“15 Minutes”: 40 Ex-Employees Share The Quickest They Have Ever Left A Job

I worked in the call center for the university I attended. The job was to basically call alumni and get them to donate money to the school. There was a computer that would automatically call people for you. Most people simply did not answer the call because they had caller ID or didn’t recognize the number. So most time was spent staring at a computer listening to a phone ringing with nobody answering it.

If somebody did answer the phone, there was a script we had to go by to try and get them to donate. We were required to ask at least 4 times and lower the amount each time before we could hang up. For example, maybe starting by asking for $200 and working down to $50. We couldn’t take no for an answer no matter what the response was until we asked for money 4 times. If somebody said, “sorry I can’t afford to donate my husband has cancer.” We would be required to use the script and say, “I’m so sorry to hear you are dealing with medical bills, but did you know the school is building a new football stadium! Can I get you to donate $50?”

Needless to say between the boredom of nobody answering and the terrible and awkward feeling of asking for somebody’s else’s money over and over if they did answer, I quit after my first 2 hours there. Just got up and told the supervisor it wasn’t for me and left.

It took me about 2 hours in telemarketing to realize what an a*****e I felt like, and then I left.

Sandwich shop. Health inspector showed up. Found mop cleaning solution in the tub they were keeping the utensils they used make sandwiches with (get meatballs out for subs, spread tuna on sandwiches, etc). That explained the very odd, burning chemical smell from that area. The mop cleaner was mixing with the meatballs and sauce and just cooking all day in that pot. Owner argued that it was safe to use it that way. He made he dump it out in front of him. The second he left, she filled it back up and put all the utensils back in it.

1 day of training. It wasn’t a bad job - serving old folks in a retirement community. But I asked for the schedule to see when I worked next and the boss chuckled knowingly. “That’s not how we do it here, son.” He explained that he would give me a call when I was needed and I would need to be to work half an hour after the call. “So no regular shifts? Just… whenever? I can’t do that. I’m working two other jobs. I would need to schedule around those other jobs or change my schedule there to fit around this job. I’m sorry, but I can’t work for you.” He said he understood and was sorry I couldn’t be more flexible. We parted amicably though I was flummoxed about how that man could possibly run a place with that method of staffing. Three weeks later he called me at five am to see if I could work the breakfast shift. I was less friendly as I reminded him I had quit. I was a little surly at my other jobs that day.

I did uber once. I needed a money and the positions I applied for at my college took forever to hear back from.

Picked up a guy at a bar who tried to convince me to go inside his apartment with him. I told him no and he called me a bunch of names before he angrily got out. Decided then and there that this was a mistake and quit.

I got a job at Jimmy Johns as a driver and made more there then I did at the job I got a month later at my college.

I was hired by a temp agency to file documents in a Paint Factory office - and when i showed up I was put on the assembly line with zero training or instruction and the cans came down the conveyor belt at 10,000 mph. i dont even know what i was supposed to do - i just let every can whiz by. i quit end of day 1.

I had a legal temp job at Pfizer. It came out just from doing data entry that they tested a really bad heart drug in Africa that resulted in a lot of deaths. I not only found out then they had it built into their budget to deal with lawsuits, but was coming across settlement emails that said “not bad considering.” Not bad was them paying a family who sued $10k and the considering was because whoever took the drug had had a heart attack. This was pretty soon after 9/11 and it just wasn’t right. I was broke, had nothing to look forward to after, but quit after a miserable week of trying not to.

Did one 12-hour shift at a printing press. They weren't going to give us breaks. Like.. ANY breaks. Me and this other dude were temps, first time we ever worked there. The lady at the temp agency begged me to do a week over there. 12 hours, just picking up printed magazines off a press and putting them on palettes. They basically had this adittude of ''if the press doesn't break down, or misprint, we don't take breaks, lunch, nothing.'' Also, for the level of work, it was s****y pay. Right after the shift, I called and said no, I'm not doing another shift. And asked if they knew they were pressuring temps to break labor laws, she sheepishly admitted it was a constant problem with them.

Two weeks. I was basically left to run an entire laboratory by myself with half a days training, and the lab manager was leaving for an overseas trip the next day. Would wake up with anxiety attacks after dreaming my bedroom was full of lab equipment.

2 days. I worked at Walmart before and quit to start a gig in trucking. Got about a year into the trucking before I decided maybe I wanted to be home more. So I quit my job and got hired at Walmart within a week. Which was perfect, it was for a deli position which was cool, never worked deli before, I was always an overnight stocker. First day was mostly computer work, second day was partial computer work followed by a half day on the job. I s**t you not, the first hour I was in the deli I get an older lady (65+) requesting ham sliced as thin as possible, so I asked the chick training me for some help and she got it to the lowest setting. And when I shaved a practice piece off I asked if it was good. She says "no, I've gotten it thinner before" so I asked my training chick and she says "ma'am that's as thin as we go." The woman didn't like this answer. She proceeds to say, "that might be thin enough for you lard a**es but I need my thinner". At this point I was already debating on throwing this ham at her and quitting and tmher statement about sent me over the edge. While I didn't launch the ham slice at her I did throw it on the counter and told the old woman where she could shove that ham. Walked into the backroom, clocked out, threw the assistant manager my best and told them today was my last day. And that some old hag needs help in deli. I called my trucking company the next days and within two weeks they had me in a truck and down the road. I'll NEVER do customer service again. Kudos to everyone whose stuck it out this long. I did it for 10+ years and once I got out, I'll never go back.

When I was in college, I got hired at a popular company that sells knives. I worked the first day/orientation and quit immediately after lunch, as I realized it was rather sketch. You only got paid when you sold, and it was dependent on you selling first to family and friends by going to their homes and then asking them for referrals.

I worked at party city and was closing. Someone s**t in the bathrooms but not in the toilets. It was on the floor, the walls, the stall doors, in the sinks, in the SOAP DISPENSERS… and for an added effect, they had smashed the dispense button a few times. Vile. I was NOT on bathroom duty that evening but for whatever reason, my MOD told me to clean it up. Hell to the no. I told her I wasn’t cleaning that biohazard and that my 7.25 an hour wasn’t worth it PLUS there was no way in hell I could clean all of that up in the 30 minutes before I had to clock out (or get written up for being over). My manager, the living embodiment of shrek, said she’d write me up for failing to complete my closing checklist (again, wasn’t on bathrooms that evening). So, in my best judgment, I went and clocked out and left. Never came back. I was scheduled to open the next morning but nope. My GM sent me an email confirming my termination and said, “you’ll always be welcome back, should you choose to come in.”

It was a small gas station owned by one person. During the interview, she told me that if I came into the gas station not on my shift and I saw it was busy, I should help behind the register.

Hotel. Went to the interview which was super short. Told to come back for my first shift that night. Showed up, and despite it being in a decent part of town discovered it was basically a crack den/brothel. The guy I was supposed to shadow walked me around and introduced me to the “guests”, showed me the numbers for who I was to call in an emergency (none of them were police/fire/medical) and how to active the bulletproof panic room type glass. I acted like I was going to my car to get something and just drove off.

4 hours. It was a telemarketing job and my trainer was a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen.

Worked at one of those amazon factory jobs graveyard shift. First day saw how depressed everyone was and decided that would be my first and last shift.

Clocked out and never looked back.

15 minutes before I got there. I had a weird feeling about the job and how vague the hiring manager was being. Halfway to my first day, it dawned on me that it was some traveling door-to-door sales s**t. The kind where they pack you in a van and drive you to some neighborhood to sell coupon books or whatever.

I worked as a maid at a hotel on Oahu. The first day, I had to hand pick some Bozo's toenails out of the astroturf on the balcony. No gloves available. The bedspreads were made of velvet and very heavy. I Quit that day and worked for the post office.

In 2007, I got hired to work at a Hungry Howie’s pizza location in Saginaw, Michigan. I did the three hour training/orientation shift and then get told I would get called the next week to be told what my regular schedule would be.

I finish the shift, and come home and turn on the local news. One of the top stories was about how a pizza delivery driver somewhere in the city had to shoot someone who was trying to rob him while he was making a delivery. I drove back to the location and handed them my hat and shirt the same night.

Call center for a propane company. Was told it would pretty much be 'scheduling propane fill-ups', and was trained as such. Sadly, we would not sell propane accessories or propane products. Training was two weeks.

NOPE. It was a lie.

Turns out the night shift was poor-man's 911 for gas emergencies.

For some f*****g reason, when smelling leaking gas people called their gas company instead of local emergency services? And emergency services would call us too. The first night I had to wake up a district manager to tell him one of his drivers drove off the edge of an icy road and died. Oh and county hazmat was on the other line so could... he do something? (I had no backup, no supervisors on the floor to ask what to do so I muddled through the best I could.)

I made it 4 days, took a sick day on the 5th, and never came back. F**k that.