We all get those feelings – you shouldn’t be there, this isn’t a good person, you should leave right then, or not go somewhere in the first place – but we don’t always listen to them.
Too many people have paid a steep price for dismissing their gut, but after these 16 experiences, these people will never ignore theirs again.
16. Their loss.
I was hired as a temp, on day 91 I was told that they in fact didn’t have to hire me after 90 days and they were gonna keep me on as a temp.
I clocked out for lunch and never went back.
15. You gotta watch your own back.
I was at the first day of a job at a fiberglass place. I was working in a section unloading trailers.
There was an incident with a forklift that resulted in a broken hand. Then I got absolutely covered in fiberglass dust. They didn’t provide masks and I could feel the grit on my teeth. Everyone acted as if this was normal and even said the forklift driver was one of their safest drivers.
By lunch, I said to myself, “If one more thing is blatantly unsafe, I’m not coming back for a second day.”
Then we started putting stuff away in a different section. It involved people climbing up storage racks while people were working underneath.
I didn’t return.
14. A watershed moment.
I worked at produce market when I was in college. I really, really needed the job. I literally had empty cabinets and only one shelf of food in the fridge on a regular basis. I had been working weekday evenings only for a couple of months, but picked up a Saturday shift.
I was helping a customer and the owner walked up and interrupted our conversation: “Is that your yellow car in parking lot?” Me: “Yes”. Her (with the most demeaning tone) “On weekends, our parking lot is reserved for customers only. If you value your job you will go punch out, move your car to the lot across the street, and never park in the lot again”
I was astonished. I had full-time jobs every summer since I was 15. I picked up holiday jobs. I had a lot of working experience. I had NEVER been talked to like this by any coworker or boss before. Particularly in front of a customer.
I told her I was not aware of the parking rules since I always worked weekdays, took off my apron, handed it to her and said I will be punching out, but not punching back in. I quit. I told the customer I was sorry I was not able to finish helping him and walked out.
I really needed the job, but was so pissed off I could not stand the idea of working there. My supervisor called me that afternoon and tried to get me to come back, but I just couldn’t.
13. Makes your heart beat fast.
College roommate and I were in a Mexican border town, walking half drunk back to Texas when a guy in an alley opened a door and told us to come on in. Free beer, beautiful women.
My roommate started into the room, you could see a couple girls across the room, as soon as I hit the doorway I caught a glimpse of several guys with their backs up against the wall to the left that we couldn’t see from outside.
I grabbed roommate by the collar and we ran back to the border. There were a lot of kidnappings in that area in the mid 90s.
12. I’m not so sure it was nothing.
I was about 17 and lived in a rural area. Used to hitchhike everywhere. One day I’m in the back of a car, 2 guys up front. They’re talking kinda quiet. After a minute or two I hear one say ‘ok but this time we’ll go somewhere else’.
Then he looks in the mirror at me.
I looked away out the window, proper sh**ting my pants. As we went through a village we had to stop at a junction and I blurted something about a friend living nearby and I opened that door and ran.
Probably nothing in it but I still get chills remembering it.
11. What a jerk.
I was a temp worker in a factory that made mayonnaise, during my break I get a call from my mom’s work. She’s had 5-6 strokes at the same time. I went to my supervisor and told him what happened. When he replied with “can’t you wait until your shift is over?”
I took of my uniform and left the building without another word.
For those who are interested: ER doctors told me my mom only survived because her coworkers reacted fast and because the clumps of blood cutting her blood flow to her brain were rather small.
10. Wrong on so many levels.
I’m a middle school teacher, and it’s also worth mentioning that I’m a very petite woman and most of my students are bigger than me. Many years ago when I was considered one of the young and pretty teachers, I was walking down the hall. An 8th grade boy slapped me on the a$s and mentioned my car’s make and model, implying that he was going to wait for me in the parking lot.
I immediately went to my principal who told me that reporting the incident would “reflect poorly on me” and I “don’t want a complaint like that in my file.”
I put in my resignation from that particular school the next day. The more I mention it, the more I realize that many teachers have similar experiences.
9. So, so creepy.
I was on the third date with this guy I really liked. We started making out on his couch, things started steaming up and that’s when it began.
The baby voice. He couldn’t stop talking to me in a baby voice. I was out.
8. No sleeping after that.
Some young woman and an old lady were arguing about stolen underwear in our communal laundry room.
Young woman called for her cracked out boyfriend who came running in with a gun drawn screaming bloody murder.
Noped right out. Then moved out that weekend.
7. Justified.
I was a shift lead at a fast food joint located inside of a gas station. Our manager was worthless at hiring people, so we were perpetually understaffed for months. I was working 50-60 hours a week. Absolutely ridiculous. However, company policy was that there HAD to be two people working at all times.
This particular day, someone called out. Nobody would come in to cover the shift, so the manager was forced to stay and work a double. She decided that since the only reason she was there was because we would have to close otherwise, she was just going to hang out in the office and chat with the gas station employees.
3 hours into my shift, and I have been single handedly running the front counter, the drive thru, making all the food, doing prep and doing dishes. The dinner rush hit, I had like 4 cars in the drive thru, 8-9 people inside, and then I ran out of onions. (Because I couldn’t get the prep done) My mind just quit. Brain turned off, emotions went cold.
I ripped off my headset, told the people inside that they weren’t getting their food, walked into the office and tossed my name tag, manager card, and hat at my boss. When she turned around in shock all I said was good luck and walked out the back.
6. Sometimes people are the worst.
I was working as a postie..
Normally when a postie gets sick, the other posties have to cover his route. There were 7 of us so it was annoying but not too bad.
I’d been there for a couple of years and had covered other people’s sick days several times.
Anyway I got really sick. The sickest I’d been in my life up till that time. Had the flu but it wound up making me look gray and shrunken and I got a migraine.
Finally went back to work, I’d had three days off.
Piles of mail were waiting for me. I don’t know if they’d delivered ANY of it. Maybe they did. But there were huge piles waiting for me. And I was still sick, I only went back in because I was worried about the workload on them.
I gave my notice, finished the week and then quit.
5. How do these people sleep at night?
Recently I was hired by a company to be a foreman. My job was laid out in my interview as follows: Plant maintenance and welding. I would run a crew of 4 guys and do odd jobs at a potato plant 10 miles from my house. This is what I have done for other various companies for the last 15 years.
After taking the job they asked me to help another foreman doing the same thing at a different potato plant about 80 miles away. I agreed as it was for a few days.
Fast forward 3 weeks. I am still driving 160 miles a day and we have been doing concrete and asphalt prep for a week.(not my vocation) The boss casually mentioned at about 2 in the afternoon that we had to finish a particular part of the project before we left and that we would be there at least till 8p.m.
I told him I couldn’t work late on short notice because I had plans and still had to drive home. He said ” if you don’t pick up the pace you will be leaving earlier than that.” I told him I agreed and since this wasn’t the job I was hired for that I was done. He replied with ” see ya” and I said probably not.
4. Not the way to inspire loyalty.
I was working as a Network Engineer and due to mismanagement by owner who took lavish trips every 3 months, with family and kids friends. He had a payroll short fall. His solution was to reduce my medical benefit which included my family to just me.
Then 3 months later reducing my salary by 30%. When he told me he also said that he expects me to work 50-60 hrs a week until profits improve, then said what do you think. I said, I Quit. I worked for him 13 years.
He has called many times to get me to help with special projects for his clients, I have politely refused.
3. You gotta be able to smell a rat.
I was unemployed and had a job interview for a cable installer position. The position advertised for $20 an hour, 40+ hours a week, and benefits so it seemed like a pretty good deal. I get to the interview and find out its actually 2 interviews; a group interview followed by 1 on 1 interviews with the hiring manager.
In the group interview, HM explains that the position was actually minimum wage and commission. He also explains that we need to supply our own tools. He then tells us how they assign jobs and we have no choice over which ones we get.
Right before the end of the group interview, one of the other guys asks if there were any other expenses we were responsible for and HM tells us that we had to pay for our own gas, tires and repairs on our assigned company van.
I look out in the parking lot and saw all the vans looked like 20 year old clapped out pieces of crap. As soon as HM went back to his office, I left.
2. Sketchy as heck.
Some promoter literally gave me $80 to go into his Vegas strip club with my friends. Said he would “throw in the limo and VIP package” if we tipped the driver because his other reservation cancelled. When we got there, we got different color wristbands than other people and were told we could ONLY leave though their taxi when we left. That was our only option.
One friend tried to leave and the bouncer wouldn’t let him out. He came back and told us what was up. Nothing was adding up so we booked it out of the fire exit and down the street.
That was how I got paid $80 to go a strip club. Pretty sure we were going to get robbed when we left and would probably have been drunk.
1. Know your worth.
I recently quit my job as a call centre worker after 4 years. For background I worked in customer services for a popular retailer in the UK. During lock down when their stores were closed, we had increased sales from online which also means we got increased call volumes. I busted my arse off to ensure that customer’s were happy with their purchases and resolved any issues they had to the best I could.
One day, we got an email from our CEO saying that even though we had the highest volume of online sales we still would not be able to get a bonus due to the virus “affecting” the business as a whole. I only ever had a bonus once when I was working there and I am used to not getting a bonus. What made me pissed off was that we got absolutely nothing in return. Not a pay increase, not extra holidays, not a token of gratitude and not even a thank you letter for all the hard work.
We also found out a couple days later via the mainstream news that the big wigs at my company all got a pay rise. At this point, myself and a few other people went “f*ck this sh%t” and we all handed our badges at reception and left.
I got a new job a weeks later without any problem and feel even better as a person. This was the first time ever in my life I walked out of a job in anger.
These stories always make me determined to listen to my little voice.
Do you have a story like these? If so, share it with us in the comments!
