Most people leave their jobs by handing in or emailing a letter of resignation. But this traditional method was obviously too boring for these audacious employees. Read on to see the extraordinary ways they told their bosses they were quitting.
Chris Holmes, a London Stansted Airport worker, decided a traditional resignation letter was too plain and icing it on a cake would be better. The message read: "Today is my 31st birthday and having recently become a father, I now realise how precious life is and how important it is to spend my time doing something that makes me, and other people, happy. For that reason, I hereby give my notice of resignation." Fittingly, Chris went on to start his own cakemaking business. Hopefully, the free cake helped his boss see the funny side.
Karen Cheng, a former Microsoft employee, put her musical and creative talents to great use when she spectacularly quit her job as a designer by uploading a singalong video to YouTube. Guitar in hand, Karen covered the classic hit song American Pie, changing the lyrics to "bye, bye Excel and I". Her catchy rendition went viral and she went on to forge a successful career as a content creator.
Marina Shifrin, a Taiwanese animator, sensationally quit her job by uploading a video of herself dancing around her empty office building at 4am to Kayne West’s Gone. Marina said at the time: "For two years, I've sacrificed my relationships, time and energy for this job and my boss only cares about quantity and how many views each video gets, so I figured I'd make one video of my own to focus on the content instead of worrying about the views. Oh, and to let my boss know... I quit." One person who saw the humorous side of the now-viral clip was celebrity talk show host Queen Latifah, who offered Marina a job.
In November 2017, the world wondered what happened when Donald Trump’s usually prolific Twitter account was deactivated for 11 minutes. The former president blamed a "rogue employee" for the incident. The culprit was Twitter customer support worker Bahtiyar Duysak. On his last day on the job, Bahtiyar received a notification that Trump’s account had violated Twitter’s terms of service. In the ultimate mic drop moment, he deactivated the account before leaving the building. Bahtiyar has since apologised, claiming it was a mistake and that he didn’t think Trump's account could actually be turned off.
Game designer Jarrad Woods took quitting to a whole new level (literally) by designing a video game to announce his resignation from company 2K Australia. The Mario-inspired game had various levels and, throughout the gameplay, messages appeared on the screen revealing Woods’ plan to quit. On his blog, he said: “I stayed up all night working on my resignation.” Building an entire video game in a single evening is an impressive feat, so Woods’ employers were probably sorry to see the back of the gaming maestro.
When leaving a job, it’s traditional to give your employer two weeks’ notice – what’s less traditional is doing it on a piece of toilet paper. According to one Reddit user, that’s exactly what her husband did. The unconventional letter read: "I have chosen this type of paper for my two-week resignation as a symbol of how I feel this company has treated me and ironically, how it is disposed of is where I feel the company is going.” He probably won't get a glowing reference but, on the bright side, at least the paper hadn't been used!
For many, a TV career is a dream come true. This wasn’t the case for former Russia Today (RT) news anchor Liz Wahl, who boldly quit her job live on air. In the now-viral clip, she said: "I cannot be part of a network funded by the Russian government that whitewashes the actions of Putin. I'm proud to be an American and believe in disseminating the truth and that is why, after this newscast, I am resigning." Less than impressed, RT called the former employee’s actions a "self-promotional stunt".
Phil Sipka may be the king of exiting in style after he got TV host Steve Harvey and a vocal quintet to help him announce that he was leaving his job as a barista at the Robust Coffee Lounge in Chicago. The video of the over-the-top performance can be found on YouTube and the astonished reactions from his co-workers are pure gold.
At this Wendy's store in an undisclosed location, employees took a blunter approach, simply writing "we all quit" on a drive-thru machine. One of the 17 former Wendy's workers that organised the stunt shared a video on TikTok to explain their decision. He claimed that he was promoted to Assistant General Manager after senior management at the restaurant resigned, a promotion that led to his working 85 hours a week with no General Manager for three months. The TikTok video gained more than 1.5 million views and sparked fierce criticism of working conditions in the fast food industry.
In July this year, a Burger King sign reading “We all quit Sorry for the inconvenience” went viral after staff walked out en masse at an outlet in Lincoln, Nebraska. The nine employees involved in the stunt claimed they quit over poor working conditions including long hours, low pay and a broken air conditioner which meant they were forced to work in gruelling 36°C (97°F) temperatures. Two of the employees reportedly spent a long time going up and down a ladder to change the message on the sign.
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