People who worked for sketchy employers or businesses, what was your "fuck this shit I'm out" moment?

1. I worked at a burger place in college. It was casual dining, so instead of regular tipping, we had a tip jar by the cash registers. Now, the jar was clearly labeled "TIPS" in huge, capital letters. At the end of the night, the cashier would count out all the tip money and place it in an envelope that went directly to the owner. The owner would take ALL the tips and keep them for himself. He was able to get away with this because he was already paying us minimum wage so tips weren't legally required. Also, his restaurant was walking distance from the college campus. If any employees got fed up with this system (which many did) and quit, he had a constant supply of broke college kids looking for part time work to replace the quitters. After a few months of working there, I started recognizing repeat customers. I felt really bad because many of them would make an extra effort to tip because they thought the money was going to us, the workers. There was this kindly retired lawyer who stopped by every week. He would tip me extremely generously. I couldn't handle the guilt anymore, so I politely let him know that the money wasn't actually going to me or any of my coworkers, and that I felt bad that he was tipping us under the impression that it was. The retired lawyer got extremely angry, because I guess there were some pretty serious legal ramifications to what the owner was doing. Because the tip jar had "TIPS" written on it, the owner was deceiving the customers. The lawyer spoke with the owner directly and called him out on his bullshit. As a solution, the owner replaced the sticker that said "TIPS" on the tip jar with a picture of the restaurant logo. He was still able to keep his tip money, but apparently without the legal risk, because technically he was not collecting it under false pretenses anymore since the jar no longer expressly said "tips". I quit the next day.
   — KissedByFire2194


2. Was told too pour the water and sediments from core drilling concrete floors in a hospital into the toilets and flush. That way when they clogged the next day we could be hired to replace them. Worst plumbing company ever.
   — MaintenanceGuy-


3. I am not going to name the company, but quite a few years ago I worked as an inspector at a small aerospace components manufacturer. If any of you have made aircraft components, you know there are some pretty stringent inspection requirements. That includes, "rockwell," testing for hardness of the metal. This particular shop owner did not want to pay for a rockwell tester, so he had a machinist put the parts in a bridgeport manual milling machine with a countersink and ding each part. You see, when you test a part for hardness with a rockwell tester, the machine puts a small ding in the part. So he was faking the small ding, and then photoshopping the rockwell certifications. Basically he was faking hardness tests on airplane components because he was too cheap to spend 1,000 bucks on a tester, and pay someone to run it. He wanted me to put my inspection stamp on these reports as if *I* had inspected the hardness of the parts. That was my, "fuck this shit I'm out," moment. He was later shut down. I knew who his customers were so I may or may not have let them know what he was doing.
   — rayjax82






4. I worked for a catering company, first as a server and then as a prep cook. One day I got called in on my day off to help move some doors. The boss had bought twenty heavy wooden doors at auction for no reason but to have some extra doors. I meet her at the auction house. She’s standing there with twenty doors stacked up on a giant cart. No van or truck in sight. “I need you to take these back to the kitchen.” Great, I grab one of the vans and be right back. “All the vans are out making deliveries. That’s what the cart is for.” She wanted me to push twenty wooden doors on a heavy wooden cart up a hill with a 45 degree incline. And then six blocks after that. In 90 degree heat. I was so broke at the time that I gave it a shot, because I desperately needed the money. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t get it up the hill. Then, who should show up but the OTHER boss, driving a van. “What are you doing here?” I’m pushing fucking doors up a fucking hill for your fucking wife, I said inside my brain. “Why?” He helped me load the doors into the van and drove me back to the kitchen. Where I got yelled at for taking too long with the doors. I was gone the next week.
   — eyes_are_grey


5. Watched my boss grab one of my coworkers by the throat and push him up against a wall because he was accused of stealing something (turned out he didn’t steal anything)
   — austinemiller


6. We went three pay cycles (six weeks) being told our checks were coming, but a bank error had wiped the payroll account and they were working on a loan to cover pay while they got the problem fixed. Everyone was then paid our full back pay ($30k+ in some cases) in cash. I took it and handed in my two weeks notice. The boss then gave me my expected pay for those two weeks in cash and told me not to come back.
   — FabiusBill






7. My boss took away my breaks, then drink called me one night for having a cup of tea at the end of a long shift, he screamed down the phone at me for 10mins. I walked out mid shift and never came back.
   — teddtbhoy


8. My first job when I was 15 was at this Italian sandwich place. The bosses were gigantic assholes and the restaurant was severely understaffed. We were frequently underpaid and half the employees were undocumented illegal immigrants paid $5 an hour under the table. Why I put up with it for the 9 months that I did I don't know, but here's the story of the day I finally quit. I was in at 8:30am prepping and restocking. We opened for coffee at 9 then food at 10, so there were 0 kitchen staff on. This group of 6 dudes came in and asked if we're open and I said "no, sorry" as you do. They said thanks anyway and started to leave. My boss turned the corner and saw them leaving and he freaked the fuck out at the prospect of lost business. He started slamming the fridges and knocked an entire shelf of glassware down and then screamed at me to go run after them and tell them we can serve them. In retrospect I should've just quit right then, but instead I ended up running after them on the side of the road as they drove away in their car. They saw me running and came in, but they were a little spooked that this 15yo girl was sent to go chase them down. Anyway, they ended up waiting 50 min for their food cause my boss is a piece of shit and we weren't staffed enough to serve them. I quit that shift. Fuck that place.
   — notnotadog


9. Working at a night club. GM wanted me to fill grey goose bottles with Mr. Boston vodka to sell to people after they'd been drinking. He dropped and shattered a bottle of patron, then he wanted to use a strainer to put the glass shattered tequila into an open bottle at the bar. I got a below minimum wage check for two weeks, I was working my ass off. I said go fuck yourself after confronting him about the check. Never came back and they were out of business like 2 months later.
   — threatt-treat






10. When I wised up and did some research into a state law that my boss claimed required clients to give us certain personal information. No such law exists, he was literally lying to client's faces and having all of his employees do the same. Oh, and he was scamming the elderly with seemingly no remorse. He's currently being sued by Elder Law attorneys in 3 separate cases.
    — coffeeandsoymilk


11. The CEO was taking peoples' food at of the fridge and eating it, then proceeded to write a long descriptive apology email to the entire company about how good it was.
    — Dangerous_Guidance


12. Was homeless and desperate to get back on my feet. Applied at sandwich shop in a mall. Interviewer looked at application. Looked at me. Said, "You go home and change, Come back. we'll put you behind counter; see how you do." Exctatic me. "Am I hired?" "No. We just try you out for little, see how you do." Left and did not return. In mall a few days later. He came over to yell at me about not showing up for work. "Dude, fuck you. You didn't hire me, you just wanted free labor for a day. I'm not an idiot." Walked away.
    — quegrawks






13. During my first shift, the manager made me drive a cart thing even though I told him that I never drove anything before and then got mad at me when I crashed it. I ended up quitting after 3 weeks because one of my coworkers kept harassing me about wanting to have a threesome with me and my partner and my manager refused to do anything about it because 'he's a good kid and wouldn't do that' Edit: spelling
    — GideonIsmail


14. I worked customer support for a mobile game company. I was honest with a disheartened customer, who had complained that recent changes had made the game pay to win. It had, in truth, been a glitch with an update. I told them as much, assuring them the team would be fixing it in the next update. But then the games profits skyrocketed. The team kept the glitch, and put out a statement describing the change as an intentional one designed to improve the play experience. But there was my name, plastered all over the game forums, claiming the opposite. I technically worked for a separate company that provided support for several studios, but the studio behind this game was our biggest customer. They approached my bosses, furious I jeopardised their cash cow, and demanded I be fired. I promptly became familiar with the underside of the bus, as I was gone within the week
    — Alfotun8877


15. When I was asked to roll over hours to other part time employees to other pay periods to avoid fines, despite being understaffed and I myself being part time as well. Never work in radio kids.
    — Humblephi