People Are Revealing What Made Them Quit Their Job on the First Day

Right out of college years ago I applied for a private investigator position at this nation wide firm that looked like a pretty cool job following and investigating criminals.

I was very excited to hear that I was finally hired after a few weeks of intensive phone interviews and application process. My first day was to shadow a veteran investigator in my state and had to take a 3 hour drive to meet him at the location at 5am.

I was very excited and got their early so I stopped and got a large iced coffee while I waited. The first red flag was that the guy showed up and hour late telling me he over slept. Not a huge deal, it happens.

I finally saw him pull up and I hopped in his van to introduce myself and get the day started. The guy who hired me told me to dress business casual so I was in long khaki pants and a polo shirt, even though it was 98 degrees F that day in mid summer. Second red flag. This guy was in a dirty/stained wrinkley white Hanes tee shirt and pajama shorts and slippers.

He was super fat and smelled disgusting, looked like he hadn't showered in days if not weeks. I tried letting all of this go and look past it to start this cool day of investigating the "criminal" we were after this day.

We pull up to the targets residence and the guy says its time to shut the van off and get in the back to start our surveillance. We hop in the back and it is brutally hot back there. He said we could not have the AC running or windows down so we don't get caught or raise attention.

There was a black bean bag chair back their with an excessive amount of white stains on it and an empty upside down 5g bucket back there.

Lets just say I was more than happy to sit on the bucket even though he generously had offered me the bean bag chair. We ended up sitting there for over an hour dripping sweat in the back of this van while staring at the monitor that the camera was feeding video to from the front of the van watching this persons house.

I figured I would ask what this guy was accused of or what crimes he did to have private investigators after him. Turns out the "criminal" was a 70 yr old woman who was claiming disability from her job. There was no movement the entire time.

The guy then proceeds to tell me the person who hired me told a slight "white lie" on the job description and 99% of the job is surveillance on disability and unemployment, no real criminals or cheating spouses or anything cool at all. My excitement was gone.

All along the right wall of the back of the van had about 5-6 gallons of apple juice and I was shocked that someone can just drink apple juice all day and no water. The iced coffee from earlier was kicking in and I asked him if we can run to a gas station or something to use the rest room real quick.

He said we were not allowed to leave once starting surveillance on a subject unless they leave their house or our day is over. He then preceded to pick up a half filled gallon of apple juice and said "here this ones only half full, you can pee the rest of the way up, ill turn around and let me know when you are done.

Don't over fill it!" I then realized those were not apple juice containers and instead I was in the back of a hot muggy van in 98 degree weather with a fat smelly disgusting guy surrounded by 6 FULL GALLONS OF PISS JUGS.

I told him to drop me back off at my car I was done and I quit. I had a pretty interesting phone call to the person who hired me once I was back in my car and seemed like I was not the first person to be reacting like this. Never again.

Username: hmac1505

Kinda long, and late to the party. I apologize. I was supposed to be a hearse driver. That was it. That was all that was in the job advertisement, that was all that was discussed in the interview. I was just supposed to drive hearses to and from funerals.

First red flag was I was told during the interview that I would be on-call 24/7, which I thought was weird because funerals are usually planned at least a couple days before they happen. But, I didn’t pay any mind to that detail.

So my first day comes around, and I get a call from my new boss telling me to pick up the hearse from the funeral home and meet him at a house. In my head I’m like “??? at a house???” but then I’m like “maybe the body is already taken care of and I will just load it up and take it to the funeral home.” I didn’t wanna question too much on my first call so I pick up the hearse and head to the house.

Nope. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I arrive at the home, and my boss, the police and family of the deceased are standing outside. The front door is open, and from the inside of the hearse in driveway I can just smell death. Legitimate, real, death. It’s unmistakable and you never forget it.

I greet my boss, and the first thing he says is, “I’m so sorry man. If I knew it was gonna be like this, I wouldn’t have made this your first call. I’ve never seen one like this.” No hello, no nothing. so I immediately start internally freaking out because I have no idea what’s about to happen.

He tells me that not only am I going to be driving the body to the funeral home. We’re going to be removing the deceased from the home. So I start freaking out even more. I didn’t sign up for that! But, I’m in front of the police, and the family so I just play it cool and do what I have to do until I can freak out alone.

We go into the house, and it is worse than the worst episode of Hoarders you’ve ever seen. Think of the most filthy house you can imagine... I promise you it was worse. The deceased had suffered a heart attack at the top of his staircase, fallen down the stairs, and died, landing in a crumpled mess at the bottom. And stayed there. For four days. Before his family came looking for him. This was not going to be an open casket funeral, to say the least.

So now we have to get him out of the house. The body was close to 350 pounds if I had to guess, and stiff as a board. I’m not a big guy. 5’8”, maybe 155lbs. So, because of where the body was positioned in the home, and because of what a mess the house was, a gurney was out of the question.

We were carrying this body out in a sheet. It was the most I’ve ever struggled in my life. After getting the sheet under the left side of the body, my glove ripped. I said to myself in my head “I should definitely replace this glove.” A cop gives me a replacement glove.

And boy am I glad I replaced that glove, because when I put the sheet under the other side of the body, I pulled my hand out absolutely covered in diarrhea. I had to use all of my concentration to not puke on the body at this point. Nerves, heat from the summer, and all my senses except taste were assaulting my stomach at this point. It was tough.

This is getting so long, so I’m gonna wrap it up quickly. We get the body in the hearse, I drive it to the funeral home, and I think, “Cool, I’m done now”. Wrong again. I then had to learn how to prepare a body for the mortician. I had to strip this decrepit, rotting body naked. More nausea ensues. When I was done, I drove home in silence. Got home, sat in silence staring at the wall for about an hour.

Worst experience of my entire life. I quit the next day. I get my check. $62. $62 fucking dollars for all that trauma at 18 years old. Fuck that.

I got counseling for the whole experience and now I clean carpets and air ducts for a living. Things are a lot better now. :^)

Username: forkliftdaddy

Here we go, the one & only job I started & quit the same day. It was a small town thrift store whose proceeds went to the local women's shelter. I loved the idea and due to being in a severe car accident I needed a job I could essentially do with one arm. This seemed perfect. Lady on the phone was lovely, agreed to start later that week.

I show up and fill out the paperwork at the shelter office. She then points me down the street to the little store. Quaint, typical looking older thrift joint.

One lady working. She's bubbly and has a mouth that could a run like a racehorse. We introduce, she's friendly and energetic, in her mid 30s wearing leopard print and an armful of bangles.

She launches into EVERY detail about herself and her life. As in my first 2 hours were her just gushing on and on about her life.

She has 8 kids, an abusive husband who she's on the run from with half the kids, has heart problems and has had multiple surgeries, used to be an international model but gave it up when she fell for a client, her massive weight fluctuations, her grandma dying, etc. I dont think she paused once, except to add to the massive wad of gum she had stuffed in her cheek.

When I could get a word in edgewise, I asked if we were supposed to be doing anything. She gives me an incredibly brief rundown of the store & what we do. Everything is very old and out of date. I have a bunch of questions but she beckons me to a little side door near the dressing room, telling me to come check out the basement. Unexpected, but ok.

It felt like I walked into a scene out of Hoarders. The narrow cold staircase led to a concrete basement stacked floor to ceiling with....stuff. No particular organization to be seen. A single bare light bulb did it's best to illuminate the mess, but it was barley visible between stacks of junk. There was a narrow walkway that look like it had been carved out of thr mountains of stuff.

I didn't know what to say. My coworker casually says that she only comes down here to dump more donations. "We're supposed to get around to organizing all this, but obviously that hasn't been done in awhile." She says with a laugh. "There's too much to do upstairs."

We head back up, and I'm confused as to what she means by being too busy. The entire shift I saw one customer. Its a tiny thrift shop in a rural country town tainted by meth.

I queried her upon her remark about being too busy. I asked how many other coworkers we had. "Oh, we're it. Us two and one other college girl. I'm just here to train you today. We always work alone, open to close." A surprise. She continues, telling me she was covering the other girl's shifts for the week while she recovered. "And don't worry " she winks "the boss NEVER comes in."

Having not learned my lesson to keep my mouth shut, I ask what had happened to the girl. Flippantly, she tells me that the girl had been attacked and molested on her shift.

Pump the breaks. What? I glance around nervously. Not shockingly, the place doesn't have security cameras or safety measures of any sort. I ask her to elaborate.

Apparently a customer had taken a liking to the girl and begun to stalk her. Since she was always there alone, easy target (sad irony, since the place worked for the women's shelter). One day he came in and decided to make a move, pinned her in a corner and was groping her. She fought him off and ran.

As someone who is a domestic abuse survivor and having had a stalker ex myself, this makes me very uneasy. I'm new to the area but even I know the police presence doesn't count for much and if you catch the wrong methhead on the wrong day, its gonna be a bad time.

I ask if anything had been done, was there security or cameras, had the guy been caught? Nope. "Oh also," she rambles on "if anyone comes in asking about the hats, they aren't looking for hats. The last girl who got fired sold drugs on her shift and that was her code. Every now and again I get an old junkie coming back, thinking she still works here."

Okayyyy I'm rapidly rethinking my career choice. Before I had time to ponder too long, the boss lady from the office (whom I'd filled out paperwork with this morning) makes an appearance. So much for never coming in.

She indicates she wants to talk to my coworker privately, so they go to the front of the store and I awkwardly stay in the back with the cash register, hoping to God no one comes in.

Coworker returns, looking like she's about to burst into tears. She's the quietest she's been the whole shift (about 4 hours in at this point) and quickly goes to her purse. She excuses herself and says it was nice to meet me before breezing outta the store. Boss lady comes up and I ask her about my coworker leaving so distressed, is she ok?

The boss lady hardly batted a lash and told me "Oh. I fired her." I'm shocked. She didn't want to give details but apparently wasn't happy with how my coworker had been handling the money. She tells me I can go, she's gonna close up early. Stunned, I gather up my things and left. As I'm leaving she hollers that she'll email me my schedule tomorrow.

Obviously there was no tomorrow. I didn't even know where to begin to explain why I wouldn't be back, but that was the wildest 4 hour shift at a new job of my life. If that was day one, what the hell else was in store if I stayed??

She called and emailed me the next day, but I ignored the call lol. I wound up emailing thanking her for the job offer, but declined. I said I was concerned about personal safety after hearing about my coworker (who I'd never met) who had been attacked.

No way in hell I was working for minimum wage (~$9), yet expected to run an entire business BY MYSELF right after someone my age had been assaulted there. Not to mention how the place was managed... I never looked back.

Username: ankamarawolf

I worked one day at a Landscaping job. This was the summer of 2020. I came to know about the job at my other cashier job where a woman had on the shirt with the logo, and she said she was hiring. Come to find out she was the mother of the woman I would be working with.

Also, the mother and daughter were the only people operating the business. Red flag. I got there, and no one was working, so unbeknownst to me, I thought everyone had gone home.

On my first day, I rode in the daughters personal vehicle to the client’s house, where we weeded, mulched and dug up plants and planted new ones. Another red flag was when she rode her truck through a small rushing river.

She proceeded to tell me erratically about her life, and numerous boyfriends and their drama, peppered with swearing. She openly bragged about using cocaine on the regular, other hard drugs, and smoked a lot of cigarettes.

She told me about that fact that her ex boyfriend had beaten her, and just went to jail for nearly beating his mother to death. She was pregnant with this guy, and she told me openly that she had an abortion, which I felt was odd because we were strangers and she was unloading all of this crazy stuff onto me.

The daughter, come to find out, had a huge criminal record that included physical assault and harassment, and choking, within the last year. I found this out after the fact, and she did not want to disclose her last name to me, although I asked. I later googled her up.

Just me and her, alone, on the client’s property, unable to get back to the original establishment, having no idea where I was, she threatened me with an assault rifle that was apparently in her vehicle , and was getting in my face.

She was popping off about politics, and about white lives matter stuff. She got extremely erratic and was being very aggressive although I did/said nothing to provoke such a reaction.

One of the things that she said was, because I didn’t outwardly say “I love trump”, that I was a Biden lover, and more aggressive talk. Throughout the day, she would refer to me as her “n*gger bitch slave”. She said this numerous times.

I am white and so was she but it just hurt my heart so much to hear her refer to me like this, and to know that this was part of her vernacular. Not wanting to get physically assaulted by her, I did what she said, as she was “training” me. She was obviously pressuring me into a fight.

I tried to diffuse the situation, and said “tell me about your kids” just to distract her. She was a complete nut. She abusively shooed me away when collecting tip at the end. Towards the end of the day, she was running late on her quota and blamed my “slow ass” for it.

She accused me of having mental problems for going so slow, that I had “OCD” because I was weeding too much. We went to like 3 houses, and only one client was there. That client tipped for two people, but freak-show decided to hog it all despite me doing about half the work.

Luckily I did not have to run away that day, although I was ready. I made it back alive to the original establishment after spending 8.5 hours alone with this woman on different premises.

I lied quickly saying I had to go to summer school, because I am a college student, and collected my 88$. I put that money immediately into my savings. I drove home as fast as I could and locked my doors once I got home.

Username: Kobrakai7371

It was at a local doggy daycare from hell. I wasn't hired yet but did a day shadowing their staff to see if I was a good fit. They did free play for an hour, then an hour long walk, followed by an hour of training and then a nap in crates. Sounds like a good structured schedule, right?

The free play: only two dogs in the room were allowed to play at a time. The rest were made to lie down or else tied to the walls.

If a dog wouldn't lie down they yanked it down by the collar (a martingale, so a semi-choke) and held it there until it gave up and stayed put. Martingales were mandatory on all dogs attending daycare.

The walk: 8 dogs on short leashes clipped to a hip belt. No stopping to sniff, if any dog is out of line they showed me how to do a hip check move to snap on their martingale collar. An hour march on pavement in the middle of August, uncomfortably hot and sunny even for the humans.

The training: Without being provided any water, all dogs are clipped to the wall around a big dark room and made to sit. If any dog tries to lie down they are roughly yanked up by the collar back into the sit. That was it, that was the whole training. One of the staff marked on the whiteboard how many times each dog tried to lie down, so they could "grade" them.

They called it something cute like "English class" or whatever, I didn't ask what the other "classes" were but they had several that they rotated. Most of the dogs were panting heavily and trying to lie down pretty often, understandably.

One of the dogs, a dalmation, was a staff dog and one of the staff seemed to be taking out some personal frustration on this poor animal with her "corrections" since she was especially rough with it.

The nap: All dogs put into crates, still without having been provided water. I asked about this and the response was that they didn't want the dogs to drink a bunch of water and then have to pee during nap time. So no water for anyone until the next "free play".

I honestly should have left as soon as I entered, it was a horrifying 4 hours and I feel guilty for even being there watching and not punching the staff, stealing the dogs and burning the whole place down. I wish I'd had a small camera or something to video tape it so I could have shared it out.

I felt so angry for all those dogs and the people who paid money to leave their dogs there during the day. I wrote an email to the owner of the company after that (she wasn't present during the shadowing day).

She said she was concerned and wanting to change the way her daycare was run. I never followed up, but I hope she did do a 180, the daycare is still very much in business.

To anyone concerned about doggy daycares: if a daycare advertises itself as "balanced" or "treat-free", uses "corrections", or allows the use of martingales, prongs, choke chains etc. on the premises, take your dog and run in the other direction as fast as you can go.

I've worked at another daycare and it was significantly better to its dogs. But it was VERY strict about no force/fear and as hands-off as possible with the animals (except for petting of course).

If you take a bunch of teenagers, stick them in an extremely loud and chaotic environment for 40+ hours a week, pay them as little as you are legally allowed, AND require them to use intimidation and pain on animals, you're going to see some really ugly behaviour.

Username: eatpraymunt

My boss was a criminal and he wanted to pin the blame for his crime on me. I had been out of work for about a year because my father had a stroke and I'd moved in with him to care for him, but he was at a point where he was mostly autonomous again and could do pretty much everything himself, just not quite as effectively.

So I started looking for work. One day I get a call from the Job Centre about a placement, a local business, they tell me. It might be "local" but it was still nearly two hours by train. Whatever.

The business itself is one of several run by a guy in Gravesend. Far as I can tell this guy does just about everything; builds and then rents out houses, owns a mechanic shop, wants to get into owning a corner shop.

There are only about four people there besides myself; the boss-man himself, his main mechanic who I only met once and who doesn't feature much, his IT guy who I will refer to as Hairy because he was, and a girl about my age who was also on a placement.

So I turn up on monday and the main building is split into two large rooms; the main office and the back office. The back office is filled to the brim with random storage, there were bikes and random bits of furniture and obsolete electronics around.

There were two desks in the main office with PCs and one in the back office. Immediately the boss asks me if I'm any good at fixing computers. First warning signs came when I took a look at the PC in the back and it's full of viruses, pirated music and porn. I figure he just picked it up at a boot fair or something. I clean it up as best I can and decide the next day to dust out the interior if I can get a can of air.

I don't know what the fuck Hairy did, he clearly wasn't doing much pc maintenaince there, though I learned later he was sent out to other peoples' homes to fix PCs, he didn't maintain the ones at the office. I was only actually "at work" for as long as it took to do that, but the monday was only meant to be a trial, My actual first day would be the following day.

The second day is when shit got serious. Today I'm in the main office taking cash from tenants. Like actual handfuls of cash for rent payments and updating one of the front-office pcs as these payments come in.

There's a bludgeon under the desk. What the fuck? Why is there a bludgeon under the desk? Whatever, Gravesend is kind of shitty I guess but the safe is right next to the window and you could probably heft it out in the middle of the night if you're determined enough.

Before I go on lunch, the boss-man opens the safe, counts out about a grand, and writes out the details of a bank account.
"Here, take this, go down to the Barclays Bank and pay it in" he tells me. It's all rent-money but...I have no job, I'm coming to work in a ratty matalan clothes and he wants to trust me with a grand? Weird but...okay. I get the feeling this guy is secretly loaded anyway. I do that and come back.

In the afternoon the Boss-man introduces me to his son and asks me to write a letter, he said he's been getting hounded by a Solicitor for doing something and he wants me to write an official reply that is, to use his word, "ballsy".

"I live on the internet, I can do ballsy" "Great, we're gonna go out and check up on a construction project, we'll be back in an hour or two, call us if you need anything"

So I read these letters this Solicitor has been sending and they talk about how the deposit for the properties was meant to be stored in an Insurance fund. The boss had not been doing that. So I look up the law the Solicitor is quoting, figuring maybe it had been repealed or amended and I could bring that up in my reply. Nope. Still on the books, this law is in effect.

So I have half a typed-out letter written in a combination of the formal, businesslike tone I was taught in sixth-form Office Skills WP1 and standard internet asshole and I have no idea how to actually rebuke this guy, so I call up the boss, figuring maybe he can give me some pointers.

"Hey so I'm writing this letter" I say to him "and I'm doing some research so we come across as knowing what we're talking about and...you realise this is actually illegal, right?"
"No, no it's not, it's not something anyone actually does"

"It doesn't matter. Illegal is illegal. Can you not just open a security fund now with the money?"
"Oh the money's gone"
"Well, can you not open one with some other money? I watched you take two thousand pounds in rent yesterday and their deposit was only five hundred, and just a few hours ago I paid a grand into the company account"
"Oh that money's gone too"
"Huh, I see, that's why you wanted ballsy"
"Now you're getting it. Oh, and when you finish, sign it"
"Do we have like a company signature or-"
"No, you, you sign it"
"Me? Why?"

"Because you wrote it and I want it to look like we're all one cohesive team, Say we did this, say we know the law but it's outdated and nobody follows it so it's not something that will ever stick. I have to go" -click.

Write a letter wherein I essentially admit that breaking the law is nothing and to personally sign it? It sounds like he's asking me to create evidence incriminating myself. He had given me a thousand pounds early in the day and told me to go down to the bank and pay it into an account. There was security footage of me at the bang with a handful of notes and he wants me to admit that their deposit money is gone? He's gonna blame it on me in court. Fuck that.

Hairy is in the office with me, I haven't seen the girl again, I hope she had more sense than I did and got the fuck out of dodge on day one. I tell Hairy I'm leaving.
"Where are you going?"
"Home. I quit. Fuck this. I'm not admitting to a crime for a job where I'm not even getting paid."
"What do I tell the boss?"
"Stop pirating MP3s and dust out the computer in the back"
"About you, I meant"
"Whatever you want. I don't care, but I kept note of the details of the couple coming after him, if I so much as smell his aftershave I'll go to their solicitor with everything I know about this place and the ability to testify under oath that the boss knew he was committing a crime. Bye"

Hairy must have called the Boss because I'm barely at the train station when I get a call from him. I repeat the threat, tell him I'm done, and tell him never to contact me again. I go home, call the job centre, get my...I want to say "providor's" e-mail, the person I met with to sign on every other week, and I sent them an explanation of why I was quitting this placement. They never questioned it or sanctioned me for it, but they never put me on a placement again.

Username: Veridas

I got hired by the day shift manager. Nicest lady ever. Well I basically came in about the time she’d get off and then we’d have the graveyard manager in at 10pm so I’d be off by 11 after he’d get everything situated. Someone called in that evening and since I was new an associate from morning shift agreed to work a double because obviously I’m not going to run a gas station by myself when I had just barely gotten the hang of the register.

Evening manager comes in at ten pm and bitches out the person working a double because “corporate said no more overtime!”

Mind you she had been asked to stay by the day shift manager who was also the GM of the store. Regardless, I immediately could by the way he spoke and the tone he used that this man would be someone I’d obviously speak to as little as possible.

Obviously as my manager I’d be respectful and whatnot, I’m not tryna to come off as ignoring him. But I made sure to phrase everything short and professional as possible while we spoke because I had, obviously, a lot of instances where I had to ask how to perform a task.

(I should clarify at this point in the story I took two days of on-site training before I was actually on the floor working so i wasn’t entirely clueless of policies and operations since I read what I sign)

Around 10:50pm I knew I would not be off in time since the manager had yet to even start counting up himself a till. We were pretty steady since it was a Saturday so I didn’t even bother to ask about it and let him finish his inventories.

(Another quick aside I used to work a job doing inventories and this man was slower than a tortoise with square wheels for feet or an idiot. They should take around 5 minutes tops.)

11:30pm comes and he still hasn’t opened a drawer but is finished counting and I finally ask “I know you don’t want us to be getting overtime and I was scheduled until 11. do you want me to count down my drawer or would you like me to wait?”

He rolls his eyes and sighs dramatically and says “I guess if you won’t stop asking me to then go right ahead.”

I hadn’t asked him to before that point or even mentioned that I was supposed to be off at 11 because he asked me when he first came in what time I was supposed to be off. But ok I ignore it and start counting it down.

I count it and start to deposit it into the safe. As I’m depositing the bills a customer comes up to the counter who had been shopping around for about 5 or so minutes and comes up to his register to check out.

And right as she’s about to set her items on the counter that’s when he chooses to turn around and very loudly and in the most annoyed voice state “I’m just super fucking busy josh and It doesn’t slow down when you leave. So you can see why it’s FUCKING annoying for you to interrupt me while I’m doing my counts just so you can ask to leave.”

The lady at the counter he’s facing away gives me a look of “what the fuuuck is wrong with this dude?!” I look him dead in the eyes, toss the wad of hundreds in my hand onto the counter on top of the safe, and walked out.

I called the day shift manager and let her know I was not coming back because “I treat my coworkers and managers with the respect their position deserve and expect to, at the very least, be spoken to in a professional manner. I’m sorry but I won’t be coming back when a manager attempts to belittle me in front of customers and neither should the company.”

I didn’t tell her anything beyond that or what he had actually done. I just stated that in the voicemail and left it at that. She called me the next day apologizing for his behavior and that I wasn’t the first person who left because of him.

She offered me a pay raise to stay and I asked if I could be scheduled a different shift because I would stay for the same pay if I didn’t have to work with him and she said I could not so I declined.

Username: foo337

A friend had gotten me a job as a bus boy at the restaurant he worked at. On my first day, me and my friend walk into the restaurant about two hours early so I can introduce myself and learn the basics. I introduce myself to the manager who has a really pessimistic and bitchy attitude.

As she is complaining about how much the job sucks, I go to adjust my glasses on my head. She goes, "alright, you're already off to a bad start. Never touch your face in my buisiness, it's a health hazard.

Go wash your hands. Soap AND water". I could understand why touching your face would be an issue during dining hours, but the place wasnt opening for two hours. I didnt even touch my face I just pushed the wire on my glasses up, and my job was literally picking up dishes and washing then all night long.

I quickly realized was how poorly the place was run which surprised me because it was generally considered very fancy (one of those places where you have to make reservations a week in advance). As I start working I realize how poorly organized and managed this place is.

All the chefs hate each other, the waitresses all hate the manager, everyone is rude to each other, and half the food is microwave and immensely over priced. Also, employees did not get a free meal or even a discount meal before the restaurant opened which is kind of a common courtesy in the restaurant industry.

As the night starts, the manager retreats to a quiet empty room to watch netflix. The waitresses make me not only do dishes, but also get people food and serve alcohol (which was illegal because I am under age". It was complete unorganized chaos and I was thrown into it with no direction while getting scolded non stop.

You might be thinking that every restaurant is like that. You are right. None of this is why I quit. During the peak hours of the night, I am carrying a huge tray of dishes into the back to wash. As I am walking into the back kitchen area, I notice a hundred dollar bill on the ground.

A bunch of the chefs are pointing it out as well. It is between the kitchen and dining area with the corner tucked underneath a floormat so somebody had probably dropped it.

I go and dump the dishes into the sink walk back to pick up the bill so I can give it to the manager in case somebody lost it, but it is gone now. Whatever, I assume who ever dropped it picked it up (lots of foot traffic in this area).

Later in the night my friend tells me that a waitress lost a hundred dollar bill so I tell him I saw it earlier. My manager comes up to me and asks if I have it and I say no, it was gone by the time I unloaded the dishes. She walks away and I think it is done.

Nope. She comes back up to me 20 minutes later and says, "if I find out you took that money I will make sure your night ends in jail". I say "well it's a good thing I didn't take the money" and I show her my wallet and empty my pockets to prove it. Also they have cameras everywhere so she could easily check for herself.

The manager hates me at this point, and as it turns out, she has told all the waitresses not to trust the new guy. Everyone assumes that I stole the hundred dollars.

As the night comes to an end, the manager decides not to pay me and says she will "think about it" in the next week. I reply and say that I will "think about showing up again to this shit show you call a restaurant". I do not show up for my shifts.

My manager calls me and asks why I'm not showing up. I tell her I don't appreciate the way I was treated and she can find a new bus boy. The end. And it was a chef that took the money.

Username: wetpankobreadcrumbs

Took a job that was “sales with progression to management” being newly graduated it sounded like a good path. I took the interview at a job fair at my small Midwestern college and the VP who touted his family of 5, stay at home wife because I make 600k a year lifestyle really liked me and offered to fly me out to their headquarters in Utah.

I had never been to Utah and I felt like if they are investing money in me to fly me out there they could be a great company and really interested in me. I took the job.

Once I accepted it they bought me a plane ticket to Phoenix and said you’ll meet one of our field reps out there for your initial training. Sounds good!

I get to Phoenix and the company had a 7 bedroom AirBnB rented out for about 15 guys. I have no problem sharing a bed with another guy, but it was awkward being that none of us knew each other. We all hung out the first night and played billiards and ordered pizza. It was fine.

The following morning we were briefed on our “script” which consisted of going door to door to offer “free home security devices (door sensors, window sensors and two external cameras) in exchange for signing up for a 2 year contract of the monitoring services which were wildly overpriced (something like $170/month)

On my first day, the leader went with me and signed an agreement with an older lady who already had a home security system and he basically tricked her into thinking we were with her current company and just there to give an upgrade.

He called the install tech who promptly came over and immediately switched all her technology over. It all happened so fast, I’m not sure she was completely with it.

Later that day while going door to door on my own trying to make a sale I had a gun pulled on me at the front door of some random house I knocked on and was told “I’ve got my home security right here, you have 10 seconds to get the fuck out of here before I blow your head off” so I walked to the grocery store that was nearby and decided to get a snack and collect my thoughts.

While sitting on a bench outside the grocery store I got a call that a family member back home had been in a bad motorcycle accident. I had to get home.

I called the leader and explained the gun situation and the family accident situation and said I had no problem buying my own ticket home but I had to leave today. Maybe we could try again in the future but I have other things to deal with right now.

His reply was along the line of “if you’re always going to be a quitter you’ll always be broke, what happened to your goals of wanting to provide for your family and build a career with this epic company with super cool people and totally cool team names and team hats and gear, you don’t know what you’re missing”

I broke down and started crying because of all the different things I’d just dealt with in the last 2 hours. I took an Uber to the house, which luckily was empty because everyone was out scamming old people, gathered my belongings and told the Uber driver to wait.

He took me right to the airport and I flew home. On the flight I decided I’d never work for a company that I felt was that dishonest with its customer and lack that much empathy for their employees.

Username: ETdaExtraTerresticle

Technically day two, but still a good one. Took a job (actually through a Reddit posting lol) that they said was a Tech/Customer support position.

Day 1, show up and the place is just this tiny office rented out in this crappy (mostly empty) building. Group of about a dozen of us show up for training. First off, we get told that the week of training is "Unpaid with a 'Sign-On Bonus'". So at the end of the week, you would only get paid for your time if they wanted to keep you on. Here's Red Flag #1.

Next we're told we will need to purchase our own headsets that meet a certain standard. But of course "We've got some here that you can purchase from us" for like $90... conveniently.

Now on to the meat... we're told the position is pretty much PC Tech Support. People will call us because something is wrong with their computer. We would have to guide them to a specific website to run a *special scan* for viruses and shit.

We will attempt to sell them on a "Remote Repair Service" where they would have to give a "member of our Tech Team" remote access to their computer for up to 48 hours to "fix it", and then try to sell them on a multi-year license for an Anti-Virus program for hundreds of dollars.

Of course the whole pitch was scripted. Also our pay would be largely based off of commissions from these calls, and we would also be required to make so many sales per week to stay employed.

I am completely suspect at this point, so to put the nail in the coffin, I ask why it is that people are calling *US?* We're not a well-known company and we don't have ads anywhere, so where are they getting *our phone number* from? **"Oh, it's just a little prompt that appears on their screen"**...

So just so we're clear: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT THIS "JOB" IS LEGITIMATE. This is 100% a scam, right down to lying to the employees about what the "job" is. The entire idea is to swindle old people who aren't tech-savvy.

They're only calling this number because it was on a pop-up. Sell them on some fake bullshit, and convince them to give over remote access so all of their shit could be stolen.

Went home after Day 1, knowing it was all bullshit. Came back the next day, gave them one more opportunity to convince me it wasn't a scam by telling me where they were getting our number from. Got the same bs answer about it being "a prompt on their screen", and I walked out.

But, I then went for a walk through the neighborhood. About two blocks away I saw a big "Now Hiring" sign outside a large building. Walked inside. Found out it was a Staffing Agency. They asked why I was looking for work. Told them I just quit my job after one day because it was a scam.

They just said "Come back tomorrow and we'll find you something". Came back the next day and ended up getting placed in one of the best jobs I've held to this day.

I did some digging in the years after and found out the "Tech Company" was shut down later that year, having not paid their employees for more than 2 months.

Also found out the guy behind the whole operation is now working in Real Estate, so... surely he's not screwing people out of money anymore, right? /s

Username: Synth-Pro

Not a first day but a first week when a new manager came in thing. Manager M at a small gas station I worked at was awesome, she was so awesome I offered to work 14 days straight, 8 hour shifts 10pm to 6am when we were short staffed cause another employee was in the hospital (car accident).

Manager M was so awesome I to this day regard her as one of the best people I have *ever* worked for. So Manager M's boss, Area Owner D (for douchebag) comes in one day and is giving Manager M shit for not letting go of our currently hospitalized employee and for giving me overtime.

Manager M is a fucking angel who deals with it so calmly and kindly. Well. One week later Manager M is being transferred to a failing gas station (cause she apparently helps get them back in order, which was why she was at my location).

She gets replaced with a fresh off the line Manager C (for cunt) who in her first 3 days gets into a shouting match with everyone and I mean everyone, hospitalized employee, no longer employed. New hire, quits after she gets up in his face about not learning fast enough. Super short staffed now.

Other overnight guy, Mr. A (for awesome) gets racially attacked by her for being black (not directly but watching the security footage she straight up inferred he was a criminal for no reason), he immediately quits.

Just me, one other morning shift girl, a barely new hire guy who got hired right before Manager M was transferred, and the incredibly patient assistant manager who had already called HR on Manager C. I'm the only one she hasn't fought with yet cause I stay quiet and to myself.

She puts me up to work all three fucking shifts one day. When I asked her if it was a mistake she said 'we all need to pull our weight', I told her I have already done that with Manager M. She gets in my face literally about 6 inches away and says I'm being hostile. I tell her she can cover the morning shift and I'll do a double. She puts me on as 10pm to 2pm then to be back at 10pm. I had no days off and was expected to work double shifts four days in a row while she continues her normal shifts while everyone else is pulling doubles.

Newish hire, quits. Morning girl, quits. I gave a two week notice then saw I was scheduled m-f 10pm to 2pm, then on Sunday it was 10pm to 10pm the next day then 6am to 6am from Tuesday to Wednesday.

I told her no, she verbally threatened me with legal consequences (oh the irony) and threatened to write me up. So I said I'm done, and as I was walking out I guess it dawned on her you can't run a 24 hour gas station with only 1 employee, 1 assistant manager, and one manager. Her tone switches to this feeble 'nooo, noo please don't'.

Told her she just got into my face, has made an illegal schedule, and threatened me with legal action and to write me up for not going with that insane 16-24 hour nonstop work schedule of which I also noted I was still being paid barely above minimum wage AND they the company runs their schedule in a way that you don't get all the overtime you're owed.

Just looks at me like 'the federal minimum wage is--' the state minimum wage is 25 cents below what I'm making and ONLY because I'm doing overnights.

Walked away, went home, slept for 16 hours. Store was closed the next day cause morning girl quit (according to assistant manager), so Area Owner D brings in people from across the area to staff the place.

Six months later every new hire has quit, the store has continually been forced to close down, and finally the store permanently shuts down, property gets bought by a new company, store is now a new gas station.

Manager C apparently got fired. Assistant Manager got fucked and laid off instead of transferred. Really makes you wonder what is wrong with the world.

Username: Vanpocalypse

A little different kind of a job as an extra in a Hollywood film. Had an older roommate who made extra money on the side as an extra in movies/commercials etc.

The film Cinderella Man with Russell Crow was being filmed in Toronto and he told me they needed lots of extras for the fight/crowd boxing scenes. They converted the inside of old Maple Leaf Gardens to look like the inside of Madison Square Gardens.

I was told to be there around 7:3O am, wear a black suit, white dress shirt, tie etc. I get there, huge lineup, fill out your information, have to pass inspection of the makeup crew and told where to go.

Some people like even street kids given haircuts, borrowed jackets, ties etc so they could get a shitty cheque.

For whatever reason they put me in the wrong line thinking I was a union actor. So I ended up 15 rows from the ring and every take (rows sqattered with fake dummies) I was so sit on the seat, wait 5 seconds, get up, move to another seat so in the movie, it appears movement in the crowd. Majority of the extras would make up one giant section on the side.

The scene was Russel Crow slowly walking into the ring, crowd is silent where some woman yells out "you can do it Jimmy!" Well after 3 hours of the same take, extras are getting restless, especially in the one main section of extras just there to collect a cheque.

It's around the 15th take, the woman yells out the "You can do it Jimmy" and an extra yells out Rob Schneider style "all night long." Laughter erupts, Russel Crow loses his shit, demands a microphone in the ring and just goes off on a rant Kanye West style, tell everyone how it's Hollywood and how they should be grateful, etc, fucking unreal!!!

Time for lunch and was given a can of pop, a sandwich which consisted of cold piece of chicken, a bun, slice of tomatoe and some lettuce, and an apple all while being crammed together like in a chicken coop. Also it's was one of the hottest days of the year and no AC in the arena as it was the old NHL arena built in the 1920s.

After lunch, we had to reshoot similar scenes but this time I was sitting amongst the crowd and I can see why one would be restless, this dragged on for 4 hours.

Another break and then all the extras ushered into one giant section, Ron Howard comes out, gets in the ring, they have a special camera to shoot the crowd and Rons asking us to pretend the Leafs won the cup, so everyone's getting rowdy or leafs lose so we are all booing etc.

That dragged on until 10pm. I got home at 11:30 pm and was exhausted.

A few days later I went to the agency in charge of the extras and was given a cheque for around 135 bucks, the woman asked of I had an agent cause she liked the way I looked, I said no but I saw her write something on my paper.

Two days later I got a call of I was interested in being in a Pepsi commercial where they needed extras.

Fuck that, I said no! It makes for a great story but the way they treat people like they're next to nothing, shit pay, shit food yet expect you to be all perky for 12-15 hours is ridiculous!!!! Maybe the Pepsi commercial would have been different who knows.

Username: OMC78

As a 20 year old in tech school I found a job on Craigslist as a door to door meat salesman. It was located in a smaller town 30 minutes south of where I lived. Drove down and met the owner/operator at a diner.

He honest to God looked like a mid 40's John Goodman in a denim jacket, leather vest and jeans. He was a personable guy and bought me breakfast before he showed me how his operation worked.

I literally got in a van that had a full sized freezer in the back with a random dude off of Craigslist.

He said he had a few errands to run before we went off to make deliveries. This included a trip to a junkyard where he scavenged some parts off of a van and afterwards what I can only assume was a drug deal. Most likely pot because at the time it was illegal in my state but I'll just have to chock that one up to historys mysteries.

At this point I had spent the whole morning with this guy and had not seen any of the product we were to sell. After asking him to see the contents of the freezer he replied with the words that I will never forget, "I don't touch meat unless I'm getting paid."

...okay... After this we picked up another guy who was supposedly an employee and they were talking about leads. I was trying to figure out where the hell I was out in a county I'm not familiar with and a way to escape this situation so wasn't paying much attention.

At one point they saw someone they knew and stopped to talk. This man was super excited because their familes tax return had just come in the mail and he was running home to collect the check and cash it.

After the man drove off the two meat men looked at each other with a knowing look and spun a donut and raced after him in hot pursuit.

They pulled into the driveway of what I can only assume was the house from Texas chainsaw massacre blocking the car in and proceeded to aggressively sell meat to this man. I stayed in the van terrified that this was going to errupt into a shootout and I wasn't willing to die for steaks.

After being told in no uncertain terms to fuck off we left and dropped off the younger guy. It's at this point that I was handed a pencil and piece of paper and was told we were going to do a marketing exercise.

He wanted me to think of 6 people I knew or relatives and write their names and addresses down on the paper. Needless to say I gave fake names and addresses.

I wasn't really paying attention to the small talk that was being made as he started to drive the backroads up to the city I lived in but was very aware of where we were headed. Luckily it was a little past lunchtime and the meatman decided that when we got to the city we would stop to have lunch.

As soon as the car stopped I got out and just shy of running made my way in the opposite direction and out of meatmans life forever.

I called my aunt afterwards and she was gracious enough to come pick me up and drive me down to where my truck was which was luckily unmolested.

And that is the story of my one and only day as a door to door meat salesman.

Username: GMGuru

So sorry, this is a long story, but it’s juicy. I got called for an interview at Dairy Queen, and at the interview was hired immediately. I was only 19, and this was only my second job, so I wasn’t aware this was a red flag.

Well, I come in my first day, and the manager didn’t even know who I was.... like she wasn’t even expecting a new person.

Anyways, she takes me to the back, and gets me ready to begin watching the safety training videos, when she couldn’t find the program on the computer, she just kind of shrugs it off, and basically told me she was just going to throw me into work.

She put me on register, and just told me I was going to be taking orders, and there was a guy standing to the side to help me navigate the register. Well, everything is going pretty smoothly until this lady storms up to me, and just shouts “where the fuck is my shit? I ordered 20 minutes ago.” I basically tell her, I’m not in charge of making the orders, and this is my very first day.

She wanted a refund so I told her I would go grab the manager to help facilitate her refund. The manager is talking with the lady, and the manager asks “who took your order?” the lady points at me, and the manager writes my name down.

She ends up telling me later that the refund is coming out of my paycheck, THEN proceeds to complain that I should’ve ALSO been making the orders I was taking (just the blizzards and drinks). Is there not a fully functioning and staffed kitchen?

Anyways, I begin making the orders that were behind, and realize how utterly disgusting the kitchen is.

Unwrapped spoons laying on the dirty counter, being given to customers, counters absolutely CAKED with grime, and the candy that goes in the blizzards are not refrigerated, or chilled, so it’s all melted and chunky. I kind of just deal with it, and try to clean up as I go.

After a long 8 hours of dealing with my coworkers yelling at me for constantly asking for help (AGAIN, MY FIRST DAY) it was closing time, which means we have to clean the store.

It was then, I realized I was being used to do all the nasty jobs no one else wanted to do: bathrooms, mopping, cleaning the lobby and dishes.

As I was wiping all the tables in the lobby, I was trying to figure out how to get hot water, one of my coworkers said “oh, we don’t have hot water here.” UM WHAT? Isn’t that some sort of health code violation?

And all the rags were absolutely saturated in grease, and they refused to tell me where I could get a new, clean one.

I finally went home at midnight, and decided I was not returning for my scheduled shift the next day. I ended up calling the food safety and health department of my county, because I was SURE they were breaking some rules.

Username: peachybeetch

Not first day. But about 4 months in. Worked at a rent to own for 14 years. (Yeah I've seen some NASTY houses and delt with some bitter repos and done THOUSANDS of telemarketing/collections calls). My boss for 10 of those years was an alcoholic and an ex military health inspector. Basically what I'm saying is it was 14 years of not good.

I knew I needed a change when my company took 7 hours of weekly OT away from all its employees and "compensated" them with a $.25 raise.

I knew I needed to make a change when (after winning a "store of the year" type award) my boss made me let go one of my assistants with over a decade of experience (and a friend by this point).

I finally made a change when they decided to stop including service on the merchandise our customers where renting to own and summarily let all of the service staff go (basically a small sub company).

A certain gas station chain made me a nice offer to enter thier store manager training program and I took it... things where ok in the training store. (I would later realize I am dumb as things where barely ok and thats with good tenured staff in an example store with extra labor (the new manager trainees) constantly available.

When I got to the second phase of training, they put me in a "live" store. The manager of which chose not to replace her only assistant even tho her assistant was pregnant and told her she wouldn't be coming back after she gave birth. And this place was a nightmare to work for in good scenarios.

Oh! And the store I had trained in for 3 months had a different cash situation involving the lotto machines so I basically didn't know how to do that(one of the biggest parts of the job).

And when they asked me what I would do to increase food sales (from this gas station), they where.... let's say non plus'd when I replied "let's start by cleaning everything".

And the amount of work they expected of these minimum wage, erratically shifted employees was criminal. Wait on customers, cook food, fill coffee, stock cooler and isles, count cigarettes, do lotto, count stock, recieve stock, clean... the list goes on and on.

Finally I called my DM and told him I had found a part time job stocking at a great grocery store near where I lived instead of working 13 hour days getting nothing done. He's like " well we've spent alot of money training you, we could make you an assistant manager and put you in another store."

I explained that it was not that I couldn't handle it, but that I chose not to. And his mind was blown.

A few months later this corp closed all its corporate owned shops in the state and made anything that stayed open into a franchise.

I made the right move, and 6 months later I got a job at a machine shop working 4 days a week and I love my life.

Username: irondisulfide

I spent my high school years working at a chain restaurant flipping steaks and deep frying mediocre pre-packaged food for $6/hour. When I was 18 and starting university, I was offered a job at a hotel restaurant for nearly double my chain restaurant wage. Naturally, I jumped at it. What follows is the story of my first and last day at the hotel:

I show up in my usual work attire: black polo shirt, black “dress pants”, black shoes. I am directed to the staff change room where my fresh white chef’s uniform is hanging. I thought “well, I guess they have a dress code here, that’s fine”. I put on the uniform (actually fit like they tailored it for me) and went out to the line.

I broiled steaks at the chain restaurant, so when I showed up for my shift at the hotel, the kitchen leader asked me what I was used to. “I flipped steaks” - so he sends me to the grill. I’m flipping steaks and thinking this is easy...but it was a busy Friday night and I realized we were out of New York strip.

I called over the guy showing me the ropes and asked him where to get another “package of steaks”. He looks at me like “what?!” Then he asks me if I, “brought knives”. I asked him what he means and he proceeds to roll out a canvas thing with like 10 professional knives of various sizes.

I said, “I don’t own any knives. Doesn’t the restaurant supply these?” He again looked at me like I was from another planet and says, “you need good knives to work in this kitchen. A few hundred can get you a passable set.” I let him know a few hundred is a few hundred more than I have as a college student, but I digress.

He then proceeds to take me to this huge cooler which I figured was where the steaks were kept. Nope. Opens the giant door and it’s just a massive cow carcass hanging from a meat hook.

“Cut some strip loins and meet me back at the station,” the trainer said as he handed me a knife. “I’ve never done this and don’t know where a strip loin is located or how to cut it...” That was it for the steaks for the night.

The trainer then asked me to move to the pasta station. Again, 18, live at home. The only pasta I ate was what my mom scrapped together and Kraft Mac & Cheese. The trainer starts asking me my signature dishes and such. I had to tell him I had literally never made pasta in my life outside of Mac & Cheese. That was it for pasta...

It was like this over and over again (the best was seafood...which I knew absolutely nothing about). It became quite apparent that they hired me to take on a position which would “start my career in the culinary arts” when I was literally just looking to make more money flipping steaks.

After one 8 hour shift, I went in the next morning and quit. The guy that hired me was pretty bummed and asked if I wanted a different role: catering cook. I asked him what it was. “Oh, you’d be making spanakopita, bacon wrapped scallops (and on he went).”

Well, I wasn’t worldly at this time in my life and literally had never seen or heard or a scallop (I’m from the prairies) and had no idea what spanakopita was. Heck, I didn’t know what an avocado was back then. I noped the offer and bailed.

The worst part was having to go back and beg for a $6/hour job at the old chain restaurant so that I could have some spending money.

Also, even though I missed out on nearly double at the hotel, I found out from my first and only pay stub that they charged me for using a uniform, they charged me Union dues (which I don’t recall discussing and likely signed something without going through in detail) and some other BS.

At the end of the day, my hourly wage was seriously reduced by all of this and I would never have taken the job in the first place had I known.

Username: darthyxe

There's a local Car Dealership chain that has a pretty good reputation. I got laid off from a job I had had for several years, and was forced to find another place to work. A friend of a friend knew someone who worked at one of the dealership's used car locations, and arranged an interview for me.

I have experience in sales, and so the interview went splendidly and I got the job on the spot. I started the next day as a car salesman.

I didn't have much walking around money at the time, but I went and thrifted some nice dress slacks and a few tasteful shirts. I showed up early on my first day, and I was excited for the training. I was a little curious about the mandatory full-day shift for training, but didn't think much of it. I met my manager, and the rest of the team of salesman that I would be working with.

They showed me the lot, the computer system, the key lock box, and some of the basic forms that I would be using for the sales process. They explained that the salesman used a set rotation roster for who would get the next customer to pull onto the lot.

The only main caveat was in the instant that whomever was next in line was absent from the sales floor bull pen when the customer arrived.

When you return arrived, you were to go out onto the lot and greet the person as they exited their vehicle. From there, cue the standard car salesman pitches and techniques.

After they showed me around they had me shadow other salesman for the first few customers in order to see how the process worked once you got someone to seriously look at buying a car. I was able to observe the process of going through the finances, filling out the paperwork, what's specific points and topics to look for, and who to talk to if you came to a situation that you were unsure of.

This is where the first big red flag happened. During the first couple sales, I noticed a tendency For most of the salesman to completely disregard the true financial capabilities and responsibilities of the customers they were working with.

They would quote the customer they absolute lowest price that they would pay, and intentionally fail to mention other expenses such as insurance, registration, fuel, maintenance, etc. They would also push people to the extreme limits of their budget, essentially guaranteeing that they wouldn't be able to afford all of the other expenses that are attached to buying a car.

When I brought this point up behind closed doors, they waved my concern aside with a "people make things work," kinda statement. Hmm... Well, after a few hours of this and some sales role play with the manager, I was authorized to start taking my own customers.

The next big red flag was around lunch time. I spoke up to the rest of the team asking about lunch, and they all said that they don't take one. If you take a lunch, you miss out on any customers that come in. Which makes total sense, I wouldn't expect to get any sales that I wasn't there for.

However, the fact that every single salesman was sacrificing their lunch break in order to guarantee enough money to make the job worth it seemed a little alarming.

Around the same time, the manager came in and informed one of the salesmen that one of the cars had sold had defaulted at some point in the paperwork finalization, which meant that the commission he had already been paid for the sale was going to be pulled from his following paycheck.

The salesman in question stood up, shouted, screamed, swore at the manager, threw office supplies across the room, and stormed out of the property. Fairly startled at the intensity of his tantrum, I asked if that meant that his employment was over. The manager simply stated that this wasn't the first time he had acted like that, and he would cool down in a few hours. If not, he would be back tomorrow. Wait, what?

The final straw for me was near the middle of the afternoon. It was my turn up in the rotation, and I was sitting right in the bullpen watching out the window for fresh customers. A customer drove onto the lot (in a slick Mini Cooper, I might add) and I hopped up to go out to greet him.

No sooner was I out the door then another salesman shoulder-checked me in his haste to get ahead of me to get to the customer. Not wanting to flock in like vultures, I relented and allowed him to take the customer. He did indeed end up getting a sale from the customer, because he had been considering buying a car for some time, and simply there to seal the deal.

At the end of my shift, my manager pulled me aside to ask me how my day went. I brought up some of the red flags I had observed, and asked if that was standard for the performance of behavior of the other salesman. I blatantly included the shady financial decisions they were implementing in their sales pitches as well.

The manager informed me that that was indeed standard for all of the salesman, and that the environment braided good competition and made them work harder to get their sales. I immediately thanked him for his time and tendered my resignation.

Username: taahwoajiteego

I actually stayed at this job but the amount of red flags was ridiculous, I should have walked out immediately.

Had an interview for the managerial position at a christian owned juvenile therapy camp type place. From my understanding during the interview, we got kids who sexually assaulted someone or did some weird illegal shit with other kids.

My interview went well, but since I had no managerial experience, they asked if I would be willing to be a case manager and then I'd have a better shot at the supervisory positions open. Not really what I signed up for, but they promised I'd be working "70% with the supervisors anyway."

Fast forward to the mandatory shadow a worker day... Sitting in the parking lot calling the office (which literally no one was in) trying to get a hold of someone who I didn't even know the name of to shadow them.

Finally after about an hour of trying numbers I get some random guy that holds the position they asked me to do. He has no clue I'm there, and also seemed clueless about this "mandatory shadow." Ok, well I'm already there so might as well see what his day looks like.

Not only does he not work at all with the supervisors, but he spends 95% of his time doing the counselors work because "they are short staffed sometimes." Ok, well obviously they are hiring so hopefully if a few more staff get hired then things can go back to normal.

Fast forward to my first day. I'm given a small amount of time to go over the kids files to get a feel for who I'm working with... Only to find out not only are 90% of the kids not there because of sexual assault style cases, most of them have been involved in gang activity and the like.

Ok ok ok this is a lot of red flags but I'm here to give back to the community a little right? I just finished a soul sucking insurance job telling people to get fucked we aren't paying your medical bills type thing and I needed to show a little compassion again.

So I stay. And I find out they've been short staffed since 1973. And they also used to be a "re-education school" for indigenous Americans... Yeah the type you are thinking of.

And the job i got did literally none of the things the people interviewing me said that it would, and when the next supervisor position came around it was given to someone "with more experience."

And again. And again. What a weird red flag that the 4 supervisory positions there were ALL recycled in less than a years time?

I burnt out of that job hard. Got such bad anxiety that I called up my boss and just told her I had to quit or kill myself because I couldn't even unlock the doors around campus because I'd shake so bad.

So yeah. If I ever get a job where I'm seeing red flags like that again, I'm getting the fuck out of there in minutes, not years.

Username: comradeJimmer

I got a job at at the front desk of a dermatologist office. I was referred by my SIL who had previously worked for them. I was so excited when I heard I got the job I cried.

The weirdness started the night before my first day. My SIL called, said they had called her and asked her to talk to me about religion. I live in a highly religious area, but am not religious myself. They asked her to make sure I would be ok being the only non-religious person in the office.

Slightly weird, but ok, thank SIL for looking out for me, say it’s not a big deal for me, I was raised religious, it’s not too weird.

I show up for my first day, and the floor lead ask if I was religious. I said no, starting to get nervous. Why is she asking, she already knows. She then says I need to be ok with everyone in the office talking about religion a lot.

Every Monday they talk about their Sunday, and when their religious Conference happens every six months, they all get lunch together and discuss.

I figure she means just ladies gabbing and it’s optional. NOPE. It’s part of the job. I don’t have have to contribute, but I will have to listen.

Then she mentioned I’m going to be introduced to the Dr who owns the practice. Says I should be on my best behavior, don’t bring up that I’m not religious and don’t mention I have tattoos.

I start to panic. Wait, what? I ask if my having tattoos were a problem. She says maybe, and I may have to cover them up. I’ve got 3 tiny tattoos and 1 largish one, it won’t be easy or convenient to do so, and I’m starting to get crazy vibes. I’m genuinely panicking now.

I go meet the Dr, and it’s weird as FUCK. He says I will never have to worry about being flirted with, the floor lead comes to all meetings with the female staff (and all the staff is female besides the 2 Dr’s) . He said it is “an office of virtuous women and two men trying to be better.”

In my mind I’m screaming WHAT THE FUCK. He says no “womanly drama” is allowed, my speech will be monitored by fellow employees and if I’m “talking drama” then I will be terminated.

There were other odd things said, but I’m my head I was already done. I finished my intro and office tour while trying to hold back tears. I was already genuinely dreading coming back the next day. My SIL who introduced me picked me up and drove me home, and she could tell I was flipping out, trying to hold it together.

I went home and bawled and talked to my husband. We both agreed this was weird AF and that it wasn’t a good fit, not to mention totally illegal what they did. I called and told the floor lead I would not be going back in.

Weirdest part is she texted my SIL saying she thought I was a perfect fit and asked if I would reconsider. What the actual FUCK? No. Just no.

Username: PixlexicGirl

Get hired to work on a new bar that was getting a complete makeover and it was really popular but relocated. I came from working bars in 5 star hotels and top of the line clubs where norm is making 300$ in tips a night.

Take a 3 day wine seminar paid of course things are really looking promising except owner is a douchebag , My drivers license was expired and I was waiting to get paid so I could get it renewed and he sent me to do errands and buy stuff with no gas money , I told him I could be fined and he really didint care.

I was struggling financially at the time so I obliged, in seminar he claims he speaks 19 languages and has traveled the world , and is only like 36 years old.
yeah right.

When he read my resume he said he had worked on a Hotel that I used too and spoke shit against the German owners and managers..

Opening night place looks like shit , like a cafeteria, bar is literally bathroom tiles and posters are up in the walls and are not even framed. He comes over to me and asks me what do I think of the place... Should had told him right there and there place looked like a hospital cafeteria and quit. But lied and told him errr it was great..

He noticed the lack of excitement in my voice and immediately put me on the shit list.

So customers start flooding in and the Bar starts getting busy and beautiful woman are starting to pour in. Out of the corner of my eye I see him staring me down talking to the ladies and I know whats coming worked years in the hospitality industry and know when an asshole owner wants to show off in front of patrons..

5 minutes later he comes into the bar and come with a bus pan and tells me to go out into the floor and get aggressive and start BUS BOYING. (picking up used glass ware and trash from tables).

Bus boys generally make 1% of the tips of every server so they get maybe 20-30$ if they are lucky at the end of the night because there were only 5. Fuck that..

I almost took the tray and hit him over the head and walked off, so technically following his orders.

I told him I did not spend 8 years on the best bars in town to have to start for an entry level position and that wasn't in my job description.

He goes and gets security and a couple of the other staff and fucking asks me to go back cleaning tables or take off my uniform right then and there outside in the street in front of patrons and all the other staff.

Told him I used to play soccer with my old German managers and we were tight. And him being same nationality And that that's why he would never own a place that gets even 1 star.

As I left I told him "Auf Wiedersehen" And tossed the shirt over.
And he angrily put his fist up and asked me what the fuck did I just told him.
I said it's German for goodbye , but probably wasnt among the 19 imaginary languages he "read and spoke".

Some of his staff were holding back smiles... So glad 2 years later the place went under as he went from a small bar that was packed to a big commercial place that people did not like.

Customers hate when their casual bar moves and tries to go Huge. Its super hard to make a big commercial space feel crowded. Somewhere I saw a review of it and called it an empty pool because of the cheap tile work.

Username: starkistuna

NYC 2004. I’m 22. Worked with a girl handing out flyers on the Upper East Side. She asked me if I’d be interested in working at an auction for more money. I needed the money, and agreed to go with her after our shift.

We arrive in midtown Manhattan at some jewelry store where they are set-up for auction. I am led to the back of the store where this Joe Pesci looking guy is waiting for the girl and me.

There are two additional people back there, and as the four of us are standing in front of the guy he starts pointing at us individually and assigning us to individual fingers. Either a pinky or a thumb, on either the left or right hand.

I’m confused at this point until he goes on to explain that he is the auctioneer and that he needs to sell his goods at a certain price. When he is calling out the bids, ( “do I hear $2000”) if he had the finger you were identified as, you would bid to raise the price.

Then he explained that in certain “lots” there would be more than one piece of jewelry and depending on the price he may want other people to buy some of the lots.

For example he has 10 of the same watches, if he gets the price high enough he would have you buy the minimum amount so he could sell the rest.

He would indicate how many lots to buy based on the direction he held the ink side of his pen. Down was the minimum, to the side was half, and pointing up meant to buy all the lots. Oh and last rule, don’t look at each other.

So, at this point I’m feeling very uncomfortable, am pretty sure this is illegal, but also a bit scared to leave due to the serious mob vibes I’m picking up. So I go back into the area where the auction will take place and sit down as the right pinky.

The auction starts and it doesn’t seem as official as what you’d see on TV. There are about 30 people including the four of us. As we get going he uses me to bid up some diamond necklaces but I don’t end up buying any of them.

He’s using the other plants as well, and at times we are bidding against one another even when no one else is bidding.

Most people seem interested in the watches that are being auctioned. Rolex, Patek Phillipe, Omega, and some others I had never heard of...but would def be bidding on as the right pinky.

For some reason he starts leaning on me a lot with the watches. I’m not sure if the others are fucking up or Its some strategy of his.

One of the watches was over $90k and he has me win that bid along with about $300k in additional watches. At this point a lot of people are looking at me, some impressed, but most are confused because I am dressed like I should be handing out flyers.

After about four hours of auctioning things wrap up and the guy pays us all $40 cash. He invites me to another auction later that week, and I tell him I’ll have to check my schedule.

I leave the jewelry store and he never hears from me again.

Username: lloydoring

I was 18 years old. My dad wanted me to get a job where you had to do real manual labor and through a contact got me a gig working on a new bridge being built over the intracoastal waterway.

The first day of work I go into the the hollowed out inside of the concrete bridge, something I had no
Idea existed, I thought they were solid.

Well, I was put on a demolition squad, which sounded cool as heck till I realized what that meant.

Basically, in the Mid-June heat of SW Florida, inside a freaking chunk of concrete 120ft in the air over the ICW, we were meant to tare wood forms from dried concrete supports, like ribs going down the bridge endlessly.

We used crow bars to pull the wood off, had to get all the nails, and then make sure the concrete was fairly tidy and smooth.

Problem one: the foreman was nuts. The boss leaves us down there And foreman introduces him self, “Hello, may name is Jimbob, but people call me fly-by” he waits for the obvious reply, beads of sweat dripping down his face and a wild look in his brown, tweaked eyes.

“Why are you called flyby?” I apparently had to retort, and as soon as I finished the by in ‘flyby’ he grabbed a crow’s foot, threw it against the wall as hard as possible passing within a foot of my head, taking a divot of concrete with it as it hit the ground. “Because when I get pissed of shit just flies by!”

Well, I work the day, kind of enjoying the work, its so hot you are soaked, and the air is about as stale as a dive bar’s at 7AM but as long as I am hydrated with some Gatoraide, provided by Fly-by, its a doable job.

Problem 2: I finish the last of the Gatoraide and Fly-by gently tells me to climb the ladder with the jug and get more ice water and mAke more Gatoraide.

Well I take that ugly yellow igloo cooler, looking straight out of the back of the weeks’ team mom’s minivan from Little League, proceed to climb the ladder, put 5 gallons of icewater, a Red Gatoraide pouch and shake the jug.

As I am carrying that sweet sweet nectar down the ladder (i was 130lbs in HS) the cap-handle apparently isnt screwed down well and it falls 12 feet down the ladder, red sticky everywhere, siding down the length of the bridge to the next rib

FlyBy is incredulous, throws a screwdriver, and then the rest of the day brings it up every 5 minutes.

That night, I decided that job was not worth dealing with a psycho throwing shit around with impunity named Fly-By.... so I slept in. Pissing my Dad off right good.

Username: Snookn42

I got hired at Starbucks while in college. The store I was assigned to was still being constructed, so they had me training in another location for 2 weeks. Should note that I came from working at Seattle's Best Coffee. SBC work environment is (was) extremely chill.

They train you really well, but then give you the freedom to be yourself. Obviously there's a method to making the drinks, but there's no rigid structure to adhere to when doing so.

Now if you know anything about working at Starbucks, you know they're the exact opposite! Every step is planned out and enforced. Minute details are broken down and required to be followed step by step, in order to complete whatever task you're working on.

So all of this was already a bit of a shock during the two week training period, at the secondary store. But my trainers were really cool and I thought it was fine, just a bit much; I'd definitely work through the nuances of Starbucks work culture.

First day on the actual job: QUIT. The store manager was an absolute coffee nazi (we did not train or meet her until day 1 at the store). It was opening day for the store and I believe there were three of us working the first shift.

It was a ghost town in there for most of the day. Fast forward to the around closing time, we had a few customers come in, all around the same time.

All of the baristas do their thing and finish the transactions and get all the customers out of the store. Well apparantely according to coffee nazi, we did 100 and 1 things wrong.

Coffee Nazi lined all three of us up in front of the bar and told us all the things we needed to improve on. From being more quick on the register, to only making one drink at a time, to offering the entire menu to each and every costumer, to making sure we say all the customers names at every step of the interaction.

Was there any positives mentioned? NOPE. So apparently the three of us were the worst baristas in the history of whatever.

Her attitude was so sharp and confrontational. She spoke to us like we were incompetant. All of the transactions were apparently garbage and needed a complete overhaul in procedure. Did we learn anything in training? I guess not, not according to her.

So after the shift, I sent coffee Nazi a text and told her that wasn't the environment I'd like to be apart of. She never even responded.

Granted it was a brand new store so she probably was extremely stressed out and ended up taking out her stress on us unfortunately. My gut said to run though.

Anyone that can berate new employees like that within hours of meeting them, is not someone I want to be around.

Username: [deleted]

About 12 years ago. I loved watching movies, so I thought a job at the cinema would be right up my alley, even if I just did admissions at least I'm in an environment based around movie releases along with the benefits of free passes etc.

When I did the interview the manager was chilled and really friendly, we gassed about movies for like an hour and he gave me a job on the spot afterwards.

I'd asked if I could go on admissions because I already worked in a nightclub at the time and I was pretty burnt out serving beverages and snacks to customers, he was like "no problem, we'll get you on admissions and/or cleaning etc"

I show up for my first day, the chilled and awesome manager has now turned into a power crazed wanker whose voice level now had two settings, raised or Gordon Ramsay during all the worst segments of Hells kitchen.

He threw me straight on the concessions stand and within a few minutes I was thrown on the front line of serving hot dogs, drinks and sweets to customers who are almost always in a hurry because their film started 5 minutes ago and they didn't think to arrive early to get all their shit beforehand.

I was raged at in front of staff and customers because I was putting too much ice slushie in the cups (like fuck me for filling it more than two thirds full right?) and I wasn't pestering the customers enough to upgrade to large (this was mostly because I was already aware that medium and large in this chain of cinemas at least was practically the same)

The final straw however came when I was told to pack up all the "fresh" popcorn from the cabinets to put away and put it back out the next day, I also saw someone drop a couple of hotdogs on the floor and the manager dusted them off and put them back on the heated rack while no one was looking.

Then he started encouraging me to shave my beard off which was another thing that beforehand there seemed to be absolutely no problems with but now apparently was an issue.

I also was told that our free movie passes we were entitled to were only valid for movies that had already been out for 5 weeks.

Unless a movie is huge and has repeat business like say Avengers etc the average movie stops screening after a month so they were practically useless.

I placed my uniform back in the dressing room at the end of the shift, rubbed my name off the whiteboard of the staff members timetable and basically just walked out and never went back.

It was far from the worst job I've had however it's the only one I decided I didn't want to go ahead with after one day. I still got paid for the days shift though which was nice of them.

Username: Timidhobgoblin

I worked at a Dollar General for one day. The job itself wasn’t that bad, and at first the people seemed okay too. I did my video training on a Monday and was told my first shift would be for ten hours the following Friday.

It was me and another girl (who we’ll call Ashley) closing, and the manager and assistant manager opening. So the shift goes fine, and when the managers leave at 5 they tell us that they left a list of things to be done before we left.

So the store closes at 9, and we start on the list. The tasks I was given were to stock the shelves next to the register, and to mop the floor; Ashley was to take inventory (which was a bigger job so I wasn’t mad).

After I stocked the shelves, I get started mopping. About halfway through, Ashley asks how much longer I’ve got. I told her I was halfway done and she drops the bomb on me that we’re supposed to be out of the store by 9:30.

Nobody had thought to tell me that yet. I look at my phone, it’s 9:25. She says it’s okay, she barely even got started taking inventory, she’ll explain to the manager and everything will be fine.

So we leave, and as she locks the door she asks if I remembered to lock the display cases outside. I say no, I didn’t know I was supposed to do that. She again says it’s no big deal, we’ll get it next time.

So we say goodnight and as I’m driving home I get a call from the manager. I’m expecting it to be her asking how it went, etc. The call actually went like this:

Me: Hello?
Her: u/Launch-Pad_McQuack?
M: Hey, what’s up?
H: What exactly is going on?
M: What do you mean?

H: I just got off the phone with Ashley and she told me that you sat around all night and didn’t do anything, you didn’t mop the floor or stock shelves or anything, and when you left you didn’t lock the display cases and you laughed it off. Do you care to explain?

M: Uh... well none of that is true. I did stock the shelves, and I mopped as much of the floor as I could. I didn’t know we had to be out by 9:30 and I wasn’t aware we were supposed to lock the display cases.

H: Well Ashley is livid, she’s actually asking me to not schedule the two of you to work together anymore because she can’t stand you. So I’m gonna look at the footage tomorrow morning, and if I don’t like what I see then you won’t have a job anymore.
M: O-okay.

Then she hung up. The store opened at 8 the next morning, and I woke up a little after 11. I didn’t have any calls or texts from her, but I went ahead and decided to quit.

So I called her and told her I didn’t think it was gonna work out, to which she replied “yeah me neither.” Never looked back.

Username: Launch-Pad_McQuack

About 10 years ago, I worked for a direct marketing company for about a year. It was my first "white-collar" job. I was 18 and using it as a stepping stone to better opportunities.

I was quickly promoted to team manager as the company had an extremely high employee turnover rate (you'll see why soon). So part of my job was to conduct group interviews for prospective new staff. These interviews would occur every morning as the ad for the positions was permanently listed online.

When I was asked to start conducting interviews, my boss (shamelessly) told me to beat around the bush if ever asked in the interview what we do here at the company. I was required to avoid the question and sugarcoat things.

The main reason was that they found it hard to hire decent prospects when being upfront (again you'll see why soon), so they thought it would be better to be shady as some would just stay anyway. To be fair this method did work because it worked on retaining me and many others, but still, I hated this method.....

So one morning I was conducting a group interview with about 15 people. There was 1 particular guy who was very sharp and asking a lot of questions.

He seemed a little too qualified for this job. The rest, more suited but nevertheless, I was going to try and hire him anyway. That's right, "I would try to hire him" This job was different than others.

These interviews went the other way around, with me trying to convince people to work there, as opposed to the interviewees trying to convince me to hire them. So this sharp guy starts asking the dreaded questions. "So what is it that we'll be doing here?" I say, "We're a direct marketing company, so you'll be doing sales".

Then, he says "ok what kind of sales?" And I say, "we're contracted to a number of different organisations, but your primary area will be sales on behalf of an electricity and gas company called (I'm not going to name the company). He says "ok cool, so what kind of sales?"

I say, "you'll be doing face to face sales" by this point, the rest of the room is silently watching this awkward exchange with vague responses, on my part. He then asks 2 more final questions. He says, "oh so we're selling to prospective business clients?" I say, reluctantly, knowing this is about to go bad, "no, our target market is the consumer.... so residential....".

He then says word for word "WAIT, IS THIS FUCKING DOOR TO DOOR SALES???? GETTING PEOPLE TO CHANGE THEIR ELECTRICITY COMPANY????" I say "yes sir". He says "screw that, I'm not doing door to door sales, you guys wasted all of our time by not telling us in the ad or upfront that this was door to door sales" (our add listed "direct marketing" to make it sound way better than it actually is) I hated this deceitfulness, so I completely understood where he was coming from.

He then walks out of the room and the rest of the room followed. He completely blew the whole group interview.

Thankfully most people don't ask about the pay on the first interview. Because then I would have had to tell them that the pay was 100% COMMISSION!!.

So no sales, no pay..... No travel expenses were covered either. So you have a bad week, you're actually at a loss for the week.

That experience really got me thinking about whether I wanted to work there anymore. I left the company pretty much immediately as felt I had gained enough to improve my resume to move on, and I was tired of working for a company that has to hide what they really do because of the bad stigma around the job. Needless to say, I wasn't proud to work there and hated telling people what I do.

We used to have a saying in sales called being "negged out". It just meant having a negative attitude which results in bad sales performance and this can rub off on others around you.

So this one man single-handedly lost the company 15 prospective employees and 1 current interviewing team manager. He negged everyone out 🤣.

Username: Storm_Blake

This will be very long but this is all a true story so, I hope someone finds it interesting. I was trying to get a job at Amazon but it was during quarantine. I wanted to work the weekend shift but it wasn't available so they put me up to the week shift, no problem there so far.

I went to this place where I was supposed sign some papers, and they told me that I had to go to a doctor's check up (assigned and approved by Amazon) right after, but that they would warn me when I had to go to make it in time (the doctor was approximately 20 minutes away).

So I wrote down all my information on the paper, filled in this stupid test, and then they suddenly stopped me like I have 5 minutes before its late for the check up. I'm furious of course, cuz they were too late to warn me, clearly, but I was kinda desperate for a job.

I had to run through the city, almost got a stroke, and of course, I was late, but they were willing to do the check up anyways. But the doctor left, leaving me with the nurse.

The nurse went to take my blood and before she put the needle in me, she told me "I'm really bad at this. I'm always scared to do this without the doctor around." I try to laugh it off, but I'm obviously already very disturbed to hear that. But she takes the blood, all worked out fine.

Then I had to get an EKG and the nurse stuck all those pumps things to my chest. I didn't realize she turned on the machine as she continues chatting with me (you should be silent during an EKG test).

Then she suddenly tells me that my results were a little "shaky" (duh, cuz you made me talk) and then made me go, wouldn't do the test again, saying it's "fine".

I go back to the Amazon office, fill in some more paperwork, nothing bad necessarily happens here, they only tell us that next morning we will have a "day 0" which will all be online.

I get into my car, and while this is unrelated, my car happened to break down while I was still in the city (I consider this a bad omen looking back), so I park it at the nearest Mc Donald's and sit there, waiting for my dad to come help.

Obviously super stressed out, I suddenly get a message from the Amazon management. "sorry, but we have decided to decline your application." basically firing me. I'm literally going nuts now, what is happening? I went all this way just to get fired like that?

No reason at all? I'm fuming. Half an hour later, another message comes in: "Don't forget to tune in next morning for Day 0". What the fuck? I'm so confused. Am I fired or am I not?

I call them now cuz like seriously, what is happening and they tell me that the first message was a mistake. That it was automatic or whatever. Automatically sending firing messages? Well, okay. Whatever.

I wake up super early the next morning for this day 0. I have everything prepared. The application. The internet, the camera. Everything. Problem is, somehow, I just couldn't get it to work. I call them.

Takes me like 10 minutes to even get to somebody, because they said they had "experts" who would help us with issues. Well I can say that was a bunch of bullshit cuz they didn't know anything.

Then they had the audacity to tell me that I'm the only one with such a problem (though the other day they said that a lot of people had trouble with it) and they said I should come next morning so that they could "log me in since I'm incapable to do that."

At this point, I'm just fucking done. Messing with me, making mistakes, and even mocking me cuz of their shitty program, I call them that I'm done. If my experience with amazon management is so bad BEFORE I even set foot into Amazon, I can't even imagine how bad it would be when I started working.

So that's my story. Though technically I left "before" the first day, but yeah, thought it would fit the question. Tl:Dr, fuck amazon.

Username: milejdyvan

I got hired to be a Landscape Tech in cottage country. I moved my belongings in my truck on a Sunday, 4 hours north of where I was living.

Moved in, settled into the new place, frozen pizza for supper on top of boxes sort of thing. Work started before sunrise on Monday.

I was told and shown these beautiful cottages on the waterfront that I'd be assisting, I'd be a groundskeeper for several but we'd be building these beautiful gardens, docks and decks for all this multi-million dollar cottages. I was nervous but so excited to be taking this leap of faith, living my life like I had nothing to lose.

Monday morning arrives, the boss shows up, we load up his truck with tools and such and off we go! I'm told we're going to this cottage he's been working on for several years, a big project, big rocks, beautiful dock, the whole works!

We drive across the road......literally across the road from where I'm now currently living. We drive up this long dirt and pine needle covered laneway through the trees and come upon a gigantic cottage. It's gorgeous. We hop out and greet 3 other employees, my new co-workers and hopefully future friends. Because I'm 4 hours away from everything I knew.

I'm given the tour, there's several boats tied up at the dock, there's beautiful landscaping done, a giant deck. Buuuuut, everything looks finished?

We go back around the front of the place, back to the trucks. My boss hands me and another guy a 5L bucket, tells me I'll be working with the new guy and he'll give me the low down. We turn and I follow this new stranger into the woods, we get maybe 100ft from the cottage, off to one side of the laneway, in the middle of the forest essentially.

We put our buckets down, and we sit down on the ground. No words are spoken, I'm confused AF. He then grabs the few weeds on the ground and tosses them into his bucket.

He looks up to me and says, using his arms to gesture a big circle behind me, "So we have to pick all these weeds out of here. Then we'll go to the other side of the laneway", and then just starts pulling random weeds from the ground.

We are in Muskoka (Cottage country in Ontario), in a forest, of pine trees. There are pine needles covering the ground, it's part of the charm, this copper glow as far as you can see. And every little bit, you can see small 12" round tuffs of weeds growing, kind of where the sun can peak through at just the right angle sort of thing.

So I sat down and started pulling random greenery from the forest floor. Semi confused at what was occuring. I hear a lawnmower start up and a weed eater rev. The other employees are cutting the grass out back of this cottage.

After a while, I ask buddy if this is all we're doing today. With a proud smile he tells me "Yeah man, I've done most of this forest. The owner doesn't like seeing the weeds, he just likes the ground clean."

I got up, put my bucket in the back of the boss' truck and started walking down the laneway. Fuck this shit, I'm out.

The boss chases after me asking me what's up, I calming explain that this is the dumbest shit I've ever seen and that I didn't leave my entire life behind to pick weeds out of a forest. The guy flips on me, tells me where to go and what to shove up where. Informing me how stupid of a person I am and goes back to the cottage.

I walked back to my new place, backed everything back into my truck, called the landlord and apologized.
I moved up and back, didn't get paid for a thing, in a 24hour time frame. Because you till can't convince me to this day, that pulling weeds from the forest is a job. F that guy.

Username: aboxofchalk

Back in the late '80s, I got hired doing customer service at a professional photo lab. I had bad feelings about the job even as I accepted it.

The manager who interviewed me wasn't very friendly, and seemed like a total burnout case; she told me that some of the photographers could be very difficult and demanding, so I would need to be able to handle that while remaining professional.

They also weren't willing to offer me anything over their minimum to start, even though I had some photo/darkroom experience (which was described as a "plus," but not mandatory, in their ad). But mostly, it was the depressing vibe of the place that raised red flags for me.

I still took it, because I didn't want to do face-to-face retail; it offered me a chance to learn a lot on the job, and could maybe lead to a better photo-related gig.

On my first day, I arrived and met three women who had been there in customer service for varying lengths of time. Two of them had been there at least a decade, and one for just a few months, but all three had the same depressed and downtrodden look the manager did.

There was also a guy about my age (21) who was starting that day. Nobody said hello to us or smiled--they didn't even greet each other.

Us newbies spent the morning learning the workflow, how to write up orders--basically paperwork--while the others anwered the phones and handled the occasional pickup or drop-off at the front counter. In that three-hour period, I saw the youngest of the three women burst into tears after hanging up on a photographer who shouted at her over the phone so loudly we could make out most of his ranting from 20 feet away.

She had to get up and go into the restroom to get herself together, and the other women just sighed and rolled their eyes at that.

When she came back out, she sat at her desk looking utterly defeated. The phone rang. She didn't pick it up right away, and one of the long-timers barked at her, "Are you going to get that? I've got my own job to do, you know." And that was when I knew I couldn't do the job. It's bad enough, dealing with shitty customers. But when your co-workers shit on you too? Forget it.

On top of that, the guys who did all the processing treated the customer service reps like shit. They just had terrible attitudes. They'd come out with a question about an order, and be really rude and shitty about it.

And as for management, they were all upstairs, and there was a very upstairs/downstairs vibe about the place. I never even saw the upstairs; I filled out paperwork when I arrived, and the customer service manager carried it up.

I made it to lunchtime, then went to the manager and told her the job wasn't for me, and I wouldn't be back. She just sighed, said, "Suit yourself," and that was it; she didn't even try to change my mind.

I left and headed for the bus stop. While I was waiting for my bus, the guy who started with me showed up; he'd quit too. We laughed for a moment about how terrible the place was; his bus came, and that was it.

I've had some shitty jobs since then, but at least I had co-workers I could commiserate with, or favorite customers, or understanding bosses, or made decent money. Sometimes, I got all of those. That place--god, it was like where souls and all semblance of humanity go to die, it was that bad.

Username: Cats_Ruin_Everything

When I was a young student I responded to an recruitment agency advert for a temporary porter at a Hotel in the Seaside town where I lived.

The Hotel was part of 'The Hilton' chain and at that time it used to host the annual UK Labour Party conference. I applied for and took the job knowing the Labour Party conference was due to be held there during the summer months that I would be covering.

I had fantasies of carrying Tony Blair and co's luggage bags up to their room and rubbing shoulders with the ruling political heavyweights at that time.

Oh how wrong could i be....On my first day I arrived on time and well dressed, my wild student hair tamed as much as possible.

I introduced myself at reception and after a short while , during which I soaked in the hotel surroundings thinking how I would soon be shmoozing with the well dressed clientele, and soon possibly Mr Blair himself, my new line manager came to greet me.

He walked me down a flight of stairs, deeper into the bowels of the hotel and eventually we arrived at a staff cloakroom.

He handed me what looked like a boiler suit and then explained that I would be performing my porter duties in the kitchen, mainly washing up! I felt utterly deflated but proceeded to put this big boiler suot on over my smart clothes and allowed him to walk me through to the kitchens where I was then introduced to the widest, deepest stainless steel sink I have ever seen in my life!!!
He left me there and I duly started to wash up...

I was really pissed off, the sink was really low and my back became sore after about 15 minutes of being stooped over it as I continued to wash this huge pile of dirty pots, pans and dishes. At one point some older guy brought me a huge 'fresh' stack of shit to wash and, I forget why but we ended up having a heated argument...

I think it was a combination of him thinking I was some smart arsed kid and me thinking a combination of "fuck this place", and "I hate you for bringing me this new stack of horrible dirty dishes".

All visions of me gliding through the hotel reception smiling and laughing with clientele as I politely showed them to the lift / dining room had well and truly been drowned in that massive, back breaking steel sink.

I think i lasted 45 mins or so and then I just lost it. I abandoned the sink, found the line manager and literally threw the now removed boiler suit at him telling him i was done and was getting the fuck out of there ; he tried to protest and threatened me with reporting me to the recruitment agency boss...I just laughed and left.

Before I left I did have chance to say sorry to the older guy for my part in the disagreement.
And I hope I don't come over as entitled or anything like that. I am a person who left school with literally no qualifications.

I worked in greasy burger kitchens, and cleaned dirty night club toilets and hospital wards for years whilst I was trying to reclaim lost education. No job was beneath me and I would take any job I could rather than be unemployed.

I guess what I couldn't handle was the massive crash landing from my fantasy of rubbing shoulders with 'the elite' to the grim reality of that enormous kitchen sink that, had I not walked out, was going to be my new home for the long summer months...

Username: mrhappyteeth