as grand as others, but at a previous job I realized I had to leave after a coworker lunch where we all discussed our favorite places to cry during the day from the stress.
    (FYI, I liked my coworkers it was mgt that was driving me out)

  271. Anonymous for now*

    When I found out one of my supervisors went against company policy by giving extra teaching shifts to someone with lower seniority, and lower evaluation scores (I know because they’d been complaining about them), lower improvement numbers (I know because mine are the highest in my subjects), AND who liked to brag about how little they actually taught. The supervisor just likes them better. That’s when I started looking hardcore.

    Then I tried to negotiate a pay raise this summer. The staff member I dealt with was sympathetic and said he’d go to bat for me but then never followed up. When I pressed it he told me that it wasn’t going to happen, and I shouldn’t approach the head of the company about it because he viewed it as a “silly complaint.” It was almost a relief to finally get such a slap in the face because if they had given me the raise I’d have felt conflicted, even guilty, about leaving. Now: noooope.

    I’m still at the company but I’ve had a few interviews. (Just got offered another one an hour ago!)

  272. Gmac*

    This was my first job out of uni and I felt so grateful someone hired me…. Never again

    The straw that broke the camels back moment

    – it should have been when I mentioned we needed more stamps and he peels two off and stuck them on my chest.
    – it should have been when he called the office to swear or scream at me down the phone.
    – it should have been when I mention he shouldn’t use his phone when driving and he said “my phones between my legs where you’d like to be”.
    – instead it was after his manager and him tried to manage me out to cover up a mistake he made.

    They failed I won, they then had to pretty much promote me.. And I walked out with my head held high to a better position and vowed ….. Never again. P

    2. Manderly*

      Wow. I’m sorry you experienced that sexual harassment. I’ve been the recipient of nasty comments like that. It’s horrible.

  273. Anonymous in the South*

    In high school (early 90’s), I worked at a national “fish-n-chips” restaurant that was less than a mile from my house. I was hired the day I applied and I immediately got a creepy vibe from the manager, but wanted to get a job so I could get a car. The manager was married but he blatantly sexually harassed all the female employees, including us high school girls. He remarked about our height, weight, hair, breast size, etc- you get the picture. When he was teaching you something, such as the register or fryer or whatever, he would stand behind you, pressed up against you and he made sure to “wiggle” a little bit. The female assistant manager knew and saw all this but never said anything or attempted to help us. Honestly, I think she was glad she was getting a break from it, so just let it happen.

    One weekend night, the manager made me stay late and re-mop the dining room floor, saying I hadn’t done it correctly. After everyone else left (one guy offered to stay and help- it was clear he did not want to leave me there with the manager, but he had been in some legal trouble before and needed the job and the manager asked if he needed to “make a call”) and I had finished re-mopping, he motioned me in the office. He explained to me that his wife was pregnant and too far along to have sex with him. He said I was a pretty girl and was “nice” to him, he would give me raise and better shifts. Being a stupid, naive teenager, I asked what he meant. He said I had to give him bj’s (his exact words were suck his d**k) and have sex (his exact word was f**k) him so he wouldn’t have to go “without” until his wife was recovered. I said I couldn’t do that because he was married. He told me to think about it and think about if I wanted to keep my job.

    I called in and quit over the phone the next day.

      1. Anonymous in the South*

        That was by far the worse job I ever had. After I quit, I found out that he was regularly requesting these things from other female employees. I think the female assistant manager was “servicing” him on a regular basis due to couple of incidents where you would come in for work but couldn’t sign in because the office door was closed & locked, then in a while you would both of them come out of the office at the same time and head to the restrooms.

    2. Victoria*

      When I was in high school the first thing I would have done is told my dad about that. Manager would have had bigger problems than a pregnant wife when my dad found out.

  274. Erin*

    When a board member’s wife came storming in my office, pissed about my not liking her company on Facebook via my company’s Facebook page…screamed in my face that I was “a little bitch” and “just a secretary,” among other things. I said barely anything in response, not wanting to engage or dig myself into a hole.

    My boss, the president of the company, witnessed this exchange but did nothing to intervene. He literally looked at the floor and let her tantrum continue on, later saying he “didn’t want to get in the middle of a cat fight.”

  275. SmallTownReporter*

    When I was in college, I worked at an Ulta for about three years. I loved that job when I started, but after the first year our wonderful, amazing manager moved to a different store and it all went downhill. There were lots of little things leading up to this (increasingly nitpicky dress code changes, increased monitoring from corporate about sales numbers and rewards cards signups, etc). The last straw for me was after working for minimum 30 hours a week, every week for months, with only a few days off, I requested a weekend off to attend my friend’s wedding out of state. I actually only needed to ask for Saturday off as I wasn’t ever scheduled on Sundays, but I requested both days off just to be safe. My time off gets approved, and I come in to work at the end of the week before my time off.
    They’d only scheduled me for five hours for the whole week. I asked my new manager about it, and was told that because I’d asked for time off, she just wasn’t able to find any hours for me, so maybe I shouldn’t take so much time off in the future.
    !!!!!
    Keep in mind, I hadn’t requested any time off from this job in well over 5 months, the only days off I got were because I wasn’t scheduled. And after more than 20 hours a week for months, coming in early, making great sales numbers etc, the one time I request ONE DAY off, I get five freaking hours!! I turned around and walked straight out the door. That’s the only time I’ve ever walked out on a job, but man did it feel good.

  276. AdAgencyChick*

    When my boss gave me the stinkeye for wanting to go to my physical therapy appointment instead of flying to Chicago to attend a one-hour meeting in person.

    I canceled the PT appointment because I was afraid for my job. Then the client canceled the meeting, and I couldn’t get my appointment back. I was already looking around at that point, but that most definitely accelerated my search. (And resigning felt SO GOOD!)

  277. Nonprofit Woes*

    When at my old nonprofit, our Board of Directors hired an Executive Director who had applied previously to be a Program Assistant. For the record, I was in charge of hiring the Program Assistant, and felt as though the candidate wasnt qualified to even be a PA. 4 months later, she applied and got the job of Executive Director. I left pretty quickly because it was evident from day 1 that we werent going to get along, and found out from old coworkers that she got fired 8 months later for running the organization into the ground.

    1. JGray*

      Are you talking about where I used to work? :) Kidding the incompetent person that they hired there was a male. And from what I now all the dazzling things that he was supposed to be good at which got him the job over the other applicant he has yet to do one of them.

      1. Artemesia*

        Twice we had people who were hired for our department who were good at and committed to X but someone really really wanted to hire them so pushed the idea that they would contribute to our X but they ‘could do Y.’ (which was related.) Of course each time the Xers sucked up the time of the new person and the critical function Y was left in the lurch. I was on the team trying to hire for Y.

        That is why the first thing I say when working on a hiring team is ‘People don’t do what they ‘can do’, they ‘do what they do.’ This is particularly true in a complex organization where people will bleed off good resources if you aren’t careful.

  278. Macedon*

    Previous job: when I caught one of our illustrious leaders calling a company under a fake name to ask after an employee who’d left the publication half a year ago. I later heard this manager had, over time, been ringing around all our competitors and related publications to get a feel for where this previous employee was working now, so he could badmouth him to his new employer and purposefully get him fired. For the record, said employee’s cardinal sin had only been that of daring to resign from the Titanic after holding a prominent role, which was apparently a Grievous Slight.

    When I resigned days later, I confronted the manager and let him know I was aware of his practices, and that if he so much as whispered a false word about me to anyone, I’d sue him for defamation. That I’m aware, he never went after me (unsurprisingly, he isn’t one of my references).

  279. Animal Shelter Worker*

    I’m probably too far down to be noticed, but mine happened at a rare time at my shelter when we were overstuffed for the morning cleaning. I was given an area that hadn’t been used for a month or so where some adoptable animals were going to. Considering we had 4 morning people instead of the usual 2 or 3, and my area was a dusty mess, I took great care in getting it spotless. I even wiped the dust off the top of the doorway. Two hours later, I get pulled into the office & scolded by the two leads. Apparently I was supposed to average x minutes per room, including the sidework, and I had averaged 2x minutes, which was unacceptable. This was the first time I’d ever heard of an average cleaning time at all, so I was stunned. Then I got commended about how I had done such a thorough job & I should do that all the tine. So, clean like an overly caffeinated hummingbird on cocaine, but deep clean all the things perfectly. This was after months of confusing & conflicting instructions, so I knew it was useless to say anything. I just nodded.

    I had a new job 3 months later.

    1. The Cosmic Avenger*

      I’m probably too far down to be noticed…

      Nope! I’m working my way through every comment here (by bookmarking the comment link where I leave off), and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

      And I’m glad you got out of there. One recurring theme is that the good workers usually seem to jump ship at places like that, and sometimes they even implode! It almost is enough to give me hope for humanity. :’-)

  280. JGray*

    I worked for a nonprofit that held a big fundraiser each year. The person who had done it for years and actually developed it into what is was left for another job that better suited her professional and personal goals in life. We had to hire someone and the person we did turned out to be not very good at fundraising. She was the type that could give all the right answers in an interview but when it came down to actual work not so much. She was told on multiple occasions by multiple people that she would have to work with me and I was the person that knew the most about the fundraiser. She refused to work with me for some reason. I had multiple conversations with our supervisor about her refusal to work with me and nothing changed. Then when I actually brought it up in a meeting with both her & our supervisor- she denied that it had occurred and he took her side. I’m not say that there was anything going on between them but I had to wonder due to his quickness to take the side of a 3 month employee over a 5+ year employee. She quit shortly thereafter probably because she 1) didn’t know how to fund raise and 2) I was not going to work with her again and I was the person who know about all of the fundraising activities of the organization. It took about 5 months for me to find another job after this incident but I defiantly amped up my job search after that.

  281. Shay*

    I spent weeks writing a process – which was a major part of my job. I sought feedback from team members, I used frameworks to align everything and ran through scenarios to make sure it was fit for purpose. I demonstrated how it was going to save the teams using it potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars and reduce overhead wasted on the poor existing process. I wrote a presentation for the manager of the teams, sat and went through it for half an hour.

    At the end of half an hour, he turned to me and said “I don’t like what you do. I don’t think you have value. I don’t think your team has any place in this organisation. And you’ve just wasted your time because I’m not going to use this.”

    Started looking for another job the same day. It was soul crushing.

  282. Rebecca in Dallas*

    First job ever, working retail. My manager didn’t come back from her lunch break, turns out she had gotten arrested for shoplifting in a department store down the mall.

    Another retail job, this one in a high-end boutique. Our HR manager told me (after my store manager got let go), “I’m not even sure I’ll be working here a year from now.” She actually got fired as well before I got out.

  283. Kat M.*

    Working in a church-based preschool, the assistant director was an older church lady with an oversized amount of pull in that particular community, which is how she got the position. She was also incredibly racist.

    Since all of the dolls in my room were white, I asked the director several times if we could order some dolls showing different ethnicities. She finally did, and when the assistant director came into my room and saw them, she immediately picked up the two Asian dolls and started dancing them around, singing “We are Siamese if you please …”

    Noped on out of there pretty quickly after that.

  284. JBean*

    These stories are making me feel better about my current position where I’m getting close to running for the hills!

    I knew I was miserable in my last job when just having my boyfriend ask “how was your day?” would trigger tears, but the moment I knew for sure I couldn’t continue was when the sales manager started screaming from her office about a simple mistake a former employee had made. We could hear her through the walls, as she yelled at us while also writing harsh emails and IMs to me and the other 3 employees in the room demanding that we fix things ASAP. Then, when she felt as though 30 seconds was far too long to wait for an email response, she stormed into our office and screamed “Will someone answer my F#%!ing email?!” and stormed back to her office. Since she took the time to walk in to our office, I’m pretty sure she could have stayed long enough to discuss the issue and a solution… but hey, I’m a bit more of a rational person.

  285. Pennalynn Lott*

    When my boss, the CEO of a mid-size manufacturing software company, who used to do cocaine on his glass-topped desk, recounted a sexual dream he’d had about me the night before in front of a group of about 20 of us. In detail. While leering at me.*

    He went to a meeting and I typed up a letter of resignation and left it on the receptionist’s desk on the way out.

    * (Which, honestly, was probably the least horrible thing he had done in my 6 months at that company. It was just the final straw).

    1. Steve G*

      Huh? Seriously?! I’m pretty jaded and this shocks me, I feel bad this happened and your livelihood was temporarily risked because you basically had to quit. What nitwit this boss was. Urgh. I’d a punched him out if I was there

  286. Bunny Purler*

    For many years, I worked for a large government department in the UK. Our team was highly dysfunctional, due entirely to a colleague who seemed to have some sort of hold over our departmental head. Over the years, our difficult colleague sailed close to the wind a lot, getting drunk at conferences and insulting people, sabotaging the work of others, etc etc. You didn’t want to have him between you and the door in meetings; he used to fly into rages and threaten people. There were no consequences for his actions. Finally we got a boss who called him on his BS. He commenced a campaign to try to get her sacked. Because I got on well with her, I was also in the firing line. Then, I was diagnosed with cancer, and that’s when things got really weird.

    During my chemotherapy treatment, I kept working as much as I could. After my 3rd treatment, I was extremely ill, and didn’t come back for a week. On my return, none of my colleagues would speak to me, nor looked me in the eye when I asked what was wrong. Then our departmental head called me to one side and told me there was to be an official complaint investigation against my boss, which I was also implicated in, and which had been orchestrated by our difficult colleague. I was able to show that the alleged incident had not happened, but having to do that when I was deathly sick from a tough treatment regime was too much. I left that day and was signed off for the rest of my treatment. Our colleague proceded to go completely off the rails, shoved his way into the home of another of the management team and assaulted him. At that point I realised if I didn’t leave, I would be next. Fortunately, voluntary redundancy was on offer and I took it. My exit interview was interesting. The difficult colleague is still there, and still being difficult. He has still suffered no consequences as far as I know.

    1. I'm a Little Teapot*

      I’m glad you got out, and I hope you’re healthy now. But I wonder: how the hell has this person not been fired (or arrested!) after *breaking into a manager’s house and assaulting him*?!

      1. Bunny Purler*

        I am not entirely sure how he stayed employed. The manager (a friend of mine) didn’t want to take it any further, so although the police were involved, it got dropped. HR apparently said that because it happened out of work hours and the two people involved knew one another outside work (they belonged to the same sport club for a while) they couldn’t do anything about it. They tried to blame the manager for giving our colleague his home address, and said nobody from work should be told where you live.

        I never really recovered, but I am not sure I can entirely blame my old job for that. I am just so glad I left.

  287. Alice*

    I worked at a movie theatre back in the day that had a horrible case of bureaucracy. Everything had to go through the national headquarters – minor things like schedule changes as well as hires and terminations. Another woman and I worked there for two years (when most employees left after an average of five months). Anyway, they hired this guy one summer who was super awkward and socially incompetent. Not something I normally judge, but it quickly turned into creepiness. He would follow my fellow long-term female coworker around, telling her how “alluring” she was.

    After a few complaints to management (some of them by me since I witnessed this behavior), they decided to make sure these two never worked shifts together. Imagine her surprise then when my coworker found this creep waiting at her car in a multilevel garage after her late night shifts. Yes, shifts. This happen FOUR times. The first three times, management said they had to get approval from the national HR department to fire the guy. On the fourth time, they said HR wouldn’t approve a termination because this harassment didn’t take place when either employees were clocked in.

    I remember being in the manager’s office that morning at like 1am (we were working together and I had been walking with her to her car lately so I witnessed the guy standing behind her car to scare her). She was crying hysterically, and these three male managers were just nodding their heads. We both left and never went back. They didn’t deserve two-weeks notice.

    1. brownblack*

      This is a larger topic, but I am always utterly dumbfounded when I hear stories about some HR person saying “oh sorry, we can’t fire your boss for sucker punching you, it was after 5pm and you had both left the premises.”

      1. Alice*

        Agreed. There are certainly circumstances in which employee behavior should not be considered outside of work, but there are some in which in absolutely should.

  288. Anon for this*

    Mine was when I got called to the manager’s office to be disciplined for something I didn’t do. I was accused of attacking an employee in another department. The communication went through several people — my manager basically told me, “Alex said that Brian said that Carrie said that you attacked Dan” — and my manager didn’t even bother to ask Dan before disciplining me for attacking him! I had to beg another manager to ask Dan if it was true, and when Dan said that it was completely fabricated and he hadn’t even seen me that day, the disciplinary action was reversed and the documentation was removed from my file, but nobody even apologized to me (or did anything to the people who lied about it). Worse, the rumor of this fabricated incident spread far and wide before it was determined to be a lie, but most people didn’t find out that it was a lie, so from that day forward, many people thought of me as a horrible, scary person who attacked Dan.

    I was terrified when it happened, because I was shocked by how much damage someone could do so easily by making a false accusation. I remember that the day it happened, I sent an e-mail to my boyfriend with the subject, “I’m getting fired,” and continued, “Not today, not tomorrow, but if I stay here, it’s only a matter of time.” And I stuck around for way too long after that — not long enough to get fired, fortunately, but long enough to have more false accusations made against me, and I was even suspended on multiple occasions while the company investigated these accusations.

  289. Anonsb*

    Last straw:

    Ummm, when I had to jump in & restrain a supervisor (not mine) from physically assaulting a colleague? And then had to answer to a grievance from said supervisor that *I’d* laid hands on *him*… And management suggested *I* needed anger management training?

    “Thanks dudes, but no thanks”.

  290. Kate P.*

    Boy oh boy, have I had my share of insane jobs…

    Job #1: When a department head rewrote my supervisor’s quarterly review of my performance because she “simply didn’t believe that anyone was that good of an employee.” I was denied a promotion I had been promised six months before because of it.

    Job #2: When my boss closed our office for 48 hours for renovations, then told me I was expected to spend that time cleaning his mother’s home. His mother lived almost an hour away.

    Job #3: When the head of a different department literally took me hostage because he was frustrated that my department was taking too long on a project. We had repeatedly communicated that his deadline (which he had no right to set in the first place) was impossible and we would deliver our end by X date. However, on the day when he said he “expected” the project to be done, he locked me in my office and said I wasn’t allowed to leave til I finished. I had to threaten with calling the police to be let out. That very night I emailed his supervisor and told him everything that went down. He replied by saying there was nothing he could do because this was a one-time incident. -_-

  291. Matt F*

    After my boss resigned, her replacement was a manager from another group who didn’t think much of the staff that was already there. I had to travel out to a neighboring state to where she was located and brought along my status on my job as well as a plan for the future. She waved all of that aside and plopped a procedure manual that was fifteen years old onto the desk and said that’s the way my job will be done. Once I saw the complete disregard for my experience and input, I redoubled my efforts to get the hell out of there.

  292. rathernotsay*

    I needed to leave my highly dysfunctional job for a long time. But it got to the point where so many bonkers things happened that I no longer had any perspective on what was acceptable and what wasn’t.

    So I went over to a friend’s house one evening and told her casually about my day at work. Another coworker had called me over to her desk incredulously and said, “Cordelia, do you know why there’s a box of guns in my file cabinet?”

    Sure enough, in her unlocked file cabinet, somebody had placed an carboard box full of guns. Revolvers, I think, but I don’t know anything about guns, and the nature of our work had nothing to do with guns whatsoever.

    Upon hearing this, my friend told me, “You are never to set foot in that office again.”

    When I resigned, I told the owner about the box of guns in the unlocked file cabinet and his response was, “Well, yeah, I put them there…? I mean, they’re registered…?”

    1. Slimy Contractor*

      I know exactly what you mean about losing perspective on what’s acceptable and what’s not. In a bad workplace (or romantic relationship), it really is the boiling frog problem of things getting worse and worse, until suddenly a box of guns shows up and you realize you have to go. (Hey, I like mixing metaphors.)

  293. Lalaith*

    This was at a job that I went into knowing it wouldn’t be long-term, but there was a woman there who I just had to get away from. It was at a bank, where I was a teller and she was a customer service rep, which meant that she wasn’t managerial-level but had some supervisory functions. She treated tellers like her personal servants, sending us out to get her things from the store across the street (regardless of how busy it was – if we had, y’know, actual work to do first, she would whine about how she was “going to faint” if we didn’t drop everything and go get her snacks). And any time she needed to do anything for us – including things she was REQUIRED TO DO, as the supervisor – she acted like it was a personal favor to us, and anything else she might be doing (like chatting with her favorite customers) was obviously much more important and we could wait. Even if it meant holding up a line of customers.

    One day I sprained my ankle as I was leaving my house, and had to call out. I was back in the next day, though, and I had to open with this woman, which meant we were the only two people in the bank for a couple of hours. I was, of course, behind the teller window, helping customers, and she was at her desk across the room, talking to a customer. I needed her to sign something – again, this was a REQUIRED signature – and I called over to ask her to come to the window. Nope. “I’m with a customer!” I was thinking… yeah, so am I… that’s why I need your signature… and I have a sprained ankle! But no, she wouldn’t budge. She made me limp all the way over to her and back to my window, all so she could have her stupid little power trip. Horrid woman. I was SO glad to leave that place.

  294. FormerAdjunct*

    I was working for a college that used a standardized curriculum: it was developed by a course designer, and we just delivered the content and graded assignments. Not the most exciting teaching gig in the world, but it was fine.

    Except they kept changing the curriculum and watering it down. The final straw:

    The course no longer had weekly assignments. Assignments were every other week. And weeks without assignments didn’t have something else like tests, projects, or labs. Just discussion, that was it. Again, in college.

    When Week 6 hit, it was time to drop students who were failing. I had to drop students who had low scores because there just hadn’t been enough assignments. I’ll never forget one student who had a serious misunderstanding of the material, but who I think could have improved to at least passing with additional practice and feedback. Three assignments and 6 discussions just wasn’t enough, either for the student to improve or for me to realize the severity of the problem. That was one of my worst moments in nearly nine years of teaching.

    I finished out the term but quit after that.

  295. BadMemories*

    Example #1 : When my former boss called me in and chewed me out for being ill with an invisible disease. This despite my loyalty through a major staff shake-up, tripling my stats, working the jobs of 2.5 people, and being promoted because I was such a hard worker. Basically it was a load of BS. I knew from past observation what would happen if I stayed, so I moved on.

    Example #2: When my harassment complaint took all of 30 minutes for them to do a through “investigation” and find no fault despite stacks of evidence.

    Example #3 Being written up for approved maternity leave because I was “unreliable.” I had even offered to quit and my Manager insisted I stay, then wrote me up.

    Sometimes I think I should go into business for myself . . .

  296. Kylynara*

    Mine was when I realized that I was essentially putting in a 2nd unpaid 8hrs. Every night in my dreams. It was a crappy call center job, supposedly customer service, but 75% of our metrics were sales based.

    My sister-in-law’s was when she was demoted for missing a mandatory staff meeting for her honeymoon. Nevermind that the time off had been requested and approved months before the meeting was scheduled. Nevermind that as soon as the meeting was scheduled she talked to her boss and was assured that of course she could miss the meeting. Nope she gets back from her honeymoon to a lecture about how she can’t miss mandatory meetings for anything and a demotion.

    1. Steve G*

      This got to me, I’ve worked in 3 jobs with call centers and always sympathized with the call center folks the most…..so many others area free to come and go and do less, even though call center folks needed to bust their asses EVERY SINGLE DAY. No coming in with a hangover and hiding it, no having an off day – everyday you have to be ON. It is hard. And their metrics make me mad sometimes, though I understand that they are sometimes set to be unreachable…..but still, it is an underated job – especially in this internet age when people aren’t as polite recieving calls from unknown #s anymore……..

  297. Blurgle*

    Mine isn’t nearly as horrific as anyone else’s, but: I was working on the top (51st?) floor of a twin tower office complex on 9/11 (not remotely close to New York, but still). By the end of November of that year I was having panic attacks on the bus on the way to work at least twice a week. I gave up at the end of the year and found a job in a boutique law firm in the suburbs of a much smaller city a thousand miles away.

    I no longer work there but coincidentally it was bombed earlier this year.

    1. Steve G*

      Seriously those things do freak you out. 911 didn’t make me as paranoid as the earthquake in 2011 because it happened right after (or before?) hurricane Irene + that flooding, then the earthquake, which I felt VERY much when I was on a 20th floor. I was happy it was “only” an earthquake, because it felt like the building was having structural issues. I was very paranoid going through the tunnels as I did everyday after that…..

      1. Lalaith*

        I remember that earthquake. We barely felt it (on the 7th floor), but it was enough to make me text my husband asking “Did you just feel an earthquake or is my building falling down?” Then he told me he didn’t feel it, so I was worried until my coworker saw everyone on Twitter talking about it :-P

  298. K.*

    “I just wish you were a bit more bubbly, that’s all. You’re certainly extremely competent, professional, and kind. But I’m missing that pizzazz. You should learn from Mary Jane – she was a cheerleader in high school! She practically says, ‘Here’s your C-O-F-F-E-E!’ each morning. You should start cheering ‘D-A-T-A, the best way to spend the day!’ if only in your mind and maybe your smile will convey that excitement.”

    – My [older male] boss at my performance review regarding my non-customer facing, extremely independent, below market rate data entry job.

    2. Chriama*

      I would have been like ‘can you put this in writing so I have a goal to work towards for the next year’ and then taken it to the EEOC with a sexual harassment claim.

      1. fposte*

        That’s not harassment, though. It doesn’t even look illegally discriminatory from the information given. (I mean, I think it’s unlikely that the male employees were told anything like this, but the statement doesn’t go into that.)

    3. I'm Not Phyllis*

      My last boss was like that! Female, though. But she literally told me she wanted “cheerleaders” on her team. We weren’t a customer-facing office (though donors did OCCASIONALLY come in). It was weird.

  299. Jess*

    One of my first jobs was as an admin assistant to the development director of one of the graduate schools at a university. She wrote me up with a complaint in my official employment file because she didn’t think Excel, the computer program, looked very nice. Not the reports she was generating, the program itself. She thought the menus and toggle keys and all were kind of ugly, and because as her admin and not a senior programmer at Microsoft I was unable to create a new, beautiful spreadsheet program just for her, I was incompetent at my job.

    She also wrote me up when she asked me if I would please make a brand new website, and have it be exactly like Facebook with all the functionality of Facebook, but not Facebook and only for our alums. I laughed out loud until I realized she was serious, and then I told her that if I knew how to code and could make a website like Facebook, I would be living in Palo Alto and making billions of dollars. She looked confused and said, “So you think it might take you two weeks to do instead of one?” and then wrote me up for refusing assigned duties. That was my last straw.

    1. Jess*

      Oh! And! When I started a Twitter account for the school (we didn’t have a communications staff so her boss assigned it to me) my boss put a complaint in my HR file because she rode the subway home and they weren’t reading our tweets over the loudspeaker, so I must not have done it right.

      She knew that the subway would announce delays over the loudspeaker and also tweet delay notices, so she thought that the Boston subway system just read all tweets over their speakers. She was really pissed and sure it was due to my incompetence that she never heard them announce any of the tweets I wrote about events at our school.

      1. Jess*

        Hee, it’s a great story now. I was so glad to move out of there and into a job that suited me better. Admins of the world, I salute you. It is not easy catering to the whims of a lunatic.

        1. Museum Survivor*

          That reminds me of the time I worked for a woman who was the director of a nonprofit that was funded by her family foundation, which was funded by her husband’s hedge fund company. She was unhappy the mail was delivered in the afternoon. She wanted the mail room guy to call the post office and tell them to deliver it earlier in the day. In midtown New York. Ha. Good luck with that.

          She also made her two executive assistants order bins multi-colored paperclips and then sort through and pull out only the yellow ones for everyone to use – because yellow was one of the official colors of her nonprofit. No other colors allowed!

          I temped there for four months after I left the museum job that made me physically ill (see above) and it was just as bad. I was hired to help them plan their annual fundraiser and was in charge of the Excel worksheets they were using to track sales, mailing lists, etc. (Even though they had purchased Raiser’s Edge, she was so OCD/controlling that it hadn’t been set up.) I forgot exactly what it was that she wanted me to do with the spreadsheet, but it couldn’t be done. It just wasn’t a feature that Excel had. She wanted me to have the IT people try to write some work around code.

          I could go on and on. She (or rather her husband) was filthy rich so she didn’t understand the concept of something simply not being possible. I stuck out the four month assignment and left. Their office manager called me directly and asked if I wanted to keep temping for them; I told her to go through the temp agency and when they called me I told them the director was lunatic and they had to find something else for me because I couldn’t bear going back. (Looking back, I don’t know how I made it through four months of that immediately after leaving the horrible museum job – which I did without having a job lined up b/c I decided it wasn’t worth my health.)

  300. Ashley*

    When I looked around my office one day, sighed, and thought “So, this is it. This is the rest of my life.” At one point I loved my job and thought I would work for that company forever and retire from there. I wasn’t engaged anymore, I didn’t care about what I was doing, and the thought of staying there for even another year, let alone another 40, was so depressing. It still took me another 2-3 years to leave because I had an unnatural sense of loyalty to the company.

    By the time I left, I had started having panic attacks at work, hoping for a car accident on the way to work just to get some time away. Multiple vacations were spent in anxiety filled terror at home because I was afraid of what they would find while I was gone that they could yell at me about when I got back. One time my boss told me they might need me to come in on my vacation, but wouldn’t tell me if it would be at the beginning or end of the week, so I couldn’t actually do anything or go anywhere because I was afraid I would get called in.

    I still have PTSD from that job. Just thinking about it gets my heart racing.

    1. blakmac*

      I feel like this comment was written by me. But you’re clearly not me, so…maybe I should move on…

  301. Fitz*

    I was working a temp-to perm admin position when I was in college. One of the duties was to transfer all the calls from the front desk to the other employees (this was at an advertising agency)…but I was expected to know where everyone (30+ people) was at all times. This was supposed to entail me learning what cars everyone drove, checking the parking lot in the morning, and checking off who was there and who wasn’t. The other staff worked upstairs and I downstairs, so I couldn’t see them come in either.

    I gave a week’s notice on that one to stay in the good graces of my temp agency, and ended up finding a way better job. But I refused to go out into a parking lot and inventory the cars daily. Ridiculous.

  302. Another Anon*

    I work in an industry notorious for dysfunctional managers, so I have a story like this for every workplace.

    I had one job where I had over a year of strong performance reviews. My manager left, and the director stepped in as my direct supervisor. She promptly started sabotaging and/or stealing my work. Shortly after, the alcoholic owner stopped drinking, and called me into his office to tell me I was terrible at my job and “had no future.” I launched my job search immediately.

    A few weeks later the owner started drinking again, called me back in and said I was doing an amazing job and gave me a raise.

    I left about a month later.

  303. anonaccounting*

    I stayed at a job for almost a year that I should have left after 3 weeks. That was the time when I was talked to / given a verbal reprimand for forgetting another employees name. I was trying to give him his expense check so he could cash it and when I called to get his attention, I forgot his name momentarily and said, “hey, um, you, yeah, (his very ethnic name here), I have a check for you.” The employee complained to the company owner (same ethnicity) and HR director.

    The HR director said that I insulted the other employee by calling him “Hey You.” He said I needed to be more respectful to the culture and beliefs of the employee and company owner and went into great detail in how in the other culture, women are treated as lower in status than men. He also confirmed that the company owner gave preferential treatment in the order of 1) ethnic men, 2) any other man, 3) ethnic women, and the lowest 4) any other women. Yes, I am a member of the bottom group.

  304. e*

    I don’t know where to start with my job. I work a minimum wage part time retail job and the things that my manager does are so ridiculous I just have to laugh. I’m trying to get a job elsewhere but my city is economically depressed so there’s not really a lot to go around.
    – manager+owner called on my day off to interrogate me because they’d heard I was job searching.
    – I have a worksheet, the kind you get in elementary school, with 6 questions on it all about my customer service skills (describe a time you successfully upsold, learn 4 customers names; what are they? And other various infantile things). And there are prizes for the best answer.
    – the owner has screamed at me to clean a table and stools that were covered in fuzzy mould (to be fair I was procrastinating, because ick)
    -manager takes a week off every month but wrote me up for requesting a Sunday off to spend with my sister who will only be in the country for 3 days. Apparently my day off requests are getting excessive.
    So there are many straws really.
    [job searching intensifies]

    1. CollegeAdmin*

      I see your mold story and raise you the tale of being forced to scrape dried chewing gum off the floor with a screwdriver when I worked retail. And we’re not talking one piece of gum in one spot – at least a dozen, and they’d been there for quite some time. (I had worked there for maybe two months, and these spots definitely predated me.)

  305. Windchime*

    I can’t wait to get home and settle in with an adult beverage to read this!

    History: I worked at Company A. We had a shared IT department (“TechCo”) with a sister company, Company B.
    The setup: I worked in the IT department of a healthcare company doing Windows programming on an in-house Medical Record system. We had weak management, so a brilliant but bullying coworker took over. It was really stressful dealing with him, but I loved my work so I just learned to live with it. However, after the Affordable Care Act was implemented, it was determined that we had to disband the team and implement a new, purchased system. I was moved to that team.

    My final straw: When my company hired a guy who had been involved in embezzling millions of dollars in a scheme in another state to be my boss for a huge, complicated implementation that was on an impossibly short timeline. My coworkers and I worked around the clock for months to try to get this done; when a colleague from another office came to help me about 4 weeks before go-live, I could see by the shocked look on his face that we were nowhere near ready. Not even close. He came back to help me the week before go-live (even though he was dealing with his own impending go-live) and that’s the only thing that kept it from being an abject, horrible, millions-of-dollars failure. Even so, it was a horrible, horrible experience and there were several months of fallout in the form of massive claim rejections, working all hours of the day and night, and pissed-off people from the billing office yelling at me. When my colleague’s office called to make me a job offer with a 10% raise, I leapt at the chance. I didn’t care that it meant selling my house in the place I’d always lived and moving 100 miles away. I just couldn’t be there at that place of tears and misery one minute longer.

    1. Steve G*

      I literally read a similar thing in a book this week and would love to know what company/municipality this was at:-). It sounds very familiar of a story….

  306. entrylevelsomething*

    I was working at my alma mater during the school year as a student office assistant doing normal things (filing, reception desk). I’d been doing this since my freshman year, and though it wasn’t related to what I ultimately wanted to do, the atmosphere was pleasant enough, they were supportive of my school work, and I knew the admin skills would be nice to have as a fall back. However, then began constant staff shake-ups in the department. When I started, there were about a dozen people there. The President fired the VP right before my sophomore year, and lots of staff quit in the next two years, and were rarely replaced until we had 6, not including student workers. It got more stressful for everyone in the office, and I stopped wanting to be there; the availability I gave dwindled from my max, 19.5 to 15 to 8. Final straw for me was during the June before my senior year, finding out two of the senior staff members who’d worked there since before I’d started (the only ones remaining from that time), had been fired. That meant I, as a student worker, would literally have been the person working there the longest. I emailed and said I would unfortunately not be coming back to work in the fall, and still have pleasant enough chats with the only two staff members I know, and all of the former ones.

  307. Sprocket*

    Through middle and high school I worked at my town’s library, after volunteering until legal working age. One (week)day out of the blue, years into working there, the coordinator called me back in a huff after I’d called in sick to the front desk and insisted that per policy I call the other pages to find a replacement. I’d never been confronted for calling in sick before, but I said ok and dug out the phone list. A woman answered the line for a guy I knew liked racking up hours and said that he’d just run out but would be back shortly and would love to cover. Satisfied, I collapsed in bed to sleep off my cold. A few days later at my next (weekend) shift, there was a very nasty memo in my inbox from the same coordinator about how I left them in a lurch with no coverage and that was unacceptable. I caught her at lunch, apologized, and explained that I thought I had secured coverage after speaking with guy’s mom. She confronted me an hour later and said guy’s mom is out of town and that I’m “a nasty little liar”. I quit on the spot.

    She had the nerve to call my parents that night and try to tell them that I was overreacting and she “didn’t intend to make [me] quit”. Um, no. I’d had more than enough of her lunacy by that point.

  308. popesuburban*

    There are a lot, and I would sell an organ for an interview anywhere else, which I’m starting to feel like it would take to get that far. Highlights include:
    -Being told by my boss, the day I hired on from the temp agency, that I wasn’t going to be paid market rate for my experience/title because he needed the money to go to people who “have skills.”
    -Being ordered by my boss to clean the kitchen, a communal space shared by adults who were not also asked/reminded to clean up (Yes, this was very much a Mad Men thing).
    -My boss scolding me that a side door I cannot see was left open by people who had accessed the building through another side door I also could not see.
    -My boss scolding me, twice, for an email he did not like. Specifically, he objected to the grammatically-correct phrase “warranted repair,” even though the client and everyone else copied had understood it fine.
    -My boss trying to publicly humiliate me because he didn’t think I went to college, despite having seen my resume (So much classism, so much wrong with this, so much mortified side-eye from my coworkers).
    -Being expected to co-manage a department without any information, tools, or ability to enforce rules.
    -Nothing being done after a coworker showed me an explicit picture on his phone, even though our HR person and his direct manager were both scandalized and brought it up with my boss.
    -Being expected to take a lot of heat for people’s mistakes and flagrant laziness, because that’s easier than holding technicians accountable like we do for inside staff.
    -Having to use my personal phone for work, and not being compensated despite my state requiring my employer to pay at least half my bill, and despite repeated conversations about this.

  309. D*

    I was working in hotel reservations there was a management change. The new manager had a very old fashioned view of last in first out instead of the quality and amount of work a person did. The day I returned from my grandmother’s funeral my immediate manager pulled me aside to let me know the manager decided to lay one of us off for 2 months due to the slow season; I was the newest person. My entire team offered to be laid off for 2 weeks each so they wouldn’t lose me entirely. Unfortunately for them 2 weeks was enough time to find a fantastic job, when the hiring process was completed I took my notice not only to my intimidate manager but HR, the new manager, and the GM. I was very clear in my reasoning for leaving, and while I was gave two weeks notice I requested that I continue to be laid off during that time. The new manager was fired less then two months later because of his unwise decisions.

  310. Mrs. Tiggywinkle*

    I don’t know if it was when I told my boss that my mom had had a serious fall, and that was why I was acting a little funny that day, and he responded with, “Well, we all have our problems, but we can’t let it affect our work.”
    OR
    A month or two later, when he gave me my annual review, giving me a score just a couple of points above what would cause a write-up situation with HR. He brought up all kinds of things that he had never mentioned before, had saved them up instead of discussing them with me ahead of time, and a lot of them were issues that did not affect my performance or the running of the department. They were issues with him and his personality, and he used his position of power to screw me.
    I am hoping to get a transfer to another department w/in the company.

  311. Doodlebug*

    Mine was working in Information Technology, for a DoD company. I was the sole IT person, had 2 branch offices and 3 tanks/scifs (Secured Facility with no windows), in addition to 30 computers in California (the main office) that I took care of by myself. The company was very happy with my work and I received a raise at my 6 month review which the old CEO stated that they never did that for new hires.

    After I had been there 3.5 years, the CEO decides it was time to retire and they hire an air bag (someone who sells nonexistent vaporware to the government for government contracts) from Virginia to take over. Immediately, Airbag hires a new IT person, a man, who Airbag wants ME (a woman) to train. New Guy didn’t even know anything about firewalls and I really don’t think he knew much about IT at all. NG, lived in Virginia and Airbag tells me that NG is now in charge of the office in Virginia. I start getting that feeling…..

    After about 3 months, Airbag requires me to give up all of my admin passwords to NG. NG then designs a 4th scif in the main California office, but forgets a few things, that Airbag yells at me for and demands I fix immediately.

    Suddenly, I am no longer allowed to sign contracts for AT&T for phone lines going in and out of scifs, I have to run all changes by the CFO, which was never the case before. Management tells me that I will now be working in the scifs as an engineer but not as IT and that NG will be my boss. How helpful that I get to stay nearby in case there’s a crisis. NOT!

    I stayed until I got my 10% profit sharing money, which took an additional 4 months and made the time go by so much more slowly. Finally, I gave my notice and never looked back.

    1. Slimy Contractor*

      As a DoD contractor, this explains a lot about our IT troubles to me. As a woman in a male-dominated field, I’m incensed on your behalf. So glad you’re out of there.

      1. Doodlebug*

        HAHA! I’m sure other DoD people had the same Aha moment as you. Incompetent good old boys running everything. :-D

  312. Collarbone High*

    My boss’s boss decided he didn’t like the sound of my voice, and told my boss I wasn’t allowed to talk at work anymore. Rather than saying “With all due respect, that’s ridiculous and impossible for her job,” my boss acquiesced and relayed to me that I. Was. Not. Allowed. To Speak. In the office. Ever.

    About a week later BB overheard me asking a co-worker a question and screamed “She’s doing it again! I don’t ever want to hear her voice again,” and boss furiously demanded that I cease speaking at work.

    Because occasionally the fates are kind, I got home from work that night and found a voice mail from a company I’d interviewed with months ago, offering me a job. I called back the second their office opened the next day and accepted. My boss was floored when I gave notice. “Why?” You have to ask?

    2. Steve G*

      All of these require a “wow…” response. Even if you Karen Walker and Marge Simpson combined I’d let you talk. This is nuts! And if it was their way to get employees to chat less, shame on them for not being direct as to what they needed

      1. Collarbone High*

        It wasn’t; he went on at some length in front of the whole department about how the pitch of my voice grated on his nerves. It was humiliating, and while I’d prefer to have a husky Demi Moore voice, I don’t know any way to change it short of taking up chain-smoking.

  313. jauntyjukebox*

    When, after complaining (diplomatically) to the head of the company about real issues blocking our ability to be efficient and meet revenue goals, he compared staying in a job you’re unhappy in to staying in an abusive relationship, basically mocking anyone who stayed as not having enough self-respect to get out. To someone who grew up in a home where domestic abuse occurred. In front of HR, who said nothing. I left quickly thereafter.

  314. CDM*

    I was told I had to “prove myself” to a new manager after I had been working at the company for five years. The new manager doubted me because I had been put in a situation where I was set up to fail. Senior management even admitted to me that they had screwed me over and I had done nothing wrong, but they wouldn’t make any effort to clarify the situation or clear my name with the new manager.

    I decided if I had to do all the work to “prove myself” I could do it in a new company making more money and not working with the idiots who had treated me so badly.

  315. Paige*

    After spending 6 months goig after a junior supervisory role, and being told at every one on one by my manager “You’re on the right track, keep doing what you’re doing! We will probably be hiring soon.” I came in one day to find the position filled to an outside hire. I was pretty blindsided since I wasn’t even told they were hiring at the time. I booked a meeting with the general manager to get some feedback and clarity only to be told “The management team thinks you have potential, but there are several areas for improvement, and we all agreed it wasn’t the right time for you to move into the role.”

    Fair enough, I’d rather be the right fit, but after months of seeking coaching from my manager, and him not being honest with me about my progress… That was enough!

  316. Ran Away Screaming*

    I worked for a university, and I knew it was time to leave when we were told we were having a mandatory “lock-in” at the dorms one summer night in order to “be back in the shoes of our students.” We spent the evening playing games and making crafts with macaroni in the dorm’s rec room, and we were assigned a roommate to sleep with in the dorms. Yes, we were expected to use the dorm showers too.

    I said to myself “screw this, I’m an adult” and left before they literally locked the doors at 10pm. I came back the next day for the discussions on student culture and traits of the Millennials. Instead, my boss (politely) said my disappearance was noted by my assigned roommate, and I wasn’t a team player.

    I began looking for a new position immediately. I was also already thinking about leaving when my third intern in a row was hired on by the university earning about 20K more than I was earning. I was praised for “training them so well.” When I asked for a raise, I was told that I was only worth the salary I had agreed to accept.

    When I accepted a new offer at almost twice the salary they were paying me, they were just *shocked* that I was leaving.

      1. fposte*

        Generally at a lock-in like that you can still leave through the emergency exits–an alarm will sound if you do, but the door isn’t impassable.

  317. Florida*

    I worked at a nonprofit for about 9months. One day, someone who was one level up from me say at my desk for a few minutes to help me on the computer. She said that my desk chair was more comfortable than hers so she wanted it. I tried hers out and told her oceans interested in trading. The next day, the executive director told me that my chair was no longer mine. Yes, the chair I had been using since I was hired. I could use the other woman’s chair or find another one that no one wanted. I gave my notice the next day.

  318. MJ (Aotearoa/New Zealand)*

    I worked in an independent bookstore for a year, with an owner who was notoriously impossible to work for. We actually got on okay, because when he started screaming in my face I’d just smile and nod until he was done instead of yelling back like all the other employees did… so he soon realised what a waste of time/energy it was.

    The final straw, though, was when the owner and manager got into a fist fight in the middle of the store.

  319. Rubyrose*

    I was working as a developer. A fellow worker originally wrote and now supported our nightly batch data download from our 300 stores and he was allowed to work four, ten hour workdays.

    One day (my coworkers day off) management had to have a change immediately done to this download. Did they call in my fellow worker, who was intimately familiar with this code? No. I was told at 2:00pm to have the code changes ready by 6:00pm. I had never seen the code. The code itself was a nightmare and did not follow any of our standard coding practices.

    I did the best I could. At 4:00 I warned my manager it was not going well and we needed the expert in. At 5:30pm went to my manager and told him I was not confident in my changes and would advise they not use them. This is back in the day where there was no release management, so developers could just slam new code into production without any testing or review. He said we were going with the changes. He was going to be on call and he was confident that if there were problems, they would be minor.

    When I got in the next day I found out he had been on the phone pretty constantly from about 2:00am on, fixing problems. I asked him why he went with my changes, even though I told him not to. He said that I was always overly cautious and because my work was typically on target he did not think there would be any problems.

    I went home for lunch, typed up my resignation, and turned it in at close of business. Yes, no other job lined up. To me it was unethical to install the code and ordering me to do so was the last straw.

    1. Steve G*

      Wow, yeah….unless the nightly downloads weren’t working at all, there was NO reason to recode them with a few hours’ notice. Not to mention, coders (developers and analysts alike) need time to write comments in their codes to make them understandable (putting comments in your VBA, for example, to indicate what the next section of VBA does)

      1. Rubyrose*

        The downloads were working and THE ORIGINAL CODE HAD ABSOLUTELY NO COMMENTS!! I think the person who did this believed it would give him job security. Don’t know if it did – I was gone.

  320. Elena*

    The straw that paralyzed the camel’s back? 8 months into the job, realized the family-owned company I was employed for would never change their schlerotic, paranoid work culture, and also would always treat me like crap. By then, I had already seen many, many, competent people quit, been screamed at by the president for not falsifying one of our vendor’s visas (which could have ended up with me in prison…and him in NIGERIAN prison), and had been told that they weren’t planning to hire a replacement for my team partner – so I would have to continue doing her work indefinitely. I started looking for work immediately.

    The straw that actually BROKE the camel’s back? Two years later, I GOT SHINGLES. I was 25 years old, and every person I knew who had gotten shingles at my age either had an auto-immune issue of some kind, or was an investment banker/medical student. I, on the other hand, had a job that earned less than $30k a year, evil bosses who had already made me train my replacement (the guy quit; he couldn’t take the horrible hours or the workload), was constantly ill, constantly worried my rent was going to rise again, and never ever EVER happy. At that point, I realized I didn’t care that I couldn’t find another job, I would rather have my health and crash on my parent’s couch rather than be sick and miserable and independent.

    I’d like to say that I put in my two weeks notice and just went, but I stuck it out another three months; even though I hated the owners, I did like my coworkers and managers, and I wanted to close out my projects and train my replacement. I also wanted my direct manager’s good reference while looking for other jobs, and I figured this was the best way to seal it from him. The week after my final day, I literally slept for three days straight, and didn’t leave my apartment for the rest of the week. I lost 10 pounds without dieting in the first month, my colds and migraines went away, and I haven’t had an ear infection since then. Best of all, people no longer ask my in concern if I’ve been getting enough sleep, or if I’m sick – my previous healthy glow has come back, probably because I’M ACTUALLY HEALTHY. I’m still friends with a lot of people who work at that company, but fewer and fewer of them work there; turnover is still horrendous.

    I can’t say everything was great: I’ve been unemployed for 9 months, and although I’m grateful to my parents for taking me in, I really want to live independently again. However, I have never, ever thought about going back to my previous place of employment, no matter how bad the job search got. Instead, I took the extended time off to improve my health and lose another 30+ pounds of excess weight – enough so that soon I hope to be accepted as a military officer candidate.

    TL;DR – Job was so horrible I got shingles. Quit my job to save my health, used the months of unemployment time to lose weight and start the process of joining the military, because even boot camp is better than working at that place.

  321. Former Development Director*

    I was Development Director at a small nonprofit and when I was hired, my priorities were grantwriting and major donor work. It ended up being a lot (A LOT) of event planning and the board wanted even more events than the four we were doing each year. So they decided they wanted to do a big garage sale, because one of the board members used to organize them for her cheer team in high school. A garage sale to raise money for a professional nonprofit! The board member said, “Once you find a space, donated things and volunteers, it’s a really easy money maker.”

    1. chillgamesh*

      Oh man, I sympathize. Weird board requests were a major deal-breaker at my last job. My favorite example is the board member who sent our conference organizer out in the middle of our big yearly conference to scour the city for blinking, plastic LED-ice cubes because the board member thought they were cool and wanted to use them at a networking reception.

      This conference had 4,000 attendees and the conference organizer was barely getting the time to eat or sleep (anyone who’s worked these knows you basically only have time to stuff Chewy bars in your face). But yeah, she needed the ice cubes. Wouldn’t they be neat! And definitely worth spending our non-profit’s money on!

      And I went to the networking reception. It was a ghost town. The plastic ice cubes just sat on a table…blinking…blinking…

  322. Middle Manager*

    I was a manager at a not-for-profit where the Executive Director was my long-time mentor…but she was a horrible director. Communication was a nightmare, micromanaging, unclear expectations, procrastination, and she cried all the time…happy, sad, angry, whatever, bring on the waterworks. I worked for her for almost 9 years with things steadily getting worse. Working 60-80 hour weeks, regularly saw sunrise at the office because of some last minute problem she had created. I was once told I had to write a grant 16 hours before it was due. I had gotten to the point where I was regularly telling my boss I was overwhelmed, exhausted, and frustrated by my constant failure due to having far too many things on my plate. My director was notorious for leaving “kindling” around – not fixing underlying systems/policies or having enough resources in place to get done what she wanted achieved. So invariably this “kindling” would light and everyone would then have to run around like crazy trying to put out fires. Once every few months I would end up crying in my closet after work I was so overwhelmed. Yet I kept at this, year, after year. (And the pay was crappy too.)

    My straw that broke the camel’s back was when another fire had flared up and my director called me at home to come in and help with whatever the latest crisis was. I was on vacation. It was Christmas Eve. I was eating dinner with my family, some of who was in from out of town. And she wanted me to drop everything and come into work. I was done. I told her no and told my family that I was going to start looking for another job. It took about 5-6 months before the right opportunity came along, but I ended up moving on to what has turned out to be a great job.

    After I started a new job it took quite a bit of work to unlearn all of my previous crappy work dynamics. When I was in the midst of it I never realized the implications that working within such a crazy system would have on my overall approach to work. In my new job I have had to be very conscious about not taking on too much (since that was my “normal”) and learn how to better manage systems to avoid being the kind of manager who left “kindling” around. I wish I would have understood the implications that the dysfunctional work environment would have had on my approach as a manager and how much I would have to unlearn. Looking back, I am immensely grateful I finally reached my breaking point and got out of there.

  323. PTSD Suffering Employee*

    I should have realized it was time to leave when my manager called me into her office and told me she had heard from others, after threatening them with disciplinary action, that I “wasn’t grateful for my job”, a job which she had begged me to accept mere months ago that was set up to fail, so she attempted to goad me into quitting by saying people had turned on me, that I was lying about her, that she could walk out the door right that moment and find someone better than me. Then the next day, she called me and started lying to me about my own program in order to fool the higher ups. I stayed, she was fired, and yep, I was right, I was set up to fail. Should have known. Still suffering anxiety attacks to this day when I think about the hell I have gone through for that job.

  324. MiouMiou*

    I was working as a long term substitute for a teacher out on maternity leave. The 10th grade students I was attempting to teach went into the coat closet and sliced my coat into shreds, they would erase the assignments from the blackboard so they would not have to do homework, and threw test papers into the garbage, denying I had ever given them the test papers. The Administration was afraid to confront the students . . . The final straw for me came when I was trying break up a fight between two students and got punched in the chest.

    1. chump with a degree*

      Dang.. I worked as a long term sub as well. 5 hours in the classroom and 7 to 8 outside it. The kids were fine, not terrifically literate for high school…but the administration! After I went to work there, one of the other teachers (same subject) was brutally attacked after school-allegedly by students-kicked in the head while unconscious, et cetera. Did they arrange self defense classes for teachers? Did they provide us with escorts? Hell no-their big concern was to keep it out of the newspapers. To my knowledge, it was never made public, and the perpetrators never caught. Between the stress and the workload, I lost enough weight to quit having periods and to have the same cold for 6 months.
      I also quit teaching altogether. It took another 20 some years to quit having the nightmares.

  325. Amanda*

    1. I worked at a school and made the terrible error of contracting pneumonia and calling in sick for one day. As punishment, the totally insane principal *stole half the furniture* from my classroom and hid it from me; when I asked maintenance where my tables and chairs were, he said he wasn’t allowed to tell me. My students had to sit on the floor during my class…for the next three weeks, until I quit.

    2. I worked at a public library where a guy threatened me at a board meeting for firing his girlfriend (he was married to someone else), who he’d make out with during her shift. (She wasn’t even REALLY fired – she handed in her three-page resignation letter on scented pink paper – this is all true – and I said she could just go.)

    2. LadyCop*

      Oh my goodness! I once had a supervisor change locker assignments to a completely different building while I was on vacation. She had my stuff taken out of my locker (while I was gone) and hid it in her office for 4 months!

    3. Artemesia*

      I had a colleague who told me that when she was an elementary school teacher, she organized her classroom in little circle groups so the kids could work in teams. She came in the next Monday and all of her desks were screwed to the floor in rows. The janitor found it easier to sweep that way and the principal had it done without even consulting her.

      Taking all the furniture does that one better though. Some of the smartest most interesting people I have ever known have been public school teachers, but there are a fair number of not very bright control freaks who gravitate to positions of authority as well.

  326. TradeMark*

    For me I think it had been a build up of ALOT of small things overtime, but the exact moment I remember giving up completely, was when my boss wanted me to make up the hours on my time sheet so we could bill the client more. I said I wouldn’t do that. He said to just not say anything, and I said I wasn’t comfortable lying to the clients, and his response was ‘No, no. It’s not lying, we are just not telling them.’ :/
    The irony of THAT aside, when I said I didn’t want to be involved in something like that, he went into the time sheet system and changed it ON MY log so that they could do what he wanted with some semblance of ‘legitimacy’. After that, I realised I didn’t want to work for a place with such a loose take on ethics. Still looking unfortunately, but hoping there is still some companies out there with some scruples left!

  327. Still can't believe it*

    When I complained to HR about a coworker I’d never even met before telling me to my face she didn’t want me working with her client and that she was going talk to my boss about getting me pulled from the project & HR’s response was to tell me that I needed to go off and resolve my negative feelings over the situation so that “bitterness didn’t take over my heart.”

  328. Stemmie*

    I was at a catering company between teaching jobs. One day, I took 15 minutes longer than I thought I would to mix a batter, and it ate up the last 15 minutes of my shift that I was supposed to be stepping in at the dish station. I cleaned up my work area, checked in with the dish washer and other prep chefs (they said they were ok), and left. The next morning, I walked in, said good morning to the boss, and she whipped around, scowled, shook a finger at me, and barked, “You’re on dish NOW – and I don’t want any attitude!” Attitude?! I was over 30 and she was talking to me like I was a teenage fry cook snapping gum and rolling my eyes! I made it my last day in food service.

    We still have to see each other at charity events and she always wants to hug hello.

    1. Taylor*

      My (current, bleh) boss also told me I have “attitude” when I told him that it would take me a few extra days to measure 1250+ garments (in reality, that would take about 2 weeks). He wanted it done, but not with any extra time, and so his only response was that I was giving him “attitude.” I’m also definitely not a teenager and as diplomatic as can be! Some part of me thinks, would he say the same thing to a guy in my position? :/

  329. Amy Farrah Fowler*

    I think for me it was when my company switched health insurance. I was the only person not automatically eligible for insurance because I was part time (25-30 hrs/wk). When we switched, the premiums went down fairly dramatically, and I asked my boss (the owner) if he would be willing to add me to the policy. He very literally pulled his wallet out of his pants pocket and told me (in front of coworkers) that his wallet had grown thin, that he wasn’t running a charity, and when his wallet got fatter so would ours. It was so condescending and also untrue. I was the office manager and took care of all our payables and billing. I knew for a fact that he was spending several thousands of dollars a month on personal expenses on the company credit card.

    If he had respectfully told me that it wasn’t in the budget or that he couldn’t offer it to me because of my part time status or something, that would have been different… ugh… I’m getting upset just thinking about him.

  330. Alice*

    I walked out of a job when a colleague, who’d repeatedly criticised and undermined me for months started on another criticism tirade while we were behind the company stand at a conference. My colleague was a salesperson and was meant to be there to sell our products and stake out the competition. But she chose this moment to find fault with my strategy instead.

    I was so distressed I found I couldn’t speak at all – throat literally too tense to allow movement – so I picked up my bag and went home via the doctor. He signed me off and I never went back.

    Shortly after the critical colleague and my boss were both let go. I had a party to celebrate.

  331. David*

    12 years ago I had just been retrenched from my first job at a large listed Tech/ Telco company where I had been running their internal office computer network. It had been a great job and I loved the people I was working with. Out of the blue I got retrenched. At the time I didn’t feel financially secure (I was, but I didn’t feel it) and so I took the first job that came my way. It was for a much smaller private business. The office was in a warehouse office building and it was covered in dust. Their budget didn’t exist and they ran off pirated software, And they employed me as a full time casual, on casual salary so they could tell me not to bother coming in the next day if I did anything they disagreed with, – This also meant that I couldn’t get a home loan because banks don’t rent to casuals. The company SAID they would tell the bank I was full time but … yeah of course I would lie to my bank, the large institution that I wanted to borrow many hundreds of thousands of dollars from.

    There were Several signs that told me I had to leave and leave now.

    1) The second week I was there I was told to come in late the next day. When I asked why My manager (not the owner but still ethically compromised) He told me that the person who had done my role before me had NOT actually been fired yet and was still technically employed there and so It would look bad if I was there when he got in.

    2) The Owner was almost NEVER there but when he was he would smoke marijuana at his desk.

    3) They had a Personal Assistant (PA) role that needed to be filled. They advertised the role and then the owner sat down with his son in my office and filtered all the resumes on non Anglo Saxon names. Anybody who had a name that sounded even vaguely non Anglo Saxon was deleted / filtered and or ignored.

    The final straw though was the following:

    4) The Owner asked me a question which I didn’t know the answer to. It was an ill informed IT question from a person who didn’t know anything about IT but thought he was an IT Genius. I shrugged my shoulders and said I didn’t know the answer for him. He then spent 20 minutes yelling and ranting in my face about how my shoulder shrug was a disrespectful act and that I was a rude pathetic person who should appreciate being there. I do not remember exactly what was said. I was pretty shocked. I went home and cried that night.

    I was very lucky though. A friend worked in a business up the road and they needed an IT person to fill a role they had. I submitted my resume, met the two hiring managers and hit it off with them straight away and had a job before I knew it.

    I got the last laugh though, because I was only a casual, I gave 2 days notice and walked out on the Friday. Felt so nice. The Manager tried to get me to stay and I just said “You ARE kidding right?”

  332. LadyCop*

    The woman overseeing our department had told me my disability meant I was weak and I was “in timeout.” When I went to HR, the HR rep said if I didn’t like it I should look for a new job. So I did.

  333. JessaB*

    I had one of those bosses who yelled. He asked me to find a file for him and I could not find it. I happened to walk in to tell him that with some other papers in my hand. He grabbed them from me then screamed that they weren’t what he wanted. I looked at him and told him my father didn’t get to yell at me like that, and I quit. As soon as I started cleaning out my desk, the other secretary, who had a habit of doing disruptive things like this, came in and got the file out of her locked desk drawer (to which I had no key.) He never apologised. I still quit. It was a Wednesday. I had an interview for a job by Friday morning, and was hired directly out of the interview.

  334. Panda Bandit*

    The first one happened years ago when I worked in fast food. I worked my butt off, covered shifts whenever they asked, and was the super-reliable model employee. I never got a raise. I found out that a coworker, who wasn’t so great at their job and everyone complained about working with, was making significantly more than me. I quit the next week.

    In my current job, it was when my manager expected me to reschedule a doctor’s appointment because she wanted me to work instead. I got yelled at first, then she did this creepy behavioral 180 and started acting sweet as pie, trying to learn more about what my health problems were. I told her I’m going to need surgery and she tried to talk me out of it. I haven’t talked about my health since then but I’m getting that surgery whether she likes it or not.

  335. Beware of the Leopard*

    I quit by leaving a post-it note on the director’s door.

    I worked as an admin for an afterschool children’s reading program. It was a small grant program under the auspices of the city and it and a few other city programs shared office space in a building. The reading program’s director (my boss) and the program’s coordinators (in charge of supervising the teachers) and grant writer had space in the building and there was always activity. I arrived on morning and there was no one from my program around. No one showed throughout the morning and into the early afternoon. No one answered the phones as a teacher frantically called everyone and then finally me to report a student medical emergency that she needed help handling.

    Where was everybody? Oh, they decided to go do team building in Napa, but did not tell anyone. That was my straw—I just couldn’t work for a children’s program with leaders who did not care about the children. Without going into too much detail, the program was lucky that while the leaders were out boozing, a crisis was handled and the children ended up okay.

    It was the last incident in a long line of problems that I had lasted through. The director had alcohol issues (I had to unbuckle her from her car seat belt a couple times) and choosing a winery for team building hours from the office was not just one poor decision. The team (including me) had previously had an overnight training/team building retreat out in a forest camp area. It was a nightmare after the director and her good friend and program coordinator got drunk and kept everyone awake for hours carrying on and pretending to be bears. Growling, yelling, screaming, giggling bears.

    Oh, and there was the time I was fired for a week. The director called me in her office to tell me what a great job I was doing and not to take it the wrong way, but she had to fire me for a week because otherwise I would start earning benefits and the program could not afford that. Apparently it was City policy that full time employees putting in over a certain number of hours in a year automatically earn benefits. To keep my job, I had to not come in for a week and turn in a new application for my job. My work piled up while I was gone.

  336. Beware of the Leopard*

    Got another last straw to share. I had worked three years for a children’s group home. It was annual review time and I was told there was no budget to give me a raise. Demoralized, I decided to move on that same minute.

    Now before you think of me as ungrateful and greedy, here are few details. I had worked my way up over those years from night staff to coordinator of two of the group homes. I always has excellent reviews and shortly prior to the annual review had won an award (kudos, a plaque, and $). The day the award was presented at a party for almost all of the staff I could not attend because I was working, rounding off a 90-hour week (days and overnights) and had not slept in over a day and a half. I managed what should have been 12 people, but the group home had been seriously understaffed for months, which is why I was filling me into so many shifts. To encourage more applicants for the open positions, the group home had increased initial salaries. So those new staff members at the party were earning $3 more per hour than I was. In the world of just scratching above minium wage, that was a fortune. I would have been able to do my laundry at the non-scary laudromat and not have to take a calculator to the grocery store to make sure budget was adhered to.

    Anyone remember the California lottery commercial where the camera view is a first person view of a grocery dairy isle and the voiceover has the lottery winner guy saying “I could totally afford all this cheese…”? A year after I moved on, I was earning twice the salary, stopped bringing the calculator, and bought some decent cheddar. It felt amazing.

    1. Cath in Canada*

      Heh, being able to afford really good cheese was a turning point in my life too! Such a difference from all the rice-onion-carrot-soy sauce dinners I ate in grad school. I felt like such a grown-up!

  337. MinB*

    I work at a small nonprofit. I like my coworkers and I like the main part of my work, but my ED is terrible at her job. Can’t prioritize or stick to the mission, can’t fundraise or work a computer, and all of her decisions are fear-based.

    Things had been going down hill for a while as more staff left and some weren’t replaced, so the rest of us absorbed their jobs as much as we could. It was stressful, but I still had stuff I wanted to accomplish and I figured it couldn’t get much worse. Wrong.

    I’ve been running an annual event that’s the ED’s pet project. It’s only sort of related to our mission, but in the past it wasn’t too time consuming and it brought in decent funds at our low point in the year.

    This year, My department was 25% smaller than usual and anything that could go wrong with the event did. Construction issues, weather cancellations, some of our best vendors leaving the state… Just awful. But I was coping. It wasn’t going to bring in much money but we would break even.

    Then, my ED gets the brilliant idea to expand this event to make more money. Instead of three days a week, we’ll hold it every day for months on end. I ran the numbers and we would actually lose funds staffing it. She countered back and said we just wouldn’t have staff or security there. No volunteers either. If anyone who paid to participate had an issue, they could just call the cops. In fact, it would take no work at all – she would just make a few phone calls. This is all after I’ve had the promotional materials printed with the dates and times, too, so no one would know about the expanded dates without more ad spending, either.

    But no matter what I said, I couldn’t convince her it was a bad idea. After I spent 20 minutes asking her to take into consideration the extra time I would need to redo everything, the potential liability and damage to our reputation for having an unstaffed event, the cost of more advertising, and the fact that no one would pay to participate if we didn’t advertise, she basically just said she’d already committed us to it and that was that.

    I was already feeling overwhelmed by the turnover and just couldn’t take any more work on my plate. I was at the point of tears and she just wouldn’t listen. So I decided it was time to put together my resume and I have sort of checked out mentally just to stay sane.

  338. Kathlynn*

    Well, my favorite thing to say is “I’ve been here for 6 years, 5.5 years too many” the only reason I’m still there is lack of transportation. I make 5c more then minimum wage. After getting a 25c raise a few months ago… The first raise I’ve gotten in 6 years. So many “final straw” moments. Now the owner is selling, so I hope things get better. But I’ve been told things like “it doesn’t matter who does the work so long as it gets done”. Been written up for harrasment for not causing a scene at work (I was being too quiet, and shut down the communication between myself and coworker), was told other coworker would be written up for yelling at me and swearing, she wasn’t. And last week my boss gave me shirt for “tossing around words” when I question the refusal for my accommodation request. And explained why I needed it. My boss doesn’t communicate well, and I was slipping on headphones, trying not to cry (my depression was flailing up), and told I couldn’t use them (music was my request) because it’s too dangerous and why was I asking for accommodation now, because I’d been able to do my job for years (I have multiple performance write-ups relating to my reasons for requesting accommodation) thing is my “informal” request has the same weight/responsibility for them as the second one. The difference is in the second, I mentioned human rights and laws. (not to mention listing multiple things more dangerous then listening to music through a single headphone speaker, that we are regularly expected to do…). Probably a good thing ownership is changing and they don’t get to see my file.

  339. Hornswoggler*

    My first job out of music college was with a music group which had just got a small grant for an education officer. In those days the grant would only be paid if the company could prove they were in the black every quarter (a stupid policy which got changed pretty quickly after a number of arts companies got into huge trouble with their cash flow). The company was apparently run by someone called J1, who was the partner of J2, who had mental health and alcohol issues. I didn’t know until I had worked there for nearly a year that J2 was actually my boss and J1 didn’t actually work for the company. Anyway, financial management at the company was non-existent and inevitably they got into debt. The day I resigned was the day I realised that the grant that was supposed to be paying for my post had been withheld for the previous three quarters and the money they were using to pay me was really owed to all the freelance musicians that I was hiring to do the work. In some cases they were owed four-figure sums, and this was the mid 1980s so that was a lot of cash. I was hideously embarrassed by the situation, but happily the musicians understood what I’d done so my career didn’t suffer!

  340. Retail Lifer*

    One of our other locations had some important people coming to visit, so a bunch of us from various stores were drafted into coming there to help them prepare. For a week straight, we had to come in at 6am and we had to sneak out at 9pm, as the bosses stayed even later. This was back in the days before direct deposit, so payday came and our checks were at out home store. My co-worker and I were carpooling to the other store, and we let our boss know that we needed to stop by our home store to pick up our checks and deposit them before coming in. Paychecks weren’t available until 9am, so we said we’d be at the other store around 9:30. We’d put in a million hours already, and we were out of money due to having to get breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the mall all week, so my boss didn’t have a problem with that. The manager at the other store did, though. Another co-worker overheard her freaking out about us going to our own store first, saying “WHO DO THEY THINK THEY ARE?” We were overworked, underpaid peons with nothing left in our bank accounts that had been out of our own store and neglected our own responsibilities to help HER out, that’s who. I found a new job shortly after that.

  341. Krystal*

    Mine was when I forgot to shut my blinds once, the CEO took pictured of his assistant closing them and sent me step by step instructions via email with the pictures attached which I came into the next morning. I don’t know if it was meant to be funny but I found it patronizing and belittling. I’d worked there for 2 years and it was the first time i’d ever forgot to close them. Two other people had left the week before me, now i know why if they had emails like that!

  342. Jess*

    My friend was an associate at a law firm and her last straw was when a named partner ordered her to write the partner’s daughter’s college application essays: “If she doesn’t get into Boston College it will have serious consequences for your job.” My friend did it, but was out of there within a month.

    (The girl got into BC too.)

    1. chillgamesh*

      Love this! I once had to write a fifth-grader’s (my boss’s son’s) book report about Al Capone! AND I had to redo it since the teacher didn’t like it.

  343. Jeff A.*

    Not so much an incident that happened as a realization. My Eureka! moment came when I was sitting home on the couch one night and I realized that I actually truly HATED two people in the world: my boss, and my boss’ daughter…the same two people I’d spent more time with in my 20’s than anyone else. First I was mortified that I actually felt that deep, intense hatred for human beings, then I was mortified that I was wasting my life away working with/for them. I left that job just a few weeks later, without another job lined up. Best employment decision I’ve ever made.

  344. sjw*

    Worked for about 3 years for a large, soul-crushing law firm, in the HR department. I came home crying often. One year during my evaluation, my boss, (who actually was a very sweet lady) told me that the firm had begun downsizing, and that my job would likely be eliminated within the next 12 months. “But don’t worry”, she told me, “we will put you in a legal secretary position, so you will still have your job”. (I should note here that I have NO experience as a secretary, legal or otherwise, and this firm was extremely demanding of their secretarial staff). I looked her square in the eye and asked, “Why do you assume I have secretarial skills? Because I have breasts?” And then, I left. Permanently. And took a transitional job that was a really poor fit, but 3 or 4 months later was in a much better job.

  345. Angel*

    I was working on a team of mean girls. There were three of us: Boss, me, and Newbie. It was Newbie’s first job out of college, but she and boss got along like gangbusters and I was always the odd woman out. My boss was constantly critical of everything I did, but I figured she was my boss and I had to take her feedback for what it was. However, one day, Newbie called a meeting with me, sat me down, and read me a list of things she thought I was doing wrong. It lasted for an hour. I listened, got up, went home, and was in a new job within a month. The company has since gone down the tubes, Boss left, but Newbie can’t find another job. I have heard through the grapevine that she is miserable.

  346. F.*

    The only job that I actually quit on the spot was a part-time data entry position for a large bank check printer. I was very good at the work with high speed and accuracy. About 70 of us (all women) worked in a very large room in poorly ventilated building. I had just been diagnosed with cough-variant asthma, and the doctor was still trying to get my medications optimized for effectiveness. So I coughed occasionally. One woman (who talked all the time instead of working) spread a rumor that I had tuberculosis. I brought in my diagnosis from the doctor along with some literature on asthma and offered to share it with the rumor-monger and others in her clique. They refused to even listen and began physically barring me from the breakroom and restroom (we had scheduled group break times). The final straw came the day the woman cornered me in a remote are of the printing plant, slammed me up against a wall and threatened to kill me. I went directly to HR the next morning and reported the incident. When I asked what could be done about the situation, the HR manager replied, “Nothing, it wasn’t witnessed.” So I said, “My life is more important that any job.” and walked out.
    *************************************
    One of many, many incidents at a very large US financial services firm occurred a couple of months after I began working as departmental admin for an extremely difficult female middle-manager who had a reputation for being a major bitch. Her reputation was so bad that no one from inside the company would apply for her positions. They had to go outside the company to find applicants. She also would NEVER allow people to transfer out. I found that out after putting in at least 40 internal transfer requests before another manager took pity on me and clued me in.
    The worst incident I witnessed was when one of our employees suffered a brain aneurysm in the restroom in our department. She was fine when she walked into the restroom, suddenly screamed and held her head, and then collapsed on the floor. One of the men knew basic first aid and went to help her, while I was to call Security. We were NOT allowed to directly call for emergency services (911). Security finally showed up ten minutes later, said she had probably fainted and grudgingly called an ambulance. It was 20 minutes before the ambulance arrived, and when they took her out of the restroom on a stretcher, it was obvious she was dead.
    The worst thing about the whole incident was my manager’s behavior. She was on a conference call in her office and REFUSED TO GET OFF THE PHONE! I slipped her a note telling her what was going on, and she covered the receiver and snarled at me to get out and close the door. When she finally came out of the office about an hour later, she told me to clean out the deceased woman’s personal items from her desk and “get that stuff the hell out of here.”
    That was the moment I knew I was working for an absolutely inhuman monster. I wish I could say I quit then and there, but I was separated from my husband (who had cleaned out the bank accounts), had two sons to support, and desperately needed a job with insurance.

    1. some1*

      That second story is horrible. It HAS to be illegal to not let your employees call 911! I hope your coworker’s family sued the crap out of that company.

    2. Slimy Contractor*

      That is utterly, utterly horrific. And traumatic for the witnesses and helpers, too. I can’t believe you had TWO jobs where people were so cavalier about human lives!

  347. Hannah*

    I have two. First: In college I worked as a cashier at a small food market for minimum wage. They sold coffee, and if the cashiers wanted a cup of coffee, we had to stand in each other’s lines and pay for it. If we were alone we had to wait for the manager to come over and ring us up before we could pour a cup. I thought this was absurd – a pot of coffee costs like 35¢ to make. Maybe I was wrong, I don’t know, but even my high school food service job provided one free meal per shift and unlimited free drinks, so I thought those “perks” were standard. I found a new job within a few weeks. When the manager asked why I was leaving so soon I told him, truthfully, it was because the new job provided free coffee. He was blown away that someone would actually quit a job over coffee but to me it seemed like the ultimate sign of a lack of respect to make me count out 80¢ for a cup of coffee from my own workplace.

    Second: I had a (paid) software quality intern who went past useless into actual causing-harm-to-the-company territory. I did not hire him and didnt have the power to fire him, but I was reaponsible for his work. He lied about testing something that a. shouldn’t have passed testing and b. he had never even looked at (I had the logs and could prove he passed it without looking at it). I took this to my team lead and said he should be fired, we would be better off with no one than someone who creates more problems than they solve, but he didn’t take any action. So within a month I switched teams to get away from that terrible team leader.

  348. Mabel*

    My manager asked me if I could come in the following week on a Monday night (after my work day was done) to teach an evening class (this was a request, not a requirement). I declined because I had plans. He tried hard to persuade me because they had sold the class but didn’t have an instructor for it. I shouldn’t have told him what my plans were because it was irrelevant, but I did, and he tried to tell me that my plans weren’t as important as teaching the class. My plans (a personal meeting I wanted to attend) were important to me, and I didn’t want to teach the class, so I declined again. We had a new Training Director, and when he came to the office to meet people, they called me into the president’s office, and the new TD shook my hand saying, “thanks so much for helping us out.” I was incredulous and turned to my boss and said, “you didn’t tell them that I wasn’t going to do it?!” That’s exactly what he had done. I had had respect for him previously, but that all went out the window when I realized he was a coward. Again, all three of them tried to strong arm me into teaching the class (and even though I asked my boss not to pass on the nature of my plans, he had told them, so they were also trying to tell me how much more important coming in on my time off was). By then, I was so mad, nothing on Earth could have made me do them a favor. As soon as I left the office, I called my previous boss, who had left the company not long before, and I told her what had happened and that I was going to quit. She calmed me down, so I didn’t quit that day, but I didn’t stay long after that. Before I left, I noticed that there was a new addition to the requirements for the job – trainers had to be available to teach classes outside of 9-5 hours.

  349. mskyle*

    So, this is a weird one: I took some vacation to go to tape an episode of a game show. Actually two episodes, because I won on the first episode and stayed for the second! According to my pay stubs I had something like two full weeks of PTO available, so I stayed in California for the full week. And then a week or two after I came back from my trip, I got a call from Payroll telling me that there had been an error and I actually had NEGATIVE-60 something hours of vacation – they had been failing to properly debit my vacation time for YEARS.

    They said my future PTO accruals would go to make up the deficit, and I would not be able to take paid vacation again until I had made up the deficit and accrued more… so I was something like a year and a half away from being able to take a vacation again. I was furious – I suppose I should have paid more attention to whether the exact correct number of hours of vacation were coming off my total, but I assumed that if I logged my time correctly, then the numbers on my pay stub would accurately reflect the amount of vacation I had available. I argued that this was completely unfair since I wouldn’t have taken so much vacation if I had known I didn’t have the vacation to take – my last trip was a perfect example, since I could have done the trip with only two or three days off but I took five because I thought I had them available.

    I asked what would happen if I left the organization before I made up the deficit, and they said I wouldn’t have to pay it back, and I resolved right then and there that I would leave before I made up that deficit (with a side of “I’m too good for this job – I’m a GAME SHOW WINNER!”). And by the time the episode of the game show aired, I had put in my notice and was getting ready to move for a new job (which ended up having its own series of straws until the one that broke the camel’s back, but that’s another story).

  350. Jack*

    A professor insisted that I go across the medical complex to find my boss (who was doing clinical laboratory work) and get his signature, because he waited until the last minute and needed the signature TODAY.

    I had broken my fibula and was on crutches at the time. The crutches were standing up behind my chair when he asked me this.

    No explanation for why he couldn’t go get it himself. It didn’t occur to him.

  351. Tiana*

    I worked at an animal hospital for a while and it could be said there were several straws. My supervisor was nice and relatively supportive but clearly not up for confrontation; everybody was mad at one apathetic employee, who always made working a weekend shift an extra pain (because we tended to be busiest then) but our manager never did anything about her, so I never bothered to raise concerns. One of the guys I worked with started circulating a rumor about one of the nurses’ personal life and her qualifications for the job, which was causing tons of friction. Really, there was no end to gossiping and frustration, which was interesting to hear but not a good environment to work in.

    Customers were also pretty bad sometimes. As a receptionist, I tended to take the brunt of anger. The last straw for me was a middle aged woman who was frustrated as I tried to figure out what she needed. One of my coworkers picked up on what she was asking and helped her. The customer made a passive aggressive comment, but went with this coworker willingly.

    After this coworker went on break, the woman came back up to me and started berating me, saying I was in the wrong line of work and clearly didn’t take my job very seriously, asking for my name, etc. I could think of anything polite or tactful to say, so I thanked her for her feedback. To be fair, it was in a clearly dismissive, fake pleasant sort of way. She scowled and told me, “why don’t you just go home and eat another cheeseburger, fatty?” and stormed out.

    Ah, customer service jobs.

  352. Sapphire1166*

    I used to work in a medical practice that was owned by the head doctor. I am not a psychiatrist, but if this doctor didn’t have Bipolar Disorder I’ll eat my shoe. Anyway, I worked as the receptionist for a few years. Every year, the office manager would have to “push out” a new template for appointments. The doctor insisted on scheduling 15 minute appointment blocks, to which our office manager said “I really don’t think that is a good idea. You tend to run late on your 30 minute appointments as it is. Once the template is out and in use it’s nearly impossible to change. I truly do NOT recommend 15 minute blocks.”. The doctor said “I’m the boss, so do as I ask”.

    First day of the new template change taking place…the doctor barges into the office manager’s office and starts screaming that the template was horrible and not feasible. Called her all sorts of names and accused her of sabotage. Office manager quit on the spot and I took over all her duties (in addition to my own…with no pay increase).

    Another year goes by and it’s time to make the schedule template again. Doctor says she wants a template very similar to the 15 minute block template. I advise against it, she tells me to do it anyway, and remembering what happened a year previously, I make an Excel sheet with the template exactly how she had asked for it. I ask her to sign the template and note “This is exactly what I want”. I make the template exactly that.

    It goes into effect a few months later and once again, she comes screaming. Claiming I sabotaged her and the template was in no way feasible. I pull out the Excel sheet with her signature and statement and ask her if it matches the template in the computer. It does. I remind her that I did EXACTLY as I was told, and she signed off on the template. Her response? “You know I have ADD and you should have known I probably wasn’t paying attention when I signed this. This is still your fault”.

    I put in my 2 week notice that day.

    1. Taylor*

      My boss does the same. When I remind me, “I did this exactly the way you told me to,” he responds with, “Never mind what I told you! I’m telling you THIS, NOW!”
      Hoo boy!

  353. Regina*

    After finishing up grad school, I was working at a part-time job at a small, local business (a shop) while looking for work in my field. The owner of the business went on maternity leave for two months, which was fine, she prepared everyone well and some of the other employees had been there a long time and could run things. When she came back, she said that she was going to be running the business by herself a lot for awhile to make up for money she lost while on maternity leave covering more payroll hours. I went from averaging 25 hours a week, to 25 hours a MONTH, with absolutely no warning. I found something better pretty quickly after that, and didn’t have to work on the weekends anymore either.

  354. squab*

    My breaking moment (I think, there were a lot of awful ones) was when an older male coworker very publicly said to our boss “That teapot redesign? I’m not gonna do it. You can do it if you want to, but I’m not gonna do it.” And he walked into his office and closed the door, without my boss saying a word; no consequences for him later, either.

    Years before, I had very publicly gotten taken to task and almost fired for telling that same boss (after lots of back and forth on the issue) “Reginald, I can’t do what you’re asking,” because I just didn’t know how; the boss heard “I won’t” instead of “I can’t”, and I got a dressing-down that brought me to tears, and a lecture on how you don’t tell a boss “no”.

    I spent the following years proving (I thought) my worth by kicking butt, taking on leadership roles, and always always finding a way to deliver what was asked (unless I could strictly prove it was impossible). And here was someone with a terrible attitude, who DIDN’T deliver, who DID say the magic words that supposedly merited instantaneous firing, who got away scott-free. It made it 100% clear to me that I wasn’t valued at the company (not really) and wouldn’t ever be. The standards just weren’t the same for young women as for older men. Or young women and young men for that matter. I GTFO’d and found jobs at places that actually valued good work. Hallelujah.

    The same boss has since behaved atrociously to two other long-suffering female employees, so my big take-away is…. don’t be long-suffering.

    1. Slimy Contractor*

      “Don’t be long-suffering” is my new motto, and I LOVE IT. You need to make bumper stickers, t-shirts, and coffee mugs. I will buy a dozen of each.

  355. Mr. Mike*

    Man. Late to this one… I worked in a call center once and got written up for 2 SECONDS of lost production time from an employee that I was overseeing and didn’t Bust him for saying hello to one of his friends as they passed by my station. That was when I elected to go back to production. After that, I was warned for being one minute late back from break and the entire call center floor had to raise their hands to go to the bathroom….

  356. Anon for this*

    When we returned from a conference (at which I’d worked exhausting 12-hour days for 3 days straight) at 3am and the boss expected us in the office at 8am the next morning (a Friday). I begged for at least a half day off just so I could get a little more sleep, but he refused. I quit on the spot – it had been a long year of similarly unreasonable expectations and other shenanigans, and that was the last straw.

  357. Navy vet*

    When I was sexually harassed by a client I never met in person ( who looked me up on Facebook) my then boss told me I brought it upon myself because I was to “friendly, easy to get along with and laughed to long at jokes.” He even stated I did not come across as “flirty” but that men are gross and I should expect it from them.

    1. Slimy Contractor*

      That’s awful, but I could see it happening in places I’ve worked, too. It’s sad that we still blame the victim–especially when the victim is a woman.

  358. Slimy Contractor*

    It was winter and had gotten dark early. My supervisor and I were the last two left in the office, and he was getting ready to leave. I said, “Oh, do you mind if I leave with you and we lock up together? I had to park far away today and I’m not comfortable going out to my car alone.” “FINE,” he harrumphed, and waited impatiently for me to log out and gather my belongings. After we locked up, he immediately took off in the opposite direction of my car and left me to go out there alone anyway. I’ve never before or since been treated that way by a military officer–or a civilian or contractor, for that matter. That’s when I realized, oh, this guy isn’t just a run-of-the-mill jerk. Everything he does every day adds up to being someone who actually does not care about other human beings. I started looking for new work right away.

    1. moodygirl86*

      My God, what a thug! I hope you weren’t badly injured AND that you had him prosecuted for assault.

      My story: (Get yourself a cup of tea and a biscuit if you can, I could write a book about this person’s evil ways).

      It was 2011. I was 24 at the time and prior to that I hadn’t really been bullied before – not even at school – so I’d had no experience of dealing with that kind of crap. I was an agency temp – one of eight, four guys and four women including myself – and it was supposed to be a temp admin role, to go perm after 13 weeks. The office manager was a really nasty piece of work – shouting and screaming at you in front of everyone if you made a mistake, gossiping about people behind their back etc. I saw her reduce all the other female temps to tears at some point or another and she hated me because I wouldn’t give her that satisfaction. When she pointed out errors to me, I’d respond matter-of-factly: “Sorry about that, won’t happen again.” She said I was “disrespecting” her and “not saying it like I meant it.” Well bollocks to that, I wasn’t going to cry on her shoulder that I was useless and hated myself. If that’s disrespectful, I guess that’s what I was being. I pointed out to her that I could only show I meant it by not repeating the mistake, to which she said “Well frankly, I don’t understand how you could have made it in the first place!” I said “Right OK, I’ll go back and unmake it. Now where did I leave my time machine? Oh yeah – next Tuesday!” Everyone laughed at that, and even she could see she was being ridiculous.

      Within my first couple of weeks, I’d trained her into not screaming at me by saying things like, “When you shriek at me like that, I find it impossible to concentrate on what you’re saying.” And “I think we should carry on this discussion in a quiet room away from everyone else, as I wouldn’t like to upset people who are trying to work.” She blustered, saying she couldn’t find anywhere private (to be fair, it was a small office). I smiled sweetly and replied, “That’s fine! That’s what email is for.” I coped by thinking of her as a spoilt kid having a tantrum, and accordingly refusing to acknowledge the unwanted behaviour, and she did gradually get the message. She still publicly humiliated the other temps, and I did try getting her on her own after each incident to say I didn’t think so-and-so had deserved it, but I was told to mind my own business. Being a smartarse, I told her she couldn’t have it both ways – if she chooses to bawl people out in front of the whole office, then she’s making it everyone else’s business. I complained to her boss as well, but he said he couldn’t do anything unless one of her other victims came to him. One of the other temps there could be a bit of an arsehole, but she attributed that to the fact he was Muslim and said, “It’s people like him who make me a racist.” I was labelled a troublemaker for pointing out that if she had racist beliefs, she would have had those anyway. You don’t just turn into a racist overnight because you meet one twat. Also that she had shown her hypocrisy because when she made this remark, she was apparently defending her friend whom he’d been rude to – one of the other managers who was also Muslim! So she was unwittingly tarring her own friend with the same brush.

      I came down with a pretty nasty cold at the start of my third week – unfortunately for me, it was after a Bank Holiday. I had a sore throat, fuzzy head and could barely concentrate, so would have been pretty useless at work if I had gone in, not to mention making everyone else ill too. I rang the agency to say I wasn’t well enough to go to work that day, and they were very nice and sympathetic but advised me to ring the office manager directly as it would sound better coming from me. I did, wanting to look professional. She lectured me about how she’d come to work after having brain surgery (bullshit) and sarcastically remarked how convenient that was after a Bank Holiday. I didn’t like her tone and replied, “Well no. Considering I’m a temp and I won’t get paid if I’m off, it’s actually very INconvenient. Much as I’d have loved to ask the Illness Fairy to stay away until I’ve been made perm, I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that. If you really did come to work the day after a major operation – which I find VERY hard to believe – then you’re very irresponsible, and so were the hospital for letting you out. You should be glad I’m being considerate in not passing my germs on to everyone else.” She barked angrily, “I’ll speak to you when you get back!” but she never did. She probably felt uncomfortable after realising I was determined not to take shit from her. I actually took two days off and didn’t feel guilty about it at all.

      She left me alone for the next couple of months, but then the final straw came which culminated in me walking out. A client had emailed me with a particular query and I asked the room in general, “Hey guys, does anyone know if we can help Mr Bloggs with x?” (I hadn’t been trained on what he was asking). She sneered, “Think outside the box, you stupid retard!” Even her good friends gasped at that, as that was below the belt even for her. It threw me, as she’d been all right with me since I’d got her “trained”.
      ME: Oi! I’m not being rude to you! So why are you being rude to me?
      HER: HOW DARE YOU! I’m the MANAGER! Don’t you know I’ve got a RIGHT to be rude if people deserve it?
      ME: I don’t give a fuck if you’re the Pope, lady! You haven’t got a right to speak to me like I’m a piece of shit. And as for deserving it, who the hell died and made you the judge of me?
      (CUE APPLAUSE).
      HER (blushing but still trying to push it): You deserved it for asking stupid questions.
      ME: Oh how strange, because I swear I remember someone who looked EXACTLY like you on my first day, telling eight of us new starters that no question is ever too stupid if it needs asking! Well, a little tip – don’t go telling people that if you don’t mean it. If you’re so damn smart, you can bloody well try doing my job as well as your own until my replacement arrives. And God help the next poor bastard you decide to victimise!”
      I walked straight out of the office then, and jumped on the bus to the agency. I explained that I’d quit, and why, and that I wanted to make an official complaint against her. My consultant was great, really supportive. She said I’d be paid for the next four weeks until my probationary period officially ended. I expected her to be really mad with me for walking off site but that didn’t happen, and they’ve found me more work since. In fact, she’s even admitted that she finds this woman rude the rare times she’s dealt with her on the phone (it’s usually her boss the agency deals with, but she stands in for him if he’s off). But hey, it’s not every day you can say you stuck it to the man and got monetarily rewarded for doing it!

  360. Gillian*

    Things that should have been big red flags at the toxic job:
    – getting called in with the other coworker in the development department to talk with CEO about how we’re not nice enough to our boss and shouldn’t question her (when said questions were actually things like “which report do you want?” or “what is our deadline for X project?”)
    – boss complaining about me having to leave early/come in late one week a month for chemotherapy, even though I never missed any deadlines that were given to me and my work was (as far as I could tell) good
    – said boss also not caring about our health in terms of bringing her kids to work when they were sick instead of staying at home with them and then expecting me (an immunocompromised cancer patient) and coworker to care for them while she had ‘meetings’ with her friends in other offices, or using the one plant coworker was super allergic to (hives and stopping breathing) in all floral arrangements for our special events, which happened about once a month
    – boss talking smack about everyone else at the office when they weren’t there (I sometimes wonder what she said about me, but I’m sure it wasn’t good) and expecting us to participate
    – when boss said she likes hiring friends to work with because it makes the day more fun, instead of looking at resumes or qualifications (unfortunately for her, she inherited me)
    – when boss told me that performance reviews and giving feedback was a waste of time, after I specifically asked for feedback on a new project. She told me I was doing good and happy with my work. She had my position eliminated the following Monday after giving the President flat-out lies about me missing deadlines, ruining projects and a bunch of other nonsense. After I showed him the emails to prove she’d made things up, he just shrugged and said “It’s her department, she can staff it however she wants.”

    I’d stayed for the health insurance (because chemo is expensive) and got eliminated 2 weeks after my last treatment. I assume she only kept me around as long as she did because she didn’t want to worry about the potential problems of firing someone in active treatment without any documentation. She’s now hired friends to fill out the department and I assume have a grand old time at work while not actually succeeding in meeting the fundraising goals (the person who took on most of my responsibilities has called me numerous times to ask how to do basic tasks, as they were hired from a completely different industry and profession and never given any training).

    I’m now in a much better place and get a bit of schaudenfreude whenever I hear from old coworkers or volunteers about her being frazzled because she wanted me gone so fast she wouldn’t even let me write up notes on projects/annual tasks I’d been taking care of so that things could get passed on smoothly (I offered).

    1. Field red*

      This is beyond bad to treat someone this way who is going through cancer treatments. WTF is wrong with people. I’m glad you’re in a better place now and out of there.

  361. jarofbluefire*

    I know this is super-late, but did feel the need to add this, in case it matters in a future post from Alison:

    The two absolute clear breaking point moments I’ve had were both over salary, flat-out. Not that either place wasn’t a nightmare before that, just that my must-be-fair brain didn’t know how to draw a line on the awful things that happened that were more subjective [or so I thought], and harder to pin down as simply not okay.

    In reading these posts, I see a lot of “I should have left long before that” regrets, and those have been mine, too. It’s just with money, it’s so cut and dried, it can give you a solid ‘reason’ for going.

    Kind of like when your significant other is just wrong for you in so many ways that you have a hard time defining, but then you find out they’ve crossed some VERY BRIGHT, NO WIGGLE ROOM line, and you have that okay-NOW-I’m-free-to-leave relief moment.

    I guess I’m trying to say I hope I get better at nope-ing out when it’s clear it’s not a good fit, no matter if someone else wouldn’t think it was a problem. And in the meantime, jerk me around on pay and/or benefits, and I will have not problem looking for somewhere that won’t.

  362. sam*

    Late to the party, but I just had to add mine.

    It was my very first law firm job, fresh out of law school. As some folks may know, junior associate law firm jobs are pretty much “work all the time” type of jobs, so I was fully expecting to be overworked. What I wasn’t really expecting was this.

    The initial group I worked in turned out to have a reputation for not being able to hang on to associates. They were particularly dysfunctional. But I tried, for the most part, to just chalk it up to them being demanding/workaholics. Nothing too out of the ordinary early in a law firm career, right? Nevermind that the department head would show up at noon, even though he would call us at 9am to spot check that we were at our desks. Nevermind that he would then keep us in the office until 9 or 10 at night (daily) while we then had to work on his schedule, because he’d finally get rolling at 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Or that if you had a typo in a draft it resulted in a 3 hour screaming lecture about how you weren’t worth the salary you were being paid. Or that he would take full credit for articles you wrote (unlike other partners, who would “co-author” or put a credit along the lines of “this article written with the assistance of…”), or a million other invisible-ing, belittling things. Or when I’d mention that I was, say, going to a family friend’s wedding out of town to stand in for my recently deceased mother, his response was “well, we’ll see if you’ll be able to go out of town this weekend” (yes, that actually happened).

    I had also moved to a new city/apartment from law school, so I was still going through the process of buying grownup furniture, etc. I had, several months into working, finally gotten my act together to order some nice furniture that I had gone out of my way to have delivered on a Saturday – something that is incredibly difficult to do in New York City (actually impossible in the building I now live in, but back then I was in a building with less formality). Saturday delivery specifically so that I wouldn’t have to take any time off of work during the week. Mind you, I had also been living out of the equivalent of college dorm furniture (milk crates, beanbag chairs) for six months, so I was kind of desperate for real furnishings at this point.

    Friday afternoon, the head of the department sees me and says “it looks like we’re going to have to work on XYZ all weekend”. I, expecting my delivery, and actually concerned that the stuff was already on a truck and impossible to reschedule, actually say “that’s fine, but FYI, i have this delivery scheduled for tomorrow. I’ll try to get it rescheduled, but if it’s not possible, would it be OK if I work from home during the four hour delivery window?”

    Mind you – I wasn’t asking not to work. I wasn’t asking to flake out and go to a party. I was only saying that I had a prior obligation, that I would try to move, but if I couldn’t, I might need to WORK from an alternate site for a limited number of hours.

    Well, he flipped out and started screaming at me about how I had to move my delivery.

    I, of course, managed to get the delivery rescheduled.

    NONE of that was the last straw.

    The last straw was when he had one of the other partners sit me down later that afternoon and proceed to give me a lecture about how inappropriate it was for me to even mention that I had this “personal problem”, and that I should have just dealt with it without making it head partner’s problem. It was part of my job to simply rearrange my life so that I was always available.

    THAT was when I finally, much too late, realized that I wasn’t dealing with workaholics or perfectionists, but with actual crazy people.

    All I kept thinking was, “what was I supposed to do if the delivery people actually couldn’t reschedule? just not be there when someone showed up at my apartment building with thousands of dollars worth of furniture?”

    The next day I started the process to switch departments (which created its own kerfuffle, but I battled through it). When I moved to the corporate department, I worked with a lot of partners who had reputations for being difficult or demanding. They were great people and I got along with them fantastically well. Turns out, those folks actually just expected high quality work. And I still worked ridiculous, law firm associate hours, but it’s amazing how different it is when the people you’re doing that work for acknowledge and appreciate it (and are often there with you).

  363. FormerEditor*

    My first job out of college was at a small family-run business where I had to wear too many hats and didn’t know how to push back about that. I was the same age as the owners’ daughter, so got treated as such – and not in a good way. I bought into it, too. I was convinced I was disappointing them, sometimes came in early and didn’t clock it, woke up at 5 am on weekends frantically checking shipping statuses, and didn’t ask for a raise or a performance review for almost 3 years because I was sure I screwed up.

    When I made a stupid, forgetful mistake during a busy season, I got a phone call on my personal cell from the VP telling me about how I’d never amount to anything or be successful. The phone call came three days after I did two grueling back-to-back cross-country events (16-hour-days) on no notice to cover for their actual daughter and then went back to work without taking a weekend. I sobbed for three days straight and then got angry.

    They hired three people to replace me when I left.

  364. Nuha*

    The “last straw” was a mix of several things:
    1) I got in trouble with a manager I didn’t even report to for leaving her friend’s name off of the monthly departmental birthday poster and departmental directory (her friend worked in another division of our company and didn’t work with us at all). She would text me on the weekends and late at night to cuss me out for this on a regular basis for a year.
    2) A senior manager screamed at me at the top of her lungs in front if everyone for 20 minutes straight because I (politely) disagreed with her favorite junior employee on how to collect some trivial data for a project. When speaking to her calmly and talking to HR didn’t resolve the issue, I escalated it to my manager. He told me “if everyone who openly screamed and swore got in trouble then 90% of us would be in trouble so get over it”.
    3) I worked 60-80 hours week for 4 years (and was on call 24/7) for less than average pay and my bonuses were a measly $500 each.
    4) It was an environment where people regularly ended meetings/conversations in screaming/swearing matches.

  365. Rachel Talada*

    When, on a super slow Saturday in January, my district manager told me she’d “punch me in the face” if we don’t get another credit card application. I worked at Old Navy for 6 years. My general manager kept asking why I avoided the district manager and I told her. She said, “She was probably just joking.” Ok. The fact that you said “probably” means you KNOW she meant it. I could have taken her, though! Just saying!

  366. ET*

    I was working overseas and meeting with some colleagues for the first time. My new manager of only three months came along, even though he didn’t speak the local or the regional language and couldn’t understand my colleagues speaking in English (he said it was their accent). He also didn’t know anything about the particular training we were carrying out that week and I had to do all of it myself. It was the first time he had been to that continent never mind that country.

    1 He falls asleep in front of our colleagues from our partner organisation
    2 He tells me it’s fine to take naps at work because he skips lunch

    but the real kicker was

    3 At a hotel bar (which he refused to leave and so barely saw any authentic bits about the town’s nightlife) he decided to describe how Welsh people are sometimes referred to as “sheep-shaggers” and started physically thrusting in his chair to demonstrate this point. He also goes to great lengths to explain about how wellington boots and other farm tools are useful when “sheep-shagging”.

    I applied for a job once home and got an interview almost immediately.

  367. Likestopaintthings*

    My last straw cam when I got called in to supervisors office where she accused me of being rude to customers. I told her I had no idea what she was talking about as I always am polite and helpful. All this info was coming from a hostile co worker. I asked her to please show me any documentation she had but she just smirked at me. She insisted I was a “bad person”. In short, I didn’t have a leg to stand on.. A week before I had told her I was looking for another job. Looking back, I can see this all started around the same time.
    I decided that I wasn’t going to be made to feel bad about something I didn’t do…HR from another company called me and offered me the job I had applied to a week before…I accepted. I didn’t care about the consequences of the other place. I feel I was being set up for being terminated anyway. I know it is not good to burn bridges but sometimes you have to think of your mental health as well as your general health. I hope to never see any of these former co workers again. Just thinking about them and the way I was treated makes a little acid come up in my throat..Best to all!!

  368. Field red*

    Last job moments: Owner’s son (general manager) started stealing money. Working in A/R in a cash business, it was my job to balance out the cash. First it was petty cash, then it was the safe, then it was my desk drawer, then he staged a “break in” over the weekend and managed to take over $500. Thousands of dollars when said and done. But hey, he’s the owner’s son so what can you do is what I was told. We all knew it was him but didn’t have him on tape so no one wanted to point a finger. By the time I left I was hiding cash in strange locations in the office so he wouldn’t find it (try explaining that to the new hire you’re training.) He was having cash problems which I can sympathize with but this guy worked 20 hours a week doing absolutely nothing making 3 times what I was making. Too bad too because I could have used him as a work reference but literally couldn’t even look him in the eyes by the time I left because I had no respect for him.

    Same job, my supervisor liked to tell me how low I was on the “totem pole”. I made the mistake of telling her I was looking for another job, and she said “You can’t leave before me. I’m not getting stuck doing your crappy job.” She left before me of course, and was upset that I seemed “too happy” when she announced she was leaving. How rude of me apparently. Then she told me I was her best friend. (WTF?) For years she would talk to me in a condescending way: “This task is so easy even you could do it.” She didn’t train me on anything. I had to learn as I went along. She said she hated training people. So much I could have learned at that job. Every day I would have to figure out what kind of mood she was in to see whether I could speak to her that day or not. She would never say good morning when you walked in and would only speak if you talked to her first. Walking on eggshells. I dreaded seeing her car every morning in the parking lot.

    Current job which I’m trying to leave: working with someone who has undiagnosed untreated borderline personality disorder (or something of that type). There are really no words to describe it. Hellish. She’s always in my business, tells me how to do my job, calls me constantly over unimportant things, thinks everyone is out to get her (literally thought her landlord was trying to kill her!), spies and eavesdrops on us (no lie I’m 99% sure she went through my trash looking for something to use against me on paper), keeps tabs on where we are when we’re away from our desks, causes conflict by complaining about everyone (when she is the obvious problem). I’ve never encountered anyone like this. I can’t focus on my job. It’s awful. She won’t get help because it’s everyone else’s problem not hers. I can’t stand it anymore and want to work in the closet so am actively job searching and ready to go.

  369. Dani b*

    After two years, and being the highest performer with the best stats on my team, I was accused of plotting to murder one of my co-workers by my manager and got a whopping two cent raise. That’s two cents more than a brand new hire. Said coworker had gotten into a very old post on my Facebook and had sent the screen shot to my manager and hr. The kicker- I was talking about a game of thrones character, not her.

    Accepted a job offer I was waffling on, now make 5k over my original salary and live by the beach.

    1. Ruffingit*

      WTF??? You were accused of plotting to kill a co-worker? That is amazing in a very bad way. Glad you got out.

      1. Dani b*

        Unfortunately me and her had clashed before. She was telling agents incorrect info, and I’d get the blowback. She also was the lowest call taker/stats person on the team. When I kept my manager updated on the errors (after she had told me to send them directly to her and not go to coworker about it), I was accused of ‘bullying’ and ‘clogging up her inbox’. Like….what…?!

        The murder accusation during a standard review meeting was the entire bale of hay. I cut the meeting short and went directly to hr to file a complaint.

        1. Ruffingit*

          What did HR say about this? Because I have to think they were shocked beyond measure considering how weird this is.

  370. Jenny Islander*

    I asked for permission to bring in an air filter for my desk because everybody else in that office smoked like the world was about to end and besides gagging and hacking at work I had to take a shower as soon as I went home every day to get the smell off . . . and I was cornered in the boss’s office, yelled at, and called a spoiled diva. Of course, this was the job where I specified on my application and in my interview that I only had 3 college credits in what they wanted me to do and I needed training. Said training consisted of the outgoing person showing me where the files were and then suddenly not being there.

    The phone interview I had to do in order to get my unemployment benefits after that job was a nightmare, but Super Smoker Lady couldn’t seem to buffalo the government employee listening in from another town the way she had me when she was towering over me. So I got the checks.

  371. Ruffingit*

    I was working as a lawyer at a small firm with two other lawyers (who were married and owned the firm). One of them, Jane, was an absolute horror. She has some kind of mental illness I am sure. She would throw tantrums complete with feet stomping and crying. She would insult her husband on a regular basis and would frequently “fire” him, calling our legal secretary and asking her to clean everything off his desk and box it up. She was insulting to the rest of us as well, yelling at us often and just being generally bitter.

    In January, the secretary (Rita), who had been hired in November after the last one was unfairly fired, was in a major car accident. She called me as we were friends. She didn’t want to go to the hospital via ambulance because she had no health insurance. This was a Thursday. I took her myself on Friday morning and called the office to tell them I would not be in that morning as I was in the ER with Rita.

    Every 10 minutes I received a phone call from Jane about how I should come into the office and leave Rita in the ER and get her later. The calls became increasingly abusive and contained things like how I would have to work the weekend to finish something that I hadn’t finished because I took a day off to attend my grandmother’s funeral. It just went on and on. Finally, I had enough. After Rita was released from the ER, I took her to my house, got her settled, wrote a resignation letter, went to the office and quit on the spot.

    The kicker? On Monday, I took Rita in to the office and came back home. Got a call 30 minutes later that they had fired her.

  372. JP*

    I began work at a new company and had a 30-day review. Half of it was falsified and untrue. Couldn’t have gotten out of there faster.

  373. Jenny Islander*

    Oh another one: Hired to do on-site respite care on the basis of being willing to show up. First assignment was basically babysitting in the evening so that somebody could go to her Narcotics Anonymous 90-in-90. Except for the roaches in the fridge and the broken glass in the playground, that wasn’t so bad.

    Second assignment they expected me to catheterize somebody. On the basis of a resume that was exclusively typing and answering phones. NOPE.

  374. Vicki*

    My “final straw” has usually been that I get a new manager (not the one who hired me) who either doesn’t understand or simply doesn’t like what I do and decides to change my job description to something he does understand (or likes better). They never ask, they just tell me “Now you’ll be doing this thing” and it’s almost always something I would not have applied for in the first place and frequently something I _could not_ have applied for in the first place because I don’t have the skills let alone the interest.

    This usually leads fairly quickly to the venting weeknights and weepy stressful Sundays that others have mentioned.

  375. Business Writer*

    A colleague and I accompanied our boss, the VP, to a business convention in a famous resort town. The work was exhausting–meetings and assignments that ran from early morning until long after dinner, but OK, that’s pretty typical. The convention ended, but we still had another day because the VP had said he was arranging more meetings for us, but they fell through. My colleague and I hoped we could have a little time off to enjoy the town as a reward for our hard work, but the VP said he had arranged for us to work all day at the offices of an affiliated company in the town, even though there was very little we could do until we got back home.

    So early the next morning my colleague and I, bleary-eyed, were waiting in the hotel lobby for the taxi to the temporary office. The VP never showed. A half-hour later we called his room and woke him up. He said to cancel the taxi–he’d be at least another 30 minutes because he was so tired. Eventually, we made it to the temp office, cramped and very unreliable Internet connection.

    In our business, in those days, suits and ties were a “must” for doing business, even during a convention in a resort area. But the VP was wearing very casual clothes. We found out why: He had a date. He had met a young woman at the convention and they were spending the day together. I know this wasn’t business because they were both wearing resort clothes. We didn’t see him for the rest of the day.

    I gave notice a few weeks later. I told the VP that I realized we were a small company and that there was no one to do my work, so I’d spend the next two weeks getting everything in order for my successor. He just exploded and told me I had on hour to be out of the building.

  376. Budgie*

    I’ve worked in industrial jobs for most of my life — all of my “last straws” were safety issues, despite the companies insisting that worker safety was their #1 priority.

    At one job a small fire started on one of the new machines, and someone used a fire extinguisher to put it out. That employee was written up for causing downtime to clean up the resulting mess. This same company tried to write up everyone who didn’t come in during one of those “snowstorms of the century” — people were being stranded in rush hour traffic because the snow was piling up too fast. Had I been scheduled that day, there would have been no way I’d been able to get in. This all was following a long line of similar problems. Constantly working around toxic chemicals, but the use of respirators was discouraged. Being asked to get into and adjust an elevator shaft without locking it out (I refused). Standard procedures that involved working around safety guards. Heat exhaustion. OSHA had been called a couple times since I started but nothing changed by the time I left.

    I was a temp working second shift at another factory, a place where several people filled boxes and passed them down the line on a manual conveyor belt. I heard a loud CRACK and I thought someone had dropped a pallet, but everyone on the line had kind of stopped. The shift lead had thrown a firecracker on the belt. To “wake us up.” That was actually my last night anyway because I had a more permanent job starting soon, but even if that wasn’t the case I wouldn’t have gone back.

  377. Reverse Straw*

    This is the reverse of all the horrific last-straw situations I’ve read here, and I hope you all enjoy it.

    We got a new manager. He started on Monday, and interviewed each of us. I was interviewed on Tuesday, and explained that, since I had long since met all the requirements for Senior Software Engineer, I hoped to be promoted to that position sometime in the next several months.

    His response was that I couldn’t possibly become a Senior because… I knew what the inputs to and the outputs from my code were supposed to be. Um, is there any job in the world in which you do not have some idea of what you’re starting with and what you’re supposed to turn out?

    So I told my other co-workers about this declaration of his, and we all had a good laugh together. Our new manager left work on Thursday and never came back.

      1. Cyberspace Dreamer*

        Now that is just outstanding. I still might be at OLD JOB if our new managers did that. NOT

  378. Nora Lenderbee*

    Not one moment, but several things.
    1. My boss supervised three managers–one in France, one in China, and me in the US (in the same office as boss). She chose to hold her staff meeting at 6:45 AM our time. She always got up at 4 AM, so what was the big deal?
    2. After my annual review, one of my *mandatory* goals for the next year was to have lunch with a different person in the office every week. It was like being in kindergarten.
    3. She disparaged my team to my face, calling them old and lazy. I had not hired them–*she* had.
    4. We were interviewing candidates for a position that would report to me, and narrowed it down to three good people. The ultimate decision was mine. One day over chat (we were both working at home), she asked me which one I was leaning toward. I replied that I was really undecided, because all 3 were good. She asked insistently several more times. I said I wanted to wait until I’d gotten feedback from all the other interviewers. She said, “So, you’re going to let other people make the decision for you?” I was stunned and speechless. She said I’d better have a decision made by Monday Or Else. (This was on a Friday. ) Monday morning, I made my decision and told the recruiter to extend an offer to the candidate. Then I told my boss I’d done so. She got this look on her face and said, you’d better not have. During the weekend, she had arranged for *another* person in our group to interview her preferred candidate–and had not even thought to tell me, even though I was the hiring manager!

  379. Sehja Davis*

    I recently quit my job with a family owned home furnishings company after more than 10 years. I was originally hired on salary as an accounting clerk. Work was 40 hrs a week and if we had to work over a weekend day got comp time. Once the economy headed south they started laying people off and adding the work to those left. Then they asked us to take 30% pay cuts to keep our jobs. Then they cut more staff and added more work. Then they stopped honoring comp time. At the time I quit I was putting in 60-70 hrs a week just to keep a lid on how far behind I was. The owners knew it. They would stand at my desk and say “don’t stay too late” on the way out the door but when I did that would scold me for not getting enough work done. In fact, they had no problem adding more work.

    My salary was $28,000 a year so at 60 hrs a week my pay rate was down to $8.97 an hr. I could do better working hourly just about anywhere and getting paid every hour I worked. I really quit because I was burnt out and starting to have health problems due to the stress and lack of sleep. Recently I found out about exempt and nonexempt. I was definitely nonexempt. Once they stopped honoring comp time and adding so much work it was not possible to get it all done in 40 hrs they were breaking the law. Since I have no proof of anything I can’t go back and sue but I learned a lesson. I will never take a salary position again.

    1. Ruffingit*

      Don’t let this experience sour you on salaried positions. I promise you they aren’t all as bad as you experienced. It’s definitely worth checking into what all the position entails to see if it’s worth it to you, but some salaried positions are better than others, for sure.

  380. Callie*

    This is when I decided to leave teaching music in public school: I taught music in elementary school, and I had a colleague who taught dance. This colleague had been there for a couple of years, got married in April and bought a house, and three weeks later the principal called her in to tell her that they were eliminating her position for the coming year. He told me afterward that he had to let her go because it was a choice between letting her go and letting a kindergarten teacher go. (Music was mandated by the state, but dance wasn’t.) Then he told me that he couldn’t guarantee that more cuts wouldn’t be necessary. I started filling out graduate school applications that afternoon.

  381. Bon*

    There were 2 lightbulb moments for me with my old company.

    I was working with the same international company for 7 years as a consultant. This involved going on site and working with customers. We got taken over by a new company who looked great from the start. However, about 9 months in, we were called into a whole department meeting (about 40 people) ostensibly to talk about a new product. The new manager closed the door, walked up to the front of the room and started lecturing us on how to dress. He said that it was grossly unprofessional to visit a customer while wearing brown shoes. He laid out an entire male dress code (two piece suits, ties appropriate to the workplace, acceptable colours of socks and shoes, appropriate colours of shirts). We weren’t uniformed. I asked if there had been any incidents prompting this and was told no but that he thought we could benefit from his years of experience. I asked another question about what he considered appropriate wear for women as he’d only addressed the men up to this point. He said that he couldn’t comment on the propriety of a woman’s wardrobe. That meeting became known as “The Brown Shoes Meeting”.

    The second moment was following a change to our working hours. On site days used to be structured from 10-4 onsite with driving time factored in to fulfil the hours, which may be in excess of normal working hours. They decided that they were going to up the onsite time to 8:30 to 5:30, with travel time on top of this. I raised a health and safety issue with regard to this. The customers that we dealt with often did not provide lunch or did not allow consultants to eat during the consultancy. In some cases, we were lucky to be provided with water for drinking. This meant 9 hours onsite with no food. We typically travelled up to 4 hours in the morning to reach the client and another 4 hours in the evening to get home. They were only one day trips and you might be completely the other end of the country the next day (Newcastle to Plymouth happened quite regularly – a 7 hour drive following a full day of work). This meant that it wasn’t unusual to have a 17 hour day, or for the first meal of the day to happen after 5:30pm.

    This was raised by me to the new manager as a H&S concern. I got summoned to a meeting in London the next day (was onsite in Manchester when the summons came through). I headed down, laid out my case and made sure that I phrased it in terms of not casting blame or disparaging any individual. I even came equipped with potential solutions or mitigating factors.

    My new manager leaned back in his chair and said “, that’s just bullshit! I own you from midnight on Monday morning until 11:59 on Friday night. I will send you anywhere that brings in money.”

    That was the day that I stepped up my job search!

  382. Ben*

    I was in a senior position for a relatively small company, in charge of improving their customer support and IT infrastructure globally.

    After 6 months of constant improvements, including reducing response times from weeks to under 2 hours, averaging 95-100% customer satisfaction, and other IT improvements, I was asked to meet the owner and HR.

    I was basically sat down, thanked for all my hard work in achieving the goals set, above and beyond….then told I would be losing my manager role and pretty much turning into an admin/customer service rep.

    I handed in my notice 1 month later, to their surprise. The owner would not speak to me for the month.

  383. DSA*

    I worked for a very prestigious, well-known consulting firm as a Recruiting Assistant for all of three months. I was put on a performance improvement plan after 3 weeks – hardly enough time to even get to know the company or processes, especially for an entry-level role – and then publicly chastised for everything. I reported to a first-time manager who had previously held my role who refused to accept that there was a possible better way to accomplish things than what she had done – yet expected me to read her mind about how she wanted things accomplished. I was also told that it wasn’t about how productive you are during the day, but how much face time you put in at the office – which meant the team typically stayed in the office past 8:00pm – but only because they spent ~3 hours each day online shopping and goofing off, and had to stay late to actually accomplish anything. The last straw, however, was after ~2 months when my manager proceeded to give me detailed information about the other candidates in the interview process and how they were so much better than me in several different areas – then topped it off with “I thought x candidate would have been a better hire, but I was outvoted, and look where that got us”.

  384. Anon For This*

    I worked for someone who was particularly vehemently disliked in part due because they were running for local office. After the branded company car I drove was vandalized for the second time, I decided to move along. Other than that, honestly, it was a pretty great job but I could not deal with that level of dislike from strangers.

  385. CollegeChef*

    So I was in college working at a beer and burgers bar. Local college football team makes it the national title game – same day as the first day of school. In the beginning of Dec, I get my schedule and have classes planned for that night and can’t work – get my manager to sign a paper saying I told him. Mid Dec, they release the next 3-4 weeks of schedules (to ensure holidays are covered) including the first night of school/national title game. I’m listed as working.

    I print out my schedule, copy of the paper manager signed saying I can’t work it – and get all 3 managers plus the owner to sign saying that they understand I can’t make the shift due to class. The Friday before the game – I get all the managers to sign the paper again since they still had replaced me on the schedule.

    Come Monday night – I go to class and get a call from work I don’t answer. I go in for my next shift and the owner sits me down to talk about my “lack of dedication” and how I “no-showed” for the national title game shift. I pick up the signed letter from his desk and ask if 3 weeks notice was enough and how all 3 managers and him/owner knowing of this was my fault? I also pulled up the other 2 signed notices that I gave everyone.

    Once he picked his chin up off the floor, I quit on the spot – walked 2 stores down and got a job starting the next night.

  386. Jenny Islander*

    I had my last-straw moment for a couple of jobs during the interview.

    If the only thing you want to tell a prospective employee is how awesome you are and how stupid everybody else in your field is…

    Or if you’re so busy explaining that you have the system that will revolutionize your job field as soon as you get it written that you can’t be bothered to tell your employee what your field even is…*

    Then maaaaaybe they’ll make their excuses and leave early.

    *The ad just said “Receptionist, 2 years experience,” and gave a phone number.

  387. Jenny Islander*

    This happened to somebody else, not me. She was trying to move on from delivering pizzas, but couldn’t get a callback. One evening the owner/manager told her smugly that he had been telling every prospect who called him for a reference that she was a terrible employee because she was actually his best employee and he wanted to keep her. “Wow,” she said, “I sure want to work for a place that does that to its employees,” and walked out. She called one of the prospects on her list and explained what had happened. Unfortunately for Mr. Smart Manager Man, this is a small enough town that the prospect said, “Oh, your boss was $name? Yep, I can believe it,” and hired her immediately.

    Pizza joint folded not long after. Even though they were the only one on our island that did deliveries.

    In high school I asked for a raise after bagging groceries at starting pay for longer than the starting period and was told that I studied too much. The manager told me, verbatim, that I had to stop taking AP and honors classes and work lots more hours or else no raise.

    1. Unkk*

      When I was bagging groceries during high school, raises were based on how well you did in the store, and how well you did on your report card.

  388. Arya Stark Raving Mad*

    The straw that broke the camel’s back for me was, hilariously enough, **nothing**. I’ve been at an incredibly poorly run nonprofit for three years now, putting up with a micromanaging executive director with a classic case of founder’s syndrome, all sorts of nepotism and somewhat suspicious but not quite illegal bookkeeping (among other things, ED’s spouse is a director at the org), constant drive-by bossing, no respect for interpersonal boundaries, and autocratic management and downright secretive communications styles stemming from the bosses’ raging paranoia and delusions of grandeur. There’s a lot of us who have been in the discussion stage of finding a new job for quite a while now, as the ratio of capable competent people:crazy directors keeps dropping.

    It wasn’t until about a month ago though, that the straw hit. I took a Friday off and returned on Monday to find that the project I’d been working on all that previous week had gotten deep-sixed by the executive director. With our company, it’s not all that surprising and even at the most functional of places, plans change, that’s fine. However, I only heard about it third-hand at the very end of the day on Monday, when the directors had plenty of opportunities to bring it up, and when I could’ve wasted another full day continuing to work on something that was never going to be used. I was curious how long it would take for them to say something directly to me and I was sitting around eating lunch on Wednesday, still having received no actual communications on the matter, when I decided that today was the day I officially stopped giving a fuck. I marked it on my calendar :)

  389. M*

    I’d been looking for another job for quite some time, because the work environment (which included frequent verbal abuse from the boss and excessive overtime) was affecting my health, and I’d been told by a health care provider that my current situation was “not sustainable.”

    The final straw that got me to walk out the door was this:

    I’d done exactly as instructed—checked with one of the daycare teachers to see whether a handyman had finished putting up shelving in her classroom—and I’d reported back to my supervisor that the teacher had said he had. My supervisor asked me to go to the classroom and double-check—and, if the job was not done, she wanted me to stop the handyman from leaving and make sure he finished it. The job had been done, and the handyman had left–but my supervisor insisted the job had not been done to her specifications, and reamed me out over the phone because someone else hadn’t done his job, when I’d never been told what the specifications were, and apparently she didn’t think the job was important enough to supervise it herself! My supervisor then demanded I call the handyman up and tell him to come back the next day–a holiday–and demanded I give up my holiday to supervise his work. When I pointed out that the incomplete work was not my fault, and singling me out for punishment was unfair, she said she’d come in to supervise him instead–but tried to make me feel guilty about it.

    I spent the holiday on the phone and in emails with my health care team, telling them what had happened that day. I remember saying I would rather kill myself than go back and spend one more day in there. I’d been documenting everything in emails for months: work hours, crying spells and panic attacks, and incidents of verbal abuse. That afternoon, I got an email from my health care team advising me that staying in that work environment was not going to be good for my physical or mental health–and I should not return to work after the holiday.

    I did go back to the office that night, and turn in my resignation letter and my keys. I had never just walked away from a job before, and haven’t since–but there is no job worth risking my health or life for, and I’m glad I made the choice I did.

  390. KC*

    19, working front desk at a hotel.
    Had already put in my 2 weeks (Manager and her favorites would go to nearby mall for hours during paid shifts, leaving me alone at a very busy resort after only 2 months of training), the last straw was when a coworker had a screaming argument with a customer about something stupid.
    Me:”You can’t talk to people like that!”
    Coworker: “Well, this is how Manager tells me to handle customers, so that’s what i’m doing!”
    Me: “If Manager is saying that, she probably isn’t the greatest manager…I can’t imagine saying what you just said to someone!”
    …coworker storms off and 10 minutes later I’m confronted by Manager and told to sit down forcefully while she stands over me and yells for 10 minutes about how it’s not my place to tell other employees how to act and how dare I say that about her as a manager!

    …that night was my last shift, I stayed and finished the shift out but left an updated letter of resignation on her desk.

    5 years later, I’m significantly better at recognizing red flags and acting on them, but man does it still piss me off thinking about all the stress that place brought me!

  391. Quinalla*

    My final straw was when after I had clearly explained the state of a project to the person covering for me prior to when I went on vacation, they sent me a long, ranty e-mail after leaving me a message on my cell telling me that it was all screwed up and I needed to either come in on my vacation and fix it or I was going to maybe be fired. Turns out he’d done something completely wrong and wasn’t able to get into the file, so he tried to just start the project over, oh wow it was a giant mess. I ended up coming in since I was in town (had taken days off with my husband so we could move into our new house, with three little kids, not much moving in happening when they were home) and trashing everything he had done (especially since all he had done was the stuff I already had done, what a waste of his time), opening up the file correctly and finishing it up with help from two other folks in the office. At first I felt bad like I had done something wrong, but the more I thought about it the angrier I got and it was when I decided I was truly done. If he had just reached out to anyone else in the office and asked how to open the file properly, they could have helped him, but noooooo. He had to get all in a tizzy and basically guilt me into coming in on my vacation. A recruiter got lucky and had just gotten back in touch with me after a few years and I’m not sad at all to be gone.

  392. K*

    There were a few things that caused me to definitely leave my last job as a barista at a small independent coffee/breakfast shop.
    There were constant scheduling issues – scheduling people for days that had already been approved off, forgetting to schedule someone over the lunch hour or to close the restaurant, only putting one barista on at a time so when I tried to take my only 15 minute break I kept having to run in whenever we got more than one customer at a time because the person in the kitchen didn’t know the coffee side very well or how to use the drive through headset, making my coworker work overtime and refusing to pay her for it. The manager would pressure me to work late when he messed up the schedule, and once when I refused because I had made plans for the day and I was fed up covering for him he told me to stop being a brat when he asks me to work because I was frustrated by his inability! We were almost always out of something or another and our most recent manager was literally disgusting in the kitchen – would put back food that people brought back because they didn’t like it, didn’t wash his hands, took all of our home-cooked recipes and converted them to premade frozen food, ect.
    The straw that broke the camels back and made me start looking RIGHT AWAY for a new job was when one of the girls who worked in the kitchen quit, and then shortly after our manager was gone. We finally worked it out that he had been making inappropriate comments to this 16 year old girl and making her feel really uncomfortable. When she had complained the owners (very small business), they didn’t believe her or do anything about it. They then cut her hours and basically punished her for being harassed, eventually pressuring her to quit. Well, she told her parents and someone had the bright idea to look this guy up online and he was a sex offender (and his crime had something to do with young girls too!). The owners were so careless in hiring a manager that they hired someone who wasn’t allowed near schools or playgrounds to manage young people under 18. (to clarify I’m not suspicious or discriminatory about all sex offenders, but clearly this man was still up to his old tricks)

  393. Field red*

    I forgot this one. When you start a new job in accounting and the printing calculator, which you use all day every day, doesn’t work. You can’t get the ordering person to agree to buy you a new one. “It’s only the one number key that sticks, once in a while, not all the time.” So you end up bringing in your own calculator. One number key sticking now and then doesn’t sound like a big deal but try using it all day. It’s maddening, but apparently not maddening enough to warrant a new calculator. Looking back that was a red flag but I ignored it.

  394. Amanda*

    I worked for a Jewish organization, although my mother is Jewish and my father is not. One day I made a joke to my former boss about how my father’s family behaves much more sensibly than “we” did. She pulled me into her office and said, “I didn’t know that about you!” I was surprised because by that point it was common knowledge. She said, “Well, I think I did know that your dad isn’t Jewish, but I just blocked if out of my mind.” I said, “Why, because God forbid (organization) hire someone from an intermarried family?” She said, “yes.” Everyone agreed that this was a firing offense but of course nothing came of it. I left shortly afterwards.

  395. nannanannabooboo*

    My former boss was out for several weeks recovering from “vanity” surgery. Upon her return, she had informed us that she spent those weeks watching SYTTD.
    Her grand idea was to start serving mimosas every Saturday like they do in the big city. According to her, “the more they drink, the more they spend”.
    Big dummy thought she could get away with not having to obtain a liquor license and employees having to possess ABC cards to serve. Thank goodness I was put on emergency maternity leave, because less than two weeks after, she was raided.
    After maternity leave was over, she “let” me come back to work. However, she refused my commission and removed any over time I accrued. (I made copies of my time sheets)
    After a complaint to the proper authorities, not only did she owe me hundreds of dollars, but she owed past and present employees as well.
    Needless to say, she’s no longer in business.

  396. Mister Fluffy*

    After our Operations Manager quit the company the other guy in our two-people Team was made “the Supervisor” and he liked to get his jollies over the fact that he was “my boss”. For instance: not only did he change my schedule every other month to accommodate himself, but he tried to revamp our production schedule so he could get to work and do as little work as possible. Think: “the client says they need this by the weekend, but they can wait until we get to it”. The Site Manager didn’t care because we weren’t “her favorite unit” and the company was trying to get rid of our unit anyway (I found this out years later).

    One morning I came to work at 4:00 AM (the latest change from “my boss”) and found a note from him our whiteboard (which was in plain view of the main hallway in the building) about how I wasn’t a team player, how I did not wait for him to get back to the production lab before I left for the day (therefore “abandoning my duties”) and saying that obviously “I didn’t care”. He went on to write the note in the largest letters he could fit in the board.

    As part of my job I had to drive 45 minutes to do a pick-up for a client and I drove there that morning in less than 30 minutes because I was THAT amped-up. My “straw moment” came about when I got to the customer’s parking lot and had to sit in the company car for 10 minutes in order to come down from the adrenaline high. I decided right-there-and-then that “I can’t do this anymore!”. So I did my pick-up and ran this client’s job (which took most of the morning) then went to the HR lady and gave her my badges and said that I was quitting effecting immediately.

    Since I quit the day before Thanksgiving and we were a 7-day-a-week 365-days-a-year operation, “my boss” had to work both the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday weekends… cancel his scheduled two-week vacation.. and lose those two weeks of vacation time under the company’s “use-or-lose” policy.

  397. Mister Fluffy*

    And now, one from my boo.

    Her new CFO had managed to “liberate” (read: he fired or got to resign) his three Assistant CFO’s, most of their Directors and almost every one of their Supervisors in less than a year. My wife’s Supervisor, Director and Assistant CFO were amongst “the liberated ones”. A lot of the non-management staff quit “en masse” as well, so at the time this story happened my wife’s department went down from 10 accountants to one : my wife, plus her Supervisor (who was new) and her Director (who was also new). The expectation, of course, was that my wife did all the work, “and if you have to stay late or come to work on the weekends, well, that’s too bad!”. The stress and the pressure and the harassment (verbal and by e-mail) was such that my wife had to take medical leave for three months.

    As a side note, we had been invited to go on a cruise the year before and we had just finished paying-off the cruise before she had to go on medical leave. My wife returned to work from medical leave three weeks before we were scheduled to go on this cruise, with vacation already scheduled for the cruise I mentioned earlier. Her Supervisor decided to “disapprove” her vacation because she had already been gone for three months. My wife spends the next three weeks trying to salvage our cruise, even going all the way to the CFO… who proceeds to send her a passive-aggressive e-mail the day before we’re scheduled to go on our cruise (which was also the Friday before the Memorial Day weekend) telling her: “I’m not telling you whether you should go on your cruise or not.. but if you go, you’ll have one less week to complete your work”. “Your work” consisted of nine months’ worth of work that had not been complete because there was no staff to do it (people kept going on medical leave due to stress, or quitting, or both)… which my wife was expected to complete within five weeks… by herself.

    My wife resigned that afternoon… and, as of today, the 10 temps that the company is overpaying have yet to complete all that work.

  398. Unkk*

    I worked at a financial document processing firm where you could get fired for having a cell phone with a camera on it in your possession inside the building. You couldn’t bring anything that would plug into the computer like USB drives or headsets. The CEO’s useless brother in law was given a fancy title, office, company car and a condo on the beach but he wanted more. He bought an iPad with the company’s money but because we were so security conscious we had no wireless network available. He went to a local big box store and bought a wireless router and installed it himself (no security configured). Anyone in the parking lot would have had total access to all our entire network. I was told to “find a way to make it work and keep him happy” by the CEO but I was also being reprimanded by the head of security for permitting him to purchase the router. The day I left the company so did the brother in law because he didn’t like having to come into the office once a week. He did keep the car and the iPad though.

  399. Kate the Great*

    It was a part time job in high school but I quit a pizza joint because we were continually failing our reviews from corporate and I found a document that stated that we were not getting all the training we needed to actually pass these reviews. What I didn’t know at the time was I was also not getting paid enough because we were told to clock out before we ended working on closing shifts because as my coworker put it “our boss will be mad if we don’t”. Being young and naive I did not know any better.

    Thankfully after that position I went to college and have never worked in food service again (on top of these problems, I was also just not good at making pizza). Remember to be nice to and thank the people that serve you food every day! They might just have as crazy (and greedy) a boss as I did!

  400. The Dream*

    Very late to this red hot thread . . .

    My last straw, whew!! (A shared this before but I do love telling this story!)

    After years of successfully cultivating a respectful rapport with my leadership & colleagues, I finally got a rude awakening.

    A new department head completely turned on me and tried to ruin my reputation. I was working at OLD JOB and was doing quite well. I was promoted twice and my pay had doubled in just four years. I had earned an excellent reputation and never had any problems. We were involved in a major project and I was working in the project and in my real job simultaneously.

    The department head and the project manager did not like each other but needed to cooperate for the good of the company and to support this project. So I was transferred out of the department into this project full time. But they left my position vacant and it was the type of job that one could not just walk into and take off running. No one believed me when I tried to explain this. When I did not attend a meeting in a timely manner the Department head, lied to executives accusing me of refusing to assist during an emergency and implied that I was still responsible for the systems that I had been relieved from maintaining. She even tried to have me fired over this. I never had any joint meetings with this department head and the project manager before or after this incident. The response from management was very tepid. The HR head and my HR rep came to speak to me about all of this. They assured me I was a good worker, said they understood my concerns but encouraged me to follow orders. Apparently the impression was given that I was resisting the transfer. I told them I just wanted clarification as it related to accountability. I had never been in trouble in my life but was being treated like a problem employee. The shift was too extreme.

    I spoke to my new boss, the project manager, and ask for time to draft documentation so that incidents like the one that took place JUST ONE DAY AGO would not happen. She refused this request and said those systems were “their problem now”. At that point I was done. I was never able to get full clarification on what I was and was not accountable for. The Department head would not speak to me and I dared not take it any further. I found a job three weeks later and the “fired” me when I turned in my two weeks notice.

    OLDJOB is not going anywhere, but the culture has been toxic ever since.

  401. Bagpuss*

    I was working for a large company pretty much full time whilst studying and as part of the management team had kept the store open whilst the manager and assistant manager had long term sick. I had worked across different districts and helped out in other stores, sometimes at short notice.
    After keeping the store open the District Manager came personally to thank me when 10 minutes later my boss took me outside to tell me off. Because I told him I was studying and did what I could he left it. A few weeks later he tried to sit me down and use disciplinary paper for a meeting, only for ‘note taking’ apparently so I had to put a stop to that (the company thankfully has strict disciplinary procedings to follow). Another day we had a ‘team meeting’, where the management team set up the store for opening and then we were called across to the rest of the team. The rest of the team had spent their time coming up with why they hated the management team and were then telling us what we were doing wrong! The manager then started to tell his assistant manager off infront of us all.

    My last straw came when I had a road accident and spent 5 months off sick. I was on my way there at the time and that’s who I got the bystanders at the accident scene to phone, I was at the hospital before I could get anyone to phone my family – all miles away. I really should’ve just phoned my family. My sister rang expecting me to be at work and my boss tells her ‘oh she’s in hospital’, but nothing more – not what hospital, if I’m relatively ok, nothing. I started having nightmares and breaking in to sweats just at the thought of speaking to him – he was avoiding my phone calls to the point where I spoke with my District Manager again and set up a meeting where he denied everything. He was highly annoyed that I had involved higher management, oh dear. My first day back he never once asked if I was okay but I wasn’t really that surprised.

    The worst part?- I had worked for the company (but at different stores) for 7 years. I had a mortgage to pay and thankfully had sickness insurance to cover some bills but my boss would not authorise sick pay for me. I nearly lost my house as a result. HR weren’t interested, they asked me what my problem was. I felt sick to the stomach at the thought of working for this person so I worked out how much money I would need for everything for the next 2 years until I qualified and got my other ‘job’, took out a loan and went back one day a week after promising myself that I would quit immediately if he gave me any grief.

    I left when I wanted to having only to endure being told that he was asking everyone how I could afford a car (not a new one), and asking how I had afforded to learn how to drive (I had a scooter accident) – which was obviously no thanks to him and have taken my experience of ‘how not to treat an employee/ colleague!’

  402. Professional Straphanger*

    I am way, way late but putting this in print might help me exorcise my last bit of lingering anger.
    I used to work for a very large police department that has a significant pop culture presence. I was scientific staff, not a police officer. When I first started there, the head of my division was an old-timer who came up through the ranks. He really only had three rules:
    1. Keep up with your assigned duties.
    2. Make sure we can get hold of you if we need you for court (or whatever).
    3. Don’t do anything that’s going to make me look bad.
    They were good rules and we lived by them. I threw myself into that job with gusto and I LOVED it. I was good at what I did and happy to help the officers. I did special projects, got to do fun stuff like go on ride alongs and even go in one of the helicopters every now and then.
    When I had been there about 4 years the head of my division retired, as old-timers do.
    He was succeeded by a micromanaging political animal (MPA). This person came from another section of my division and had not been any sort of manager beforehand, just caught the eye of some higher-ups and worked the hell out of that. As part of the micromanaging, I was called on the carpet and told there would be no more ride alongs, no more special projects that took me out of my assigned work area …all because MPA wanted to police my interactions with other people in the department (it wasn’t just me, it was everybody). About a year after MPA took over a coworker retired. I asked the head of my section if I could take the retiring coworker’s work area, because it was larger and I still had one in-house project where I could have used the room to spread out. My section head fobbed me off with several reasons why I couldn’t have that work area.
    Now around this time MPA said each section would be promoting a few people to mid-level management, something between the worker bees and the section head. By this time I had been there almost five years, had my professional certification, and was known as an all-around good worker. I thought I had a pretty good shot, but that was only because I didn’t have MPA figured out yet. I have to say I wasn’t really interested in management but I was getting bored with my routine work now that I was under MPA’s thumb.
    So one morning I come in and there, moving into the work area I wanted, was a coworker who had been there less than two years–not even long enough to be eligible to take my discipline’s certification exam! So I went to my boss and asked, essentially, WTF?
    “Oh, MPA wanted everybody to move closer together so I told [newbie coworker] to take that spot.”
    I reminded him that I had been asking for that work area for a solid six weeks.
    “Oh. I forgot.”
    A blatant lie, obviously, but my section head *was* well known to be spineless. I was pretty sure MPA told him to put newbie coworker there, but just by the way it all happened I realized that day that I was never going to do anything different than I was doing now. My boss didn’t respect me enough to be upfront with me about what was going on. I would honestly have been more okay with the whole thing if he had said “buzz off, sister, you’ve had it” instead of a lame “I forgot.”
    So I went through the kangaroo court interviews and was not chosen for a management position, which did not trouble me too much. What did annoy me was they passed over a lot of senior people to choose newbie coworker, a woman who never stayed a second past quitting time, and a guy who was okay at what he did but also played the political game and confused connections for superior intelligence. Our newly-minted managers who the week before had worked next to us fell into their new position with zeal, immediately criticizing our work and questioning our abilities. This wasn’t the straw, but after this I started looking for a new job.
    Also around this time the county started messing with our compensation: raises and cost of living increases were frozen, the pay enhancement for having professional certification was taken away, and they instituted an “insurance contribution” that amounted to 9% of my pay, pre-tax (this was on top of my regular biweekly insurance deduction). At one point I was dealing with a 21% pay cut, basically giving the county one free day per week. Obviously there were a lot of unhappy people, so many that there was a big meeting with police union reps and the head of the entire department. At that meeting an angry road officer stood up and asked, essentially, “Can you give me any reason why I should stick around?” The answer, delivered with a bit of a sneer: “If you think you can command more on the open market, now’s your time to find out.”
    And for me that was the last straw. Challenge accepted. The 21% pay cut, the constantly having my intelligence insulted by my management, the dead endedness of it all, it all got to me at once and I started job hunting in earnest.
    I found my new job quite by accident. A few months after getting serious about finding a new job, I was at a conference. Outside one of the lecture rooms there was a guy in a suit telling passersby that my current employer was doing pickup interviews in Room X. What the heck, I thought. So I tidied myself up, printed a copy of my resume and presented myself. I interviewed in February and was hired in May, and if anyone knows anything about working for government organizations in the US, you know that means I was practically hired on the spot.
    What makes me sad is that it wouldn’t have ended this way if they had the least bit of respect for my intelligence. What MPA doesn’t understand is that I would have continued to work hard for her if she had not treated me like an errant 6-year old. I see her at professional conferences to this day. We don’t speak; she thinks I’m a traitor and I couldn’t care less what she thinks. I realized after I was gone that management at my old job worked very hard to take from you any sense of personal investment or satisfaction in our work. It was an incredibly demotivating atmosphere and I hold MPA totally responsible for that.

  403. adrienne*

    I joined a company because the team wanted my non-typical experience to add breadth to the team. After 3 months, I was asked to fill a different role. That happened 2 more times. After being there 10 months, I found out my manager had NO IDEA what I did before joining the company, why I joined, what I thought I could do to make a contribution. All she knew was that I didn’t have the same background as her, so she kept asking me to do these different roles not because I could do them, but because she didn’t know what else to do. I then asked around the organization, found a need in the company I could fulfill, asked for permission (yes, my fault on that), and was promptly told that I could use company time to find a new job.

  404. Broken Hearted Over Work*

    Four years ago, I moved across the country to focus on my career. (My daughter graduated from high school and went off to college, so I had a new freedom.) Since then, I’ve had a string of horrible jobs.

    At the first one, managers lied on performance evaluations to make themselves look good. I was assigned to a failing project, which I turned around and we completed it five months ahead of schedule. Because of that, I had nothing to do for five months – for some unknown reason, they hired sixty new people in a panic, while I (and my project-mates) were given nothing to do. At first, I made good use of the time by getting a professional certification and enrolling in a graduate program. However, I finished those things, and started to play solitaire one day at work. I was called into my boss’s office and told that I needed to pretend to work.

    Next job, I worked on a team that was progressively moved farther and farther from the office, into worse and worse conditions. At the end, my desk was a little folding table set up in the aisle between rows of cubicles, directly in front of and facing my boss. I had to crawl over a drinking fountain to get to my seat.

    Next job, I worked directly with senior leadership on a daily basis, delivering presentations and proposals that were always due within impossible deadlines. I don’t mind that so much, because I’m really good at what I do, and I love to be able to deliver. However, my computer wasn’t adequate to support the programs I needed (graphics programs) so it kept crashing and I kept losing files. One day, the CEO stomped around the office yelling that I needed a computer NOW! Three computers, six months, and much drama later, I still did not have a working computer. (The IT department was doing something mysterious and weird, and lying about it – still not sure what was going on.) I bought my own computer, told my boss, was severely reprimanded, then she told me to go ahead and use it, but to keep it a secret. I also reported directly to six different people – all senior to me. Reporting to even two people can be a nightmare, let alone six!

    Current job, my boss has absolutely no idea how to do the work we’re supposed to do, and she seems more concerned with her ego than the work. She keeps asking me for my input, and then, when I make suggestions, I’m accused of generating conflict and being difficult to work with. I turn in projects and never hear back from her, until suddenly she’s called a team meeting to show us how she’s completely trashed everything I did and started over. Because she doesn’t know what she’s doing, we’re usually back to square one. (She told me that her criteria for deciding if my work is good is, “Either I like it or I don’t.” – How am I supposed to make changes based on that?)

    Either I’m a magnet for bad jobs, or my expectations or totally unrealistic. I love the work that I do, but am I destined to always hate my job?

  405. WhateverAndAgain*

    I just read through literally every one of these posts and started reminiscing about my past jobs. My worst experience was in a small independent insurance office. The guy I worked for was part of a larger organization but he liked to be on his own. My first day, his wife trained me (despite not working in the office herself – red flag #1) and kept talking about how his long-term assistant just left. After hearing about this person all day I asked how long she had been there – 2 years. Red flag #2. Shortly after I started, the other girl who worked there in the customer service role was fired (red flag #3) and he brought in a new girl, who actually did very well.

    So this guy was an EXTREME micromanager. Like, “This cover letter is one line off from being centered; re-do the entire thing!” type of micromanager. Not a lot of people can handle that, but I did alright. He eventually hired on two more people, a guy who did customer service with me and a girl who took over scheduling. Around this time, he decided he wanted to purchase policies for everyone in the office and it was my job to process the paperwork. He forgot to take out the page that had everyone’s salary on it and I saw that the new guy (who was doing the same job as me and who had been there a year less than I had been) was making $15K more than I was. I had even just asked for a raise since I switched jobs (a measly $2K more a year) and had been denied. Red flad #4.

    The final straw was when we were going through an incredibly stressful period trying to get applications processed, had a marketing campaign going on that I was also in charge of, and also me having to clean up mistakes that the other guy (yeah, the guy who was earning $15K more than me) kept making. Boss man yelled at me for something, or maybe it was a snarky reply to an email – I can’t even remember – I just saw red and had to leave the office. Went down to my car with the intention of leaving for a while to cool down, but instead I just screamed. Sat screaming in my car for 10 minutes in the dead of winter.

    Shortly after that incident I made the decision to go back to school and get my Master’s. I was out of there 3 months later and haven’t looked back! Still have that stupid policy though, LOL.

  406. Ayshe22992*

    I used to work in a factory. We weren’t allowed to have headphones but my boss was ok with me plugging my phone into my amp cause radio signals were bad in the building. The only stipulation was that I had to let everyone choose some of the music so we had a well rounded playlist going. My walking out was because of two things. First, after having been there like 7 months and almost always getting more product inspected than the minimum. we were told we were not allowed to use chairs because chairs make people lazy. This was about 2 hours before the shift was over and I had already inspected over 5,ooo parts when they said they needed 3,000 by the end of the day. I wanted to scream at them, “chairs don’t make people lazy, lazy people will find any way to slack off.”

    The final straw was when the owner came and told me I couldn’t use my phone and amp because they thought I would play on my phone all day. I even pointed out that my phone was 10 feet away plugged into the amp and I could not possibly be on it.

    I texted my boss the next morning and told her I would not be coming back. I’m still social media friends with her.

  407. OdiousOdin*

    Honestly I’m still at my current job its part-time, it wasn’t too bad (its was still somewhat a hassle, but nothing like it is now) cleaning a school. I was also offered a bunch of extra hours my second year in during the day cause I was a hard worker and not off once (declined though as I was looking to find something else at the time to work along side the part-time job). I am now nearly five years in and SOOO furious and angry at both parties in this situation. So, these new contractors came in summer last year,I instantly felt something was off about them the moment they said weekly pay and they lost some of our paper work when going with these new people, against my better instinctive judgement I chalked it up to lack of experience or a one off thing, benefit of the doubt you know. BUT NO NO it kept happening and happening, this time with agency people (who would’ve got signed on straight to these contractors 3-4 months time) not getting paid or getting paid less than they were meant to, they did nothing about it till just before the thrid person came on, Learning curve my butt…

    OH NO BUT THATS NOT ALL FOLKS a few of us we were getting paid a hour or so extra a day to cover the 3-4 people that weren’t there anymore, during this end of this 6-7 month period of extra money, around spring they decide to cut costs out of nowhere just said one day, oh and we are losing out extra hours starting in a few days and low and behold we are down to at max 7 people around this time, barely keeping up with the workload which enfuriated me even more especially with that SHI*TY phone in system for a PART-TIME JOB I MIGHT ADD where we had to turn 10-20 mins early to log in at a specific time otherwise it wouldnt ‘register us’ and log out promptly otherwise we wouldnt register for logging out either (for a part-time job its extremly aggravating to have to do this).

    The events in the above paragraph were just one of the many things that made me rethink and decide to job hunt as much as I could, The phone in system was one, the other was problems with weekly pay (I admit its a minor one, I prefer monthly more so I know what I have to work with) then I ended having to buy equipment of OUT OF MY OWN POCKET DESPITE SUPERVISOR AT THE TIME ASKING FOR THEM TWICE OR MORE (extension lead etc) I ended up buying hoover bags for two months straight, a couple of hoover pipes as they were pretty much broken, my own microfibre cloths and polish (for some reasons these people didn’t let us use polish, microfibre or glass cleaner), bollocks to that the stuff they provided was guff and didn’t do the job properly. Bear in mind that THEY ARE MEANT TO PROVIDE THIS STUFF NOT US CLEANERS! this really ticked me off as you can tell.

    To me however, the final, final straw that broke the camels back happened a few weeks before finishing up for the term holidays, we had a different supervisor in for what was meant to be a few days, on top of that a person who was usually always in was off for a prolonged period of time (no cover at all), this supervisor person was just annoying and wasn’t doing the best job leaving early because traffic or just ‘couldnt get somewhere’ I’d get this as a one off, but EVERY TIME no f**king way. I had to end up staying almost an extra hour to catch up on as much as I could (technically it was more than an hour) there was no way to get it all done in that time frame of two hours or three. Eventually (maybe a day or two in) the head person complained/moaned about the state of the school, (when I have to state this WE WERE 3-4 PEOPLE DOWN FOR QUITE A FEW DAYS) I was fumming that day and still am , they also said after b*tching about are cleaning had the ‘balls’ to say hello to us in public but b*tch about our cleaner WHEN DUH I DON’T KNOW WE ARE 3-4 PEOPLE DOWN YOU ABSOLUTE D*CK.

    They also were changing things around the school taking displays down which is standard near the end of a term, but being we were down to 2/3rds of the original amount of cleaners we had, we couldn’t get everything clean that day (no way, imagine my shock). so we left a couple of areas after the two to three hour mark, higher ups got a complaint again from this head person, so the next week on the first day a few mobile cleaners and higher ups came in to help out (which they kind of had to do I imagine) there were some of the most pedantic, nit picking, nigglingly laughable ‘complaints’ I had ever heard, also they said they wanted the inspection marked down by either at least a 1/3rd of the original inspection pass mark or more (so bizzare) I could barely take it seriously it was like a situation something out of a ficticious novel where the writer wrote a long scene with certain characters that were so bizzare, autistic and ostentatious, I was like ‘wow seriously WTF’ when our I assume now former supervisor told me, I had to hold back my laughter as much as I could I was right outside the head persons room. I then was so miffed and fumming thelast day (its weird the next part) but I was just getting on working my butt off thinking all these thoughts of how angry I was and I just blurted them out to myself while I was working that how angry I was and unsatisfied with how us cleaners were being treated for being a few cleaners down and not having our usual team for a certain period I was appalled, angered, flummuxed,fumming and disapointed at the same time voicing it out loud my complaints and pretty sure said person heard me. I’m pretty sure this head person heard me too cause they looked at me for a few seconds which I assume they were looking at me ironically getting in the way of doing my work they were complaingin about it apparently not being ‘clean enough’ Which if they did is fantastic cause when/if I decide to go back during the term my heart won’t be in the job anymore and I won’t give a sh*t and can moan and be a baby throwing toys out the pram all they like(one of the things I said out loud accidently to myself btw).

    So last day I wrote in a book (yes, we now went back to having to write EVERY LITTLE THING IN A BOOK to cover our backsides) even the tiniest thing left ‘unclean’ or we couldn’t get to that day and I phrased things in a rather p**sed off manor in the book and was VERY specific about what was said, what time we were TOLD TO LEAVE and what couldn’t be done at least on my end. Its a shame at somewhere where I kind of liked to work, most of us got on somewhat ok, say hi to teachers and occasionally talk with them if we had the time and most of the stuff done we could get to(and still am). I’m thinking of writing a complaint to people higher up said chain than said person as I feel its a preach of some kind of conduct or least not good character/traits for someone in this ‘esteemed’ position such as that. So that should be happening once I leave, if this person makes my life hell jokes on them as soon as they do I’ll be handing in my notice ASAP. as I said when I was talking out loud accidently to myself (was a private convo, not cool to eavesdrop btw how rude of you) ‘good luck you will have a high turn over in cleaners and staff now, you have just lost a good cleaner, don’t think i’ll be coming back next year and watch the cleaning standards drop even further’ (they were unobtainable anyway no pleasing said person) and yes I am somewhat paraphrasing that quote.

    There you have it ladies and gentlemen, thats the thing(s) that has been the ‘straw that broke the camels back’ for my part-time job, not worth the effort, time, hours and tolerance I’ve had put into. it feels like my hard work and back-breaking speed to get done as quick as possible was all for nothing which was/is quite dissapointing to me to say the least. i just can’t wait to find something else and leave ASAP. Which party in this situation is worse, its hard to tell really, isn’t it? Thanks for reading, it feels good to do some venting once in awhile.

    1. OdiousOdin*

      As you can see I was and still am pretty angry over this(by a few spelling mistakes as when I get angry I tend to overlook that), job hunting is a chore and may as well be a job itself. It beats staying where I am now since I might have a chance at getting a job now :) and a lot more pay and lot less pedantic bull to tolerate without bashing my head against the wall and talking to myself like a psycho more frequently. Word of advice, don’t do school cleaning before researching how the head person is or ask around somehow its quite a draining thing to work on a job you take pride in doing and then get hot, steaming piles of brown stuff metaphorically dumped on you and saying you are worthless and aren’t doing your job properly, when the reality is some stuff in situations there is out of our control and lies with the staff there causing these problems. Still fumming about all this and very disapointed how someone of that position reacted to a situation where it was not in our hands to begin with. Its a shame as I wouldnt recommend that place at all because of the head person alone, shame as the some of the staff there are nice to talk to (when you have the time of course, which we don’t have much of atm).

    2. OdiousOdin*

      I have however had near zero luck these past few weeks, plus had a pet I’ve had since I was a kid that died nearly a week ago.Had him for a long time and it has been a very weird past few days for me in general, so postponed job hunting till today (but however I just can’t bring myself to put myself out there and not get some kind of good result) So trying to get back into the swing of things, also I have experience in one sector but I just want to move into another, but its annoying when you don’t even get calls back, I know the first few weeks I won’t hear anything back, but still, its very disheartening.

    3. OdiousOdin*

      After the month or so has passed since my original comment, I still feel angry towards the people at the site I am working at (the ones higher up the chain that is) I now just feel ‘ meh, whats the point, people shit on your work and then other staff at said work wreck it unintentionally or otherwise and bring up pointless pedantic, minute points just to pick holes in our work cause they have sod all to complain about’ at this point I can’t be bothered to put enthusiasm in what I do if me and a few others get shartted on for work on a constant basis, I’m still looking for work so if anyone knows anything of other work opporunities, hit me up. Looking to leave asap (well of course I’m giving 2 weeks notice either way). Hoping to leave by end of this year as I’m handing my notice in before the xmas holidays start up. I really hope you higher ups working at said site will consider this if you are somehow reading.

      DO NOT sh*t on your cleaners, cleaners do a hard enough job as it is keeping to near impossible time scales and time constraints to get our work done, as well as incompetence dISplayed by a few people who work there in different, higher paid positions that leave us more stuff to clean up that we shouldn’t or don’t need and has no need or reason to be cleaned up if proper measures and good enough forsight are considered at the VERY LEAST. This still angers me and will for quite sometime till I leave that job I’m doing now, I hope i find something by the end of this year, cause I might be jobless if I hand my notice in round december, rather be jobless than put up with inate, retarded, pointless, obbessantly nitpicking complaints of not doing ‘our job properly’. So if you higher ups at this place can do a better job.

      PLEASE TRY IT, GO AHEAD DO EXACTLY WHAT I DO IN TWO HOURS OR LESS, BETTER YET, STAY BEHIND FOR AN EXTRA HOUR OR SO BECAUSE WE ARENT GIVEN ENOUGH TIME TO DO OUR JOBS PROPERLY TO SUCH A HIGH STANDARD YOU MORONS. TILL YOUR SHOW A TINY BIT OF EMPATHY OR UNDERSTANDING OR THE POSITION YOU’VE NEEDLESSLY PUT US IN THIS JOB, I SHOW NO RESPECT FOR YOU PEOPLE HIGHER UP THE CHAIN AS YOU CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHAT PEOPLE IN THESE SORT OF JOBS HAVE TO DEAL WITH BECAUSE OF YOUR STUPIDITY OR SHEER IGNORANCE OF WHAT HAS BEEN DONE, WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE AND HOW MUCH TIME THESE THINGS TAKE.

      PLEASE GO AHEAD AND CONSIDER ALL THESE FACTORS BEFORE YOU CRITICIZE US CLEANERS AND YOU WANT A SPOTLESS SITE/BUILDING AND CLAIM YOU CLEANED A ROOM YOURSELF THROUGHLY AND PRESTINE, YET I FIND A FEW THINGS NOT DONE WHEN I COME UP FROM HOLIDAYS MYSELF AND HAVE PHOTOGRAPHED AND SAVED, AS A CLEANER I FELT INSULTED AND FEEL YOU HIGHER UPS AT THIS SITE ARE HYPOCRITES SAYING YOU HAVE A HIGH STANDARD WHEN IN REALITY YOU DON’T, YOU MISSED THINGS AND I HAVE PROOF. SAYING YOU HAVE HIGH STANDARDS WHEN YOU’VE MISSED THINGS MAKES YOU LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT AND CAN’T BACK IT UP WITH YOUR ACTIONS, AGAIN I SHOW NO RESPECT AND NO REASON WHY I SHOULD WITH THE LEVEL OF CHILDISHNESS DISPLAYED THOSE LAST FEW WEEKS BEFORE FINISHING UP IN THE SUMMER.

      Again if anyone has any jobs going, please let me know somehow, would appreciate it immensly, if anyone I know is reading this, then thanks for taking the time. Still angry though.

  408. OdiousOdin*

    Update, might be in a shot with a new job, its a slim one got to remember not to get my hopes up too much as it might not happen but apparently its local, so no transport :) fingers crossed.

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