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asklemmy·Ask LemmybyCrystalline

Why’d you quit your last job?

Today marks the start of my first week of unemployment after quitting. My boss and I were into each other, but he refused to pursue anything with me while I worked there because it would’ve been unethical. So I quit.

Worth it.

View original on lemmy.world
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80 replies

Toxic boss who's entire personality was his job. He was very smart, and not a complete monster, but it was quite sad that he had no life outside of work and expected us to be the same.

1

I was burnt out and the company was in the process of merging with two other companies. The leadership shifted to a bunch of people who wanted to be in charge but didn't have a plan on doing what their targets were. All changes were sudden and generally led to conditions worse than they were before.

So I left.

2

They asked me to develop and install a very invasive spyware on computers (both personal and company's) of all employees.

1

Crunch got steadily worse and worse, until I just couldn't take it anymore.

2

It's ironic, in a way. I was in an abusive work environment, with abusive clients, and had to dream up ways to efficiently do the job of three people. It was awful and I was there for over a decade trying to get out, but the methods I invented to make my hellish job easier helped me get hired where I am now.

Two weeks before I left I'm walking into work and I get the call that I've been hired to the job I have now, which has a much better culture and reasonable work load. I was so happy I skipped to work Dick Van Dyke-style and immediately put in my two weeks.

Had a replacement plan done in two days because I already had my tasks inventoried, since I had to keep very close track of my productivity to protect myself from HR and management. I had some tenure and was making more than other employees, and therefore a consistent target for layoffs.

Spent the last week and a half getting paid to do jack shit, though my asshole team did make me take my turn with the on-call pager, even though it made no fucking sense other than spite.

Overall, t'was glorious.

3

The boss was incompetent and well on the way to driving the company to bankruptcy or worse. I was self-employed.

8

My manager had a meeting with all of us and basically said we're all gonna be fired.

Next week they retracted everything they said amd said they misunderstood.

The week after that they left the company.

3

I only literally quit once, it was because the men in the same position were paid more than me, but I got the more difficult/busy shifts. Basically I was paid less for doing more, because I was a woman.

The other times I left jobs were layoff (company bought out by another) maternity, and once fired as I was shit at that job, it was also a shit job for me, very bad fit so that's ok.

4
piefed.social

My employer(s) got sent to jail. They stole 401k money among other things. It was on the news!

I didnt quit persay but I had a job lined up about a week before it all happened.

5
lemmy.world

My ex-employer didn't "steal" 401k money, but they did violate plan rules and engineer an illegal allotment that put 60% of the plan in a single company that the CEO and his brother had an interest in.

I ended up getting $5,000 as part of the settlement when got their asses sued to hell for it. They're still millionaires so it doesn't matter, but that 5k will be tens or hundreds of thousands by the time I retire, most likely, and it was satisfying to take a chunk out of them.

1
mesareply
piefed.social

How long did it take to get the money? It took us a little over a year to get anything out of the settlement and I heard that was a fast track court case because both ceos admitted to everything in our case.

2

I got the notice about the class action, IIRC, about nine months before the settlement went out. I'm not sure how long the actual court case too as I didn't get a notice until a settlement was reached.

1
lemmy.world

I became the target of company president who wanted me gone and they started scrutinizing my every move, put me on a PiP, made up rumors about my work performance all the bullshit they do before firing you. So I left on my own terms instead of getting fired. Had work lined up before I left, so it worked out.

5

Smart. I was put on a malicious PIP too. It was a back door layoff attempt, but I was diligent about documenting my own work and fought it since I could prove my own productivity over that of my teammates.

It took me a long time to get out of that job, but luckily the job I have now is wonderful.

1

The commute was too far already (about 1h 10m driving each way), and they wanted me to transfer to another location which would require a full-on move, which I wasn't up for.

In retrospect, after I left they got bought out, had a leadership changeover and rebranding, and closed several facilities. So I think I might've dodged something.

5

I have not really quit anything in my professional career. One nice thing about contracts is you just sorta don't renew it and most full time jobs end after a few projects. Sorta the curse of getting things done. then like in college I worked the dishroom but like you just sorta don't come back the next year or semester. It just does not feel like quitting. Felt more like not reupping a contract. I guess I did leave this job at my first college to go work in the dish room because it payed and extra dollar over minimum wage and then all the food service paid an extra dollar on weekends. So it was like 50% more to work the dishroom on weekends.

2

Was in temporarily in a country that has a deranged pedo as a leader. Moved back home. No regrets.

1

There is no shame in getting fired. Only losers quit their jobs.

0

Because my ex boss blocked me from a promotion because I was her best worker.

I was working support, and was learning full stack in my spare time. Showed the Devs in the company some of my projects, and that's when they wanted me to work with them, since I already knew the system. Since I was rejected, I found a dev job within 2 weeks, and handed in my resignation. My manager was furious and asked why; the look on her face when she realised that it was because of her was great.

Now working as a fullstack developer for 4 years.

Fuck you, Lena!

16
lemmy.world

way to skip past the real story here.

so? what happn next? you all get married or what?

do you work at the paper? how is cincinnati?

3
piefed.social

I got poached by my current employer. I was looking for excuse to turn them down, so I responded with a list of demands, and they said yes to everything. The demands were mostly reasonable, with a couple of hilights. Off the top of my head:

  • 40% pay increase
  • Any flight over 4 hours will be business class if available
  • I don't hand in meal receipts for travel days. Flat sum per day no matter what. Cuts down on the paperwork.
19
lemmy.world

Damn, dude. I am envious of your travel arrangements. It's especially incredible how hard it is to convince management that hours spent fiddling with receipts isn't worth whatever small amounts of change they might save from not just paying a flat sum.

3

My previous employer had it, but changed to a receipt based system instead. My guess is that they're gambling on some not bothering with handing in miniscule amounts worth of paperwork.

2

My boss was fired because she was made the weekend supervisor of a different department (together with already being in charge of my department the rest of the time) by complete surprise on a Friday and something went wrong on Sunday which she was blamed for and then fired Monday morning.

Shortly after the interim boss decided that my department needed to work weekend call for the other one, so I jumped ship to a similar company that paid better.

I liked my original boss, and she was very good at her job, so I was already pissed about her being fired (or really set up to be fired). Putting me on call for a department I don't even work at when I specifically took this job in the first place because there was no call was the final straw.

My current boss is incompetent, but also too busy with other things to bother me, so I keep my numbers higher than anyone else in my department to keep her away from me.

7

Because everyone else was getting promoted over me. (While I had more experience, better performance reviews, etc etc…)

2

because i didn't want to live the rest of my life broke, working 80 hour weeks, and be subjected to political bullshit beliefs.

4

Literally waiting for January. New employer won’t have an opening until then. Current job doesn’t know yet.

I haven’t had a cost of living increase in 3 years.

2

I joined a company to work on building out the software stack for their solar power systems for humanitarian aid in Africa. A few months after I started they pivoted to making solar powered mobile surveillance towers for the US border patrol.

-_-

4

Worked at AutoZone for 8 years. They started cutting everyone's hours and raises were getting smaller and smaller. Business was just as busy as it'd always been. I'm friends with the store manager they were trying to make him work even more hours because he's salaried so they wouldn't have to pay employees. He was already working around 60 hours a week. That's going on company-wide while they constantly raise prices on everything. A one year warranty battery went from 79.99 to 120.99 and as far as I know is still going up. You were lucky if you made more than $15 an hour as a full-time employee. I don't see the auto parts stores sticking around much longer if that keeps up because they don't care who they hire anymore. They just want whoever will work for bare-minimum wages.

3

I started getting unintentionally involved in the workplace politics and used as a pawn for different departments to screw other ones over. My managers didn't care and thought I wouldn't quit

3

Laid off. I worked in a manufacturing industry that is very boom-bust and the executives made some dumbass risky decisions that didn't pay off, so of course the rank-and-file paid the price.

It's been a couple years and they're hiring again but the amount I'd need to overcome that trauma isn't justifiable.

3

I was getting overworked, every other branch of this old company had two people doing the job I was doing. I had a system to get most of my work done except some I would finish the next morning before the next day's work arrived. Instead of asking me in person what I was doing my boss finished my work that afternoon after I left then covered my keyboard in paperwork and left a post it note on my screen saying essentially "wtf is this?"

It was very unprofessional and I quit after I got a job with a bigger company with a 40% pay bump where I now contact my old boss to tell her that I need her to do tasks for my new company.

2

I had a new full time job and was just continuing the old job on the weekends for extra cash. When I got a significant raise due to moving up positions I chose free weekends.

6

Got fired for asking why we put a peperoncini on a burger.

Also that's a weird reason to quit a job imo.

3
reddthat.com

If they had started something, when it came down to firing one of them, it would be OP, not the boss. (Have seen this before. OP did the right thing.)

2
lemmy.world

Oh so I completely misinterpreted the meaning. I was assuming they quit and didn't start anything not that they quit so they could start something

I'm really stupid when I'm tired

1

Been decades since I quit a job. When I was first starting out I quit a job every year or so for pay raises etc. I ran through like 5 jobs in 6 years.

Then I started to get somewhere professionally and layoffs became more normal. I have been laid off 3 times over the past 20 years.

First time because my new boss was making a run for CEO and I knew all his dirty laundry. So I got laid off with a massive severance package that gave me most of a year vacation + benefits. The NDA that came with it was hilarious given that they were illegal in the location. The in-house lawyer was my lunch buddy for years and had a bit of fun with it.

Second time a new CEO decided to do a massive reorganization to "improve efficiency." The company started hemorrhaging money immediately and I was on the first wave of layoffs with most of the rest of my department. It didn't help that a year before in an all company meeting my boss decided to call me out for my lack of enthusiasm in front of everyone. Since he pressed after I suggested it was not a good idea to ask and he would regret it, I told him the strategic error of the major decision he had just announced in a short concise argument. He was not amused, but he couldn't do anything then because he had pressed me for my opinion. Needless to say, I was on the short list for layoffs after the company got totally fucked over by his decisions.

The last one was a panic when a massive recession hit their industry (totally predictable). They laid me off and essentially handed me my own fully established business. 2 weeks later my company was legal and I had a sit down meeting with them to discuss their "inventory issue". Aka I cut a deal burn through their inventory so they wouldn't firesale it and dump it on my customers. They essentially paid for my startup costs then bailed when I was just starting to make money. I still have a bit of a soft spot for them and their extremely well-timed stupidity.

5

I was tired of working for corporate and I wanted to stop doing propaganda (marketing/SEO).

I wanted to do something that helped others, made a positive impact, and was something I genuinely enjoy doing. I got my Master’s in Education and I’m an elementary school teacher now.

Couldn’t have done it with the support of my wife. I am also a later career transition, so if you’re an older person then I’m here to say it’s possible with the right assistance and circumstances if you’re on the fence about making a change.

5

My employer said he liked Farage. i quit instantly. Freelance gig tho so nothing life changing

27

It had such a toxic “always be positive” atmosphere meanwhile talking behind each others back. At some point I really disliked it and had zero motivation to actually work good.

They noticed and came to an agreement to end the contract mutually and friendly. On of the people think “he got me fired” and was all happy that I was “supposedly sad and disappointed”.

But he did me a huge, huge favor. I got out of there on good terms with the owner of the office. So reference isn’t an issue and I’m out of the toxic bullshit.

4

Finance ran a coup and got the top three brass in IT let go. Then they put their idiot puppets in-place so IT would be under their thumb.

IT director was and is incompetent at IT. He was hired-on years ago as a project manager but was ultimately useless and lazy. Bounced around and failed upward a bit until this yes man and the immoral finance head were chums.

New chain of command were all like him. I was originally hired on with a loose and powerful mandate, but this chucklehead was micro-managing us to death. I told my immediate new boss "you have a year. I won't give notice."

It took 18 months. I dropped off the issued gear and the company cell, went home, took a few days off, started at this one.

1

I want to build apps people actually use and enjoy. Instead the company sold a bunch of useless crap and put a toxic subscription model on top of it. Quantity over quality. By now they probably replaced everyone with AI anyways.

3

I had an intimate video of me maliciously shared with my employer and their biggest client

The irony is that in trying to destroy me, whoever it was actually fuelled my fire to do something I'd wanted to do for many years, so I walked out of my job and followed my dream

I've never looked back, funnily enough it took someone being a cunt to break my golden handcuffs

26
lemmy.world

Last job I quit I left at noon because the boss who was overworking me told me that day when I got there in the morning that he was cutting my pay. I was feeling overworked. He only had one other worker and when he found out he only had one other worker he looked like he was going to cry over having to do something to keep his business going. Never accept a pay cut from somebody who drives a Corvette. Never.

23
Peppycitoreply
sh.itjust.works

Never believe a capitalist when he says he's broke. If he tells you the business is making money and "doing fine" probably start updating your resume.

13
lemmy.world

I told them I don't do weapons. The word "weapon" was said like 8 times in a client meeting.

8

???

Like they wanted to get into defence contracting kinda work? That'd be one really fuckin understandable line in the sand to have

4

All roads in aerospace apparently lead to weapons.

We were working on a jet engine controller for a miniature engine. But turns out the first application this jet engine startup was targeting is cruise missiles.

And my boss still doesn't consider it defense work because the designs could be used for the other applications the client was pitching like power generation or commercial aircraft.

Except we were targeting features like being able to cold start at 50,000 feet, fitting the electronics inside the engine cowling, and having a total operational lifespan of two minutes.

6

It was murder on my back. I've been doing stocking jobs for years and developed chronic pain in a previous job. Don't want to fuck it up even more.

5

I had cancer and was missing too many days due to chemotherapy and fatigue.

20

My last one was because the boss was an asshole and I decided I don't need the money that much, I saved some and went back to finish university.

But end of this year will be because business is slow and they have many people on the bench here in Korea and because the labor laws are very strong they can't fire them, so they're liquidating the Korean entity to be able to fire those people. And I'm collateral damage, even though I've never been on the bench and made them a lot of money, brought in new customers, and've been working for them for the last 12 years, it doesn't matter.

8

TL;DR: boss must give documents, boss stops giving documents, it's suddenly my fault, I quit.

The only job of the CEO of the company was to give me final documents for my software projects. He stopped doing that because he was always busy for some reason (or lame excuse that the company lacked money to employ me).

Here is the last conversion with my manager:

manager: you are not productive, that's not tolerable!!!111 (angry emoji face because he has a fucked up life that he's responsible for but that's another story)

me: I need the documents from the boss, I literally cannot do my job

manager: that's not a valid excuse, you should quit (so that we don't give you benefits because we have no excuses to fire you)

Fun times.

13

Currently in my last month. The company has been slowly dying since two years, but it's picking up pace. I finished my bachelor this year and finally found a job last month.

The job before that, I quit to start working at this job, because this job was a school and offered me a free (monetarily, it was not free of effort) bachelor degree.

2

Does that mean you get to pursue the relationship now?

My boss was a family friend and is someone I still respect and admire in many respects, but he was bad at managing his anger and I have crippling social anxiety. I went home crying too often and it just stopped being emotionally sustainable after we had a really big fight over some stupid shit

2

They went bankrupt. Was a nice place, but just not profitable where it was.

2

My last job that i quit was at the same company that trained me in my apprentenceship. It was a toxic enviorment and looking back i got burned out so heavily due to the stress. Also they wanted to pay me almost minimum wage for a Software developer position. They also put me into Quality Assurance and i wanted to develope software. And yes it was worth it. Despite me now having switched 3 companys in 5 years (one was a timed contract that wasnt extended and the current one fired me due to finance), i am still so glad i did

2
Oka
sopuli.xyz

I moved closer to the city in hopes to get a programming job. Didnt have an effect.

Im most likely going to have to quit my current job after a repetitive strain injury. Thats if Im capable of working another job (lumbar strain).

2

That sucks. How long have you been trying to get into programming? Do you have a degree in programming?

I've been trying since 2015-ish. Got my degree this january and I'm starting a programming job next month. I'm not sure if this will be the best job for me, but it's a huge step forward. I guess what I'm saying is don't give up your dream, naybe adjust it a little or a lot, but never actually give up to find your passion.

3

I wanted to stay in the team. They are a cool gang. So I left that consulting group when they couldn't renew the assignment.

3

My boss thought he was Harvey Specter from Suits. He even had a poster of Harvey Specter in his home office.

1

Some of you in the comment section really need to learn to get fired.

Depends where you are, but most places have less support if you quit over being fired. If they suddenly start treating you like shit, stop working and let them fire you.

0