What's the fastest you quit a job?

My new (former) co-worker left after 2 nights of work. I knew he hated the shift by the comments he was making stating things like he's tired, sleepy ect. I was just curious about others stories on TE?

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Magmadragoon

Non-IT 4 months for me at my last job. I was hired at a credit union as a full service representative which was the same as my last job before at a bank. They had no real reason for me to exist. The company trainings were far apart so they never trained me for 4 months and never gave me work. So I spent my time web surfing and studying for A+ and taking their online training academy test. I only took the job because at the interview they said they would allow for me to intern in the IT department during summer break. Little did I know internship their meant that you watch the IT department for 4 hours and that was it for the internship. So I gave my two week notice and they decided to give me a pay raise and finally schedule me for training. I declined the offer and left.

Anonymouse

Semi-IT related was as a PC tech at a retail store for 2-3 months. They kept cutting my hours so I found another job with better pay.

Non-IT related at all was I did some accounting for an online store that sold anime figures/merchandise for like a month. This was only a side job to pay for gas to get to my fulltime IT job. I found it wasn't worth the time for $8/hour one day a week.

Those were some dark times.

The Technomancer

Two weeks. Got hired on as a data center tech. My only requirement was that I wouldn't work graveyards -- my sleep schedule is touchy, and that just didn't work for me.

Go through a week of training (part of which was spent unloading servers off of trucks and sorting sticks of RAM, for some mind numbingly godawful reason). Get my schedule handed to me. Graveyard shift, 4 10s, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday off. WORST. SCHEDULE. EVAR.

Worked Monday, bitched to my friend about it, he told me his workplace was hiring. Applied Tuesday, phone interview Wednesday, in person interview Thursday. Worked Friday, got called while I was sleeping with the offer. They asked me start Monday. Resigned via email, because they already made it very clear to me they didn't give a crap what I said or did anyway.

They still tried to talk me into coming back over the next two weeks. Apparently they pulled that crap on a couple of other people who also decided that they would GTFO ASAP and did so.

clouder

2 months, just this year actually. I only left because the new gig was (still is) 20 minutes closer to home and doing what I want to do. No hard feelings, still friendly with the company I worked for, as they were very understanding, and even offered to give a good reference.

markulous

Non-IT job was about 5 hours total before I quit.

I worked with my friend for his uncle's roofing company. It was a humid 110 degree day and we were up on a 2-story house ripping off an old roof. At lunch time my feet were bleeding and I asked what we were supposed to get paid by the end of the day. He said that it's based off of how fast we go and so far we've accumulated about $15. Needless to say, I didn't come back. I'm going to run myself into the ground for $3 an hour.

J_86

3 days at an MSP several years ago. I was hired as "systems administrator" but it all was level 1 help desk type stuff. I asked my so called manager about it and he said they didn't hire sys admins from the outside, you had to working your way into it. The recruiter (who worked directly for the company) would never answer my emails or calls. I finally couldn't take it anymore and just stopped showing up. Only job I've ever left without giving any notice, including ones I had way back when in high school.

jvrlopez

Figured I'd share my IT quick quit experience since I already shared the retail one.

Quit my help desk job after about 2.5 months. Got notice for a position that paid over double so I couldn't pass it up even if I was on a 1 year contract.

I didn't like working help desk/call center/tier 1 and with the pay in mind, the decision was easy. I told them about 10 days out, but not before the hiring manager heard through the grapevine that I was in talks with another company. He called me and complained about me "breaking my word and contract" and how I owed them a year of service. He also said something to the affect of, "I expected a lot more integrity from a Veteran" or some garbage like that.

Whatever, I need to provide for my family and they were making a stink about a job that paid $12 an hour.

New company paid over double, had great benefits, and lots of opportunities.

I ended up using all my PTO during those last 10 days, which they weren't happy about and took out of my last check along with $600 for training.

It's been about 8 months and the hiring and program manager still send me connection requests on LinkedIn. They probably want to just bad mouth me for leaving.

devils_haircut

jvrlopez wrote: »

He also said something to the affect of, "I expected a lot more integrity from a Veteran" or some garbage like that.

Thinking back to the time I spent in Afghanistan, I think I would have had some choice words for that guy, assuming I didn't turn green and start smashing things first.

Gorby

One of my first IT jobs while in college was on an installations tech project for a government contractor. What made the experience so bad was the people in the environment, since I was from an agency my co-workers were disrespectful and would make snide comments about being a "temp". On my first installation I had an issue with finding an application for the customer and the response from their help desk was "figure it out" or "I don't know, go find it"..mind you this is my second day and I didn't have any training on the environment, network shares or the policy for software installations..nor was it a COTS application or anything that could be found easily on Google. The process they used for the migration was dreadfully slow considering each employee had over 15 - 20 gigs to copy over a slow network, which involved me sitting in each office watching the data transfer for 1 -2 hours each person.

By the third day I went to the supervisor, handed in my badge and told him why I was quitting. He tried to get me to stay but for $13 an hour it wasn't worth working in such a negative environment. Luckily I found a better job a month later after that payed significantly more.

MSP-IT

BGraves wrote: »

Hah @ MSP-IT^ I feel like I'm almost in a similar position, current job billed at 50%-75% travel and I have been offsite about 7 days total in the last 8 months. Thankfully, a perfect job for starting/finishing my MS so quite happy with it right now.

I'm at WGU as well. I was hoping the travel time would benefit me by giving me some extra study time, but that was certainly not the case.

veritas_libertas

Factory job. I lasted one day. I was making some kind of widget, but I had no idea what it was and no one wanted to tell me. It was the most restrictive environment I have ever worked in.

Mishra

3 days. My friend and I applied for a "laptop repair" company and decided to work there for a short amount of time. We made sure the hiring manager knew that it definitely wasn't a permanent position for us and she understood and hired us anyways.

Walked into a warehouse the first day and saw a massive operation. Got closer to the line and found out it was assembly line laptop repair. I worked 3 days, overtime at 12-14 hours. I was taught how to put the repaired laptops in styrofoam and to put stickers on straight. If they weren't straight then QA would catch it and doc everyone's bonus...

Doing the same thing over & over again for 12 hours was the most physically and mentally exhausting thing I've ever experienced. Talked to my friend after 3 days and we decided to not show up... I should have called but I was so exhausted I didn't have the care to follow process.

abramsgunner

"Doing the same thing over & over again for 12 hours was the most physically and mentally exhausting thing I've ever experienced."

Try screwing spark plugs into Briggs and Stratton 5hp engines for 8 hours a pop a few nights a week... LOL

Shortest job was my very first job at 16... hired on as a mason tender.. you know, carrying concrete blocks and mud in the Florida summer heat... I'm proud to say I last 2 full days... then the guy that hired me pulled me aside and said they were over-staffed and didn't need me back... Those were the sweetest words I've ever heard!!

W Stewart

I worked an online/work-at-home job doing helpdesk for an century link for about a week. I wasn't planning on it being permanent. They were only paying me $8/hr and I was in between jobs.

Essendon

I'll chime in too, I was a kitchen hand scrubbing dishes at this restaurant many years ago. Towards the end of the first day when the waitress brought the last of the plates from the tables, there were some leftover pieces of chicken on one plate and a number of pieces of lamb on another. I chucked the chicken into the bin first and as I was about to pick up the plate of lamb, the owner bellowed out at me saying I shouldnt be throwing away leftover food. I was like - mate, this came from the restaurant and he went, we'll serve them to someone else tomorrow, never throw away uneaten food. WTF!, was my reaction. Because the guy said he'd pay me cash every night, I stayed till the end of the shift, got my $40 and was never seen at the restaurant again.

kohr-ah

Menards, was 19.

Had to work in the lumber yard and everyone left for lunch. Customer needed help and I couldn't get a hold of anyone to drive a forklift. I said screw it I have driven one before (but not ceritified) and got what the customer needed then when my boss came back from his 2 hour lunch chewed me out.

I walked out.

Total employment time. 1D (training) 5 Hours (Work).

IT Side - 1 year and it was a temp job for me to earn income until I finished my A.A.S. at my local Community College. Was a good job but not as IT oriented as I'd like. No stories about that one.

devils_haircut

When I was 19 and home from college for the summer, my friend's dad got me hired at a plastic molding company in a very small town in southern Indiana. It was $7.50 per hour back when minimum wage was closer to $5.15, so not too shabby. Then I found out that I would be working outside the plant basically breaking down large plastic containers so that they could later be melted down and recycled. Sounds good so far, right?

The only other person I worked with was the boss's 12-year-old son. He was in charge of me. He drove a forklift (somehow). And we worked outside all day in a dry, dusty gravel lot with no shade anywhere. And going inside to get a drink or use the bathroom was frowned upon.

I finished my shift and didn't come back. Luckily I got a call from a slightly better place three days later.

Cleverclogs

Considering the other responses, mine aren't too bad. For non-IT jobs it took me 8 days of working at a discount store before I left (Jumped before I was pushed as I'd probably have been fired

). I had to work half the time with a horrible idiot supervisor that didn't speak good English, who questioned and nitpicked everything I did. On my last day (When she was in charge) I put all the stuff in the stock room on the highest shelves (Way out of her reach) and hid the ladders at the very top. Didn't say anything about it before I left.

As far as IT jobs, it took me 25 months to get out of my last job (Which was awful every single day) and in to my new role. Couldn't quit as the job market at that time was terrible. I eventually got the happy ending

spicy ahi

IT-wise, my fastest term was two months. I enjoyed the work, enjoyed the coworkers... Thinking about it, it was the perfect job except that it paide half of what I made at my then current job. Of course, as a second job (night shift), it was a dream. Extra cash AND I got to learn things I didn't work with. Unfortunately they liked my work and wanted to move me to their day shift "A-team". They knew about my primary job and how much I made so they tried to negotiate with their HR back east to match it. It didn't work out with the pay but they still insisted I move to day shift. I told them as much as I loved the job, I couldn't take a 50% pay cut and if they kept pushing the issue I would quit. They kept pushing so I ended it.

Non IT, I think I lasted about a day, two if you count the one day orientation. I took a job being a stock clerk for the grocery store I worked at when I was in high school. I actually interviewed for the above job that morning and they called back that afternoon right as I left my full time job for my first day at the stocking job. I got to the store and let my friend, who was the manager, know that I had gotten the job and would give 2 weeks if needed. He ended up just promoting one of the bag boys so it was a one night stand for me. I also ended up getting his foot in the IT door a couple of months later.

jamesleecoleman

I left after 8 months, I think. I was working as a CSR at an ISP. Halfway through my stay there, I started to feel like the boss didn't like me and she didn't have to tell me but she showed me by her actions. On top of that when I emailed certain people within the organization about billing or tickets, they would email my boss and sometimes she would tell me that I needed to follow guidelines. I often got behind in my work because sometimes I would be alone taking phone calls or there weren't enough people to handle traffic. So I had to stay over the hours that I was assigned in order to try and catch up. I did it too many times and got yelled at it for it, when I tried to explain she just went off of how many phone calls I took. I started to sigh so much while working there. I also couldn't move up within the company but I did get to help the engineer that I went to school with with some very small tasks, which was fun. I worked with great people but the manager didn't like me. The guys that I worked with was trying to figure out why I was leaving. I put in my two weeks and did my visa paperwork for Russia. The boss went over to me to tell me that she got my email and asked me if I was going to travel. I lied to her face and told her no. It wasn't any of her business anyways. I don't know why she wanted to try to play games and act liked she cared when I was leaving.

Mason83

7 months. Took a gig as a "Tier 1 Network Engineer" which turned out to be nothing more than a bait and switch CSR for "Cisco" and their TelePresence devices. I just got my CCNA and was looking to move away from Desktop Support and into network engineering. The recruiter (yeah, bad move) shot my résumé to "Cisco" and I drove from OKC to Austin for the gig (my plan was to move to Texas so I thought this would be a good fit). I did the interview, got the job and relocated to Austin. The 1st week of training was centered around Cisco TelePresence devices and we even got to disassemble and reassemble the codecs for the devices. Little did I know that would be the ONLY time I got to touch any physical equipment the entire time I was there. Crappy work environment, it was ALL phone/remote based troubleshooting of video conferencing devices. No work on routers or switches at all. And the hours were horrible. 24/7/365 NOC. Started out on a M-F 8-5 shift, then the hustle started as I was moved to a "back end" days shift (12PM-6PM Wed, 6AM-6PM Th-Sa) which wasn't too bad as I at least had Sat evening-Wed morning off. Then I was put on the "back end" nights shift which absolutely SUCKED (Midnight-6AM Thurs, then work 6PM-6AM Thurs, Fri, and Sat). How does one have a life with a ridiculous shift like that? On top of that, no visibility from management (and they were garbage too). On those "days" off, I was out doing interviews to get out of that job. I went back to Desktop Support to get myself back on my feet as I took a pay cut to work for "Cisco" as I thought it would be a starting point to move up in network engineering. Put my 2 weeks in and then just didn't show up the last 3 days.

BTW, DO NOT DEAL WITH INSIGHT GLOBAL...EVER!

100k

Whats wrong with Insight Global?

Mason83

100k wrote: »

Whats wrong with Insight Global?

Terrible recruiters. The one I got thoroughly soured me on the firm. After she got me on, she dropped the ball on my direct deposit and it took her 3 weeks to get it corrected. Most recruiters would touch base with their clients to see how things are going...Not one time did she ever call or come up to the job to check in on me. I voiced my frustration about the lack of visibility by management to gauge my progress and she never did any follow up whatsoever. The week I put in my 2-week notice, I got word I received an increase in pay from $15 to $20/hr. Turns out, it was given to me on a Friday, ANOTHER recruiter told me this the following Monday and said "I forgot to tell you you received an increase." Who the hell forgets to tell someone that? I was already out the door anyway so it mattered none but it's the principle. The first contracting firm I dealt with was GDH Consulting in '06 and my recruiter was checking in on me at least twice a month and he was contacting my supervisor to see how I was doing as well up until I was offered a full-time position in '08. Insight just strikes me as a "once we get them hired, we're done with them" type of firm. Maybe I just got the wrong one, but that's all I needed to know from here on out, I'll never deal with them again.

100k

Hmm I will keep an eye out for that as they have been contacting me about a Network Tech job. Wont really start sending out my resume again until I finish this WGU Degree in April.

Hatch1921

5 hours! LOL

I had just turned 20 at the time and picked up a second job at Subway. I impressed the manager with my bread cutting skills and then later on one of the guys working there asked me to come in the back and help get the items ready for the next day. He had the meat out on the counter and was smashing flies next to it and just laughing. I finished up for the evening and said the job wasn't for me. So... after buying the work shirt and black pants... and with my one and only check from Subway... I lost about $3

Big props to anyone who has worked in the food service industry... I knew I wasn't cut out for it and bailed.