Ultimatums have a way of backfiring. Whether it’s a parent laying down a new house rule or a CEO demanding that employees fall in line, the phrase “If you don’t like it, leave” is usually meant to silence dissent—but sometimes, those words are just an empty threat. So Reddit user Yeah_nah90 asked for stories about times when people decided to call the bluff and received thousands of descriptions of walkouts that completely changed the mood of the room.

#1

My great grandmother is notorious for being a mean old b***h. It was Thanksgiving at her house, and much of the extended family were there. She started harping on my mom’s cousin for something, like she always does, and my mom’s cousin was like, “Grandma, can’t we just have a nice dinner for once?” And Great Grandma was like, “If you don’t like it, leave!” And every last cousin, aunt, uncle, and all of their food disappeared to my aunt’s house. Lol.

Image credits: anon

#2

When I was a kid I stayed at a friend’s house for the weekend. My friend’s mother was one of those parents who, at the dinner table, required their kids to eat everything on their plate come hell or high water.

I had been served way too much food, and said that I can’t eat it all. The mother said to me, “you can either finish your food or leave the table.” I promptly left the table.

This totally blew the minds of my friend and his siblings. It had never occurred to them that leaving the table was actually a viable option.

When my mother picked me up the next day, my friend’s mother told her what had happened and said I was the rudest little boy. I think my mother was actually quite proud of me.

Turles5000:

My parents were like this growing up. I still clean my plate as an adult often which causes me to over eat. Its not a healthy way to raise children IMO, and although I don’t have extreme weight issues I can see how some people could develop issues.

Image credits: khendron

#3

Yup, at a potluck, we had a Karen who went on a power trip and made rules that only benefited her. She screamed ““If You Don’t Like It, Leave”, the other mothers, fathers, all picked up there kids, took their dishes from the pot luck and left. It was only the Karen and us security guards. We weren’t able to leave because we were on the job, however, we didn’t share our pizza with her.

Image credits: DukeBeekeepersKid

#4

My husband worked at a really toxic job for a while. As staff got fired or quit, they weren’t replaced (to cut costs) and instead the remaining 2 employees were worked to death. Finally, the owner (who was a s****y boss and terrible businessman) called a meeting with the 2 to try to force an attitude adjustment. The employees tried to be constructive and talk about things they saw that needed to be improved upon to make things work better, and of course this egotistical a*****e owner wouldn’t have it. He told them if they couldn’t handle the expectations that they were free to leavs. So they did. Both of them left immediately and never set foot in the store again. I don’t think the owner was expecting that at all – he expected them to grovel and beg to keep their jobs and thank him for the opportunity to work 70-hour weeks under his tyrannical rule.

My husband called me after that meeting and was so upset he couldn’t hardly tell me what happened. He was terrified- he was so sure I would be angry at him for quitting his job when we really weren’t in a position that I could support us. I wasn’t mad at all! I was so proud of him for not taking the s**t that was being doled out to him and doing what is best for his mental health. He’s a d**n good man and deserved better.

Msbakerbutt69:

I’d rather be slightly broke with a happy husband than rich with an unhappy one.

Image credits: HomemadeJambalaya

#5

A former industrial job I used to have said that during an all-hands meeting. We were understaffed, underpaid, and overworked, and everyone knew it. Instead of the 2/1 ratio of two machines to one operator for safety reasons, we’d have 4, 6, 8, because people were getting paid less than most retail jobs to bust their asses in some of the most disgusting work I’ve ever done. You’d come home covered in moldy coolant, metal shavings, and STINK. Machines started breaking down, because they’d never shut them down to perform maintenance on them, so we’d often have massive problems, which, of course, meant even more overtime to make up for the broken machines, and people started quitting.

Management’s response was to tell us that they expected us to work harder, because they couldn’t get more help in. One of my coworkers, who generally gave no f***s, asked, in front of everyone in that room, why they didn’t try raising the poor wages, and see if they could entice people that way. The response was “We’re not having that conversation right now. If you don’t like it, you can quit.”

Hoo, buddy, was that the wrong thing to say. As soon as word got out to the other shifts, what can only be called a f*****g exodus began. We lost half of each shift within the week. I stuck around for a few more weeks, until I had a conflict with my schooling at the time, since one of my classes got out about 30 minutes before my shift, 30 minutes away, so I warned them in advance that I might be a few minutes late one day a week, MAYBE, and got told that “I needed to decide what was more important, my school, or my job.” So I quit. And giggled my a*s off at the sign in the HR office that said we had an almost 80% turnover rate. Never did find out what happened to that hellhole, but I can’t imagine anything good with losing that many people. The poor HR rep seemed like she was just so f*****g done with everything, and seemed so very apologetic as she took my badge.

Image credits: anon

#6

I was the whistleblower at my workplace, I witnessed my manager mentally and physically ab**e a 101 year old woman (I worked in a care home) I raised the alarm, and staff above the manager didn’t deal with things quick enough and over worry of a bad name (press had gotten ahold of the story) they were trying to keep it quiet and were going to allow this manager back to work on a final warning.

We were a small team, about 8 of us.. when they told us that, all of us reached in to our bags and threw our notices at them, it was all of us, or her. A week or so later and them paying her £15k she was gone. Worst thing is, we were a charity care home, she basically got thousands and thousands of pounds for ab**ing a vulnerable elderly woman.

Anon:

You were incredibly restrained and correct in your response.
As an American after 5 years of taking care of my grandfather and grandmother and another three to four years of just taking care of my grandfather I would have whooped that lady’s a*s. I would have broke some kneecaps.

Image credits: ColdTeaSince2020

#7

My mother is well known for her Christmas/Easter/whatever tantrums. She threw a particularly good one when I was about 14, and yelled the infamous line.

My Uncle and Aunt piled themselves, their daughter, and myself and about 5 of my siblings into their 4WD, and we all left to go to their place, picking up KFC for lunch on the way.

Don’t know what kind of Christmas my mother had, but ours was pretty good in the end! So glad we didn’t get pulled over!

Image credits: TassieGal

#8

When I was in high school, a group of friends agreed to meet at a local pizza place after a Friday evening basketball game. Most of the group arrived before me and three of my friends, so when the four of us arrived, the hostess and server did not realize we were a part of the large group that was already filling the restaurant. (The students from our school represented about 75% of their now very full dining area.)

We were seated at the one available table in the middle of the room, received our menus, and were in the process of preparing our order, when my best friend asked the waitress for a napkin. She returned a moment later, gave him the napkins, and he responded with a friendly “Thank you!” I don’t know if she misheard him or what, but she immediately became angry and responded with a very harsh, “Stop giving me that attitude!” We were all taken aback, and I immediately stepped in to defend my friend, who was a naturally shy and quiet person. I explained he only told her thanks and did not have an attitude at all. She yelled at me, insisting that he was rude, and stormed away. The entire table had a moment of awkward silence, and then burst into laughter, along with several tables around us that had heard the exchange. It was all just so surreal. She literally got upset at our friend because he thanked her for bringing him a napkin.

But we quickly went back to preparing our order, until the manager approached the table and said that she had been told we were giving one of her waitresses a hard time. I explained what happened, and as I did, the rest of the dining room went quiet, as they had realized that something tense was taking place. Then the manager cut me off mid sentence, told me that she dealt with disrespectful teens like us all the time and was sick of it. She then told us that we could take our business elsewhere. So I agreed, and our table stood up to leave. And, almost as one, 75% of the customers in their dining room on that Friday evening stood up and walked out with us.

I will never forget the stunned look on that manager’s face as she watched hundreds of dollars of sales leave with us. It was the last time I ate there. And that was a pity, because I loved their pizza.

Image credits: difulp

#9

At an off-campus college party, the host – a tenor voice major in the music dept. – started playing Wagner and Verdi operas *full blast*.

When those attending asked him to play something else that they could all like, he said: “You all need to LEARN to like opera – if you won’t give it a fair try, you can always just leave!”

And with that, everyone left.

Image credits: anon

#10

Grade 8 language arts class. To preface this, I was never an aggressive student, generally the teachers pet, the person who if a teacher was away for the day would be tasked in their notes to the sub to be able to assist & give them directions.

The time: 20 some odd years ago shortly after the Columbine shooting (this context is critical to the he story.)

Location: middle of nowhere Alberta, a small country school.

So our regular teacher was out for the day and had left a note directing the sub to ask me if she had questions about what had been covered. Sub comes in reads note and opens the teacher’s Weekly planner. Then begins writing our words for the weekly spelling test on the board; except; she opened the wrong week, instead of the current week, she had opened the prior week. At this point being the goody two-shoes that I was (and much to my classmates dismay, although our teacher would have corrected us when she was back so it wouldn’t have helped them) I raised my hand and politely informed her that I believed she had gotten the page wrong as we had previously covered this material.

What happened next, I couldn’t make up. She lost her c**p, she started ranting about how teens in general and me specifically were a danger to her, how she didn’t know who were her friends and her enemies in the class (we’d never had this sub before), how she had every right to fear for her life. She then capped it off by saying she was the teacher and if we wanted to think in her classroom, well there was the door, we were welcome to leave.

I was never a popular child so I wasn’t really expecting one of the popular kids (and my sometime bully) to stand up collectively with everyone else, pull me to my feet and we all walked out.

Now I mentioned above that we attended a small country school, there was no place to go, so we just sat in the hallway until the principal came down to chew us out for not being in class. The sub was gone by the start of the next period and the principal taught the rest of our teacher’s classes that day.

Youre_late_for_tea:

The sub’s behavior was unacceptable, I do not mean to defend her, but maybe she just had bad classes over bad classes and reached a point where anything could’ve ticked her off. I hope she got help.

Image credits: anon

#11

When I worked third shift at Walmart the management tried to change a shirt policy overnight. They all the sudden decided that we HAD to wear blue collard shirts, and not blue t-shirts anymore.
One of the managers named Jackie(who was a total b***h) came up to my two friends, and myself, and told us we had to either go buy new shirts right then or go home. We left. Frozen/Dairy didn’t get done that night, and we got to go home and play Destiny all night. Next day they never said another word about our shirts. F**k Walmart by the way.

jpropaganda:

You still went into work after that and kept your jobs? Nice.

Image credits: anon

#12

Well I wasn’t here for this one unfortunately, but my high school English class had this scenario.
The senior AP English teacher was notorious in my graduating class for not really giving a d**n about a lot of the students. From the way I was told, they were going over quizzes to which the teacher started going over some vague subjective response and how it was wrong. The students started arguing and the conversation came full circle to where the teacher started agreeing with the students. Once he realized this he started backing off that answer and correcting students again, causing more frustration.

This resulted in a student saying, “Theres no point in learning this if we’re wrong even if we were right at one point.”

“Well if theres any of you who don’t find this valuable, you can stand up and leave the classroom.”

2 students of 28 remained. I was absent cause I was sick, but what a sight it would have been.

Image credits: Denocom

#13

I think it was 6th grade, we were all playing a game of truth or dare, but one of the really pervy boys starting daring the girls to kiss some of the other boys, or lay on them. All the girls told him to knock it off but he just said “if you don’t like it, leave the game” everyone AND I MEAN everyone (we had 14-17 people there) got up and left him there.

Image credits: Otherwise-KnownAsMe

#14

A math class in high school. All the math teachers were pretty chill, they knew the majority of kids hated math so they’d try to make it ‘fun’, wouldn’t be as strict as other teachers, and would treat us like adults – happy to just chat about any old thing as long as we tried our best and did the work. One day we had a student teacher come in and teach the class as part of her studies. Up until that point she’d been observing for a couple weeks, she wasn’t bad and she’d try to emulate the other teachers, and as an assistant teacher she was good.

Well, when it was her turn to teach alone it all went to s**t, she constantly lost the attention of everyone and was generally being a hard a*s and not really helping people who didn’t understand. Halfway through she flipped, didn’t like that she couldn’t control the class and just shouted at us all saying “If you don’t like it then you don’t have to be here!”. So there we were, it was a few seconds of us all thinking “wait, did she just tell us we could leave??” Then everyone got up and left. Our regular teacher was sitting at the side observing, he just looked exasperated af, and didn’t stop anyone, just told us all to have a good day and he’d see us next week. I don’t remember ever seeing the student teacher again.

Image credits: Bedlam_

#15

My dad. Without going into too much detail, he had gone back on an agreement we had and i was protesting, so he said “As long as you and your brother live under our roof, you obey our rules. Otherwise, you can leave.”

I was 22 years old and had my own fulltime job, so i said “ok then” and started packing right then and there. Found a place, moved out, and done. Dad basically was all surprisedpikachu.jpg lol it felt great.

Image credits: ult_me_senpai

#16

We had this college teacher who didn’t do his job diligently, always making us do projects and stuff but he never makes the effort of teaching us, so us student made a pact, we would talk to him during next session, if he agreed to start teaching the right way then good, if not we would all stand up and go out. He ended up saying “if you don’t like the way i teach you can go out”, so we did just that, needless to say he wasn’t expecting everyone to go out. We talked to the college principal, he then offered us the possibility to change the teacher.

Image credits: masschock99

#17

When Hastings Entertainment was committing s*****e, many of us in corporate raised the alarm about new short-sighted policies that would doom our stores. Our CEO sent out a corporate-wide email that more or less gave some spiel about the brand needing only “bold” people in leadership positions and if we didn’t like it we should email his assistant for a professional reference and resign.

Something like 40% of corporate resigned within the first month following this email (including myself). I think it was close to 65% within 6 months. Dozens of stores closed, they tried to sell the brand, and declared bankruptcy several years later.

Image credits: Nevermind04

#18

I once worked at a plant that sorted pallets. I worked like 16 to 18 hours a day (sometimes more off the clock) as time went on they demanded more and more work from us. By this time i was a manager. Well people were getting burned out getting sick or just plain stopped coming to work, so keeping workers was nearly impossible. The straw that broke the camels back came when a higher up came in from out of state and informed us out pay was going to go down and we were expected to put out 20 percent more work (this not only was an impossible feat but was asking way to much of people sorting 50 to 70 pound pallets by hand for 16 hours a day) we said that it wasnt fair amd was there any way to at least keep out current pay. Was firmly told if we didnt like it then we could leave. We looked around at each other grabbed our name badges and threw them at this higher up and walked out and went to a local bar. Last i heard that plant was shut down for overworking staff and underpaying them.

Image credits: luciferwilson66

#19

In high school, when it came time to dissect baby pigs, one of my friends would just quietly sit and sob while trying to dissect (*big* animal lover, couldn’t stand it). Our teacher was incredibly rude about it, being really insensitive and all the other kids caught on, too. She basically told us that if we didn’t like it, the door was right there. So we all got up and left, one by one, goggles still on and everything. I think like only 2 kids stayed behind.

Image credits: hotdogflavoredgerm-x

#20

At my old job they put in place a new policy, which at the time we didn’t realize that it was probably illegal( i won’t say the name of the company) but basically in simple terms was if you had to miss work for ANYTHING, the pointed you, and three full points was termination. One of my co-workers had jury duty, so he had to miss. Pointed him for it. My wife went into labor, I got pointed. A few other people had unavoidable instances and were point. Eventually, we all had HR come down to the factory so we could express our complains, and the lady say ” if you don’t like it, find another job”. Not even 5 minutes after she said that, 45 people of a 55-person crew left THAT DAY. Me included.

Image credits: anon

#21

I was working at McDonald’s. I wasnt a manager but I convinced all the crew on my shift to show up at the meeting because they were discusing Corona Virus hazzard pay and there was a rumor that only the managers were getting hazzard pay and we were 3 months into this covid c**p. At the meeting she said crew were only getting $50 and every manager was getting $450. Now that’s not fair, i understand then getting mkre because of their position but I starting banging on my table and shouting FAIR HAZZARD PAY!!! And everyone, including a fair amount of the managers started hitting the tables. And then here comes our boss with the line “IF YOU DONT LIKE IT THEN LEAVE” I got up and everyone followed me out that door and i shouted DAIRY QUEEN IS HIRING and we flooded Dairry Queen and filled out paper applications lol.

#22

I was born into the cult that is the religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW). I was told from a young age that I was only permitted to live with my mother if I was a good and faithful JW, if I wasn’t committed to the big J then I was out on my a*s. I remember one large argument I had with my mother in the car when she suddenly pulled over and screamed at me to get out and never come back because I wasn’t being a good enough little JW. I refused because I was a scared little child.

Fast forward to my teen years and she still made it clear that it was Jehovah’s way or the highway. So I left. It was a f*****g massive drama. My mother called my older siblings and ‘elders’ from the congregation (church group) and they all came over to try and talk me out of it. It was this huge ordeal, but I stuck to my guns and left that very night with a suitcase full of my stuff and my school backpack.

I already had a little unit lined up and had already paid the security bond on it. I moved in with a friend from school who was also having some trouble at home. That was probably the biggest defining moment of my life so far. If I hadn’t moved out then I’d still be a d**n JW and would have a COMPLETELY different life to the one I have and love now.

JW’s suck.

#23

I went to a concert (not a huge band, local stuff) and the opener was a*s. Like terrible. Like I felt bad terrible. Everyone was booing. He finally broke down and said “if you don’t like my music than you should leave”. NO JOKE everyone started leaving.

Some people stayed behind because they wanted to see the main performer, but when she came out she just said “I’m so so sorry” and left. It was hilarious. And sad. And Hilarious.

#24

My aunt’s 40th birthday. It had been a long day and we were set to eat dinner but she decided that she wanted to open gifts. My mom tried to explain that everyone was hungry and to just wait until we were done eating or at the very least until everyone had a plate. She starts getting pissy and saying that it’s her day and that if we don’t like it we can leave. Now my dad. Not too fond of my aunt for reasons I won’t get into here. Gets up and walks out. Well this started a chain reaction. The only people left were my mother and grandmother. My aunt starts yelling and getting upset to which my grandmother replies. “Maybe don’t be a b***h?” It’s been ten years and she has never acted that way again.

#25

New management was hired and took over scheduling (from me, who was covering for a now-gone manager) without understanding any of the intracacies of scheduling. After two weeks we had an all-staff meeting to address grievances based on her incredibly poor method of scheduling, and she refused to back down, dropping the famous ultimatum.

Out of a staff of 40 or so employees, I think maybe half a dozen stayed.

#26

Yes, or pretty close to it at least!

I was a founding member (and treasurer) of a skydiving society at my university in Aberystwyth. I myself am teetotal, but I still went out on the weekly social nights which, in Aberystwyth, were just spent in the local bars and pubs as there is nothing else to do there at night. I am pleased to say that my owning a car (so giving people lifts to the drop zone), plus my being teetotal (designated driver/nanny on nights out), plus my house being close to the nearest dropzone (FOUR HOURS away, just south of Birmingham) and letting the club sleep there on occasion, had made me rather well liked.

We went to one of our usual favourite haunts, Lord Beechings, only this time the owner was there behind the bar (with one other staff member who looked rather glum) serving and was in a foul mood. All 25 or so of us went in and ordered drinks. He served 23 of us, then ID’d my friend, even though he was clearly over 18, a student, with 24 other students, a regular, the other staff member vouched for him etc. Made him walk back to halls to get his passport before he would serve him. This was already eliciting grumbles from the club, but everyone accepted pubs had to be careful about restrictions and carried on. Then I asked for a glass of water (which he was legally required to provide, I might add).

He replied “I’m not muddying my glasses for some p***k who isn’t paying”. I simply raised my eyebrows, as I had never encountered such a response to a request for a glass of water before. After a moment for it to set in that this guy wasn’t making a weird joke, he really wasn’t going to give me a glass of water, I turned around to the room of 24 other people I swirled my finger in the air and shouted “Skydiving club, drink up! This a*****e won’t serve me, so we’re leaving!”

Everybody drank up immediately and we all left. The skydiving club never went there again whilst I was a member, and everyone else I told the story to avoided it as well.

#27

Had a teacher nobody liked pull the old “if you don’t want to behave, you can leave my classroom” on a classmate. The whole class got up and left.

Things hadn’t been going well in this class since he had started teaching us. The main problem was that he was a really bad teacher – like, he seemed to have no knowledge on his own subject (History), or at least was incredibly bad at transferring his knowledge. We didn’t have any respect for him, and he tried to keep us in line by being extremely strict, but in an unfair way. Wouldn’t let anyone ask questions anymore (because he could never answer them), screamed at students if they quietly asked their neighbour for a pencil, that sort of stuff.

I don’t remember what my classmate did that angered the teacher, but it was something minor. We were all fed up with him. So when he told my classmate to just leave, we all did. Felt really rebellious and like I was part of a bigger plan or something, it was great.

We got into trouble for it, but also got the teacher fired so it was worth it.

#28

My lecturer wanted us to have an extra class (online) after the exams because we had missed a lesson during the semester. We asked him if he could at least move it to the afternoon but he insisted it be at 9am. So everyone logged into classroom but only two people were answering his questions, he then decided to take the register and everyone was present. Then he said, ” I’m not forcing anyone to be here, if you don’t want to participate in the lesson, go!” Everyone logged out immediately except me because I had gone to the bathroom, when I came back, I found him calling for my name. He later logged out and sent me the ppt of the lesson.

#29

Every year the military has this event they host named The Warrior Games. It’s like the olympics for men and women who were injured while serving. I’m a decent cyclist so I was selected to represent the Marine Corps team in that event. I’m not sure where they hold the event these days but the year I was selected they flew us out to Colorado Springs. When I got there I quickly realized that 99% of the Marines competing were still active duty. I had retired a few years prior so it was weird being around Marines again.

Almost immediately after arriving the senior leaders and officers in charge began demanding that I get my haircut and to shave my beard. At first I laughed it off and thought they were joking. Turns out they were quite serious. The lady who was in charge of the Marine team was a Major and she took me off to the side and “ordered” me to get a haircut. I reminded her that I had retired a few years prior and was no longer required to abide by active military grooming standards.

Then a lightbulb went off in her head and with a smirk she said “well you either get a haircut or you can go home. Your choice.” So I smirked back and said “guess I’m flying home!” They had already prepurchased our airplane tickets home so all I did was call Delta, explain what happened, and the lady on the other end transferred my ticket to a flight home the next day. I had taken a few weeks off work to attend this event so I just went back home and enjoyed my time off with my hair and beard.

#30

My old management team had rearranged my whole schedule/made a lot of changes and taken me off one of the areas I worked hard to get into better shape to a start from scratch again somewhere new. Handing my other project over to newer team members. They announced this at a meeting with everyone present where it soon transpired I was the only one who wasn’t aware in advance of these changes. I went to speak privately with a manager and explained they had changed all my working day/hours and placements without even mentioning it could be a possibility- alongside some other things. She exclaimed ‘this is your job and you will go where we tell you when we tell you. If you don’t like that then leave’ I handed my notice in. They spent a while asking my to reconsider but to be honest this was the straw that broke the camels back and I’m so glad I left. Although I do remember taking a walk later that evening and thinking to myself ‘d**n I’m technically unemployed’ but I solved it before my notice period ended.

#31

Something like this happened to me in my previous HOA (circa 15 years ago now).

We were at a board meeting, in the HOA President’s unit, and he was power-tripping and trying to illegally ab**e a particular owner he didn’t like personally. When the rest of the board wouldn’t go along with what he wanted, he basically said “fine, I quit, GET OUT!”. We did, and reconvened at my unit, where we quickly decided to do the appropriate thing.

Older people can be quite the d***s, in my experience.

#32

When I was still in school, we had this great and fun teacher that really did his best for us. Unfortunately, we had some serious bulls**ts in our class, not paying attention and just talking through him. I felt so sorry for him.

One day he had enough and, still kinda calmly, tells anyone not interested to just leave. Those s***s didn’t think twice and just stood up and left. What’s more sad is that almost everybody blindly followed those s***s. Even people that I never expected that to do.

I sat there probably with 2 others. That’s the moment I realized I’m never ever going to follow blindly like sheep anymore. I never really done this, but I was often afraid to walk a different path.

Even 18+ students, literally paying for their study themself, can be serious ungrateful s***s. I know it’s bad but I secretly hope they end up without certificate and a sh**load of debt from that study.

#33

Back in the mid-90s, a co-worker was under a great deal of stress. He was performing a low-skill role in a high-skill industry during a tremendous crunch that was very important to the company. Entry-level stuff. More a job that’s a stepping stone than a career. Despite that, he was an integral member of the team with institutional knowledge/background that couldn’t be replaced overnight. Actually, it couldn’t be replaced at all. During a team meeting to go over status, progress, etc., he asked our boss for some help as he was overwhelmed and simply couldn’t keep up anymore. Boss said, “If you can’t handle it, there’s the door.” Dude just stood up and, without a single word, he walked right out.

Boss ended up having to do his job until completion of the initiative.

#34

Have not seen it, but was told. In one camp, where I worked back in 2018, a year before the camp was super understaffed, and the pay was s**t. People started messing up because they were tired, fed up, and didn’t give a s**t.
Than, the camp director requested a meeting to see what was the problem.
And instead of helping the staff who held the camp from falling apart, he started to insult, bellitle and threathen to them. Like a f*****g tirade. The last thing he said “Who doesn’t like it here, can get up and leave”…
Everyone except the managers and the director walked out, and then the s**t hit the fan. People started to leave, and by the end of the week, the camp was almost empty.
The company was then forced to hire much more people, give them a minimum paycheck of a average pay in a state, and the director? Who knows where he went, but was fired.

#35

When I was in high school I was part of a FRC Robotics team. The coach decided that no one who missed a practice during the last week of the season would be allowed to attend the tournaments. Of course the band class had a mandatory concert during one of the meetings. So when I brought up that I wouldn’t skip the graded band concert the coach gave the ultimatum. About a third of the team got up and left, including all the captains. Coach backed out of that really fast.

#36

I don’t know if this counts, but this happened with my siblings and I, and my mom.

She was a terrible parent (not a*****e enough to get child services fully involved, but they had visited the house a few times. Wonder how much abuse kids have to endure before they get off their a*s, but apparently being r***d by your stepdad isn’t a cause for alarm). She always had a “if you don’t like living here, move out” attitude.

So, as soon as my siblings and I were able to? Yeah, we moved out.

We unfortunately don’t get along at all (one of us became a perpetrator in the abuse, another stuck too close to home for me to risk further contact), but the eldest of us left in their early 20s, the middle child left about as soon as they graduated (moved back for a few months but left again), and I moved several states away and never looked back.

We all didn’t like it and left, and yes, our mom frequently tries asking why (she asks the middle child the most as she’s the only one who keeps contact with our mom; I’ve cut her off years ago, as did the eldest). As if 18 years of a**se isn’t a good enough reason to say “f**k it” and dip.

#37

From 1996-1999 I worked for Burger King. It was my first job and I stayed because they were close to home, my friends worked there, and they were very accommodating for my buddy school (and then university) schedule.

At one point they fired our favorite manager, Kevin. We were never really told why, he was just gone one day. They replaced him with a complete t**d of a human.

The t**d started forcing us to sell food that policy said was too old to sell. He cut down on ketchup portions for carryout fries. He started short staffing us so things weren’t getting cleaned correctly. Scheduled students when they had class. Just a general jerk who didn’t know what he was doing.

Burger King didn’t realize Kevin had an entire well-oiled crew who was loyal to him. They told us to deal with the new manager instead of trying to fix his issues. So we left.

All of us.

The entire crew save a few nights shift closers who had to have a job walking distance from their apartments.

Kevin became the store manager of a newly opened pizza place and needed to hire a whole crew. God news for him is he didn’t have any trouble finding one that one what they were doing and worked well together.

So that was the day I went from burger maiden to pizza princess. Stayed there 3 years, too, until I got through college.

#38

When my parents divorced my dad said “fine, if you think i’m so awful you can go live with mom.”

Guess what I and all my siblings did.

#39

It’s the last thing my really wicked mother ever said to me, when I was 17.

She worked for a small business college and demanded that I attend that school after graduating high school. They had programs that were for Travel and Tourism, Administration, etc. The average age of the student at this 2 year college was 32. I remember thinking (at that time) ‘I don’t wanna go to college with a bunch of OLD people’. All my friends were attending four year schools, universities, etc. I knew i was going to have to pay for school on my own, so I wanted to enjoy it and have it be on my own terms.

She told me that was my lone path and ‘if you don’t like it, you can leave.’

I dipped out. Age 17. Had nowhere to go. Prayed that a friend would let me stay at his place for a few nights to chill.

Next time I saw her, was 12 years later. She was in a coma-post CVA secondary to diabetes and a myriad of other health issues. She died two days later.

I now have my doctorate, and a great life. But also, a head full of memories that no one deserves to have from a childhood run by a hateful b***h.

#40

Oh man, at my last job. I was salaried, and already working 8:30-5 five days a week, plus 20 or so hours of overtime. the boss decided to “change our roster” which was basically changing it to 8-6 Every week day, along with every second Saturday. When I asked if he was going to pay me for those extra 8-10 hour a week, he said I was salaried and he didn’t have to, so if I don’t like the hours I can always leave.

So two days later I handed in my resignation, moved interstate and life is way better now.

#41

This is actually pretty much the way that me, my sister, my mom and I managed to get away from my father.

Me and him had gotten into an argument (a rather stupid one but it blew up nonetheless) which resulted in him grabbing my arm and throwing a whole pitcher of iced tea at me.

This was apparently the last straw for my mom, who had already been planning a divorce. Fast forwards a few *weeks* of later, and he tries to kick my mom out of the house. At two in the morning. Absolutely screaming his head off, throwing stuff around, trying to pack my mom’s clothes into a suitcase. My mom basically told him that me and my sister didn’t want to be there either, and he said that we could leave too if we wanted.

Somehow he was actually surprised when we left. I also *distinctly* remember him saying “I don’t want this.” as we walked out the door.

#42

Grew up in a church with a nice pastor. He was funny, personable, and approachable. Eventually, he retired, and his son-in-law took over. He was entitled, opinionated, controlling, and an all around a*****e.

One day during a sermon, he basically said, if you don’t agree with me (meaning his views and leadership style for the church) then you should leave.

Half the church left. Many more trickled out over time.

#43

I was once at a pep rally in high school where the vice principal said, “If you’re not going to stand up and cheer, then leave!” So about 20-30 students walked out and went home.

They were somehow surprised people did it. The rule after that was changed to requiring students to sit in the cafeteria, which I enjoyed.

#44

I had a college professor do this once – was lecturing us about how poorly we all did on the assignment, how we all sucked and called us stupid wastes of oxygen.

We tried to point out that his emails were confusing in some cases contradictory, and the scope of the assignment changed 3 weeks before it was due.

So he said it and we all left, and in the class next week the assistant dean for the program was there, took down our side of the story, and then dismissed us for the day.

Normal prof returned for the following class but had a grad student attending all the classes for the rest of the semester and all emails were cc’d to the assistant dean.

#45

The boss telling us we still had to work 16 hour shifts.
The ENTIRE workforce just dropped tools and left. It cost them millions for that little “f**k you” from the bosses. By the next day, shifts were reduced and more staff hired.

#46

Not exactly but my sister had a habit of picking fights with people and when it wasn’t going her way, she’d tell them she was removing them from her life. She’s done it to boyfriends, long time friends, sorority sisters…she did it to me twice.

The first time, I rolled my eyes because she’s younger than me. After the second time my sister told me “I’m removing you from my life, you’re toxic!” and unfriended me and told family I was toxic (in reality, I wasn’t letting her be toxic, selfish, and under the influence of whatever she was on with/to me, my spouse, or my kids, so she decided to was a good idea to threaten us) I said okay, fine.

Per her usual routine, after a few weeks she came around and wanted to pretend she never said the things she said I didn’t respond. She claimed it all was a joke and she had a right to be in my kids lives. I haven’t spoken to her in two years. I honestly do not miss her drama and it was the best decision for my family. It highlighted how bad the generational dysfunction was in my family and how it was expected to just overlook bad behavior and people please for everyone else’s comfort.

I realized that I didn’t want my kids to repeat that cycle. I vowed to always put my kids first. I’m not popular in my family right now but I’ve never been happier and this was the first year I got to enjoy holidays without having panic attacks or dread. When someone walks out of your life, let them.

#47

My boss said “don’t like it? Try finding a job like this one with better pay and benefits!” So I Google it and now I just had my 14th year anniversary at the “new” job.

#48

Unless you’re a WoW raider this probably doesn’t apply, but I’ve been in a number of raid formations, especially back in the day, where the Raid Leader announces some wonky loot rules that disproportionately benefit himself/close friends. And would then say “If you don’t like it, leave”… yeah… we left.

#49

I had an insufferable supervisor once and we’d have these 15 minute, pre-shift meetings. Dude would just stand in there and lord over everybody for the duration and talk about how bad we were doing. The phrase “we suck” was one of his favorites. Finally one day, he’s really on one and summons the testicular fortitude to say if you don’t like it, there’s the door. His second in command got up said “f*** this” and walked out. He stood there, stunned for about 5 second and then ran out the door after him. He later ended up having some mental instability and quitting. The second in command is now the supervisor. I survived all of these meeting by default assuming he wasn’t talking to me.

#50

I work for a hoisting/transport contracting company at a large refinery and for the most part its very relaxed. Basically it’s more cost effective to have more than enough people just incase something goes wrong so a lot of the time we just sit around waiting for something to do.

My foreman for some reason doesn’t like this and thinks we all have it too easy (even though he is totally redundant and literally not needed at all here) and was telling one of the guys one day that “maybe he needs to go to the yard (our hq/main office we are dispatched from and all our equipment is stored) and see what a *real job* is like”.
So he did.
He called the office and transfered there permanently and our foreman on site lost his f*****g mind. He didn’t even say anything about it for weeks but we all knew what happened. One day I even asked if (guy that left) was on vacation or something. He just mumbled “yeah something like that”.

#51

It wasn’t everyone because it only applied to me, but I was working at a fast food restaurant in high school when we got a new manager who tried to be a hard*ss and enforce every rule to the letter of the law. Most of these rules were irrelevant and had been ignored by all previous managers, so he caught out a lot of people who had been there for years and didn’t even know what they were doing was technically against the rules. I got in trouble because I pulled out my phone to read a text from my mom (this was 2004, at the time my mom would’ve never texted unless it was important) and technically using your phone on the line was against the rules. I thought he just wanted to look at what kind of phone I had because he said “Hey, can I see that?” but after he got it he locked it in the office and told me I couldn’t have it until the end of my shift. I told him he had to give me my property back immediately and he said “if you don’t like it you can quit,” so I did. A few folks tried to talk him down but he was steadfast and refused. I found out later that every other manager told him he was a f*****g idiot. He didn’t last long.

Fun bonus: my mom’s phone had gotten a virus and the text it sent me (and everyone else in her phonebook) was a picture of a gummy bear with a p***s.

#52

Many moons ago, when I was 13 or 14, I was pretty active in the Boy Scouts. I had come up through Cub Scouts and it was a great way for me to spend time with my Dad and friends, learn new skills, and overall…experience life.

My Dad had always been involved in some form or fashion throughout these years in Cub Scouts as an assistant scoutmaster or even just as a helpful parent. It was nice. He just wanted to be involved and spend time having fun with me, his only son.

In case you’re unaware, when going from Cub Scouts (younger scout groups called packs and dens) to Boy Scouts (older scout groups called troops), you generally…at least in our local area…change groups completely, meeting location, etc. The local Boy Scout troop we joined after Cub Scouts seemed warm and welcoming…at first.

After the first year, it became apparent there was a lot of in-fighting between assistant scoutmasters and parents over activities and outings, and not enough top-down leadership from the Troop’s Head Scoutmaster. This filtered down many times to the scouts themselves creating cliques within the troop. The fun was over. My dad did a quiet Homer Simpson melting into the bushes meme and resigned. Even then, he was still very supportive of my involvement in the Scouts, but he didn’t want to be a part of it any longer.

6 – 8 months later, I’m working towards one of the many achievements in Boy Scouts, along with many of the other scouts. So the assistant scoutmasters start assigning higher ranking scouts to lower-ranking scouts to advise and lead us towards this achievement. And I get assigned one of the holier-than-thou scouts whose father was one of the worst offenders.

So this scout starts assigning a pretty aggressive schedule of goals to complete by a certain date, none of which was really achievable, especially with all of my activities (school, martial arts, motorsports, scuba diving…I was a fairly active teen…) I push back with suggestions on what I could actually accomplish within a reasonable amount of time. He wasn’t having any of it.

Finally, he makes the abrasive comment, “You’re going to have to get your priorities straight!” To which I look straight, deadpan at him and respond, “You know…you are absolutely right.” No emotion and no judgment in my statement.

I closed my scouting book, pack my stuff into my bag, get up, push my chair in, and walk out of the building with him still sitting there wondering what just happened and how to respond. Waited outside for the rest of the scout meeting for my parents to pick me up.

3 or 4 of my friends dropped out within a month as well, which I had nothing to do with.

I learned a great life lesson that day that has served me well especially throughout high school. Learn to spot toxic people and toxic situations and avoid them. You’ll be a much happier and relaxed person.

#53

I once witnessed a couple on the street fighting. The woman was going on and on and the poor fellow looked so dejected. He said something that I couldn’t catch, and she screamed “Fine! If you want to then just leave!”Well, he turned around and walked away in the opposite direction. She stood there with her mouth open, in shock.

#54

Ok, maybe not everyone left but…

My mother in law got me involved into a charity. First I was a volunteer, then a secretary to the Board and back to volunteer again. Things started changing, people who got on the Board were no longer true to the organization’s mission and at times ethically challenged (i.e. using high school volunteers for the charity in a political campaign, using artwork obtained through contest beyond scope of the contest rules without pay).

Anyway, during one of the meetings, which was meant to be planning for a big annual event but was more like hazing to be honest, I asked myself why the hell am I allowing anyone to treat me like whipping girl? So I openly asked the Board members if this tone is the new standard of the organization’s interactions with people volunteering their time and talent to them. The President told me I was being impertinent and rude, and if I “could not stand the heat to get out of kitchen”. To which I replied that I quit volunteering. He told me then I had to submit my resignation in writing in order for it to be acceptable. I sat down, scribbled my resignation on a notebook page and presented him with it. He told me he won’t accept it because it was not submitted according to the bylaws. I told him he was incorrect and reminded him I wrote the bylaws (they were to cheap to hire a lawyer to write them), and they clearly state that volunteer resignations do not require Board approval. And I left. I was to pissed to drive home, so I went to a cafe across the street. Few minutes later two other long time volunteers and all the high school volunteers walked in… They all did quit effective immediately as well.

The annual event did not take place. The Board was sued by the entity it was supposed to be solely supporting for mismanagement and misappropriation of funds. The charity later involuntarily dissolved by the state due to reporting failures. Custodian was appointed who allocated the remaining funds.

In hind sight, it was the right time to jump the ship. For me best part was, the Board let the insurance laps (guess who normally kept track of the renewals?), so the legal expenses and part of the judgement went out of their own pockets. Talk about heat in the kitchen…

#55

Not everyone but.

Owner of a small town bar I worked at in Washington got drunk in said bar and started yelling at me in front of customers and all. This guy was notorious for being kinda weird and didn’t like that I was working at another place in Oregon 45 minutes away. I told him he was overreacting, he told me if I really thought that I could leave, so I grabbed my bar tools and left 1/3 of the way through my shift.

#56

I used to be the co-owner and station manager for a small online radio station. We were all-digital, so I rarely met any of our staff in person, and we were online 24/7, so if I was awake I was pretty much always working. We had a dedicated team of assistant station managers–about six of them, in charge of various things–and we would have once-weekly meetings with me, the ASMs, and the other co-owner. None of us were paid. This was strictly a volunteer gig. It cost the co-owner and I money to keep the station on the air, but it was a labor of love.

At one point I began to get close to one of the ASMs and we started dating. The co-owner of the station got jealous, and began to give him s**t about his work, demanding that he redo graphics and coding over and over and over even when it was perfectly fine. He laid into the ASM at one of our weekly staff meetings and I lost it. I told him that he needed to stop his behavior or I was going to walk. “Fine,” he said. “This is my station. If you don’t like the way I run it, leave.”

I quit on the spot. So did half of the assistant station managers. Then a large number of the DJs. Within two years, the whole thing had to shut down because no one could work with my former co-owner, because he was a petty tyrant who had to have things his way and couldn’t let people live their lives.

I’ve never felt such petty glee as when I saw their “Off the Air” blog post.

#57

Late 90’s framing/building a multimillion $ house.

The 5 of us framers hadn’t been paid in 3 weeks and the boss promised that with the last payment from the builder we would all get paid. But little did he know all of the bill collectors were showing up at the job looking for him, so we knew there would be no money left for us.

The guys on my crew were the sort you don’t cross, they were actually talking about dragging him out in the woods and shooting him. So I confronted him about the money and the fact that I knew about all of the people he promised money to. He basically told me to pound sand, that if I didn’t like it, leave.

Well I wasn’t going without my back pay so I talked to the builder that night. Promised him we would stay and finish the house (another few days of work) if he promised to pay the last draft in cash, with us present. He agreed.

The end of the week rolls around and we finish up. The boss shows up to collect the final payment for the job at the job trailer. When he walks in we are all sitting there, he turned white as a ghost. The builder hands him an envelope full of cash and excuses himself. I ask for our pay and the pay of all the guys, had all the numbers written down for him. The big guy on the crew had already positioned himself between the boss and the door. He paid, he paid every last cent he owed us and walked out with a couple hundred dollars left. He had no more money coming in so I have no idea what happened to him after that.

As we were leaving the trailer, the big guy thanked me for getting his money as he pulled up his shirt to show me his 44 magnum. I almost s**t my pants knowing what could have gone down. Haven’t seen any of these guys or the boss since that night.

TLDR: Boss said if we don’t like it leave, we got our money and left, all of us.

#58

Broke up with bf/fiancé of four years that way.

Him: “Well if you can’t change, maybe we should break up!”

Me: “actually yeah, I do think we should break up.”

And that’s how I left (after years of emotional abuse and gaslighting, of course).

#59

My roomie works at a grocery chain that rhymes with PlafeDay. He has run into a common issue with middle managers in grocery: once they make a decision they NEVER go back on it because that would be showing weakness.

He was transferred to his current location because one of his coworkers physically assaulted him. The guy, let’s call him Rob, has a long history of this sort of behavior, and every time it happens they just transfer him to a new store or transfer his victim-of-the-week out. They generally don’t tell the new store’s manager why they did this.

So it was announced that Rob was getting transferred to my roomie’s store. Roomie has been with the chain for… oh… 15 years or so? He’s a lifer, full time night crew. They leave him alone and he does the work of 3 people.

Roomie and some other people familiar with Rob go to management, explain why this is unacceptable. Management basically tells them “too bad, the transfer is filed.” They told roomie he could work days if it was a problem. You know, change his schedule with a 12 hour shift after 15 years of being nocturnal. No big deal.

It turns out you can take vacation pay and even claim benefits if you go on stress leave due to a hostile/unsafe work environment. Roomie, a cashier who was getting moved to give Rob a slot, and amusingly Rob himself all went on stress leave. Roomie even lawyered up since the Union wasn’t doing s**t for him even though the management was breaking clear rules in their agreement with how they were scheduling.

Anyway eventually they caved and reversed the transfers, and now that manager is getting – you guessed it – transferred to another store.

#60

I have a a few. A couple that immediately came to mind:

I was in college and on cheer squad. I was working retail part time. I asked my boss to work around my cheer schedule. He refused because “cheerleading is not a sport.” He was working around other employee extracurriculars. He said if I didn’t like it, leave. I said ok. He back peddled so fast. Kept the job and was able to cheer.

Another job. I was up for a big promotion. I was told it was mine. At the last minute, my boss gave it to the woman who worked under me because the boss heard a rumor I might be moving within the next year. Boss didn’t talk to me or question the validity of the rumor. It wasn’t true. Went to the boss’ office and she was a complete witch about it. She said it, if you don’t like it leave. So, I did. Right then. I can still see the look on her face. It left my team in a bind. She was not expecting me to just walk out right there and then. Found out later that the person who got the promotion wasn’t working out, and that several of the our clients–who I’d established relationships with–jumped ship because they didn’t like the other person.

#61

When I was in college, I worked at a retail store. I had been there for about a year, and the old manager took a job at a new store in a different market. District manager decided that an outside hire was the best call since the the other assistant manager and myself had literally been there the same amount of time. I was supposed to be a part-time assistant and, let’s call him “W”, would have the full time assistant spot. I wasn’t thrilled, but whatever, I understood the choice.

New manager shows up, he’s never worked a day in retail and/or management. Brags about how easy this is because he worked at a tire recycling plant before this. We’ll call him “K”.

So K completely lied on his resume and interview. But it’s a small retail store in a small market. The district really didn’t care if we turned out a huge profit, more of a “break even or close” kinda mentality.

W had a medical issue, came in with a dr’s note, couldn’t work for like 2 weeks because of a surgery. Instead of shouldering the load, K tells me “you’re the new full-time assistant.” I ask about a raise since I’m going FT, crickets. I ask about benefits, crickets. I ask for the keys to the deposit drop box, crickets. So he starts scheduling me like 55-60 hr weeks, outside the holidays, 4-5 doubles a week, open to close. Really not making a ton of sense to me, but I’m just working, getting by, using the extra money to pay off my student loans while I’m in school.

Summer ends, classes start, and the dude keeps making schedules that we have to adjust. Scheduling me to work during classes, which shouldn’t have been hard to avoid…I literally had classes Tuesday and Thursday from 8A to 1P and that’s it. Don’t schedule me then and we’re fine.

About 2 weeks before holiday season, we’re supposed to have annual reviews, K says he can’t do it because he’s only been here for 6 months. Tells me to call District. So I call district, and I’m told that my numbers are terrible, especially on days when K works. We get to the raise portion and I’m offered a 2% raise. I’m making $12.50, working FT hrs, I poke around and find out that the same role one town over is making $15.50. So I call back to the DM, push this topic again. He tells me “for a part time assistant, you’re making good money. You need to stop b*tching and do the d**n job.” So I tell him, I’m full-time. He says I’m not. Needless to say, I’m heated. So I go to K, ask if he still has me as Part-time. He says “yeah, that’s what we agreed on.” I’m working full-time hrs and just getting s**t on here.

Side note: why numbers were so bad, at the end of the days we would work together, he’d go back in the system, review my largest transactions, biggest add-ons, etc, and code the transactions to the store acct number, which then defaults to his acct since he was the highest ranking person to work that day.

About a month later I went to go check my schedule, I was supposed to have a whole week off, we have a schedule for 2 weeks at a time. I’m going to be in finals week. K had scheduled me during 2 finals. The class was one section for each class, I couldn’t just take the exam with another class. So he says “sorry but you can either work, or quit. I can’t be here, I’m going to Mexico with my wife for her company retreat.” I said, well then the store will have to close for those hrs, that’s not my fault, I had requested off and you chose to ignore it. He goes out on the sales floor in front of customers, calling me an “entitled little b***h” says “you should thank me for this job. You’ll never f*****g use that degree” just a bunch of s**t like that. So I waited, the week came and he didn’t change the schedule, I told him, if he didn’t change the schedule then tough s**t, I wasn’t coming in and ruining my future for that. He didn’t change it still, so I dropped my keys off with him Sunday night at close, told him to kiss my a*s, walked out and got a lifetime ban from that specific location.

TLDR: my boss was a lying piece of s**t, so I quit at the most inconvenient time possible for him to deal with it. Sucks to suck.

#62

Working in IT in the late 90’s before the bubble burst.
one of our Directors had a big meeting and was pissed that people were leaving for higher paying better jobs.
So she said if people didn’t like it at the company they should leave.
About a month later about 30% of her reports had left.
The company ended up firing her and her replacement was intent on trying to keep people from leaving.

#63

My dad used to say that when we were kids, and obviously as children/ young teenagers we couldn’t just leave.

Until he was getting on with some usual b******t when I was 16, he said those words.

I got up, grabbed enough clothes to keep warm for the night and marched out there door.

That was 16 years ago. He’s since tried reaching out himself, through my siblings or other family members, and I haven’t given him a response, not even a peep.

#64

Not quite everyone leaving but I attended Edgefest in Barrie one year on Canada Day. The band Cake was playing on the main stage a few acts before the closer who was Nickelback at the height of “How you remind me”‘s popularity.

Cake seemed to be pissed off that many Nickelback fans were present and started making a bunch of anti-Canada jokes. On Canada day this was a recipe for disaster so some water bottles started to be tossed towards the stage. After one got a bit too close, the lead singer of Cake stopped in the middle of a song and told the crowd “if any of us gets hit by a bottle we will leave the stage and not come back”. I swear about 10000 water bottles simultaneously got chucked at the stage and they were booed right off.

#65

Yeah me at a factory job I worked at for all of a month. Shifts were supposed to be 10-6 Sunday night through Thursday night. What they ACTUALLY were was 10-7/8 7 days a week. My supervisor told me on one of my last days there “If you think you can find a better job that pays more go do it then!” So I did. Went on vacation for thanksgiving and they called saying we had to work. Said nah, yall gotta work and hung up. Also not that it was anything like physically exhausting but they only gave us two 15 minute breaks during the shift, and I was expected to makeup the work of others if I finished my own.

#66

I used to work in an electronics store and the sales staff would routinely bend the truth or just outright lie to get a sale. I wasn’t fond of that and when I corrected someone’s lie to a customer I was told by a senior member of staff that If I “don’t like the heat, get out the kitchen”

So I got my coat and f****d off home.

#67

Working for a telco recruitment company years ago we had one of the senior management come over from America. It was a pretty harsh and unforgiving sales environment and he basically ended up having a mini breakdown complete with full on office rant on the sales floor, which led to him declaring ‘your either with me or against me’. He then proceeded to tape a line down the office and stand firmly on one side before repeating his call to battle. Unfortunately he remained there on his tod in total silence looking like a proper Billy no mates. He swiftly departed the office and disappeared back to the hotel and subsequently Texas and was never seen again by the London team. Ended up being swiftly exited out of the company on the quiet. No idea what happened to him after that but his catch phrase and hastily taped line remained for some time after.

#68

Girl scouts.

Our new troop leader in 2nd grade was incredibly sexist. She took over the camping trip planned by the previous leader and brought her two younger sons along.

Instead of a campsite, we pitched tents in a gravel parking lot. Her boys needed an RV to sleep in you see.

The fry up we’d planned, purchased and prepared in advance was thrown out. Her boys wanted pancakes. And so on.

Her boys wanted to go rock climbing. That soumded pretty good. We hadn’t prepared permission forms or safety gear for 21 girls, so we sat in the hot Texas sun in July while they climbed. We were not allowed to walk to fetch water to drink without an escort, and they needed both adults to guide and belay. 4 hours with no shade and no water.

She cancelled every activity we’d planned in preference for her sons’ whims and then excluded us from it, “because girls don’t like doing things like that.” Protesting that maybe we did like catching tadpoles or whatever was met with a “well, little girls *shouldn’t* like things like that.”

It got worse from there. Finally the new leader said “If you don’t like the way I lead, you can always leave.”

The next meeting saw that everyone but her daughter, her daughter’s best friend, and me had left the troop. My parents were certain I was making s**t up until we arrived and no one else did. I didn’t have a history of that, but they were so sure no camp out could really have gone so badly.

#69

I was taking physics in college. It was in summer school, so our class was filled with people from all of the major universities in the area.

The lessons weren’t making sense and everyone was doing terrible on graded homework. The reason was because the book we were being taught from and tested on was not the book that the professor had everyone buy. There was no way to study for the exams and since the lectures didn’t cover the homework, you were even more screwed.

A few people made a stink about it *and the line was uttered*. I threw up my hands and said “DONE”….and more than half the class walked out.

Professor was fired shortly thereafter. I asked to be put in another course section for that semester and got an A.

#70

My boss told me if i don’t like where i was working then we could f**k off. I picked up my tools and left. He rang me that night and we both had a laugh. He didn’t think anyone would leave.

#71

My stepdad, we’ll call him Jim, took over management of a restaurant after the owner fired the previous manager. I had a good friend that worked at the place and he was at the meeting where Jim walked in, told everyone that they were doing a s**t job and that there’d be massive changes and anyone that didn’t like it could leave now. Everyone in the meeting left. Everyone. The cooks, the hostesses, the wait staff and even the assistant manager that HE brought with him. Turns out, people don’t really enjoy that management style, which was the same reason he and I butted heads. I’d have loved to have been there to see it go down. In the end, though, he did manage to hire some staff and talk others into giving him another chance and he did make it work for several years before he retired.

#72

I once took a job waiting tables at a national chicken wing chain. Was in training for the first week. Training involved shadowing another server and gradually taking on more and more table waiting responsibilities until you were doing the whole d**n deal while your trainer observed.
I made it to day two.
After handing a couple tables entirely on my own, I collected the tips left behind and put them in my apron. As I walked by my trainer (who was literally just sitting at the bar while I did her job) she held her hand out… and expected every single dollar I had just collected. I asked if she was even going to tip me out. Nope.
So I went to the manager to get explain how unjust this absolute b******t was and her response?
“If you don’t like it, leave”.
I dropped my apron and shirt at her feet and f*****g left.

#73

Not me but my brother, he had a big exam or something like that back then i don’t remember and the school therapist came to say some motivational s**t and stuff like that lol, the fact that everyone were lying in their tables trying to sleep in boredom got him angry and he was like « if u don’t like what im saying, leave » and everyone left, im sure that he felt like a potato.

#74

Had my first job as a massage therapist. My friend from school also got a job there. The business was taken over by this lady who decided to also hire her friend, who hadn’t even graduated massage therapy school. The owner’s friend would start sessions way earlier than necessary if the clients got there early, which meant that sometimes my friend and I would sometimes have to scramble to get ready for couples massages with her. For example, my friend was still commuting and was a few minutes away, and the owner’s friend tried to start having the clients get ready. It was frustrating because we’d have no time to talk to the clients before the sessions like we were supposed to. One day I politely told her that my friend wasn’t there yet, and she should wait to put the clients on the table until he was actually there so he could talk to his client. She got super mad and told the new owner I was being rude to her.

Well the new owner clearly got a different story, and started TEXTING me telling me I was in trouble. I didn’t ever find out what the actual issue was directly from her, but I knew it was because of her friend because of how quickly it happened after I told her friend to wait to start that session. I tried to set up a meeting in person to talk about it, but she kept refusing and said we could talk about it over text. I decided I wasn’t going to deal with that unprofessional behavior from a manager and walked in to tell her I quit. Turns out my friend ALSO quit that day because of her friend’s nonsense. The business owner was left with her unlicensed/uncertified friend, and a stand-in that was extremely unreliable, on a really full schedule.

#75

Went to a friends party and it turned out to be a sausage fest of about 25 guys and no women. A couple of guys asked him are there going to be women coming to the party. He said something to the effect of they were invited but he wasn’t a pimp running a w***e house who could make them show up. About 15 minutes later there was only 4 of us left so we played video games and ate pizza the rest of the night.

#76

My last job.

i worked at a family owned deli/market. and the family that ran it rarely took pride in their staff (when they did take pride, it was because you were related or was family friends with the owners family) which made us the staff, not take pride in our work. getting paid minimum wage to be screamed at daily for things out of your control or for things that went wrong that you didn’t do would take a toll on you quick depending on the day.

anyways, sometime in fall of 2018 (i worked there for 9-10 months in total) things started to go south with staff and management because they were mad us staff for not doing anything properly or not paying for food we ate on shift (the food part is totally fair to be mad over). so some of us fought back and said we don’t do anything properly because you don’t train us properly, your commination skills are non existent, you scream at us for anything and everything, like what do you expect. so one day one of the owners flipped on everyone and said “if you don’t like it here, then quit.”

and two weeks later, i quit with a one weeks notice and shorty after so did everyone else and naturally the owners couldn’t understand why all the staff was up and leaving.

#77

My a*****e mother and siblings. I won’t go through all the details of what happened but sometimes she would get so angry she’d threaten to have me removed or she would even tell me I can leave.

After months of saving money, I mustered up the strength to move about halfway across the country and I’ve never been better.

#78

I was a new expeditor at a kitchen and the line cook staff I was calling tickets to had a chip on their shoulder about the new guy “telling them what to do”.

We were weeded and I was trying my best to get them increase their output per the request of the owner who saw that they were attempting to make me look like a bad expeditor. They would not and just kept leisurely cooking sort of smiling at me.

Owner came down and read them the riot act. Whole line of Mexicans walked out. Only people who remained were myself and one other white dude (who was next to worthless if I’m honest)

Owner just laughed as they walked past. He hopped on the line and we three did the work of 6 people. Wasn’t pretty but it got done.

They tried to argue after the shift that I was the reason service was slow. After the new cooks were hired and I trained them in (properly) the kitchen was on average about 3 times faster (50 min to 15 min max wait) and all of our consistency issues were cleared up. People actually cleaned instead of watching soccer on their phones when there were no tickets. Our ratings improved by one star in a year. I cut food cost by 15% and increased wages for my staff by at least 2 dollars per hour adjusted for inflation with a portion of the additional profit.
Made various logistical improvements that made our work far less grueling (venting, A.C, staggered scheduling, etc) and the product far safer and better tasting.

The kitchen manager came back a year later for some kind of victory lap to see how far we had fallen without him holding it together and got a real wake up call. Asked for his job back and I offered him a position in the dish pit. (Didn’t need cooks. Needed dishwashers. I wasn’t trying to insult him) he wouldn’t go for it.

#79

Pre-shift meeting at a fine dining restaurant. Sous chef ranting about our poor performance, something or other. Says verbatim: “If you’re here for the money, you’re in the wrong place.” And the guy that had been here for like 3 weeks walks out, never to be seen again. At the time nobody said anything cause chef was on a warpath but God D**N it was funny.

#80

My aunt had cats. Lots of them. They took over her house and it wasn’t pleasant to visit anymore. She alienated her sons, grandchildren, neighbors, and others (myself) because she would always say, “If you don’t like it, leave.” Fast forward 25 years, the cats are gone, but she feeds 9 feral cats in her yard. The home smells terrible and the neighbors are still annoyed. She still repeats that same mantra.

#81

Senior year I needed to take one last elective credit to graduate so I took creative writing a second time because I loved it sophomore year when I took it at my previous school. It was pretty clear from the jump our teacher was struggling. He admitted during the ice breaker on the first day that he was a recovering alcoholic and married to a man, to which a group of 6 sophomore boys exchanged looks and snickered. I knew then that this class would be difficult with them in it, as they found a way to quietly mock every single ice breaker fact the rest of the class shared, no matter how innocuous. I don’t think we got more than 3 weeks into the class before they began “poking the bear”. Our teacher seemed tired by the end of the day usually, and they seemed to know just how to press his buttons. They had it down to a science by Halloween. Time went on and reprimands became swearing outbursts out of what was clearly more than just frustration at the boys. The final straw was a little after thanksgiving break, when he just got furious and asked if they even wanted to be in class— actually, if *any* of us wanted to be in class if these guys were just here to laugh amongst themselves at everyone’s hard work (because the bulk of the class really loved the thought-provoking assignments and took them seriously). Having been fed up with them myself, more than probably anyone else in the class, I led the charge and said “Honestly? No. They’ve taken a great class that was a nice creative release for me and made me dread coming”. He asked me if I wanted to leave and I said yes. He gave me permission to leave, I took that opportunity, and i don’t think i got halfway down the hallway before my friend followed along with the rest of the class. I gave my friend a ride home in silence and when we came back, class wasn’t ever really the same. Everyone was uncomfortably quiet, class discussions became sparse, and when they did occur they were all pretty surface-level, and the boys finally shut the f**k up. I finished feeling proud of my work but I always wondered if I could’ve grown more in my writing had those boys not been in the class and we all could’ve felt truly comfortable sharing our writing and our progress. One of the boys did end up giving a genuine apology by the end of the semester.