57 Folks Open Up About Their Exact "Enough Is Enough" Moments That Led Them Out Of Bad Situations

I was 34, putting a fitted sheet on my bed, and had what I assume was a minor heart attack. I'm American so I of course didn't go to the hospital.

But I was short of breath, my heart was racing, my chest hurt like hell, and I was just laid up on the bed trying desperately to catch my breath for quite some time.

Quit smoking cigarettes right then and there. I did the math and had been smoking for more than 50% of my life and had been a pack+ a day smoker for at least 12 years straight.

My lungs are still bad, and will probably never get back to even 80% funcationality, but I've never had another one of those episodes... and I change my bed sheets all the time!

4 days into a managerial job at one of the biggest banks in the US/world (but based in the UK) being screamed at by some pillock from one of their US offices demanding to know why there were so many people off the week running up to Christmas.

I hadn’t even applied for the job when it was agreed - I was told to ‘fix it’ and start cancelling leave. I did not.

Add that to the absolutely horrendous work environment, rampant harassment of women straight out of university and i’d seen enough.

Started Monday, updated my CV Friday, I was out of there in 5 months and only because my background checks took 3 months to complete at my next (and current) employer.

I helped develop the policies and procedures for the job. I took on 2nd shift when I was hired for first. I trained all the new employees and that included my supervisor.

So when the training position opened, I applied. I had a whole training schedule already in mind. Explained how I would rotate shifts. Week one would be days, week 2 would be second and 3rd week would be 3rd shift. I would rotate as needed for training. No point in changing up schedules. I pointed out all that I had accomplished. I also pointed out how I took the shift no one wanted. Thought it was a slam dunk.

I had not heard anything for a few days. Asked my supervisor if a decision has been made. It had been made, just no one told me. They hired someone I was training. What? He had prior experience in training. He doesn't know the job or policies. That is why you are training him.

I told my supervisor I am quitting. I am putting in my notice. Once I get something, I am out. I told her I gave my notice and went back to work. HR called my desk. I refused to answer. They emailed me. Again, I ignored it. Then they showed up at my desk.

They tried to talk me out of quitting. I refused to budge. I told them there is no set date, but the countdown is on. I just served open notice. I was not going to stick around for my 2 weeks if I get something else.

And then malicious compliance began on my part. I used to skip breaks, work voluntary OT, assist other get their work done. I just began to focus on my work. I took my breaks and worked my 8. I would just get up and go to lunch. Not say a word, just go out for my hour lunch.

After I had left I bumped into a prior coworker. Sounds like I left at the right time. Their trainer quit a week after I left. And about 6 months later they lost a major contract. Which laid off almost all of the department I was in.

South Africa

We have not had enough electricity since 2007 and this ramped up to days where there were up to 12 hours with no power.

In June 2020 our previous president was convicted of contempt of court and sentenced to prison. Instead of justice being served, huge riots and looting broke out. Billions of Rands damage. He walked free on some bogus health exemption.

That’s when we said enough. In the Netherlands 2 years tomorrow!

I was working at KFC and the manager I closed with said I needed to redo the entire lobby after I literally just finished because she "saw some dry spots on the floor" after I mopped it spotless. (Apparently water never dries) When I iterated that I just finished and its time for me to leave she said I wasn't leaving until everything was redone, including the bathrooms and every single table, chair and soda machine. I basically told her to get lost, clocked out and went home. I wasn't even supposed to work that day and I ended up working a 13 hour shift with only one 20 minute break because nobody ever told us we were allowed to take a longer break so long as we clocked out (they didn't want people taking longer breaks so they just skipped over the part in our training and worked us like dogs). That job was awful from start to finish.

During the pandemic they wouldn't let me work from home, so I concluded that the most important thing is that I sit in a certain room for a certain number of hours per day. This is changed my perspective on what my work output needs to be, now that I know the most important thing is what room I'm sitting in.

I went above and beyond for years with my last company, before having two 'I'm done' moments in pretty quick succession.

First, when the CEO nuked a huge evidence-based report I'd been working on for months because part of it showed his favourite sales team were fraudulently inflating their numbers to get performance-related salary increases.

Then I tried to re-negotiate my salary after they expanded my role. The GM tells me to send them my new job description, and they'll have it benchmarked by HR. I got led down the garden path for months - it'll happen after this, it's reliant on that - until I eventually submitted a data request... which, of course, proved that nothing had been forwarded to HR, there was no 'benchmarking process', and they were trying to downgrade my job title so I could no longer compare my salary to that of similar roles. I followed the grievance process, which revealed that the company had no intention of reviewing my salary until the following year - and I'd made the request in January. I tore the whole thing apart during the grievance process, but it was never going to matter. They even had the nerve to threaten me with a disciplinary when I said I wasn't willing to keep doing the extra work without extra pay. That taught me that no matter how loyal you might be, you're only ever a number to them.

Happened last week. the moment i realized i was apologizing to a printer for not working while it blinked paper jam for the third time even though there was no paper in it. that’s when i knew the job had broken me.

My boss tried to deny time off at Xmas that had been approved a month earlier. She said we'd meet the day before my time off and I needed to catch up on "all my tasks" and update her, in order for her to approve the time off.

I replied with my notice and CCd HR.

During pandemic I was working 80/100 hours weekly, as we let so many staff go and I was doing the basic positions on top of my job. Took 3 days PTO which I gave a few months notice of. Came back and got screamed at in front of entire team as I had phone off for a few days. I had gone camping and let everyone know that I’d be disconnected for a few days. Boss said “In the 15 years of managing sales people, I’ve never had anyone vanish like that.” That was my final straw and I was OUT!

I've been talking to this girl who was my classmate in school as well as in college and she's been very on and off. When I'm showing interest she pulls away, she initiates texts but when I reply she takes hours or even days to continue the conversation. We live in different countries. So She'll always talk about how we should meet if we ever had a chance again.

One day she visited my city. She knows that I live here. She informed me, I was seeing her stories and snaps, she was here for almost a week. I texted her, "we should meet" since we haven't met in person yet after graduating. She replied to me the next day saying that she was caught up with sight seeing and her flight is in a couple of hours.

She went back, and the texting continued. One day she'll act interested and immediately the next day her replies become dry and she takes hours to reply consistently. It was exhausting, at some point it became clearly visible that she was just using me for attention.

Last week I sent her tik Tok which kinda pointed out her attitude and behavior. She immediately texted, "why do you say that?" and I thought to myself that if I reply to that question she might leave me on read or reply after days. So at that moment, I thought to myself that I'm done with this all and left her on read. My mind is at peace now.

Worked in property management for a bit and had a boss that would dump stuff on me and she would run around doing errands and stuff most of the day, in a given week she would put in like 15 hours unless the district manager was coming that week. We were both assigned to a new build out community and she got even lazier. She had to make a flier for a job fair and spent 6 hours on it asked me to proof read it and format it. She literally typed out statements from the company website word for word. I could have cut/paste and formatted that in 5 minutes. At the same time we have an answering machine and due to demand, it was hitting its 100 voice mail limit every day. Every call had to be logged into the system while calling them back, emailing back, etc. Two weeks in I had 1700 initial contacts logged, my boss had 6. Corporate calls asking why we can't keep up, mandates 6 day work weeks to catch up. Come in on my Saturday, manager never shows. About 5 hours in corporate calls up, asks how its going and I say falling behind, cannot keep up with it as I am doing 99.9% of the work and I am the only one who showed up. Manager comes in 45 minutes later pissed to all hell that she was busted, told me the work load is what it is and to accept it or leave........pulled the office keys out of my pocket and walked out the door.

She had a child. The child was 11 and illiterate.

Our relationship was getting serious so I offered to pay for half of an intensive after school reading program that she wanted but couldn’t afford. I did it as a gift with no expectation of repayment.

It came time to pay my half. I needed a verification code from her to log in and pay it on the program’s site. She couldn’t be bothered to send me the code then got angry with me for “bothering her” by asking.

I realized her true colors would only come out more and bailed pretty soon after that.

Didn’t wanna become a political prisoner of an authoritarian government, and got an appointment letter because they just wanted “to chat”. lol. Packed all my stuff in two suitcases in a few hours, went to the airport and booked a flight to a country where i still got an unexpired visa. Never came back (it’s been over a decade).

I was three months into a contract to hire position. Decent salary for my work from home location. But they were going to have me move to an expensive area (or deal with 1.5 hour commutes) once they brought me in as a hired employee. I was supposed to be their new marketing manager but they refused to do anything but send out these really terrible newsletters that preformed terribly. Meanwhile their website was full of 404s, old content, ect. When I first started there one of many VPs bragged that they laid off their IT staff to outsource it and saved hundreds of thousands of dollars. And there i was trying to fix a rotten marketing department where every meeting seemed to devolve into arguing and trying to blame things on other departments.

Called my supervisor and told them I wouldn't be accepting the position, finished out my last week of contract work then took a month off to go on a road trip by myself. I told people that they outsourced the marketing department instead of the fact that I quit. I did struggle a bit after that with finding the next job. But shedding that job that I knew I wasn't going to stay long term at and just taking a full month to live spontaneously.....worth it in the end.

My wife was in a burn-out and depression. I supported her throughout for about two years. I worked full-time, paid nearly all the bills from my paycheck, took care of the kids, did the household while she was on the couch, watching tv and doomscrolling all day. Near the end I started to realize she was burning through money, racking up debt, was gone for a couple of days straight and presumably meeting with another guy. I came home from work one night, the kids were still with my mom and the house was trashed. Dirty dishes, dirty clothes everywhere and my wife was't home. That was the straw that broke the camels back. I threw a bunch of her shoes, purses and clothes through the living room in pure rage because they were everywhere. I left for a couple of hours to cool down and when I got back she had called half my family and friends because she was worried.
That night she left en never came back, tbh I was done with it. I couldn't go on like that anymore. She denied seeing someone else but started dating less than a month later and married him 6 months later.

The moment I lost hope and settled for apathy. I hold this as a sentiment to many things, relationships, expectations, control etc. The moment something loses that feeling of hope, is the moment it becomes acceptance of something much less. It’s a shift of expectation or standard and a protection tactic to lower that feeling into something you have less faith or belief in.

The moment you have to shift your own light for something that becomes easier when it is a little more dim, is the moment of giving up.

I worked in kitchens starting at the age of 14. I went to culinary school when I was 18, and worked in fine dining establishments until I was 24. After 10 years of experience, and $90,000 on an education, it all came to a head for me when I had to work Christmas Day 2020. I had worked every Thanksgiving and Christmas for years. I got there and the Christmas buffet was wiped clean. I had to make all new shit and stay late, and I was making $16 an hour, only $4 more than I was making 7 years ago. I finally realized that I had been doing top tier, professional skilled work for wages that wouldn’t even make it possible to support myself on my own. I quit and became a Hooter’s girl and made more money than I ever had in my life, working 10 less hours per week and putting in considerably less effort. Now I sell real estate and I have nearly doubled my income in 2 years.

After 5yr of IT help desk I had a call that made me quit the next day. It was from from one of our customer service agents.

I told her the truth, her internet was really slow & intermittent (work from home) and causing the issues she was experiencing. This was after about 10 previous tickets being opened and multiple hardware replacements.

She got really mad at me, and starting grilling me about not having empathy. Basically rattling off all this customer service training, and saying I was doing a bad job. I wasn't doing X, Y and Z to soothe her irrational anger towards it. She berated me for a good 30min, I wanted to rip my ears off and blow my brains out.

I realized just how sick and twisted corporate culture is, and how much it does bad things with people's mental health. That's was it for me, quit without a job lined up and it was the best decision ever.

I was selling cable TV subscriptions door to door (purely commission based. No hourly) in the middle of the hottest summer I'd ever seen where I live and wasn't making any sells (only ever made one). I finally just gave up and went to the office where my boss was hanging out and said "Well, I'm done" and handed my badge. He tried his best to get me to stay. Went home and had one of the top 5 best naps I've ever had. I was also the only person with a high school diploma and I had only gotten that a few months earlier.