Anonymous 15m 3,704 #shortjobs
The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.
Shortest Durations On The Job
There is a lot most of us are willing to put up with at work and we will hold down a job that we hate just to pay our bills, feed our kids, or just live our everyday lives. There are some jobs that are great, some jobs that are mediocre, and some jobs that absolutely no one wants. If you can think of it, there is likely a job for it. It is someone’s job to pick up elephant poop all day. It is someone’s job to go into a crime scene or a scene where someone recently died and clean it up. It is someone’s job to stand around all day and look pretty, literally.
There are tons of jobs out there that everyone takes for money. There are some jobs take because people are just passionate about the work. There are even some jobs that people would do for free and even do it for very low pay because they love it and their employer cannot afford to pay them anymore than what they are being paid. For some people, they may just not be getting paid enough to do such a job, while others would never do it for however much money they were offered. Some people, however, are not willing to work some jobs, and those jobs may not be what they were looking for—or more like they are not willing to tolerate the bullshit that comes with the job, and so, after their first day, maybe even after the first hour, they get up, they walk out the door, and they never look back, ultimately quitting their job to find another one.
Here are a series of responses from people who held jobs for a very short period of time. Last names have been removed to protect the innocent.
John 5 weeks. It was meant to be temporary, and I made sure it stayed that way. I liked the work, it was a decent side hustle, but I didn’t want it to be long term. I was stocking beer at grocery stores in a college town. Good work, decent pay. Easy way to make a couple hundred extra for that month-ish.
Philip Less than a month, onboarding was terrible, job wasn’t what the description/interview made it out to be, and the entire environment was toxic. Learned a lot about finding a job from that one.
Diego 2 days. I was promised one thing and reality was completely different than what they offered.
Kendall 3 months. I was an administrative assistant when I first graduated college and I was miserable. The job paid decently and there were some nice perks, but it didn’t offer benefits nor was I challenged creatively. I’ve been on several interviews with that three month stint on my resume and it never seems to reflect poorly on my prospects of being hired.
Joanne 5 months … Was on unemployment and needed to work so I took it. Pay was lousy and luckily within that time another company contacted me and the pay was 30k more. Still have that job and love it.
Dawn 1 week. Was trying to use my colllege degree and it was very obvious right away that it wasn’t for me.
Ciante 2 days. I had been unemployed for a few months and received a job offer out of state. I was out of college and young, still living at home, no responsibilities beyond my car payment. Turns out the offer was about 2 miles from my grandma so I packed up and left. At the end of my first day, I got an offer for a job back in NY and I packed up again and ran home! I only showed up the second day to quit in person. I was looking forward to spending time with my grandma but Maryland is not home.
Melanie Just shy of a month. One of the jobs I wanted more finally called and offered me a job, once I had already started elsewhere.
Carrera I’ve had a couple two week jobs, because I got better offers.
Lea 6 weeks. I had just graduated college and was looking for employment. I found a part time job at the local library and hadn’t had any other bites for employment so I took it and put a temporary hold on looking for other jobs. I had only been there about 2 weeks when I got a call to interview for a job I had previously applied to and got the offer. It was full-time and made sense to make the jump then into my career.
Caitlyn 3 days. Wilson’s leather. I was 16. Decided a second job wasn’t worth being treated badly and talked to inappropriately.
Angelyn One month at a receptionist position. I was undervalued, unchallenged and had no creative outlet. Plus, no benefits. I never put it in my resume afterward.
Nathan Most new people in the car business. 60-90 days.
Shana Four hours. I walked out during orientation at Target in college. I was told I had been hired to do one thing, but then they said they switched me to something else that paid less and was way worse. I left for lunch and never went back.
Alana 3 months. The commute home every night from Virginia was @2 hours due to horrific traffic and I was not willing to move to accommodate it due to personal reasons. On the plus side, I got a job offer 2.7 miles from home and when I left the Virginia job, they were really supportive, understood (common issue here in DMV) and offered to take me back if it didn’t work out in the new job.
Nancee Lee-Allen 1 day, I got food poisoning from the restaurant. Never went back!
Kate A week. Junior year in high school. I was a floral shop assistant and had incorrectly placed an order – my boss stormed up to me and grabbed my arm. He dragged me to the computer and then yelled while he shook me. I quit on the spot.
Ashley One month – child daycare center at a military base. It wasn’t a bad job but it filled in time between graduating college and getting a job with benefits and good pay.
Karolyn One week!! Hated it and had another job offer I was able to take instead
Dee I like the jobs but can’t stand the manager. I was her assistant.
Stephanie 6 hours – being a hotel maid was not for me! Mad props to the folks who do those jobs – it’s not easy!!
Nicole 1 week at VISA in foster city,CA
James 1 day. It was evident it was an awful fit and not what was initially discussed.
Dan About a month and a half on a contract gig for a big financial, but I got offered a permanent position someplace less gray and soul-sucking, so I jumped on it.
Olga One shift. Cocktail waitress in college – hired by the GM of the place, met the shift manager the night I started who was a creep and made me extremely uncomfortable, never went back after the end of the night.
Vince 2 weeks managing parking lots. No training no responsibilities. The final straw was when the manager told me I needed more polish on my shoes. I’m in a parking lot!
Steven 1 shift in a newspaper plant. 8 hr shift turned into 11.5hr shift “until the work was done.”
Kelsey A month-ish. A bakery with the owner from hell. He told me I’d be doing some actual baking but instead stuck me at the front counter. I should have known it would be awful when I told him I was getting married on a Friday 6 hours away and I’d prefer to wait to start until the second Monday after the wedding. He told me he’d only hold my job until the Thursday after my wedding. I was irritated but agreed. He closed the register one day and he came up short. He berated me, told me he had cameras, accused me of stealing, told me his insurance company would make them arrest me…literally everything he could think of to scare the crap out of me. I’m pretty sure it was like, $2 too. The next day he found the missing money in the back of the register and said, “isn’t that soooo funny?!” Nope. Not funny. In any event, I stayed on but immediately started looking for other jobs. I was well into the interview process at a different job when I was working there one day. A couple came in with major issues from their wedding cake. They had people ask them if the cake had even been finished being decorated. It wasn’t what they asked for or wanted and it was just awful. This guy legit told them that it was the wedding cake of their dreams. Eventually he gave them a refund of $15 on a $400 cake but it was like pulling teeth. While he was going on his rant about how they had gotten exactly what they wanted, the groom looked at me and I, with a look of sheer horror on my face, mouthed “I’m SO SORRY”. After they left, I called the owner out and told him that I was quitting because that was the worst customer service I’d ever seen in my life and I couldn’t work for someone who clearly didn’t value his own customers. He told me to just go home. I did, and happily at that. He sold the place less than a year later. He was such an ass.
Ben 8 months. Life is too short to work at a job that you hate. Company got bought out by another company and I was miserable after that.
J Marie 3 months at a retail mall job in my freshman year of college. I quit the week before Black Friday. Didn’t even pick up my last check. Last time I ever worked retail lol
Sophie Three months. Job duties weren’t as promised. I was told I’d lead a team. Instead, I was part of a team led by someone who didn’t know what they were doing and constantly dismissed my efforts to help us do meaningful work. The person who hired me offered no support and apologized for the shift. Gave my notice after being yelled at during a meeting and never looked back.
Tracy A year and and a half. Then I was laid off. i would have left at the 8-9 month mark if I could, but hard to do that when I moved cross country for the job.
Wesley 3 days. At 17, I was by far the best employee at Dairy Queen, but treated terribly. As a bargaining ploy, I quit and walked over to Arby’s who hired me on the spot. Dairy Queen began to fall apart almost instantly. In no time Dairy Queen wanted me back and they offered me Assistant Manager and a hefty pay increase and I returned. Arby’s sucked for a 17 year old since you couldn’t handle the blades. 3 days of free Jamocha Shakes though!
Angela Two weeks at a midtown Manhattan diner when I was in grad school. It was one of those places where you just yell at cook and don’t write anything down and was insanely busy. Not for me.
Tony Six months at a video game company. It was a bad culture fit for me.
Marie 3 hours at Toys R Us.
Nicole Working for a collections agency, I spent about 2 weeks. It was terrible! People are desperate liars, and I was too young with no life experience, and had a bleeding heart! Not a good combo!
Asia About 3 weeks. Worked as an Intern in a small company, they didn’t pay and didn’t have much work for me. It was a bit weird.
Aleksandra Seven months, because I got offered my dream job and was leaving an ok-for-now job. But in my teens and early twenties I think there were some much more short-lived gigs!
Julie One day at a clothing retailer. I didn’t agree with their customer service so I quit.
Julie Half a day. I walked out at lunchtime. The owner wanted me to pay vendors and put the check in a drawer so we could give a date and check number when they called looking for their payment. He instructed me to say “it must be delayed in the mail”. No way I was going to be part of that mess!
Brittany 5 days at a local diner as a server. Worked 60 hrs in those 5 days. I had no serving experience and got no training. It was awful. Props to all the servers out there! It is so not for me!
Jeff CD subscription telemarketing. I didn’t make any sales in four hours. Told not to come back after lunch.
Mike Four hours. Took a job when I was in high school where I was told we would be canvassing neighborhoods to get people to sign petitions. We were actually trying to get people to donate money to something I had never heard of. It was so uncomfortable, I left at lunch. The kicker is, they drove us all there together in a big van, so I had to walk 5 miles home.
Gwyneth Three days, the boss kept offering to give me back massages (with “joking” offers of upgrading it to a chest massage). His excuse was that his wife was seven months pregnant. Shockingly, that did not earn any pity from me!
Lucas 2 days, KFC. They wanted me to clean ALL the dishes for the day and then I had to follow the manager to the bank. No thanks. As a side note, I’m now a vegetarian as a result of that experience.
Erik Two weeks at a Kenny Rogers Roasters in high school. Management was keeping me around after midnight on school nights.
Kristin I spent one day as a school photographer’s assistant, because it required getting up at 4 AM. No.
Lety 2 yrs.. the company relocated right outside city limits and they dramatically reduced our working hours
Kurt About a half-hour with Uber. One trip was all it took for me to realize it wasn’t the job for me.
Danielle A bit short of six months. It was a telephone helpdesk job in the 90s that was horrible.
Jessica 2 months as a youth advocate. Organization was incredibly disorganized and didn’t pay enough to cover my rent, let alone my bills.
Vanessa I lasted 7 weeks, it was a small clean up/refurbishing company after flood and fire. Found it through my college school career site. I had to write like 3 research papers before they could hire me. I was fresh outta college and was gonna take anything …See More
Cory 2 weeks making shoes at Nike, it was terrible, low paying work. Long hours standing on concrete, etc… Funnily enough I now work there as a software engineer.
Katelin 2 weeks. It worked at a gas station in college and this guy would come in and I got really uncomfortable. He would try and get me to come out to his car and would wait for people to leave the store and come in when I was alone. He asked about my schedule and a co-worker told him I would be working the night shift alone the next day. I found earlier that week that he was a registered sex offender and so I told my boss I was not comfortable and she basically told me to get over it. So I quit. I felt bad, especially for the woman who had to take the night shift. But I had a bad feeling, and I wasn’t about to put myself in danger.
Chad 1 week at a newish restaurant. Everybody working there hated it, owners were weird AF and uptight about the oddest things, and they had a horrible tipping system in place for servers so much so that you were lucky if you made $100 in a busy 7 hour shift ringing over $1k in sales. Too much work for too little pay and toxic environment got me out the door real quick.
Dave 3 days workong at Johnny rockets. I was the worst waiter ever.
Rachel 2 weeks at an outbound call center. My dad was stabbed and was in the hospital. I called in to let them know, and they told me I just shouldn’t come back if I didn’t go in that day.
Greg 9 months as a Paramedic Supervisor with a private ambulance company. The Owners of the company were financially driven and abused all of thier salary employees. As an example, an hourly employee coukd say Nah, I don’t want to work anymore today and w…See More
Shelley 6 months – Too much office drama. Couldn’t get out fast enough!!!
Trevor Sawmill. I did it for about a month. Even with a mask I was breathing in tons of saw dust. Also you’re constantly in ankles deep worth of sawdust standing next to a spinning circular saw blade with (no safeguards) that’s half the size of you. One trip, you’re dead. I don’t regret it, I just knew I needed to get out of there. I started college after that and now have a successful career in IT.
Theresa 1 day as a housecleaner a summer in college. After I spent half the day crying or trying not to, I thought it best to not go back lol. Luckily I was young enough I could blame it on my parents. I told them they didn’t want me working such long hours (I was there about 10 hours) and they were making me give it up
Fred One hour. I was an intern for a local Chamber of Commerce and had access to a lot of local business info, the local AFLAC branch brought me on but I soon realized they needed details of the local businesses from my previous internship. I sneaked our without logging out of my PC. Felt it was unethical
Dan Two weeks. The owner confided in me that he was a Nordic alien sent back in time to be part of a special event. CHECK PLEASE!
Deej Under 2 years at my last job.
Ashley Three weeks at a video store. They wouldn’t let us clock out for lunch, so we had to eat on the floor in front of customers. We were also told to clock out early and work for free if we were getting close to our allotted hours for the week.
Michael 2 weeks. The company had me lying to people in Japan that we were working on their product. I don’t lie well? Not my thing.
Leslie 3 weeks. Found out I was pregnant the day before I started the new job and they don’t offer maternity leave and I wasn’t going to be covered by their insurance.
Sarah Two months. I had just graduated college in 2008. Jobs were slim. I found a job, but it was easly paying $20k for the type of position. A few weeks after starting I found another job that was much better.
Julie 11 months – at a place I refer to as #jobfromhell (because my separation agreement states that I can not speak negatively about them by name) it was the worst most toxic environment I have ever worked in. I asked them to fire me. In the 11 months I was there 30 people (in a company of 70) were fired. The department I was in has a complete turn over in staff every 1.5 years on average.
Kelly I was 16 years old. I worked for 4 hours. I was asked to clean the bathroom. I never went back. I didn’t sign up for that. 😆
Lachelle 5 months contract was lost therefore I was laid off
Sam Less than a day at a gas station. This was waaaayyyy back when I was a teen. People would fill up and not pay. This was obviously before current apt at the pump.
Rita 4 hrs making fries at McDonalds. So monotonous. I am still not a fan of fries. Left and got a job waitressing to get through school
Heather Like 6 days at Shaw’s because they hired me for the bakery but then they had me get carts all day every day in the snow. I was sad.
Susan 1 day at Ulta…because the contract included having to wear chapstick/lipstick regularly…I am not the makeup type
Matt High school. Dude paid me $8 to pick up trash outside his store for 2 hours. Never returned.
Scott 5 days. What I was told I’d be doing in the interview was actually what I would be doing 2 years from my start date after data crunching that whole time. Bye bye
Chris One day. Taking insulation of trucks at construction sites.
Kiersten 6 months and that was waaaay too long. The recruiter lied to me about their benefits and then when I started, he just said “oh well, hr is making changes all the time so that stuff is definitely coming”. When my coworkers revealed that they had been saying that for years, I finally bailed. I only stayed so ling because my direct team was actually pretty fun to work with.
Marcia 8 hours as a Kirby vacuum telemarketer. I left in tears.
Kelley Three hours as a front desk clerk at a small hotel. We took a tour, stocked a fridge in the convenience shop area and sat at the desk the rest of the time. The phone never rang, there were no customers and then they said I’d be there by myself after training. I told the manager it wasn’t going to work out and I didn’t want to waste anymore of her time. Mind-numbingly slow.
Chelsea 3 months. It was a cold calling job with no training. Awful!
Shane 1 day. I was a telemarketer.
Kae One day. It was a temp job and I was supposed to be an office clerk answering phones and such but they had me filing for 8 hours and my fingers were bleeding by the time I was done… I couldn’t do it.
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