You might have the patience of saints when it comes to your work, dear Pandas, but even saints reach their limits at some point in time. Let’s face it, the past couple of years have been hell for many of us. The radical changes in the way we work, the job industry disruptions, the layoffs, the fights with management… we could go on and on.
But the fact of the matter is simple: a lot of people got so sick and tired of their jobs, they either put in their 2 weeks’ notice and quit or started to fight back against the status quo. Internet users started sharing the exact moments they became ‘radicalized’ and adopted the antiwork mindset in a viral thread on Reddit. We’ve collected some of their stories to share with you today.
Scroll down, upvote the ones that you could relate to the most, and let us know in the comments if you’ve ever experienced anything similar. The story about the sad retirement party is something that really hit us hard.
Bored Panda wanted to learn more about why people quit or become disillusioned with their jobs, so we reached out to Sam Dogen, the author of ‘Buy This, Not That: How To Spend Your Way To Wealth And Freedom.’ Sam is also the founder of the Financial Samurai blog and has left the job industry a decade ago. Scroll down to read what he has to say.
#1
Friend died after not being able to afford insulin. They had a full time job
Image source: Micycle_the_Bichael, Towfiqu barbhuiya
#2
For me it was when/how my mom died. I had spent a few years in a new office job after escaping retail, thought I had finally like, “made it” or whatever. Real adult stuff, they offered health insurance, paid vacation, etc. All the stuff you’re supposed to look for in a job right. (I should clarify this was almost ten yrs ago now)
One day mom calls my while I’m at my desk, tells me she has cancer and not long left. I immediately started spending every weekend at her house (just about a 5 hour drive) until she got just too sick, and I had to make a decision.
She didn’t have health insurance. Small business owner, “self employed”. So her not being able to work meant no money on her part, no insurance meant end-of-life care was wildly expensive, and now I had had to leave my job and move in to wait it out with her to make sure she was as comfortable as possible until the end. So also no paychecks for me, because as soon as I started not being able to focus 100% on my stupid a** corporate bulls**t job, they said “welp… sorry bout that. Hope everything works out for you.”
So I never went back. To an office job, to that state, or even to retail honestly. Not a single entity had any sort of support to offer us, any kind of help, nothing… (I sincerely don’t mean the local community when I say this, her vast network of friends in the area were mostly amazing and kind but not exactly flush with cash). I lost my job, my savings, my entire plan for the future, my home, and my mother in the span of six months because there was less than zero support for a dying poor woman in this country. I’d leave here behind if I could, too.
Wow thank you guys, sorry I came here, overshared, and then left for the rest of the day, it was stressing me out that I even talked about it. Y’all are incredibly kind and supportive, thank you all.
Image source: egregious_botany, Anna Shvets
#3
Why is wanting fair treatment and fair pay for a fair days work “radical”?
Image source: Hevnoraak101, Tim Samuel
#4
Got into the same Industry my father raised me in, he was able to afford multiple houses, cars, and raised three kids.
I make the same as he did 40 years ago. Can’t afford rent.
Image source: GandalfTheSmol1, Karolina Grabowska
#5
After I turned 26 and had to get off my parents health insurance i applied for it at the office I had worked at for five years. The owner of the company told me that providing health insurance for employees was “a huge burden on the company”.
My team had performed so well that year that the owning family rewarded themselves with new cars paid for with company money. The employees received, and I s**t you not, a bag of chips and a candle. I realized then that employers are NEVER your friend. They will climb over your dead body to make a nickel of profit.
Image source: theimpossiblequiz, RODNAE Productions
#6
Seeing my coworker almost cry at his retirement “party” which was nothing more than crappy catered Italian food.
Dude was here for 42 years and the owner of the company didn’t even bother to show up. The HR manager came and said, “Thanks Scott. Now go eat.”
And that was it.
Image source: craiglepaige, Nicola Barts
#7
I got really sick as a teenager. My mom’s insurance wouldn’t cover the treatment that the docs thought could save my life. We were well off and she was able to pay for it out of pocket. But the other kids I met/befriended at the hospital and in the local groups did not have the same privilege and died. For a long time I carried that weight as a guilt, but now it burns like a red hot anger. “Let this radicalize you, rather than lead you to despair.”
Image source: neurobiologicalvoid
#8
Seeing people that work their entire life and get completely railroaded when bad health comes knocking. If it’s like that, then what the f**k’s the point?
Image source: TehHamburgler, energepic.com
#9
I was 20 and a bank teller. One day a week my shift started at 11 instead of 9. I walked to work like I did every day and when I got there, police tape is everywhere. The branch was robbed just before I arrived and a coworker held at gunpoint. He handed over the cash and thank goodness, no one was hurt.
In the series of meetings that followed, HR proceeded to berate him for giving the robber too much money (i.e., bank profits). He went on stress leave and never came back.
Image source: greensandgrains, Mufid Majnun
#10
In 2020 I worked at Wal-Mart. There was a Deli worker who was recovering from major liver surgery due to a car wreck. She was 72 years old and still healing. The doctor gave her an order stating that she couldn’t stand for more than 20 minutes at a time and she wasn’t supposed to lift more than 5 pounds. They had her at the door counting people to make sure we didn’t go over capacity. Then the store manager came up to her and told her that she couldn’t sit at work and accused her of being lazy and took her chair away. She was in so much pain in her abdomen about an hour later that she had to run to the restroom to puke. I was furious. I went to Susan’s (store manager) office on my lunch break and informed her that what she was doing was not only unethical, but Illegal. And violates labor laws. I let her know I had informed corporate and the TIPS hotline about what she was doing. She told me that I was just a greeter and needed to mind my damn business. I reported what she had done to the district manager and two assistant managers. The lady that I will call Sara. Got her chair back 3 days later, after justifiably refusing to work under those conditions while recovering from surgery. Nothing happened to the store manager so I quit a week after reporting the incident to as many people as I could. When I realized they could abuse a disabled elderly woman for no reason and get away with it, I was too disgusted to work there. And I will NEVER work for a Wal-Mart again.
Image source: Learning2thrive
#11
Being disabled.
I was forced to work full time (as practice to come back from full time disability) at a place that refused to hire me (even though that was the goal according to my plan with the disability-services).
Why? Because the state paid THEM $34/day (not taxed) to have me there. While I had to survive off $5/day, paid by the state (and which I paid taxes on, so it was less than $5/day in the end).
Disabled people are abused by the entire system, yet seen as some kind of freeloading tax-stealers? Companies are tax-stealers. Not the sick.
Image source: asaleika
#12
I don’t think believing that people have a right to a comfortable life and be compensated fairly for the exchange of labour is radical…
If a business needs slave labour the business should fail. If billionaires paid fair taxes and we use that money to better society, I’d hardly consider it radical…
Image source: HisuianPrince
#13
My rent went up +$200. My raise was $0.40. CEO raise was 7 digits.
Image source: CowJuiceDisplayer
#14
Getting a write up for pumping breast milk on my breaks in which they had me using a public restroom to do so. Both were illegal. I have not worked a traditional job since. I worked in Healthcare.
Edit to add that the same employer also got upset with me for having my baby. They made sure to tell me how much of an inconvenience it was for them. They also got upset for my time off when my dad died and kept texting and calling during his funeral. I should have quite right then and there but I just needed a job so bad and felt stuck.
Image source: Jilaiyas
#15
Former employer pushed many of us to the point of hospitalization, under the threat that “if you don’t do this, the business will close its doors.” Many of us worked 80+ hour weeks for months and months on end, sometimes peaking at close to 120 hour weeks. That means, you literally only get 3-4 hours of sleep a night and you’re working for ~16-17 hours a day. I was actually in management, but I was working alongside my team, putting in even more hours than they were. I actually cared about my team and defended them. I put in a rotating schedule so they could have time off, and I took their work home with me. When my boss found out, I got chewed out and screamed at since I was “being insubordinate” on the hours mandate. I got HR involved, but HR was corrupt as all hell and actually buried everything- all I did was bring to light what they needed to bury.
After years of this bulls**t, the company decided to clean house. Many people I respected were fired with zero notice. Some were in the middle of business trips, and the company actually told them “yeah, you’re fired, find your own way back home, chump.” I was retained, but demoted, pay cut, and kicked out of the department I built and was managing. It was insulting beyond all belief. New management was terrible and was treating the legacy guys like garbage just to make them all quit so there would be no opposition. I had enough and quit. As I mentioned in another post, they went far out of their way to screw me over once I put my notice in. I actually had to take several days off during notice because of how cruel the ridicule had become.
NEVER TRUST HR. NEVER TRUST HR. NEVER TRUST HR.
I run into one of the HR backstabbers in public quite often. She refuses to make eye contact with me and will even walk out of a restaurant if she sees me. Spineless cowards.
Image source: [deleted], Keira Burton
#16
I’ve been sympathetic for a long time because so much of what I see here is really just a call for basic human dignity and respect. The thing that radicalized me is becoming friends with Thomas through my church’s homeless outreach; he has three jobs but can’t afford an apartment. I cannot support such a cruel system.
Image source: DietrichBuxtehude, MART PRODUCTION
#17
My gastritis that has turned into a bleeding ulcer from work stress. Can’t quit though because food and shelter are important to me.
Image source: Gamez2Go, Sora Shimazaki
#18
Got fired for mentioning I had autism
Image source: BEAN_DYNAMITE
#19
US Military service (also worked as a recruiter) during the Iraq/Afghanistan campaigns is what radicalized me. Especially returning from deployment and seeing what was happening in America. US playing resource pillager and coming home to see people zombified by consumption. The whole experience sent me pretty far left.
Image source: aaronisfromthefuture, Somchai Kongkamsri
#20
Having kidney disease.
I’ve struggled my entire life only to have the rug yanked out from under me, time and again. I’m not lazy or stupid my any measure but now…I’m just f*cking old and sick. This is presenting a slew of new hurdles and to be honest, I’m tired.
I’m really tired.
Image source: no_contact_jackson
#21
I had a stroke at the office. Like a legit full I could die stroke. And all I could think was I need to get back so I don’t get fired.
Image source: jdtitus815, freestocks.org
#22
Honestly it was about 20 years ago. I was antiwork long before it was a thing. There was this woman on contract as an office admin in a big company I worked for and she was amazing. She literally ran the office, helped everyone, did tons of after hours work. I was young and really thought she was a shining example of a great employee. Then she was told on a Friday that her contract was up and she didn’t have work Monday. She was then escorted out of the building which was absolutly humiliating for no reason whatsoever. It was then I fully realised people in buisness can be sociopathic f**ks. So my entire career has been based on NOT going that extra mile. Not being like that poor woman. Doing what I need to do to benefit me. Since then I’ve had a LOT of confirmations that this philosophy is correct. S**te managers will excel because corporate culture promotes the ruthless that say what their managers want to hear and will trample on anyone to meet their personal targets.
Image source: Environmental-End724
#23
I worked 40+hrs a week every week from the age of 19 to 24 and never made more than a dollar or 2 above minimum wage. Then I found out how much profit I was generating for those people and I absolutely lost my s**t.
Image source: micktalian, Andrea Piacquadio
#24
I was at the mall pre-COVID with my young daughter and her favorite daycare teacher was working at the food court.
I literally sobbed in my car later. No one should have to work two jobs to support their family.
Image source: loubug
#25
Working in bankruptcy law during the 08 crash. I saw people losing everything who had done “everything right” but got sick or lost their job due to the crash and their whole lives were falling apart.
It made me suddenly realize that there was no “middle class” safety like I’d been raised to believe. It was all a house of cards.
Image source: katieleehaw
#26
Supervisor (nice guy, member of the union) was promoted to mid/upper management at a time when the company “needed” to make deep cuts across the board. He was tasked with being the axe man, deciding who got fired and handing out pink slips. You could see how it hurt him to have to lay off former friends and co-workers. As soon as the org hit their austerity targets for staff, they fired him. He never saw it coming. he thought he was going to work his whole life with that company until he retired.
Image source: Stephen_Hero_Winter, Andrea Piacquadio
#27
The ’08 housing bubble crisis. How you could have done everything “right” all your life but the economy can still take anything & everything from you
Image source: cinderflight
#28
My mother worked 4 jobs to keep us afloat when my father was terminally ill. We couldn’t afford insurance for him in the pre-Obamacare days. When he died she quit most of her jobs, but the one she kept piled work onto her until she was working 80 a week. So she quit and found a new job, which began putting more work on to her until she was working 80 a week. I told her to quit, pursue her doctorate, while I breadwon for the house and figured out what I wanted to do professionally. I worked a year at Walmart through the pandemic, literally saw hell every day I clocked in. Worked up to 60 hours some weeks. I had a mental breakdown at work and was written up for it. I wasn’t the first I’d seen like that since I got there. I then switched to working taxes, where I never saw a w-2 for more than 80000 dollars, but I saw landlords and business owners raking in hundreds of thousands. Through out all of this, I spent more time without insurance than with it. All of my father’s pension and social security was eaten by the medical bills. One MRI of mine took 3 years to pay off. To say there was a single event for me would be incorrect. It’s more like the inequities and awfulness present in the system was beaten into me so many times that I started to notice.
Image source: Dragon-in-a-Flaggon
#29
A call center coworker sobbing through phone calls after being informed that if she left early due to health issues she would suffer consequences that could get her on the path to termination. We depended on that predatory job because there was nowhere else to turn in our tiny rural community and the people running the place completely exploited that.
Image source: pusheeeeeeeeen, Tima Miroshnichenko
#30
Realizing that the salary I was receiving for teaching 12 students was paid by the fees of only two of them. The for-profit college was taking everything else.
Image source: Peruda
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