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Reasons you've left a job

"My back hurts. I don't think picking leeks is for me"

"What does topping beans even mean?"

"I haven't had time off in a year. I'll see you on September 1st." ("You can't do that") "Here's your keys then"

(I've worked in a few grey areas)

And my favourite. "You just used the phrase 'nigger in a wood pile'. Bye." *

* Finsbury Park Action Group, 1992. Name and shame.
 
1) One pound an hour in a spring-pressing factory on Saturdays - went back to school
2) Butcher's shop for a tenner a day - got offered job 3 and jacked
3) Hod carrying on £27 a day (eventually), making almost as much as my dad - Jacked to go to uni.
4) Grad scheme in New York - Jacked to follow girlfriend to Barcelona.
5) Got dumped by girlfriend in Barcelona - Came back to London, to pursue ...
6) Various nefarious activities - Jacked or fired from several.
7) Still doing it!
 
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9 resigned - job security wasn't great (council on the brink of 'bankruptcy') and wanted to move in with partner rather than do weekend commute thing

and to add to that, us attempting to live together ended the relationship within a few months. we'd been doing the distance relationship thing for 3 or 4 years until then...

hmm.
 
Being passed up for promotion despite having more than enough experience and qualifications and doing everything possible to earn even an interview for a new role. I surmised that the powers to be in the company wanted to keep me in the role that I was doing. So I left. Fuck that shit.
 
In chronological order.. all my permanent jobs:
  • Run its course, got trained up, went "travelling"
  • Crap boss/crap role
  • Misguided notion of changing sector
  • Redundancy
  • Misguided notion of changing sector
  • Redundancy situation/role being downgraded
  • Bullying twat of boss
  • Redundancy
Hopefully the next one will be 'Retirement'.
 
I’ve had dozens of casual/part time jobs so not listing those.

Full time/proper jobs.

1. Whole company run by corrupt arseholes. I ditched it with no job to go to.

2. similar.

3. Hated telesales. Quit.

4. Hated finance and got a new role.

5. Longest ever job, 10 years. Bullied out for being TU rep. Used payout to retrain.

6. Organization fucked. Had breakdown, got better job.

7. Great job, great workplace, bored and got sort of dream job.

8. Current role. Can’t see me leaving atm. Redundancy unlikely but possible.
 
1: Got to the top of the engineering career path and realised I didn’t want to be a manager in that industry.

2: Retired

3: Retired again - actually technically I don’t retire till 1 October but have been on career break.
 
Completion of task (after 14 months)
To go to Glastonbury
A better job
Redundancy due to the boss & finance person being fucking useless
End of contract
End of contract
Redundancy (after keeping the place going for another 18 months)
Boss who ignored me/alcoholism
It was a shit call centre/much better job
Trying to drag out a good thing past its sell by date/shit management/depression
End of contract
Still there for the pension.


That's actually much less bad than I normally think of it when I see it written out like that. A glorious 27 years (never had a proper job till I was thirty)
 
Most recent first:
  • Piss-taking cheapskate gaslighting unethical boss went too far.
  • Awful colleague/subordinate's terrible attitude and hostile behaviour towards me (probably because she'd been a part-time staff who'd also gone for the full-time assistant manager job I'd got), made working life unbearable, so I quit with a week's notice after only a couple of months.
  • 12 week internship came to an end.
  • Was thanked for my professionalism, honesty and integrity and then let go after four days (with a month's pay in lieu of notice) because of a conflict of interest I'd flagged up.
  • Quit a part-time job in a call centre after around a year or so because it was awful, moving targets were shifting sands, we were screwed out of bonuses, team leader and call centre manager tried to discipline me for emailing a suicidal caller with some links to food banks/support services in his area (until I pointed out that the email had been sent 20 minutes after my shift ended, because I'd stayed after work to send it). After I left, there was a sort of unofficial WhatsApp survivors support group where messages were shared about more and more people leaving every week. One of my colleagues actually submitted their resignation on toilet paper, saying that reflected how the company treated their staff like shit, or words to that effect. I'd only taken that job because it was part-time and convenient, because it was a three minute 'commute' by foot, and I needed a part-time job to fit round EMDR therapy sessions for Complex PTSD from antisocial behaviour and harassment from neighbour, so the job served its purpose.
  • I was furloughed about two-thirds of the way through a one-year contract during the pandemic, and it wasn't renewed because the staff member who'd left their job and gone travelling returned to the UK.
I've not had great luck with jobs over the past few years.
 
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Ì was passed over for promotion once. It was clear I could do the job but they gave it to someone from outside. I was very pissed off about that.

Another one was when the company I worked for went down in the Enron scandal. That was pretty spectacular. Not least because the Internet was just properly starting to take off at the time and the firm was trying to feed us bullshit at big meetings but people were finding out what was really going on online.
 
Had to leave one job because my dad was shagging around and I couldn't show my face any more. I was 11 and it was the local church choir, but its (adjusted for inflation) probably the most lucrative job I've had.
 
Contract ended

One morning, after the commute from Hackney to a terrible publishing company in Uxbridge, I just burst into tears exiting the station at the thought of any more Food Ingredients & Analysis International and the dreadful backwards company and just went back home and never went again.

Redundancy. From an organisation I put my soul into. The wankers.

Hated it. Everyone hated each other. Did zero work for about nine months. The funders were getting antsy and the game was going to be up if I didn't get out.

Quit to go freelance, organisation in freefall due to Cameron era cuts.
 
Looking back on my checquered ‘career’, and, temp jobs aside, I don’t think I’ve ever moved from one job to another of my own volition.

I’ve certainly never made a conscious independent decision based on an career path or aspirations to better myself. :eek:

Amazingly, I’ve only been fired once, on trumped-up charges of assaulting a colleague (horseplay gone wrong - didn’t wallop someone in a fight or anything like that).

I’ve walked out of quite a few temp jobs cos the people were arseholes and I wouldn’t go along with their bullshit - I’ve had my fill of racists, bullies, unhygienic kitchens. Or just thick boring people who only ever talked about what was on the front or back page of The Sun.

Thinking on it, I have made one decision as I jacked in a well-paid job in TV production/broadcast after a decade, cos I was bored and uninterested and it was beginning to show it in my work. We were outsourced and TUPE’d and offered a year’s pay if we quit whining about it. I was/am unable to think beyond the next month’s paycheck, so jumped at that dangling carrot, only to find myself treading air frantically before falling to the earth in a puff of smoke like Wile E Coyote (two years of depression and unemployment followed)

On the face of it, that would seem like a bad decision, esp if I look at what my erstwhile colleagues are doing now, but it was a good decision ultimately, as I would not have found my ‘calling’ otherwise.
 
1. Repeatedly attacked by owners mental dog. :D
2. Got fed up with having to explain the high prices at Lands End then spending my wages in the only pub round my way that Lands End also owned.
3. End of potato picking season.
4. Promoted.
5. Stuck in rut. Thought working for Lambeth Council might be an idea.
6 Working for Lambeth Council wasn't an idea.
7 Various temp contracts ended.
8. Sideways move in the same organisation.
9. Threatened with redundancy so went back to old job.
10. Another sideways move to avoid old job that I'd gone back to.
11. Promoted from sideways move job to current one that I've been in for three years or so.

Seriously, I should stick that on LinkedIn. :D
 
Looking back on my checquered ‘career’, and, temp jobs aside, I don’t think I’ve ever moved from one job to another of my own volition.

I’ve certainly never made a conscious independent decision based on an career path or aspirations to better myself. :eek:

Amazingly, I’ve only been fired once, on trumped-up charges of assaulting a colleague (horseplay gone wrong - didn’t wallop someone in a fight or anything like that).

I’ve walked out of quite a few temp jobs cos the people were arseholes and I wouldn’t go along with their bullshit - I’ve had my fill of racists, bullies, unhygienic kitchens. Or just thick boring people who only ever talked about what was on the front or back page of The Sun.

Thinking on it, I have made one decision as I jacked in a well-paid job in TV production/broadcast after a decade, cos I was bored and uninterested and it was beginning to show it in my work. We were outsourced and TUPE’d and offered a year’s pay if we quit whining about it. I was/am unable to think beyond the next month’s paycheck, so jumped at that dangling carrot, only to find myself treading air frantically before falling to the earth in a puff of smoke like Wile E Coyote (two years of depression and unemployment followed)

On the face of it, that would seem like a bad decision, esp if I look at what my erstwhile colleagues are doing now, but it was a good decision ultimately, as I would not have found my ‘calling’ otherwise.

I've found it hard to plan a career too. It's made me feel really shit about myself, because I am very able.

I've just left my NHS job but now have to market myself as a private practitioner. Basically saying I'm an expert. Which makes me cringe.
 
My mental arithmetic wasn't up to scratch and I hated getting up at 4am.
Was the only one working in store not in on a credit card fraud so the manager (who was in on it) sacked me before I found out.
Went back to poly.

Then onto clients whose contracts I terminated:
Client didn't pay the down payment to my last maker and then reduced his p.a. to tears, making unreasonable demands.
Client insisted on long rambling Skypes several times a week that lasted at least 1 hour that I'd come away with no actions from. Client then bad mouthed the business consultant that I collab with.
Same client didn't listen to my recommendation on factories and chose a very expensive one in Sicily because they thought the agent was hot, over one the in the Marche that was much more suitable. Hot agent then fell out with Sicilian factory! :D
 
I've found it hard to plan a career too. It's made me feel really shit about myself, because I am very able.

I've just left my NHS job but now have to market myself as a private practitioner. Basically saying I'm an expert. Which makes me cringe.
I totally get that. You have to boast to get jobs though, unless you’re head-hunted, which doesn’t happen in most jobs. A CV or job application is basically just bragging about how capable you are, so I imagine being self-employed means doing the same but way more frequently. It’s daunting enough just applying for one job!
 
Surely there is more to this story than that?
I am glad that you asked.

I was, I think, 17, and at college and living with my parents. My Mum worked as a cleaner at the local cinema, and through her I got a part-time temporary job as a cinema usher, in the summer holidays. After a couple of weeks, a different manager was on duty, and he insisted that I wear a bow-tie, like the established male staff. I refused. I then just walked out the door and went to my friend’s house.
 
Walked off after refusing to wear a bowtie.
I am glad that you asked.

I was, I think, 17, and at college and living with my parents. My Mum worked as a cleaner at the local cinema, and through her I got a part-time temporary job as a cinema usher, in the summer holidays. After a couple of weeks, a different manager was on duty, and he insisted that I wear a bow-tie, like the established male staff. I refused. I then just walked out the door and went to my friend’s house.

I was expecting a Chippendales story.
 
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