I was scrolling through my Facebook a few minutes ago, and came across a post from one of George Takei's websites about "the moment you knew you were done with your job" or something like that. And I started to write out one of my own such experiences, but then I realized that I was writing a fucking essay when all they needed was a paragraph or two. So I figured I'll just post my favorite rage-quit stories here. And they all seem to revolve around fast-food joints. I'll try to keep it as anonymous as I can without sacrificing the story.
I worked at a fast-food place when I was in my 20's, and I was working the grill during dinner rush alongside the store's lead manager and some new kid that was maybe a foot shorter than me and several years younger than me. Out of nowhere, completely unprovoked, kid starts telling me he's gonna kick my ass. Loudly. With the manager standing right next to us. Manger looks at me, and he's just as confused as I am. He knows I didn't say anything to set the kid off because HE'S STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO ME. Manager tells me to go take a ten while he deals with the kid.
The break room is in the store's basement, and there's a long stairway down to it with light switches at both ends. I sit down in the break room, trying to figure out what was that I could've done to set the kid off, and all of the sudden the lights go out. Somebody must've hit the switch at the top of the stairs by accident. I get up and turn the lights back on, but by the time I get back to my seat the lights go out again, and I hear a giggle from up the stairwell. Little fella was just messing with me. I call out that if the lights go out again, I'll take care of the kid myself. I don't even make it back to my seat and the lights go out again.
Okay, little guy is screwing with me and the manager has not taken care of the little twerp like he told me he would. Yeah, there's a lack of institutional control here, and I'm done with it. I change into my street clothes and head up the stairs. I see little fella doing the job I'd been doing, standing next to the manager at the grill and giggling like a schoolgirl. I walk up behind the kid and throw him over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes and casually tell the manager that he failed to take care of little fella's problem, and that I'd handle it myself now - and that I was quitting.
I walked out the back door of the restaurant with kid over my shoulder, through the drive-thru traffic and across the parking lot, and I threw the twerp in the dumpster, telling him if I ever saw him again he'd go in the compactor instead. About a week later I was telling my mother the story - she worked at the local high school as a secretary to the guidance counselors - and she already knew who the kid was. I hadn't even mentioned the kid's name to her up until that point, but she knew him from his record at school Turns out that little fella was a kinda-sorta special-ed student who literally could not control his own behavior from one minute to the next and was supposedly not allowed to work because of it. Kid lied about his age, saying he was eighteen when he was only sixteen - State Law says you can't work around a grill if you're under eighteen - and he didn't mention his behavioral disorder on his application.
And believe it or not, I did run across the little peckerwood again a few months later, but I'll spare you the details.
