“60 Shocking First-Day Stories: What Made These Employees Walk Out for Good?”
Got a job tarring roofs in the summer in Maryland. Sweating my a*s off but I could barely keep up. One big dude was teaching me the proper way to spread the tar evenly with a giant mop. He kept prompting me as I was going then suddenly stopped talking. I look over and his eyes have rolled back and is starting to fall over into the hot tar we just spread. I grabbed him and started screaming for the other guys as he was too big and we were both heading for the tar. They grabbed both of us and got us off the roof. Paramedics for him and the water hose for me. When lunch time rolled around I told the boss “I’m outta here”. He asked if I was coming back tomorrow and I said “hell no” and left. I lasted about 4 hours.
It started with the guy saying “I told him he should have just hired you when you dropped off your resume” (first red flag)
Then at coffee break and lunch all everyone did was b***h and complain.
I finished the day but it was such an angry place with high turnover it didn’t seem worth it to continue.
Worked in an amazon warehouse. I had just finished grad school and was applying for jobs. This was May 2020. The place was unbelievably hot, especially while wearing a mask. The guy training us kept screaming at us “COME ON! LETS GET THIS MONEY! LETS GO! YEAH!”. S**t like that. It was a 12 hour shift of back-breaking wok. By the end I thought I was gonna die. I left that day, went home, went to sleep, got up at 5am and redoubled my efforts to find a job. Got a job 1 month later working from home.
I went through 3 interviews to get the job. I arrived 10 minutes early on my first day. The manager of the location I was told to report to had no idea that I had been hired. They called the person that instructed me where and when to report. That person said they needed to check their notes and call back. I didn’t wait, I just excused myself and thanked the manager for his time. Later in the afternoon, the person who hired me called and was angry that I was a no show at the very place I showed up for.
Wasn’t told I’d be on the operations floor on my first day, didn’t bring my PPE. Got handed company issue steel toe boots (cheap and nasty) which promptly began to tear my feet to shreds. I show my supervisor my bleeding feet and tell him I can be back in an hour with my own boots and could then finish my shift. He told me if I leave to get them don’t bother coming back.
Easiest walk out ever.
I started the day at 7am at a little technical workshop where we repaired electronics.
At 8am, I had learned that all 3 co-workers where there for 1 month max, and the teamlead resigned yesterday and I was to follow her up.
At around 9am the wife of the big boss waltzes in, verbally assaults the co-worker next to me and tell him if she ever sees him with headphones in again she fires him on the spot.
She doesn’t even greet me. I let it sink in.
11am I decide to explore the facility on my own, since no one is showing me around. I learn there is no breakroom, only a shoddy toilet outside. You are supposed to eat your lunch in your car/outside.
And to my absolute horror.. that there is no coffee machine on premise and people who brought one saw them destroyed.
At 12am I walk into the boss’s office, I say I have never seen such a s****y workplace and he just has to pay me from 7am tot 11am and I’m out.
Fought for a month with him and had to send a lawyer to get what I was owed because he wouldn’t pay me unless I finished my workday. Which I wouldn’t have been able to in those conditions.
Funny story is, since that day my first question in any job interview was: do u guys have a coffee machine. It’s my, do they care about their people kind of thing. If the answer is no, I walk. I did it twice to flabbergasted recruiters.
I worked for a publishing startup in 1992. Our job was to put folded magazines in screen doors across west Omaha.
I had a drivers license, so I got to drive the van for the “runners” and drop off bins at intersections for the runners to restock.
The vehicle was a van in the academic sense in that it had four wheels and an engine, but brakes and tires were clearly an afterthought.
I decided not-dying was important so I lost those people’s phone number and worked at Wendy’s for a while.
I was hired in a temp agency office as a receptionist. When I was interviewed, I was told I would be answering the phone, relaying messages and greeting clients as they walked in, as well as some light organizing and mail dispersing etc. I was going to fill the position of the current receptionist as she was moving up in the company.
After I clocked in for my first day I was then told how to give/handle/run the urine d**g tests for clients. (I don’t do well at all with bodily fluids of any kind, I just can’t do it, would’ve never even applied for the position had I known.) And then by noon I was scolded by the boss for not knowing how to look up resumes in their database by key words to source for possible employees for temp positions. I was never told or taught anything about any of it. I took my lunch break in my car. Cried for about 2 minutes and then left. They called me and left me a voicemail apologizing for the way I was spoken to and for not training me and throwing me into it.
