Even if your job interview skills are beyond compare, you never really know what it will be like to work at a company until you’re on the job.
Maybe the hiring manager is the only person at the company with passable social skills. Maybe the job description doesn’t match what you do all day. Or maybe your coworkers are just jerks.
Whatever the reason, it’s totally possible to show up for your new job only to discover that you’ve accidentally signed yourself on for a nightmare. When that happens, sometimes the only answer is to nope on out of there as soon as possible.
Ideally, of course, you’d do that in a professional and courteous fashion. But while you’re contemplating your resignation letter, enjoy these stories from Redditors who quit their new jobs ASAP:
1. What’s 10 Percent of Zero?
I was interviewing for a contract position at a very small game development company, and they told me they were looking for someone to help finish up an existing project.
Literally, the game looked like it was made in MS Paint. As if they had just hired some random guy off the street and asked them to make some art for them. Granted it’s a mobile game and sold for the standard $0.99, so maybe that’s not the worst, but the game itself doesn’t look engaging at all either. But I figure, worst comes to worst I could make some money on the side with some low-effort work.
Then they told me that my pay would be a percentage of the sales. Noped right out of that one. – LibertyJorj
2. The Job That Instantly Ruins Your Karma for All Time
One week. It was 1985, and a collections agency was looking for an IT guy. It was basically desktop support on some IBM PCs. It took me a week to realize what a soul-deadening place that was and I bolted. It was mutual, actually — they saw how I was reacting to some of the techniques the collectors used. The targets were mostly old people who were encouraged to sell family heirlooms and the like to pay off debts. – dramboxf
3. What’s More Important: This Job or You Keeping All 10 Fingers?
It was a shop that refurbished train suspension hydraulics. Forty percent of the guys were missing at least part of a finger, maintenance guy was missing four on one hand and 1.5 on another. Half the guys were high and the guy training me stormed out halfway through the second day.
I was like yeeaaah, I’m just going to dip out now… – IamtheBiscuit
4. The Untrained Emergency Dispatcher
I was supposed to be a seasonal temp worker for a national propane company. The job distribution and training consisted of taking calls off-hours for people who wanted refills and acting as a messenger service, referring their contact info their local “store” when they opened the next day. Easy-peasey.
When I got out onto the floor, I found I was actually expected to be a dispatcher for drivers AND ALSO FIRST POINT OF CONTACT FOR ALL EMERGENCY SITUATIONS. Things I had never been so much as briefed on in training.
My first shift I had to field a call from a local police officer who was on site to a horrific propane truck crash. I got to wake the guy’s district manager in the dead of night, tell him his worker was dead, and the overturned truck was blocking a few lines of the freeway and the police were trying to get a hold of him.
That was just the start: A customer got the smell of garlic and eggs in the house? I got the call. (What do I do next, Miss Dispatcher? “#$%* if I know. Get out of the house ASAP?”) CO detector is going off? I got the call. (Instead of 911 for some reason?!)
I had ZERO interest in being an underpaid, not-trained emergency dispatcher. It’s the only job I took off on without giving a two-week notice. I was nice enough to finish out my shift on the third day, but that was it. – AvocadoVoodoo
5. Can’t You Take a Joke?
My first day on a carpentry job a 20-year-old kid (I was 22 at the time) shot me with a nail gun from about 20 feet away. He thought it was hilarious and so did everyone else including the company owner. Noped right the $%#& out. – Ze1612
6. Lesson Learned: Never Get in the Van
I went in to an office for an interview. They said they had several positions available and I wanted to do some admin stuff.
Well, after the interview they told me to get in a van to do the next part of the process. Turns out we drove an hour away so I could shadow one of their door-to-door sales people. They would ask residents to go into their basement to check their hot water heaters to see if they were eligible to replace them with their companies own.
I felt pretty uncomfortable and pretty pissed my whole day was gone doing this. The worst part was the girl I was shadowing spent half the day sitting around in the truck reading magazines and waiting for people to come home from work.
I was sort of asking questions about the job and she got defensive and said, “Well, I decide if you get this job or not.” To which I replied, “Yeah, I don’t know if I want to do this.”
But she kept insisting that she decided if I worked. I don’t think she understood that I meant that I didn’t want to do this. #$%ing waste of a day. – jojomayer
7. What’s a Little Wage Theft Between Friends?
I got two paychecks. The first was for 40 hours I worked and the second was for my five hours overtime — without time and a half — from a company his wife owned. He told me any overtime I worked was for her and wasn’t technically overtime. I called the state labor department. – WillDoDatDevDoe
8. The Disappearing Benefit
Found out that the educational assistance they touted in their advertisement applied only to full-time employees and that they both defined full-time as no fewer than 40 hours and kept anyone who would apply for that assistance from ever being qualified for it.
None of this was advertised and the people I interviewed with assured me, a college student, that working 21 hours a week would get me the benefits. Too bad I read my contract before signing it and called them out. Don’t #$%*ing lie to your employees, especially during an interview, about something that can be easily and swiftly disproven. If you’re willing to lie to me about this, what else are you willing to lie to me about?
(I did their training before being offered my contract, so I count it as having worked there, BTW.) – greyhound1211
9. What’s More Important: This Job or Your Dad?
Mine had to be when I was 18 and working at Blockbuster. I was helping the manager during the before-open shift getting new items stocked on the shelves that came in that morning.
My mom called me and told me that my dad was having a heart attack and she was panicking while waiting for the ambulance. Why did she call me at work to tell me this? The Blockbuster I worked at was in a strip mall type area behind my cul-de-sac, my house and the Blockbuster were separated by a small alley and a three-minute walk.
I told my manager what was happening and asked if I could leave to help my mom while they waited for the ambulance. She said no.
I just stood there looking at her thinking she couldn’t be serious I would be gone for all of 10 minutes and back helping her if needed. She stressed how important it was to get the things done that needed to be done and I could only leave if I called around to the other workers and found someone to come in and cover for me while I was gone.
I took off my name tag slammed it on the counter and walked out. I never went back for any reason. For any who might wonder; my dad came out fine, but was in the hospital for a few days. – UnicornQueenFaye
10. Some Things, You Should Never Get Used To
When I was 16, I had an interview at a local pizza place in a not-so-good part of town. I was hired and as I was walking out, two guys came in and robbed the place. The manager gave them the money in the register and they ran out. I looked at him and he said, “You get used to it.” I never went back. – ob1page
Stories have been lightly edited for clarity and style.
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