Most Fun Way to Leave a Bad Job?

medscaper asks: "I have an awesome opportunity this morning. Since the market is opening up, I was offered a great new tech job over the weekend, and have been stuck in a miserable one for the past several years. I spend more time stressing out and anxious about keeping my job than getting any quality work done. I'm SO looking forward to walking into my boss's office this morning to let him know that I'll be leaving. I'm tempted to do it with style, especially because I got a (completely unwarranted) PHB-style threatening lecture last week about my work habits. I really don't need the recommendation or a reference, so it doesn't matter much how I leave. Should I politely give the standard 2-weeks? Or should I have a little fun with it and burn some bridges? Anyone have any stories to relate?"

Re:Name that quote

[dextr0us]

bam!!! dave chapelle at his finest!!! Half Baked! What a classic peice of cinema masterpiece.

One day I quit my phone tech support job...

[c.r.o.c.o]

About a year ago I was working in the tech support department in one of the universities in Toronto. Every summer the older employees had to create presentations to train the new employees before the school year would start. My task, as luck would have it, was to teach them how the wireless network was set up, and what software/hardware was required to connect to it. As any good employee, I spent a couple of my afternoons working on the Powerpoint slides, got it ready on time even though I did not get paid for the extra time I worked on it.

The setup was fairly involved because it required a VPN client that was not easy to set up, and a user name and password, which again, were complicated to obtain. On top of that, each MAC address had to be registered with the server. A day before the presentation, the entire system was changed. the VPN client was dumped in favour of a proxy system, which still required a user name and password. Needless to say, my presentation was worthless, and I was required to redo it within a day. I started working on it, but because I had made plans for the evening, I decided to finish it at the last moment the next day. I never got around to it.

I should mention this was not a 9-5 job, the shifts were 4 hours long. I even had to work from 3-11pm and then the next morning from 8am-3pm. Now for the rest of my story.

The day my unfinished presentation was due was such a beautiful, hot summer day I decided to ride my motorcycle to work. I thought I could wing it on the spot, and the whole way I kept thinking of it. The closer I got to the campus though, the more I dreaded having to deal with a problem I had not created. So I rode into the campus when I saw one of my supervisors walking around. But instead of turning into the parking lot, I just kept on going.

Later that evening I pulled up on a friend's driveway in Ottawa, about 450km away from the stupid presentation and my former job. I came back a week later to collect my last paycheck. That's how I quit my bad job.

That's what happened to me once

[eleknader]

Few years ago I was about to leave to another company and a position.

I told my boss I was leaving, we started organizing my duties to my colleagues etc.

Few days later I was told from my new employer, that my deal has just changed: completely different position. They told me this change by _email_!

I was very happy, that I was nice to my old boss. He let me stay, and I worked about one year after this at my old job.

So, I'd recommend being nice for your boss :)

Eleknader

Re:Better be nice

[Feztaa]

Been there, except it went more like this:

"So, when can you start?"
"Well, I have to give my current boss my two weeks notice"
"Of course. I wouldn't hire you if you didn't."

2 weeks later, my last day on the job was a friday, I had the weekend to myself, and I started work at the new place on a monday.

Re:Burn the bridges

[Hank Reardon]

...He can withhold your last paycheck, your accrued holiday.

I had somebody try this on me once and discussed the issue with a friend who's an HR manager. It seems that withholding paychecks and accrued pay is against Federal labor laws. You don't want to screw with them.

They have to take you to civil court to get you to pay them back for any damages you might have caused.

He can track you down at your new job and spill the beans to your new boss. If you do something illegal, he can call in the police. Or much, much worse!

Depends on where you live. If you're in a 'right to work' state, this is grounds for some serious law suits. And an ass whoopin.

Even if you weren't in a Right to Work state, this is usually not acceptable. From what I recall, even on reference checks, the only things you can really reveal about a former employee are their hire dates, salary and whether they're elligable for rehire.

Depending on what's said, and how much proof they have, you could also slap them with libel or slander.

Re:Na dun burn bridges

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 Insightful. Anyone that sells baby formula (I'm assuming Nestlé or Danone, 'cause they make practically all of it) to developing countries who'd be MUCH BETTER OFF educating their mothers to breast-feed should die a very slow, painful, horrible death.

http://www.babymilkaction.org/CEM/compseptoct01. ht ml
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Corporations /Cor pRights_HumanNeed.html
http://www.news24.com/News 24/World/0,6119,2-10_130 8508,00.html

Report them for piracy

[BadluckShleprock]

After I was (honorably) discharged from the Army, I was working for a computer dealer until I could get a better job. They kept promising me a promotion if I would just stay with them. I kept hearing "give us a couple more weeks". In addition, my supervisor would come in every day and complain about how her husband doesn't want to have sex with her, she would berate me because I was "religously undecided", the owners would insult me because I was 23 years old and had graduated college yet, the technicians didn't like me because I knew more than they did about fixing computers, etc. It paid the bills, but I could only take so much, and after about 10 months I decided that it was a waste of my time to even show up there, so I quit.

The day after I finally left, I called the software piracy hotline and told them about the following things that they flagrantly did:

1) Whenever someone ordered a piece of software through them, no matter what it was, they would break the shrinkwrap and make an ISO image of the disc(s) in the box. If someone asked what happened to the shrinkwrap, they would just say that they were testing it to make sure it worked. After all, any computer savvy person would order online or go to CompUSA.

2) They purchased a single user version of some server software, then the two owners (who had PhD's in computer science) unlocked it for unlimited users.

3) They owned one copy of Windows, M$ office, etc., but installed it on 20 or so computers. While this is common, it's still a flagrant violation of the license.

4) They ordered a trial version of a fax/pbx system (PCI expansion cards). After the trial period was up, they claimed the $10,000 worth of software and hardware had been hit by lightning, unlocked the trial period block, and ended up with a free fax and PBX system.

About a month after I left, they were raided by the police, the owners arrested, and all of their equipment was sold at auction for pennies on the dollar.

make a permanent impression

[aminorex]

Bring an AR-15 and a couple of SIGs to work. Wear BDUs, and a BIG knife. Sit down at the desk and just do your job. Smile at the receptionist.

If anybody tries to stop you, just pull the bolt and frown at them.

Re:Don't Burn Bridges

[Prior Restraint]

Perhaps more significantly, your boss's boss or peer, who had nothing against you until they heard from your boss how you screwed him, could be interviewing you later on somewhere else.

Hear! Hear!

At the start of 2001, I left Company X to come work where I am now. I've recently started looking for a new job, and a few weeks ago I got an interview with Company Y. It's a first-round interview, so I'm really just there to listen to their recruiter's sales pitch. I show up to the interview and--what's this?--it's the guy who recruited me to work for Company X! Turns out he left about three months after I did.

Had I made a huge scene when I left Company X (and I really, really wanted to), I wouldn't even be considered for the position at Company Y, which is currently my favorite choice.

Re:Piss on servers

[fred fleenblat]

Something very similar to this was debunked on mythbusters. The basic problem is that the stream splits into droplets with air gaps between, so no current flows and nothing happens. If you have a reference to a published account of this story, that would be interesting.

Re:Name that quote

[Mojojojo Monkey Inc.]

No, not quite informative... it was Guillermo Díaz (Scarface) who said that specific line. Dave Chappelle is good though.

Re:Leave the Fight Club way

[PerspexAvenger]

KY Jelly

It's a sex lube, among other things.

Re:Leave the Fight Club way

[a_ghostwheel]

This [typepad.com] (work safe) will satisfy your curiosity. Just stare long enough on the picture.

Re:Na dun burn bridges

[Pandora's Vox]

formula is marketed in developping countries as being "better" than breat milk. it's not. it's really, really not. and hey, you're lucky that it worked for you + yours. but imagine this:

woman has a baby in africa somewhere. woman feeds baby formula. woman goes broke! can't buy formula, and oh no! no more breast milk either.

plus the shit they sell in thr 3rd world is awful. very different from what they sell here.

Evils of selling baby formula

[Stephen Samuel]

Pandoras vox forgot to mention that, in many third world countries, the water that many people get is pretty nasty. Even if the formula was up to first-world snuff, many kids die because the water mixed in with the formula has all sorts of greeblies in it that they haven't built up an immunity to yet.

Truth of the matter is: If you're in the third world and you're not rich enough to afford really good water (and know about the evils of formula), you're probably going to be better off finding a friend you can pay to breast feed your kid. Chances are it'll be both cheaper and healthier.

It's one thing to sell baby formula to people who need it. It's another thing entirely to market it to people who'se kids are probably going to get sick from eating the stuff. (while telling them precisely the opposite)

Re:Leave the Fight Club way

[Unlimited Carrots]

Maybe I should have tried that when quitting my last job, I left because management was fucking the staff (literally, might I add) and burned out hell of a bridge when I left. Which, sadly, bit me in the ass in a serious fashion when I tried to get another job, as the bastards told everyone that I had no work ethic, the IQ of a houseplant, and God only knows what else. Now I can only get hired by people who are either desperate or are so distracted by my breasts that they'd hire me for ANYTHING, so long as they had me close enough to leave pupil prints on the front of my clothing.

Never burn bridges

[OhHellWithIt]

If you managed to survive your dressing-down (what is "PHB-style", anyway) without saying anything to get yourself fired, count yourself lucky and file a simple, polite resignation, then go out gracefully. You never know when you might need a reference of some kind, or who you might meet in the future. I work in the Washington, DC area, which has, what, 3-5 million people? And yet I keep meeting people who know other people I know, who may use the opinion of the common acquaintance to judge how to deal with me. Corporations may not give references, but people who work for them do, both formally and informally. Unless you are prepared to leave your employer off your resume and have an inexplicable gap in your work history, you're better off going quietly, without a show. What you don't say will speak volumes.