Stupid reasons you have left jobs

[By the River]

There is a thread on whether the OP should quit a job or do a stupid cheer at work which reminded me of a lame reason I left a job.  Company A was transferring my department to another city so I began a job search.   Accepted an offer from Company B.  On my first day at Company B, the manager said we would go to lunch along with another co-worker.  At noon, the three of us got into the manager's car and he drove to Subway.  We stood in line and then I ordered and paid for my own sandwich.  That night I knew I had made a mistake; if they don't pay for the first day's lunch, how big will raises and bonuses be?  I got another offer within a few weeks and left after only 5 weeks on the job.   I told my friends that I left because of a sandwich.   

[Polish_Hammer]

I work for evil mega bank and management is not allowed to pay for lunches, so that would be the scenario day one at this company.  Bonuses and raises are large if you earn them. No free lunches:)

[Helvegen]

Seems like a legit reason to me, but I work at a place that hands out free lunches like candy. Yes, they pay well. :)

[Guesl982374]

I work for evil mega bank and management is not allowed to pay for lunches, so that would be the scenario day one at this company.  Bonuses and raises are large if you earn them. No free lunches:)

But if you were on-boarding a new employee, wouldn't you pay out of pocket for a 1:1 lunch to welcome them?

[Blueskies123]

There is a thread on whether the OP should quit a job or do a stupid cheer at work which reminded me of a lame reason I left a job.  Company A was transferring my department to another city so I began a job search.   Accepted an offer from Company B.  On my first day at Company B, the manager said we would go to lunch along with another co-worker.  At noon, the three of us got into the manager's car and he drove to Subway.  We stood in line and then I ordered and paid for my own sandwich.  That night I knew I had made a mistake; if they don't pay for the first day's lunch, how big will raises and bonuses be?  I got another offer within a few weeks and left after only 5 weeks on the job.   I told my friends that I left because of a sandwich.   

Dude, you crazy.  I have gone to lunch thousands of times with my employees.  I never paid for their lunch.  Why do you expect your employer to pay for your lunch, it is 2017 for heavens sake.  And by the way, I gave out fantastic raises and bonuses for my hard workers.  I even fought hard to get extra bonuses for them.  You must be a millennial, no offense.  No one owes you anything.
At least you realized you did something really silly.

[okits]

I'm a little surprised the manager wouldn't kick in the $8 (or whatever a Subway combo costs, nowadays).  New employee's first day, and all that.  Even if the company is cheap on that stuff, it's not good if your manager seems stingy.

(I am not a millennial.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

[marielle]

I'm a little surprised the manager wouldn't kick in the $8 (or whatever a Subway combo costs, nowadays).  New employee's first day, and all that.  Even if the company is cheap on that stuff, it's not good if your manager seems stingy.

(I am not a millennial.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

I agree. Typically it's courtesy that if you invite someone to lunch, that means you are offering to pay. What if that person couldn't afford the lunch at the time or simply didn't want to pay $8 when they could have brought their lunch from home? It just doesn't make sense to impose the cost on someone without making that clear beforehand. And it's cheap enough that it wouldn't have been a big deal for the manager to pay as a welcoming gesture. I certainly wouldn't have expected it or felt entitled to it though. I would just prefer to know beforehand because $8 on lunch is a lot to me regardless of income--that's like two days worth of food.

[Fred2004]

I don't think it's stupid.  I've worked a few places and they all paid for an onboarding lunch, all probably just expensed.

If you can't buy your employee lunch, that's pretty messed up IMO...and usually it isn't subway.

I don't consider myself a millennial either, born in '81

The person who takes employees out and makes them pay for it, good for you, that's not a common business practice though...

I don't have a story like that, except I quit pushing carts at Sam's Club w/ no notice because some manager from another location really made me angry, don't remember exactly what happened...it was just a summer job though and that was almost 20 yrs ago.

[Schaefer Light]

I'm a little surprised the manager wouldn't kick in the $8 (or whatever a Subway combo costs, nowadays).

Maybe he's Mustachian and didn't have $8 for someone else's lunch in his budget and had calculated that paying for said lunch would mean he had to work one extra day at the end of his career.

[Goldielocks]

I work for evil mega bank and management is not allowed to pay for lunches, so that would be the scenario day one at this company.  Bonuses and raises are large if you earn them. No free lunches:)

But if you were on-boarding a new employee, wouldn't you pay out of pocket for a 1:1 lunch to welcome them?

No,  I am too cheap.   I would buy them [free] coffee in our cafeteria.  Maybe bring in home made cookies with a welcome note.

I worked at a large company that also was strict about expenses... it was a pain, they would not even reimburse a $8 lunch on a business away-from-home trip....but the pay could be good despite all of that.

[goalphish2002]

I'm a little surprised the manager wouldn't kick in the $8 (or whatever a Subway combo costs, nowadays).  New employee's first day, and all that.  Even if the company is cheap on that stuff, it's not good if your manager seems stingy.

(I am not a millennial.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

I agree. Typically it's courtesy that if you invite someone to lunch, that means you are offering to pay. What if that person couldn't afford the lunch at the time or simply didn't want to pay $8 when they could have brought their lunch from home? It just doesn't make sense to impose the cost on someone without making that clear beforehand. And it's cheap enough that it wouldn't have been a big deal for the manager to pay as a welcoming gesture. I certainly wouldn't have expected it or felt entitled to it though. I would just prefer to know beforehand because $8 on lunch is a lot to me regardless of income--that's like two days worth of food.

Well said.

[Guses]

There is a thread on whether the OP should quit a job or do a stupid cheer at work which reminded me of a lame reason I left a job.  Company A was transferring my department to another city so I began a job search.   Accepted an offer from Company B.  On my first day at Company B, the manager said we would go to lunch along with another co-worker.  At noon, the three of us got into the manager's car and he drove to Subway.  We stood in line and then I ordered and paid for my own sandwich.  That night I knew I had made a mistake; if they don't pay for the first day's lunch, how big will raises and bonuses be?  I got another offer within a few weeks and left after only 5 weeks on the job.   I told my friends that I left because of a sandwich.   

Dude, you crazy.  I have gone to lunch thousands of times with my employees.  I never paid for their lunch.  Why do you expect your employer to pay for your lunch, it is 2017 for heavens sake.  And by the way, I gave out fantastic raises and bonuses for my hard workers.  I even fought hard to get extra bonuses for them.  You must be a millennial, no offense.  No one owes you anything.
At least you realized you did something really silly.

Because of the bolded part in the original quote. If you tell me that I have to go someplace specific with coworkers for lunch, you better pay for it as it's a work function.

If it's more like "hey do you want to tag along, we are going to place X for lunch?".  Then, I would not expect the manager to pay for it. 

I'm a little surprised the manager wouldn't kick in the $8 (or whatever a Subway combo costs, nowadays).

Maybe he's Mustachian and didn't have $8 for someone else's lunch in his budget and had calculated that paying for said lunch would mean he had to work one extra day at the end of his career.

Poor guy only earns a few bucks a day. Bless his little heart. :'(

[Slow&Steady]

A few years ago I started a 2nd weekend job at a greenhouse in the summer. In college I worked in the lawn & garden area of Home Depot and in high school I worked with our horticulture teacher so I figured it would be transplanting, watering, pruning, putting plants on out for sale, maybe a little cash register work, sweeping, cleaning up, etc.  I figured I would be working with plants and people.  I went in for 4 days and every time they had me weeding these giant flower beds in the heat of the day with no shade and by myself.  The alone all day really got to me, I figured I could probably be weeding my own veggie garden all day long by myself and be much happier.  On day 4 I asked if they would have me do the same thing the next time I came in and was told that they would probably be what they had me doing for a long time until they decided that I could move up to watering the plants, I never showed up again.

As to the OP, I have had 3 (in the last 10 years) "professional" employers since I finished college, the last 2 have taken me to lunch on my 1st day (and not to Subway) but it was never something I expected.

[Prairie Gal]

I left a job because they couldn't get the temperature regulated. It was an open area office, and one co-worker was always freezing, and I was too hot (over 80 in there some days). It became a constant battle over the A/C. Wore me down to the point where I quit one day. There were other dynamics at play, but that was the main point of contention.

[Dicey]

A few years ago I started a 2nd weekend job at a greenhouse in the summer. In college I worked in the lawn & garden area of Home Depot and in high school I worked with our horticulture teacher so I figured it would be transplanting, watering, pruning, putting plants on out for sale, maybe a little cash register work, sweeping, cleaning up, etc.  I figured I would be working with plants and people.  I went in for 4 days and every time they had me weeding these giant flower beds in the heat of the day with no shade and by myself.  The alone all day really got to me, I figured I could probably be weeding my own veggie garden all day long by myself and be much happier.  On day 4 I asked if they would have me do the same thing the next time I came in and was told that they would probably be what they had me doing for a long time until they decided that I could move up to watering the plants, I never showed up again.

As to the OP, I have had 3 (in the last 10 years) "professional" employers since I finished college, the last 2 have taken me to lunch on my 1st day (and not to Subway) but it was never something I expected.

You "figured", but did you ask before you took the job what your duties would be? A little hard to see how this is HD's "fault". Shitty job, maybe...

[I'm a red panda]

Part time jobs in college.

Left one because I got a new boss and she was a smoker and came back in 6 times a day and used perfume as air freshener. I couldn't breathe and it wasn't worth the early registration benefit I got as a student worker.

Had another part time job at a candy store. I really liked it. I was the only employee (boss /owner worked the days I didn't) and I asked off because of a final (which are held outside regular class hours). Boss told me if she gave me the time she's have to close the store, which she wouldn't do. So I quit. The store was closed for 3 weeks while she replaced me. (As opposed to the 4 hours I needed...)

[Zikoris]

I've almost always left jobs because I hated one or more of my coworkers/managers.

But once I accidentally quit a job, because I mistakenly thought I'd been fired a week prior and had found new employment in that time. It was at a coffee shop near my home, and I found out the truth when I went for lunch there a week later. One of the managers freaked out at me for missing all my shifts that week.

[Slow&Steady]

A few years ago I started a 2nd weekend job at a greenhouse in the summer. In college I worked in the lawn & garden area of Home Depot and in high school I worked with our horticulture teacher so I figured it would be transplanting, watering, pruning, putting plants on out for sale, maybe a little cash register work, sweeping, cleaning up, etc.  I figured I would be working with plants and people.  I went in for 4 days and every time they had me weeding these giant flower beds in the heat of the day with no shade and by myself.  The alone all day really got to me, I figured I could probably be weeding my own veggie garden all day long by myself and be much happier.  On day 4 I asked if they would have me do the same thing the next time I came in and was told that they would probably be what they had me doing for a long time until they decided that I could move up to watering the plants, I never showed up again.

As to the OP, I have had 3 (in the last 10 years) "professional" employers since I finished college, the last 2 have taken me to lunch on my 1st day (and not to Subway) but it was never something I expected.

You "figured", but did you ask before you took the job what your duties would be? A little hard to see how this is HD's "fault". Shitty job, maybe...

It wasn't HD's "fault" I had worked at HD many years prior to this, this job was a local greenhouse.  I didn't blame anybody, you are correct I FIGURED but did not ask.  I didn't even say it was a shitty job, it was a job that once I started was completely unfulfilling and was just a job to give me something to do on the weekends while my DH was working.  The post is about STUPID reasons you left a job, not legitimate "this job sucks and they lied to me" reasons.  I felt like an ass for a long time after I stopped showing up to this job, I still won't shop in there (4 years later) because I don't want the owner to recognize me, if we want something from there DH will go in.

[Dicey]

Well you're  right, and I get a "Stupid" for my reading comprehension skills.

I have a feeling it might be cathartic to go in and talk to them. Reintroduce yourself and remind them what happened. Make a simple apology along the lines that it wasn't what you anticipated and you're sorry you didn't handle it better. And then revel in the lightness you feel as the burden of self-inflicted guilt washes away.

I have so been there, done that. What you feel is probably very disproportionate to what they feel or even remember.

[erutio]

I've almost always left jobs because I hated one or more of my coworkers/managers.

But once I accidentally quit a job, because I mistakenly thought I'd been fired a week prior and had found new employment in that time. It was at a coffee shop near my home, and I found out the truth when I went for lunch there a week later. One of the managers freaked out at me for missing all my shifts that week.

What had happened at work that made you think you were fired? 
Haha, and even after you thought you were fired, you went back next week to eat lunch? I hope there's a funny story in there.

[Zikoris]

I've almost always left jobs because I hated one or more of my coworkers/managers.

But once I accidentally quit a job, because I mistakenly thought I'd been fired a week prior and had found new employment in that time. It was at a coffee shop near my home, and I found out the truth when I went for lunch there a week later. One of the managers freaked out at me for missing all my shifts that week.

What had happened at work that made you think you were fired? 
Haha, and even after you thought you were fired, you went back next week to eat lunch? I hope there's a funny story in there.

I missed a couple of shifts due to being stuck in another province - I don't remember the details, but for some reason I ended up needing to stay an extra two days in another town. I did call in to tell my boss, and she got pissed off and hung up on me. When I got back to town, I stopped in to grab lunch and the shift lead (not the manager) told me I'd been fired, and wouldn't give me a staff discount for my food. Seemed reasonable to me given how pissed the manager had been, so I accepted it and applied at a local factory after lunch. They hired me a couple of days later, to start immediately. It was pretty funny, looking back at it.

[SwordGuy]

I quit my job because my lying, psychotic boss was going thru the process to fire me.

So I told my newly assigned government contact that we needed to get on the ball and get him up to speed as I would be fired in the next 60 days.  I refused to discuss any more about my problem until we covered what he (and the government) needed to know about my project.

Then I told him the government contact the problem.   His boss made a point of letting me know that the government wasn't trying to get me fired.   I told them about the lies and was willing to go thru the computer source code control to prove the lies.   They didn't bother, they believed me.

(Government contracts are a bit funny, there are rules for what they can and cannot do regarding a company's choice of its employees to fulfil a contract.   They didn't have a whole lot of options to work with in the time I would have left.)

Then I went to my psycho boss's boss's boss.   He didn't really know my boss, his office was miles away and he was only on our site a few hours a year.   I told him what was going on and that I had been around long enough to know that I was going to be fired no matter what I did at this point.  That ship had sailed.

I just wanted him to know that psycho boss had fixated on others until they quit or were fired, and he was bound to do it again.   I wanted the company to know that because they were in danger of losing even more good people, and that the company, the client, and my colleagues deserved better than that.   

He offered to find me a job at another location.

Before he did, I found another job with a different company at the same location, just down the hall.   Better pay, better hours, better technology to work with, and twice the number of holidays.  I now get a 3 to 4 day weekend every month without having to take vacation time. :)   I got to wave to him in the hall. :)

About 8 months later they escorted psycho ex-boss off the premises.   My prior colleagues made sure I knew that.
Good times.  I hope he learned from it, but psycho people rarely do.

[Dicey]

Wow! Great story*,  Sword Guy. I  glad you prevailed.

* Well great but not great and a story, but not a story, as it really happened to you. Such a useless waste of energy and resources, ugh.

[prettypaperwork]

I once quit a job because the office smelled like boiled meat.  It was a few floors up from a pretty active deli, but the smell grossed me out.  And I am an omnivore.

[Metric Mouse]

Maybe he's Mustachian and didn't have $8 for someone else's lunch in his budget and had calculated that paying for said lunch would mean he had to work one extra day at the end of his career.

This was my first thought! Too long in the echo chamber maybe.

[MoonLiteNite]

Some gay guy was pissed that i was hanging out with his boyfriend (i am a straight male). The receptionist was friends with the jelly boyfriend. But meh i don't care what other people think, as long as they don't harm me. Anyways, They actually plotted to say i was sexually harassing both of them! And reported it to HR!!!

I worked in IT and monitored internal chats and web browsing and such (PART OF MY JOB!). I saw what they were planning on doing on the day that HR had called me into a meeting and told me they were investigating something. HR sat me down, said someone had made a complaint against me and had "proof" and they were required to send me home for a full week. After a week i called my boss, an ex-marine, huge dude, and in his late 50s, and told him "sorry man, thanks for giving me the chance to work for you, but i can't deal with their shit, i sent you an email to show you those assholes are lying. But i ain't coming back." He was cool about it and said he would check out the email.

A few days later my ex-boss called and told me he fired the two jelly boyfriend and gossip girl, and offered me some contract/consulting work to train my replacement. Which i did, got paid 3x my normal pay for a final 2 weeks before i was finally gone gone.


Taught me a good lesson at age 22
- Don't accept being underpaid (i was working for 1/10th of what i should have been)
- Don't put up with drama. I have since then walked straight up to upper management when i see shit happening and be asked to move. Has served me well the last 8 years.

[dividendsplease]

Fortune 1000 public company...boss sat in cube next to me and was a chain smoker (gone 20mins of every hour) and I have really bad asthma. I couldn't handle it anymore. HR told me "deal with it, you will work with all types of people in your lifetime". byeeeee!

[paddedhat]

 Regarding the lunch story. I once watched a subcontractor kill a multi-million dollar job over how he handled his offer to take customer "out for coffee". The job was a new multi- hundred million dollar corporate campus, under construction. The contractor was looking to take on the next phase of electrical construction. The subcontractor was a highly qualified, reputable, and experienced company.  The customer was a massive international general contractor from Northern Europe. The subcontractor walked the rep. to his car. His company car was a worn out, dirty small Ford econobox. The sub them breaks out his thermos,  a spare coffee cup and finds a bag with a few donuts in it. They the sit in this POS and he gives his pitch. The rep. returns to the office and reports that he wouldn't hire a clown like that to rewire a one seat shithouse.  He had no idea that the clown in the shitbox had an incredibly competent team behind him that could do the next phase a lot smoother than the one that was wrapping up. He just knew that what he experienced was one step above heading behind the donut shop to dumpster dive, and that's a hell of a first impression to make.

Yea, appearances and manners matter. I took a few bucks out of my pocket and bought lunch for the "new guy" on many occasions, regardless of whether it was getting reimbursed, or not.

[TightFistedScot]

When I was 19 or 20 I had a job as a telemarketer for 3 weeks. I hated it but I was making 3 dollars/hr above minimum wage. But I was also REALLY into partying at that time.

I just stopped going into my shifts that were scheduled for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday because I was having a really fun time at an afterparty and then was too out of it from partying to go to work.

Glad those days are behind me!