We've all had a job, or in some cases multiple jobs that we couldn't wait to quit.
When that blessed day finally comes, most people still find themselves making a graceful, diplomatic exit, remaining on seemingly good terms with people they secretly hope they will never see again.
Even though every fiber in their being might have wanted to scream "F*CK YOU" at their horrible soon-to-be former boss.
As anyone who read The Devil Wears Prada knows, such behavior is highly inadvisable if you want to have any kind of career.
Thankfully, there are ways of flipping the bird at a boss from hell without lifting a finger (middle or otherwise).
Redditor ssteepballet was eager to hear about the most clever and dramatic exits people took from horrible jobs and worse bosses, leading them to ask:
"What was your final 'f*ck you' to a boss you didn’t like?"
That Ship Has Sailed!
"Not my boss, but someone with authority who misused it."
"In the early days of PCs in the workplace, I was using Paradox, an early relational database."
"There was one other guy who used it, I was in QA, he was in program management."
"We had to deal with a program manager who was a complete fungus."
"He would provide no budget for various parts of a program and then demand the work be done or the product would not ship."
"He got his way far too often."
"The day after I handed in my notice fungus shows up in my office, he fired the other database guy."
“'I can do that, what do I need him for?'”
"Turns out he could not. So he shows up at my office with my boss trailing behind."
"My boss hated this douchebag more than anyone."
F: "'I need you to correct some data and run a report for me'.”
Me: “'Nope'.”
F: "'This is important'."
"Me: “'I guess you shouldn’t have fired Bob'.”
"F: ''you’re going to do this'.”
Me: “'Nope'.”
"This went on for some time, my boss standing behind him, giving me a 'thumbs up' and enjoying the show."
"Eventually he shouted “'I’m going to Gary!'”
"The CEO, who always supported his bullsh*t because he was a wimp."
"Ten minutes later he was back calling me a motherf*cker 'you could have told me you quit'."
"From the next office, I could hear my boss laughing out loud."
"It was a fun day, and I was a bit of a hero for the next two weeks."- ElvisAndretti
Savor It...
"I just made the firing as awkward as possible."
"I spent like 20 minutes in silence reading my severance package while she and the rep from HR watched."
"They tried to tell me they will email a copy I can electronically sign but I just said no thanks."
"Then I had them go make a copy for me to take home again. They tried to say they would email it, but I insisted on a paper copy."-CertainlyAmbivalent
Safety In Numbers
"Trucker here."
"I convinced all the other drivers at our terminal to apply at a competing trucking company down the road."
"They hired all but one of us, so we dropped our keys on the boss's desk."
"Within a month the plant pulled their contract, and the company went bankrupt."- tc6x6
Driving On The Road GIF by Daimler TruckGiphy
Employee Discount? Yes Please...
"So when I was younger, I worked at a grocery store."
"While working there, my first daughter was born."
"Her first birthday happened to fall on Memorial Day, and the store director wanted me to skip her birthday so he could have a barbecue."
"I told him that I wasn't gonna be there, but he still went ahead and scheduled me."
"Well, I didn't show up, and the next few months were a real pain."
"This guy started acting all petty and demoted me from management, cut my pay, and reduced my hours."
"It was messed up, but luckily, the union had my back and made him pay me a couple of grand in back pay after I put up with that crap for a few months."
"But I eventually landed an amazing career at a water treatment plant, and now I'm making three times the money I used to."
"But before leaving as my final f*ck you, I gave all of my uniforms to the homeless guys that hung out in the parking lot."
"So they'd walk around the parking lot in store uniforms, begging for money and food."
"My old boss got into a few confrontations trying to get the shirts back from them."
"Wish I could've been there for those."
"Ultimately, the homeless guys started going through the back of the store during receiving hours and taking beer and food."
"To this day, years later, I guess it's still a problem."
"Even after they changed uniforms."- Forcekin6532
There's Nothing People Want More Than What They Can't Have...
"Becoming indispensable and then putting in my notice."
"No 'f*ck you' is quite as nice as people begging you to stay and you being able to say 'no' with confidence that you're making the right decision."- atomic-chicken-soup
Game Over
"Not me but a friend."
"He worked at an Aladdin's Castle video game parlor in the mid 80's."
"His boss had been hounding him for weeks to work additional overtime even though he had a new baby and his wife was still in the hospital because of complications."
"His wife was scheduled to come home on a day the boss insisted he work."
"He decided he no longer needed the job or the headaches and tossed his master keyring into the roll top safe, spun the cylinder and walked out to pick up his wife from the hospital."
"A roll top safe was used to make daily deposits into a secure safe that only the person with the master key can unlock."
"There is a heavy metal cylinder at the top of the safe with an opening, when deposits are made into the cylinder the deposit falls into the secure chamber when the cylinder is rotated."
"The only way to gain access to the money, once deposited, is with the master key."
"With the master key (and the keys that locked the building) trapped deep within the safe the boss was forced to call a locksmith (on a weekend) to retrieve the keys."
"His boss deserved every second of seething fury he experienced while watching the locksmith work over the safe."- wkarraker
You Lose Game Over GIF by Universal Music AfricaGiphy
Closing Time In More Ways Than One
"Sent in my 2 weeks notice by email the very same day I got another job offer."
"I copied the email to HR. My notice followed just a few of days on the heels of another manager’s two week notice lol."
"My boss scheduled me to close on my very last day and told me I could 'come by to drop off my keys to her another day'.”
"She hated closing and had made me the closing donkey for months."
" Yeah, right…"
"She opened that day."
"I came in, told her I had a medical emergency, handed her my keys, and left."
"She had to work a double and apparently was seething, according to my old coworkers, lol."
"She was easily the worst boss I ever had for many reasons, not the least of which was verbally abusing our employees."
"One of my final straws was when I found out she’d been lying to others in the company that she had put me on a performance review that I’d signed off on."
"No such thing."
"Turnover was extremely high under her, and actually, our entire management team ended up quitting."
"Last I heard the store was falling apart and our district manager had gotten sick of her."- PrehistoricPrincess
Not An HR Issue? Make It One!
"Quietly asked for an exit interview with HR."
"I was told they don’t do that for contractors."
"I insisted."
"When it came time for the exit interview, I quietly explained to HR the desperate situation that had developed on the call floor."
"Of people quitting for other jobs and the boss not replacing them, but expecting call numbers and stats to get better with less people."
"Or how the boss changed the rules of what was and was not allowed in a call daily, yet didn’t ask her workers their opinions on it, but expecting us to just take her write-ups for breaking rules that weren’t rules the day before."
"All the while, I never insulted the big boss; just kept my tone polite and professional while pointing out the issues."
"HR started sitting in those daily meetings with shift supervisors about those rule changes and started to push back."
"Things got better for the floor staff, and they hired replacements."
"Within a few months, after the shift supervisors collectively signed a statement to point out her direct abuse to them, HR had enough and asked her to leave."- IronBoomer
Your Way Or The Highway? Highway For Sure...
"Was a mechanic at a shop and the boss had a favorite mechanic that could get away with anything."
"One day, it's about an hour before closing, and an older lady comes in for front wheel bearings."
"Don't know why they told her they could do it in that time but they did."
"Well, the kiss a** mechanic proceeds to snap two of her wheel studs."
"He gets frustrated and literally leaves the car in the air and goes home!"
"The boss comes in and asks where he is. I tell him what happened."
"The boss then says, 'Well, get over there and finish that sh*t'."
"Excuuuuuuse me?"
"I tell him that is not my problem and am finishing another vehicle in my bay."
"He says, 'If you don't get that car finished, you can find another shop to work at'."
"I simply said, 'You are right'."
"Later that night, after we closed, I used my store key to come in and turn in my uniforms and get my tools."
"The boss blew up my phone for the next two weeks."
"I never answered."
"Went on to open my own shop and do better."- ShawVAuto
fetch just right GIF by VARTA AutomotiveGiphy
Last Day Wasn't Soon Enough
"Called in sick my last day, after 15 years at the company."
"He wasn’t happy, though I was, and finally free."- WhatsACellPhone
Work Gets Done Much Faster When People Enjoy Their Work
"Landscaping company that mainly did construction."
"The owner would constantly take more work than a company our size could manage and would then have massive temper tantrums when it wasn't getting done fast enough."
"The breaking point was him taking a massive project...over two hours away from where anyone lived."
"That morning he had ten employees."
"The next morning, he had three."
"He called each of us, begged us to come back, and then asked why we were doing this to him."
"I laid into him about his inability to balance the workload and that his employees didn't want to drive over two hours to a job site every day."
"He said I'd regret it and hung up."
"I had a new construction job the next week."
"The dumb owner's company went under about a year later."- apocalypticradish
Try And Hide, But They'll Find You...
"Reported him and the company to the IRS for not sending me a w2 and how they changed the company name and various things every few months in an effort to cheat out on taxes."- Pantastic_Studios
homer simpson episode 22 GIFGiphy
Success Is The Best Revenge...
"I had been selected as a temporary 'loaner' or helper for a dept above mine, during which time my boss at the time was clearly playing some personal politics and trying to show me the door."
"Turned out the team was highly impressed with me."
"Personal politics once again at play, boss at the time was trying to push her friend into the open role."
"They didn't want her. They made me an offer unbeknownst to my boss."
"She kept telling me that she wasn't going to release me for the transfer, and the role was going to be filled by her friend."
"The writing was on the wall, if I went back to her, she was gonna can me."
"Without knowing that it was my best move, I let her know an offer was made."
"Her face went stone, and all color dropped."
"She said she would look into it and get back with me."
"2 days later, she came back confirming the offer was made, and the company had to honor it."
"On my way out of her team she made the comment that she was disappointed in the way that I went about this move, she knew the dept well and I wouldn't last and I would be out the door in less than a year."
"I responded with her opinion no longer mattered and that I would never have to deal with her or think of her again, and I was grateful for that."
"She turned beat red and stormed out."
"Fast forward 8 years, I moved up again, making six figures, and she's still at the same position making 50k."
"My success has been the biggest f*ck you to her."- BecomingJudasnMyMind
"... And To All A Good Night..."
"I called a day before Christmas eve to say I resign."
"I tried raising my salary for six years, and never more salary than a trainee."
"When I called, he said that he could finally raise my salary to keep me in his company."
"I laughed and said, 'No, I have already made my decision'."
"The best decision ever in my work career."
"The place was toxic, really bad salary, and everyone was competing against each other instead of helping."- cornered_beef
Buh-BYE!
"I straight up didn’t give her any notice and left."
"That was still nice of me for all the f*cked up sh*t she used to do to us."- Specialist_Duty2165
see ya goodbye GIF by OriginalsGiphy
Some people believe in leaving quietly.
Others... well, don't.
And all who see it happy are even more grateful for that.
