Got told to go help someone and they got in my face yelling for looking at a piece of equipment they were having problems with. Next day I said I wouldn’t work with them and got told that I can’t pick who I work with. It turns out that you actually can pick who you work with.

I was told that I gave one of our young engineers a “crisis of conscience” for telling him about how a product we were developing needed some more work and testing because we didn’t have enough data on it to release it for use.

Somehow management decided that I was poisoning the company and was toxic for not releasing a partially tested product that could either get people sick or set things on fire and then get people sick.

I was told to get on board and apologize to the young engineer for being a bad example or leave. I started polishing my resume, then turned in my resignation.

I spoke to the young engineer in a friendly and non-acusatory manner and he denied staying any of that to management, he claimed he understood what I was telling him and he agreed with my statements. We still keep in touch.

At the last hospital I worked at, a nurse was badly injured on the job for something totally out of her control. Probably shouldn’t give more details than that so I don’t dox her or myself.

Instead of giving her worker’s comp and helping her recover, the hospital fired her over some completely unrelated frivolous bullshit (along the lines of "a patient overheard you using profanity while talking to a co-worker). This was also like a couple months away from her becoming vested in their retirement program.

I’m just a tech, but it was abundantly clear that giving my time to that company would be an incredibly risky move - fuuuuck that. I put my notice in the next day.

I hope she sued the absolute fuck out of them.

Got pulled off all of my R&D projects and told by the CEO in a meeting with all of the team leaders (who enthusiastically agreed) to focus entirely on this one project as it was critically important and mandatory whether we liked it or not before we could go to market with our product. Said OK, got it ready in record time, none of the managers wanted to approve testing. Got told a generic “We need more info.”

Fleshed out everything I could. Did all sorts of bench top testing with full reports, did thorough budget analysis for the entire thing, a complete gantt chart with every contingency accounted for.

Two years later I’m in the latest of god only knows how many approval meetings with management. I’ve dialed back how much I expect out of them and I’m just trying to get an official project initiation form signed so at least I have a record of them acknowledging the project’s existence. One of them asks, for the nth time, “Why do we need to do this again?”

Boss looks at me expectantly, like “Yes, why do we need to do this?” as if I was the one who put myself on the project. I said “I can forward you the email where you told me to drop everything and work on it. If you changed your mind I’m more than OK to drop it and work on something else, but I refuse to hold even one more meeting to get agreement that I should even be working on this.”

He says “I think we just need more information.” I ask “Such as?” knowing full well there wasn’t a single more thing I could add. “We just need more information.” All of the team leaders just stared at me. So I quit on the spot and walked out.

Talked to a friend who still worked there and they still haven’t moved forward with that project years later, and the governing body still refuses to allow sale of the product until they do. It’s a 2 year timeline for testing so I have no idea what they are thinking. It’s only $100,000 too, they paid me more to try and get approval for two years than it would have cost to do it in the first place.

I was a line cook for a hilton hotel restaurant. It was easy, and I’d been there for about a year. They had a position open up, night shift supervisor. Basically the same hours I was already working, just have to do a bit of admin on the side. I was the only one working there that had a degree instead of an arrest record, was just looking for a bit of extra money, so I applied thinking I’d be a shoe-in.

Well they wanted the night-shift supervisor to be able to spontaneously feed a hypothetical group bigwigs that would surely show up the second I was left in charge (This is not a nice hotel, btw, we never had big wigs.). So they brought in another candidate, and decided to have us do a cook-off with surprise ingredients. I was like, what? This is ridiculous, they wanted me to invent a new dish that wasn’t on the menu (I made $10/hr). I lost the cooking challenge (I made tuna melts lol), but the guy who won declined the position (real smart of him).

So did they then offer it to the only internal candidate seeking the position? nope! just kept looking for someone else. Came into my next shift, and the waiters came back during a huge rush with like, 5-6 special off-menu orders they wanted me to accommodate (not related to allergies or anything). I got halfway through cooking the first one, and then just… crashed out. Said “nope! fuck this.” clocked out, left.

They called me for the next few days trying to get me back. “But you promised you wouldn’t be upset if we didn’t give you the supervisor position!” yup, I did say that. I changed my mind. Fuck you and that hotel.

Found a better paying job the next week.

Got stuck as the charge nurse of acute psych almost every single night I worked for over a year. “But no one else can handle it like you” (I’m aware–acute is what I do) but I needed a fucking break. I told them 1/3 days I wanted to either be a floor nurse on med-psych or be the BERRT / consult nurse to the medsurg nurses for behavioral codes. They humored me one day a month for like three months then shoved my head right back under.

Then the supervisor came in to critique my morning reports twice in one week and honestly I didn’t even snap I literally just said “OK understood can I finish report now” so she tried to corner me in a side room but I haven’t survived ten years in acute psych without major injury by not being able to clock aggressive body language so I just walked right back into the nurses station to let everybody see her yell at me then handed her my badge and keys and left. Had a new job lined up within the week.

Current boss started out with the same sort of compliments like “oh you’re so calm when people are threatening to murder you” etc like yeah, as I said, this is what I do, and once I was settled in, everybody got used to asking me for advice on the EMR, meds, they got me teaching the violence deescalation classes the supervisor was tired of, made myself indispensable etc, I straight up told her I’ll do all of this, you can even enjoy my fun side projects I get up to when I’m bored–but if you make me charge nurse or let the house supers get shitty with me I’m out as soon as my contract is up.

So far she hasn’t pushed it.

Got laid off from my career job in broadcasting and picked up work unloading trucks at Walmart at night. Hated it but needed the money. One night, when I was already at my wit’s end due to being treated like a child as seems to be the company’s SOP, I was unloading a row from the truck and it collapsed on me. Corner of a box hit me just below the eye and cut the skin. So I’m in the employee bathroom with a cold paper towel trying to get it to stop bleeding while cursing to myself. Not yelling but normal speaking volume. I guess it was audible through the door because I step out and a manager is there. The first thing they say isn’t asking if I’m ok, but rather chastising me for cursing telling me to stop. I look at her, say “like fuck I do,” take my name badge off and toss it at her feet and walk out.

Less of a rage-quit and more of a rage-promotion. (it’ll make sense, just keep reading.)

I am someone who keeps track of what I do, my productivity, and how much output I’m generating in my work. A company I used to work for decided they wanted to do back-door layoffs by handing out phony write-ups and putting people on performance improvement plans, and they targeted me.

Essentially, I went into a meeting with my boss thinking I was going to get promoted or at least an attaboy, because I knew I was the highest performer on the team.

Nope. It was a writeup. I told them straight up that I was doing more work than anyone on the team, I could prove it, and I wasn’t signing. I fought the PIP with HR too, and the delicious thing was my bosses knew they fucked up, because I breezed right through it.

Ended up interviewing for an internal req that put me in a senior position on another team, and what galled me the most was the insistence of my boss on a going-away lunch, and I hated every second of it. I was gracious on my way out because I didn’t want to burn bridges, but I honestly hope that person is rotting in Hell now, and am very pleased that that company got bought out and sold for parts, so hopefully they all got fired too.

I have rage quit two jobs.

A long time ago I worked in a supermarket as a personal shopper. It was a pretty decent job, early start (4am) but an early finish, so it felt that I had the whole day to do whatever I wanted, though I was tired.

Skip ahead to Christmas eve, where everybody apparently has left their huge shops until the very last minute. Not only through our online service, but also in person.

Imagine this: You are being pushed to complete orders as quickly as possible and being called out for being slow, not only that, but every aisle is so full of people that you literally cannot push your trolley through them. I literally couldn’t move or do my job. I’m fairly embarrassed to say that I walked out, didn’t even tell anybody, and to my surprise I never got called out for it (I think it was too busy to notice) and the way the system worked, one of my colleagues would have just got the order and completed it without me.

The first job I ever quit, I must have been 16 years old. I was working as a promoter for a bar in a small town, essentially walking around with a sign, hanging out flyers, etc. ironic that a 16 year old is advertising a place they wouldn’t otherwise be allowed into, but it was cash in hand and pretty dodgy.

On my first night I was promised $50 for my work, but ended up being given $25 because they said it was a trial night. Suddenly my nightly salary is $25 and as a 16 year old, I’m a bit too scared of this dodgy guy in his car that was paying me to ask for the full amount.

Skip ahead a couple of weeks (I work maybe 3-4 nights a week, hours are like 10pm-5am) and tonight, it is pouring down with rain, I’m freezing cold, my uniform involves a t-shirt, and it is genuinely just a horrible experience.

I go to my boss, and tell him that I’m gonna go put my coat on and he says that’s not part of my uniform. I get a bit ballsy and tell him I want the extra $25 for the night before, and he said he never promised me anymore money than $25. So I walk home, in the rain, feeling hard done by but also like I learnt a valuable lesson. I never worked for less than I was worth after that.

Early on in my career I got hired as a junior systems administrator. The job description was the usual responsibilities around sysadmin work and supporting our employees. And for the most part, it was. I was part of a team of 4 sysadmins and there were about 500 employees at this location. So not a particularly small outfit.

Anyway, they started asking stuff of my not in the description. I got asked to change a door knob, they justified it as appropriate because it was the IT closet.

Then I got asked to change out a security camera near the top of our warehouse. I refused (the ladder wasn’t even rated for my weight), so my immediate boss did it.

A few lightbulbs here and there. Then, the final straw - they asked me to reinsulate the server room. Basically, lift one of the tiles and throw more insulation up there. Given no direction - I got myself a mask and nylon gloves and did it, wish I could say I didn’t and I had quit right then and there, but no - I did it and gave them my 2 weeks the next day. They told me they didn’t need 2 weeks from me. I was fine with that.

And I know, putting in my 2 weeks a day later isn’t exactly a rage quit. But I’m a timid person and a pushover, or was at that time, so to me it certainly felt like it.

Another thing they did was write my up for clocking in while walking into the building. Pulled up the timesheet and the camera footage showing me clocking in a full 5 seconds before entering the building and said I was stealing from the company (basically they showed me the footage of me walking with my phone out and then the timestamp of when I clocked in vs when I entered the building).

The reason I did that was because it was more efficient. I had a set of daily tasks and checks to do and of I started that lost at the rear entrance I could get it done much faster without having to double back.

From that point on you can bet I got into work and took an immediate coffee break on company time before even starting that checklist. Never got written up for that either.

Tweakers in the welding crew

Public and employee bathrooms out of order. 3 hours before opening, no one has ordered portable toilets. Was told to “walk to the Starbucks” if I needed to go so bad. So I left and never went back. 3 years at that job.

I worked at a company that helped people find the best loans for their situation.

Basically a price comparison site. No sponsored content or anything.

One day I was asked about setting up a payday loans option for the site and just said no.

I’d listened to some podcast about just how predatory the industry was, and even though our national regulations meant it couldn’t get as bad as some places, it was still unacceptably predatory.

I showed the manager stats for repayment, interest and average income of a customer and said if he went forward with this I would not be participating.

And if he was going to ask me to participate regardless, I would hand him my notice on the spot.

They never did anything with payday loans after that. I think most people were pretty happy about it.

A gas station chain as a client and the type of work that came with it. I was working as a help desk tech subcontractor and already had about 20 different clients. I’ve been doing this for a decade but because the new ones always messed up their work, we had tons of reminders and automated tasks in Teams. So I was already on edge because of the constant Teams notifications and all the triple checks.

Then they introduced this new client, a gas station chain, with hundreds of locations. I already worked in gas stations when I was a teenager and hated it. I hated the constant beeping for pumps to be unlocked when someone wants to buy gas. And I certainly didn’t want to have stressed teenagers on the phone telling me it’s super important that all their pumps are working on a Sunday afternoon while my instructions were to simply convince them to wait until the next business day if all we tried didn’t work. Fuck cars. Fuck oil companies. I can usually tolerate working with Microsoft even if I hate it, but Microsoft + oil companies. Fuck no.

I still haven’t found the will to get a new job, but my bank account is now starting to push me with insistance.

My boss had Narcissistic Personality Disorder, complete with face-melting off-the-record disapproval of my behavior, followed by “love-bombs” affirming my positive contribution to the workplace, mere days after. This resulted in not so much a rage-quit as taking my first opportunity to exit as fast as possible. And the cherry on top? An open invitation to come back mere weeks afterwards. The pattern was so textbook, that all I had to do was look up NPD romantic advice and search+replace “partner” for “boss” in most cases.

That said, I was pretty mad about how a great opportunity was ruined like this, let alone not as advertised. We’ve all heard “this meeting could have been an email”, well there’s also “this tirade could have been a counseling session.”