Reddit user ssteepballet recently asked community members to share their final “F U” moments towards a boss they didn’t like. The thread quickly filled with a spicy range of defiant and triumphant “mic drop” exits that left me speechless. Here’s what people shared:
1.“He had shared an Andy Warhol bottle of Dom Perignon with us after we hit a big goal. He let me keep the cork because it was the first time I’d ever had champagne. When he fired our team months later, he stood in the doorway as I packed my desk. I tossed him the cork, said, ‘I think you know where you can stick this,’ and walked out the door with my stuff.”
—u/mfmeitbual
2.“I reported him and the company to the IRS for not sending me a W2 and noted how they changed the company name and various things every few months to cheat on taxes.”
—u/Pantastic_Studios
3.“We were getting ready to roll out the next great version of our core product. It was dependent on a single ‘master’ encryption key. The boss asked me to change the key and not share it with anyone. Okay, no problem. A week or two later, I decided to give my two weeks’ notice, and he went off the deep end, screaming and throwing stuff. I was going to give him the key; I had it on a diskette in my hand. He called security, and they immediately walked me out the door. Later that day, a messenger gave me a ‘legal order’ saying I must immediately destroy all company stuff (threatening a lawsuit if I didn’t), so I killed the diskette. They went live immediately after, but the database was corrupted, and they couldn’t do anything without the key, which no longer existed. Apparently, it took them weeks to recreate all the lost customer data. Bummer.”
—u/kooknboo
4.“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. The plant pulled their contract within a month, and the company went bankrupt.”
—u/tc6x6
5.“He got a new job and was leaving. On his last day, I left a gift on his desk: the board game ‘Clue,’ with a note that said, ‘Since you don’t have one.'”
—u/squid-do
6.“I left him stranded at Marseilles airport. I was meant to pick him up that day and drive him back to Monaco. At precisely the moment his plane was landing, I sent the ‘F U’ email to his PA saying that I would no longer be available. It was the best day ever.”
—u/Wwwweeeeeeee
7.“I just made the firing as awkward as possible. I spent 20 minutes in silence reading my severance package while she and the rep from HR watched. They tried to tell me they would email a copy I can electronically sign, but I just said no thanks. Then, I had them make a copy for me to take home again. They tried to say they would email it, but I insisted on a paper copy.”
—u/CertainlyAmbivalent
8.“I quit just before a busy holiday weekend. I booked a nice beach trip and headed out. On my way out of town, the manager called and asked, ‘Are you going to cover your shifts this weekend, or did you get somebody to work for you?’ Nope.”
—u/really_affordable
9.“I used their arrogance to fund my startup. I worked for this company for more than 10 years. They had about 150 employees and always claimed the whole ‘we’re a family’ thing, but the vibe was actually, ‘If you’re not with us, you’re against us.’ Anyone who ever quit, which was rare, was always shunned and walked out immediately. Knowing this, and after researching employment law in my state, I gave him a 30-day notice instead of just two weeks. As expected, he walked me out and paid me for only two weeks. That shortfall allowed me to file for unemployment since I had no HR issues. His pride made it all too easy to predict, and I enjoyed every check, knowing their insurance had gone up a little because of it.”
—u/WIDSTND
10.“I left an upper-decker in the ‘office staff only’ bathroom on my last day after the boss stopped letting the shop crew and drivers use both bathrooms and had 100+ people sharing one single bathroom so four people could have their own.”
—u/Eating_sweet_ass
11.I worked at a grocery store when I was younger. 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 wouldn’t 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.”
“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 U, I gave all of my uniforms to the unhoused men who hung out in the parking lot. They’d walk around the parking lot in store uniforms, asking for money and food. My old boss got into a few confrontations trying to get the shirts back from them. I wish I could’ve been there for those. Ultimately, those 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.”
—u/Forcekin6532
12.“I was a teacher and needed to take off the last day for a family vacation. Note: This was the last day for teachers, so we had no students. We would just clean up and go out to lunch with our coworkers. I submitted my vacation request and told them I would do all necessary check-out items before I left. Also, I hadn’t taken any time off for the last two years, not a sick or personal day! They denied my request and said if I didn’t show up that day, they would deduct my pay by my daily rate of $300+. I was so mad that I went and applied for another job in a way better district and got it. When the principal found out I got a new job, she frantically emailed and texted me, saying they would work out the vacation time. I was so over them and didn’t give her the time of day. They had treated me poorly long enough. The real kicker was that I didn’t submit my quitting form until July 1 (my district’s deadline), so they couldn’t hire someone for months!”
—u/mmmcookie7
13.“I was in a crappy job, in HR no less, on a contract, and I told the boss two months in advance that I was leaving at the end of the contract. After that day, they removed me from EVERYTHING — email groups, meetings, and a three-day offsite meeting (I found out about the meetings when I came to work, and no one was there for three days). I sat around playing games and reading on my last day. I was wandering around the building saying goodbye to people I actually enjoyed when suddenly my boss stopped me and said, ‘We are having a staff meeting, and you have to be there,’ then left. I went to someone I knew in the area of HR, and they said, ‘They planned a party for you.'”
“So after two months of being totally removed from ANYTHING — no meetings, no one talking to me, etc. — they wanted to feel good by throwing me a party. So I snuck out the back door (my desk had been cleared for days), got in my car, and left. I called the lady I knew, and she said they sat there for about 30 minutes and then left the board room. THEY WERE MAD.”
—u/layer-motor2
14.“I was a mechanic at a shop, and the boss had a favorite mechanic who could get away with anything. One day, about an hour before closing, an older lady comes in for front wheel bearings. I don’t know why they told her they could do it then, but they did. Well, the suck-up favorite mechanic snapped two of her wheel studs. He got frustrated, left the car in the air, and went home! The boss came in and asked where he had gone, so I told him what happened. The boss then said, ‘Well, get over there and finish it.’ Excuse me? I told him that it was not my problem and that I was finishing another vehicle in my bay. He said, ‘If you don’t finish that car, 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, but I never answered. I went on to open my own shop and do better.”
—u/ShawVAuto
15.“We never really got along. He got a promotion to upper management and needed an assistant. I had already found another job elsewhere before he got that promotion and had planned to quit. When the posting came out for his assistant, I applied for it just to stress him out, thinking he would once again have to deal with me. I went through the process and got the job, but never showed up on the first day, or the next, or the next. Somehow, this went on for over a month before HR called me, laughing and asking if I wanted to submit my resignation. He had to do all the work alone, which made me happy.”
—u/Other-Negotiation328
16.“I worked for a 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 that was over two hours away from where anyone lived. That morning, he had 10 employees. The next morning, he had three. He called each of us, begged us to return, and then asked why we were doing this to him. I told him about his inability to balance the workload and the fact 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.”
—u/apocalypticradish
17.“Gave them a ‘Sorry for your loss’ card when I quit.”
—u/WiscoPopPM
18.“Not me, but a friend. He worked at an Aladdin’s Castle video game parlor in the mid-’80s. 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 could unlock. There was a heavy metal cylinder at the top of the safe with an opening; when deposits were made into the cylinder, the deposit fell into the secure chamber when the cylinder was rotated. Once deposited, the only way to access the money was 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.”
—u/wkarraker
19.“I called a day before Christmas Eve to say I was resigning. I tried raising my salary for six years and never got more than a trainee. When I called, he said he could finally raise my salary to keep me in his company. I laughed and said, ‘No, I have already decided.’ It was the best decision ever in my work career. The place was toxic, with a really bad salary, and everyone was competing against each other instead of helping.”
—u/cornered_beef
20.“I used to clean a very busy deli in the evening after closing. I worked from 9:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m., completely taking the display cases apart, making it BEAUTIFUL for the next morning. The owner was a nasty drunk. As I was in the process, he called the store, berated me, called me names, told me I took too long, and rambled on and on. I was already fed up with his nonsense. I got off the phone, wrote a note that said, ‘I quit,’ set the alarm, and put my key through the mail slot. I left a NASTY, horrible mess. He called the next day and asked what had happened, but I didn’t call him back. I called the deli the next day and apologized to my coworkers, but they thought it was hysterical. They said he was totally distraught and hungover, but they were with me 100%! Everybody quit over the next few months because he was a complete jerk.”
—u/Max123Dani
21.“I called in sick on my last day after 15 years at the company. He wasn’t happy, but I was, and I was finally free.”
—u/WhatsACellPhone
22.“I had a meeting with my boss, who was trying to ‘put me in my place’ the whole time. At the end of his 20-minute rant, I handed him the resignation letter I planned to give him the whole time. Watching him waste his time and tell him I was leaving without anything else lined up was so satisfying.”
—u/ohhhohohkay
23.“I emailed my two weeks’ notice the very same day I got another job offer. I copied the email to HR. My notice came only a few days after another manager’s two-week notice. My boss scheduled me to close on my very last day and told me I could come by to give her my keys 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. According to my old coworkers, she had to work a double and apparently was seething.”
“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. 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.”
—u/PrehistoricPrincess
24.“I was at a school where, for no reason, my boss and his boss both disliked me. The boss was an ex-military guy, and I was involved in the Peace Corps, which may have been a part of it. I was very successful at the school and made my boss look bad by comparison. Anyway, I got let go, which I knew was coming. It was one of those deals where they allowed you to stay a year while you found a new school. Since I knew it was coming, I went out and got a job, which turned out to be a better job with 50% more pay. The market just happened to be hot at the time, pre-Covid. Summer came, and I didn’t tell them I had a new job, so they assumed I would stay the extra year.”
“There was a date by which I had to turn in my contract for the extra year, but it was in July, so it was pretty late for them to find a new person. On the deadline date, I declined the offer. They could not replace me in time, so this caused a lot of issues and extra work for them. The best part was that I wrote a really nice letter thanking everyone for their support (which had been minimal at best) and basically left on very good terms. I sent it to every one of my colleagues, most of whom supported my boss. One of my friends told me that the letter made them furious, and my boss got fired eventually as things went downhill.”
—u/teacherbooboo
25.“A month after I started my new job, I recruited two key workers from my old company. I left my boss having to explain to his boss why he had no idea what to do despite taking credit for everything we had done.”
—u/JustSomeGuy_56
26.“I’m a former executive chef. I got fired via email while on leave for a death in the family. I didn’t check my messages until I returned to work, so I was completely blindsided. Of course, everyone else already knew, including other restaurants. The boss was conveniently absent when I came to get my stuff. I smashed a company laptop and wiped a few hundred recipes and other important documents from my master hard drive. I heard she was pretty mad about that. These were petty actions on my part, but that boss was a habitual line stepper and harasser who loved verbal abuse. They constantly threatened to fire me over several years, always saying they could do it without me at a moment’s notice. That was part of daily life for way too long, so I never felt bad for screwing her over like that. A few months later, she got fired. Three of my former managers informed me about it before the boss knew it was coming. That was the sweet, sweet icing on the cake.”
—u/guiltycitizen
27.“I quietly asked for an exit interview with HR. I was told they don’t do that for contractors, but I insisted. When it came time for the exit interview, I quietly explained the desperate situation on the call floor to HR. People were quitting for other jobs, and the boss was not replacing them but was still expecting call numbers and stats to improve with fewer people. Also, 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 expected us to just take her write-ups for breaking rules that didn’t exist the day before.”
“I never insulted the big boss; I kept my tone polite and professional while pointing out the issues. HR started sitting in on those daily meetings with shift supervisors about the 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 the boss’s direct abuse towards them, HR had enough and asked her to leave.”
—u/IronBoomer
28.And: “I worked retail for a bit after finishing school, and our manager quit right during the holiday season, so we went without one through January. Then, instead of promoting those of us who kept the store running, corporate brought a new manager in from a different store. She proceeded to find flimsy pretexts to fire us all. She called me back from vacation time I was spending visiting my sister, who was going through cancer treatment, to ‘cover a shift.’ When I showed up, she fired me. I had a 32 oz root beer in my hand, which I expected to sip during my shift. She was wearing the whole thing before I walked out the door for the last time. It was all over her ugly white sweater. Zero regrets.”
—u/geoffbowman
Have you ever given a crappy boss one final “screw you” before leaving a toxic job? Tell us your story in the comments or submit it anonymously using this form.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
