Yep, tonight (1 week's notice, and sweeter, wasn't sure I could pull it off and did). Celebrate your favorite job desertions...

Wow, congrats.

mazel tov (as long as you can pay yr rent til you find something) : >

when I quit my last job, my resignation letter ended up getting my boss demoted. Fired would have been better, but demoted is good.

Typed my resignation letter today, dusted off the resume. It feels really great, so my best to you dreamsign. I've given just over a month's notice, which might be a bit anticlimatic when it's all over.

Good on you dreamsign. I quit a job I hated and went back to being a student. Best. Lifestyle. Change. Evah.

I was 22, working in the Four Season's best dining room. Just a couple months away from going to Europe, I was getting hassled by the general manager over alledgedly calling in too early for clearance from my on-call shifts.

After one too many reprimands, I sat in the hotel garage talking to one of the attendants and called for the yay or nay at the latest possible time. Receiving the 'all clear' specifically from said GM, I asked the attendant to time/date stamp a 3x5 card and wrote six words on it:

Effective immediately,

I QUIT.

*My Name*

I was so freaked out that I dry heaved in the service alley, but years later ran into some of my former fellow co-workers and found I'd become something of a legend as the GM was a notorious dick and I was the first person to leave on principle.

It felt good, but, man, I'd rather just have a nice place to work and skip the bullshit, ya know?

I quit my job in March. The last straw occurred on a Friday (which, as it happened, was a holiday). I didn't go back on Monday, nor ever.

Very liberating, penury aside.

Years and years ago, I quit a horrid temp data entry job for this small place that had purportedly Christian owners who tried to suck the blood out of all their employees. I wouldn't put up with it and was gone after 2 or 3 weeks.

The sweet part was that I inspired the guy acting as a manager at the place (who was a good fellow) to finally suck it up and leave that soul sucking place too.

I got laid off two weeks ago today. It has been AWESOME! I hated my job and was trying to work up the nerve to quit, so being laid off was just like a beautiful gift from the gods. This way I get unemployment and I tell you, this has been among the best two weeks of my life. I have done absolutely nothing and it's been just unbelievably great. Time to read, think, wander, hike, paint - ah.

Tangential Question: Well, I'm supposed to get unemployment & I applied & the website says OK but I haven't actually gotten any money yet, anyone know anything about this?

I worked as an assistant (temp) for the vice chairman of [immense global banking firm headquartered in NYC], Sir M, who was knighted a few years ago for financial services to the British crown, and his wife, Lady M.

There were two assistants: one worked solely for Sir M, and the other, that is to say, me -- I worked for Sir M in a minor capacity but mostly for Lady M.

I was charged with management of the M's personal lives. Lady M's breakfast meetings with Senator John Kerry and his ilk, family vacations to Cabo San Whatever, RSVPs to private concerts at Lincoln Center by Gidon Kremer or Yo-Yo Ma were all under my purview.

Sir M was the real deal -- a guy who was at the top of his field because he was so damn good at it -- a peerless manager. Lady M, however... "the worst boss I've ever had" doesn't quite cover it. Micromanager extraordinaire, slavedriver, total bitch; she had it covered. Ten to one she was worse than the worst boss you've ever had.

I worked twelve hour days to come in and get bitched at every morning, by phone, over nothing. I think she just needed someone to make miserable. And I get the feeling I was hired so that someone wouldn't be her husband.

I mean, she didn't even work for [afore-un-mentioned bank]. The Ms were hiring me out-of-pocket (tightened banking regulations allow only one assistant per officer on bank payroll). It was good money, though, and mad overtime. Like, twenty hours a week of it.

So one day, my throat felt scratchy and I started feeling feverish after lunch. I called Lady M, telling her I needed to leave at 5:00 so I could rest and feel well enough to come in the next day. She showed a surprising amount of sympathy in acquiescing.

At around 4:30, she called with a good two hours of utter bullshit (going through old trip itineraries and making them neat for posterity) for me to do. I hung up with her, finished what I was working on, wrote a memo reminding Lady M of our earlier conversation and my impending illness, and left, bringing a stack of finished work down to the driver, [Joe], to take up Park Ave. a couple of blocks to Lady M at home.

I felt good enough the next day to head in early and finish up the previous day's leftovers. At around 9:30, just as I was finishing, I got a phone call from Lady M.

She started reaming me out, getting louder and louder. At one point she said, "You did so little work, [Hugh], that I don't even know what you did. I want you to tell me what you didn't do!" I was polite, and endured her lashing.

As soon as I hung up with her, I called my temp firm and told them I'd be leaving at two and never returning. You know what they said? They apologized, told me I'd done a great job, and promised me a better assignment, fast.

Then I called [the banking firm]'s HR department. They apologized to me, too, and told me I was the twenty-fifth temp they'd had in that position in the past year, and that I'd lasted much longer than anyone else had. Sir M's chief of staff even called me in for an exit interview, to ask me how they could solve their staffing problem.

Finally, after wrapping up my early work, I called Lady M.

"Lady M, it has been at all times an honor, and sometimes even a pleasure to work for you and your husband. I'm leaving at two today, and I won't be coming back tomorrow or ever again. Thank you for the opportunity, and good luck"

She responded with the quietest of okays, and I hung up. I took the elevator down, walked out of the building into a shower of late-season snow, and headed toward the subway.

It was Saint Patrick's Day, and the parade was heading down Fifth Avenue, so I joined it, and looked up at the scattered flakes falling down on me, and I felt just so good.

Just so fucking good.

Hugh, wonderful story. I hope you're doing something you love now.

That's beautiful, Hugh. I hope you're doing better now, too.

Great story, Hugh, and you told it so well. Bravo!

*applauds, with gusto*