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.

Read More: “If You Don’t Like It, Leave”: 50 Times People Left Arrogant Folks Speechless

#1

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

#2

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

#3

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

#4

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

#5

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.

Image credits: wanderinhebrew

#6

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

#7

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

#8

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.

Image credits: mylifeisathrowaway10

#9

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

#10

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

#11

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

#12

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.

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Image credits: masschock99