What is the shortest time you've spent at a job before quitting.

[Bazaalmon]

One day. I was 16 at the time, I was working the dinner shift at a Mongolian Barbecue restaurant as a busser. The manager kept me until midnight, even though the labor law said that students can only work until 10 at the latest. I called the next day and quit, because if he was breaking the law my first day on the job, I was not going to stick around to see what other crap he pulled.

Since then I have got an awesome job that I don't have to stay late at, so I'm pretty happy about that.

 

[TWRule]

As far as quitting, 5 months at Walmart. Unfortunately I'm there now because I have to save up for school. Again. Hate the US educational system.

Buddy - if your situation allows, take advantage of federal educational loans; start school asap, quit your job, and live off of loans. You'll accrue debt which will take awhile to pay off after you graduate - but if you know you have to go to school and you're likely to get a decent job afterward, then it's manageable.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

About 6 weeks I think...I got a job at best buy where the work was completely different to the training, the managers were useless when it came to telling me what I had to do, and the hours were absolutely horrible. Best Buy is probably a place that I would have stuck with if I was working with other, better people but this was one of those times where it was absolutely would have improved things.

 

[JimB]

Two weeks. I was selling Kirby vacuums. The way that works is, sales people are teamed with managers and we go out to neighborhoods to find people at home to sell them to. Because I'd sold the most out of the batch of recruits I'd been in, my manager requested that he have me personally, and that request was granted. He and I would drive, always in my car, out to people who own businesses--the Mennonites with their health supplement business was his primary target--and we'd never make a sale because my manager wasn't actually interested in making sales, but rather building contacts as part of some plan to met Warren Buffet which would make him rich somehow. This annoyed me, but I put up with it because when I'd signed on, I'd been told I'd get three hundred dollars a day just for showing up.

Payday rolled around, and I didn't get paid. I asked what the fuck, and was told it was because our salaries were entirely commission-based, and the "You'll get three hundred dollars a day for showing up" line was a lie based on the assumption that you would sell at least one vacuum per day.

I could have asked to be transferred to a team that actually wanted to make sales, but I take offense at being lied to, so I quit.

 

[trollnystan]

I've never quit a job, but I got fired once after only 2 months. As it was a telephone sales job I was doing a happy dance in my head all the way out the door. (I would've quit but as I was/am on social welfare I need a REALLY good reason to quit jobs.)

 

[Ariseishirou]

Three weeks at Tim Hortons. Was supposed to be a summer-long job during high school, but the hours were awful, the shifts were random, and people (disgruntled, angry people who hadn't had their coffee yet and were somehow ~shocked~ that there was a huge line during rush hour mornings on a weekday at the busiest location in the province) treated the staff like human garbage.

Quit, got paper route delivering the Globe and Mail that paid just about as well, did that for the next few summers in college, too.

 

[Thurston]

Less than 1 day.

Got hired on as temporary labour at minimum wage helping set up rides for "Benny Birch's Birthday Party." Yup, I was temping for carnies.

I don't mind dirty physical labour, but getting yelled at by fat morons for not knowing how to assemble a Ferris Wheel was pretty unnerving. I'm not a stupid guy, but putting together a Ferris Wheel is a course I was never offered.

THEN, I was put onto assembling the Merry-Go-Round. I was standing on the top rung of a rickety ladder, on uneven muddy ground, trying to maneuver heavy wooden beams over my head into position. These beams had light bulbs in them at regular intervals, and I got some homemade stigmata when I put my hand in the wrong place. I did two or three of them, then after a particular fun top-rung-wobble with my arms shaking with fatigue, I had epiphany.

"I'm going to to fall off this ladder, then, a heavy wooden beam filled with jagged glass is going to fall on me."

I quit at that point, not really caring if they paid me for the day. I went back the next day and they did pay me.

It was also great incentive to stay in school.

 

[AnthrSolidSnake]

So far I haven't left my first "real" job yet...I've been there since April, but I'm seriously considering leaving.

First off, we're seriously understaffed. At any time on any day, there are two people working (not including Pharmacy) meaning one person out on the floor, and one person at register. Except there's never anyone at register since that person (9 times out of 10 is myself) has to leave and work on the floor.

Every day I run register myself, photo lab (which other stores usually have a dedicated employee for), sales floor (cleaning, straightening, sale tags, restocking), and customer assistance.

I was also hired as "part time", but I work just under 40 hours a week anyway, so I might as well have been given full time. So I get none of the benefits while working almost as much.

Not to mention, the area my store is in is right in the middle of a projects, a low income area, a largely Hispanic area, and middle class. This means most of my customers have been rude, stupid, hostile, or just unfortunately cannot speak any english.

All of this I could tolerate if we had appropriate staff, but every day I'm constantly in a dazed, stressed rush to complete all my floor work for that day and helping every customer at the register.

 

[DoPo]

I was doing a happy dance in my head all the way out the door.

I choose to picture it looked exactly like your avatar.

OT: Depending on your definition of "quit" it would be between "never" and "about two months". The fact is, I've never really quit any job...but then again I've not really been in a stable permanent position, either. The two months one was supposed to last that much. It was a job that normally only spanned the summer (July-August). If it matters I was an excavation worker at a historical site. And that sounds way, way more exciting than it actually was.

The other places I worked at have similarly been time limited from the get-go. Well, perhaps aside from one factory where the positions were uber-temporary - you would get a call every once in a while when they need more people for a particular shift. Well, it'd be about every week or so, but still. I didn't "quit" or "get fired" as much as gotten off the list for calls because I was going away for a while. I just happened to never get back to that place. It's slightly more complicated than that but it captures the essence, I suppose.

 

[Dalisclock]

My first "job" was working for Vector Marketing, otherwise known as Cutco. Basically you try to sell people Knives door to door.

I got hired and realized I'd made a mistake pretty fast. I turned in my display set and quit within two days. I didn't make any money but I didn't lose any friends/sleep either.

Ha - I once interviewed for Cutco too; they seem to prey on teens and fresh high-school grads who don't know any better. If I remember correctly, they brought me in and had one HR person interview me and two others simultaneously. The interviewer even asked "Why should you get the job instead of this guy? I was like: "I'm not sure, he seems like a perfectly capable guy, maybe you should give it to him?" I kind of stopped taking it seriously and looked elsewhere. Luckily, I got a different job before they called me back to offer me that job (they probably never intended to turn anyone away), so I had an excuse to turn them down. If they'd have hired me, I probably would have quit as quickly as you did.

I hate that question. It just feels wrong, because I don't know about the other guy or how good he is. It feels like a secret test of "Would you screw over yourself or some guy you've barely(if ever) met?".

Granted, with Cutco it doesn't matter, because I know I didn't put any effort into the training and they hired me anyway(which was part of the reason it started feeling wrong).

Considering I did military recruiting years later and hated that with a passion(even if I did well enough to get by), it turns out I made the right decision. I don't have a future in sales.

 

[trollnystan]

I was doing a happy dance in my head all the way out the door.

I choose to picture it looked exactly like your avatar.

And you'd be absolutely right =D

 

[Vausch]

As far as quitting, 5 months at Walmart. Unfortunately I'm there now because I have to save up for school. Again. Hate the US educational system.

Buddy - if your situation allows, take advantage of federal educational loans; start school asap, quit your job, and live off of loans. You'll accrue debt which will take awhile to pay off after you graduate - but if you know you have to go to school and you're likely to get a decent job afterward, then it's manageable.

That's exactly what I was trying to avoid. I get a lot of grants already at my school for my major being Mechanical Engineering, but I still run out due to housing costs, no roommates I can find (or trust; I'm paranoid), and that I can't find any work down there.

My goal at this point is to go back for the fall 2015 semester. I'll have more than enough saved up and have a better model for self-employment to at least get some extra money, plus a friend has said he would room with me.

 

[Baldry]

Less than a day. It was for essentially telesales. Such a soul crushing job, we weren't even selling anything it was for the NHS or something but the people were just complete arseholes because there's such a stigma against it. I quit like 2/3 hours before the end of the day, knew I couldn't keep at it, got the job i do now love it.

Mad respect for people that do those sorts of jobs now though.

 

[Pikey Mikey]

I'm 21, studying and semi-searching for a job. So my experience is kinda limited =P
But, the shortest job I've had? A week.

It was a
one of those summer jobs you can apply for when you're 15-18 (I think, or it's 12-15 (communal summer jobs)) at a retirement home/old folks' home... I couldn't take it. I felt so useless there because I barely had any tasks, there was almost nothing to do...

It was just a house full of old people with various dementia and illnesses that meant that they sat around doing nothing all day, and some of them had no recollection of what day it was or if their partner was dead or not (they told one woman that her husband was away on a trip or something because it was easier than her having to deal with it every day).

It was like being in a house of semi-dead people (felt like it anyway) and don't get me wrong, people who work there are very good people (at least at that place) and they do their best to take care of the residents and cheer them up every once in a while. But I couldn't stand it. Partly because, like stated earlier, it felt like everyone there was half-dead but mostly (I think, anyway) because there were so few things to do.

So I told my dad about it and he told me to ask [whoever was responsible for hiring/redistributing workers] and I got moved to the fire-fighting station to rent out life jackets and some janitorial stuff, much better.

When I do a job I want to feel like I'm earning my paycheck, if not then I don't feel bad per se, but something similar. Like my most recent job (emergency filling in at a car-rental), it was ok, my boss was great, all the people there were, but there were days where I spend most of an eight hour shift (lunch was an hour) just sitting on a chair, asking everyone else if they had ANYTHING they wanted or needed help with (they all said something along the lines of "nah, not really") =/ Still, the pay was really good xD (I got extra because I was urgently hired through a friend and got a day and a half of training instead of the two weeks you were supposed to get because my boss went on vacation the same day I started (but I got his number and called when I needed help with anything (and at the end, he thought I'd done a great job ^^)))

Sorry, I have a habit of wall-texting =P

 

[carnex]

1 day

God the job through an agency, crappy job but it's income. Went there, recognized the boss and she recognized me. We had some bad blood between us, something that can't be easily washed. Worked for the rest of the day. We both agreed that it would be for the best that I leave at the end of the day so I did. Bullet dodged really.

 

[Jesterscup]

Less than Two Minutes.

Seriously.

I used to be a chef, I was looking for a new job. A friend got me a trial shift at his place. These usually happen on a friday, as it's busy, you sink or swim. Friday is also payday, and my friend had not been paid. I told the manager that either she pay my friend or I'd consider them unreliable for paying their staff and wouldn't work there. I didn't work there....

 

[CardinalPiggles]

I've never quit a job, unless you count a paper route when I was about 14 years old.

I'm still working my first real job I started 6 years ago.