I'd like to share a quitting story from many many eras of jobs ago. The year was 2003. I was 16 years old. It was my third summer working for a campground set by a nice river in an area with a lot of canoe and rafting places. I grew up in a major city, but spent my summers upstate, which was great until I was a teenager. Getting this job three years prior had been a boon, as I had nothing to do, as a city kid who didn't really know anyone in the area. I worked constantly – I worked 60-70 hour weeks for minimum wage at this place (and they didn't pay overtime, because loopholes).
Generally my job was just doing phones and reservations, but when it was busy, my tasks could be anything from serving coffee to carrying sleeves of ice up from the basement. I had two bosses, let's call them Bossman and Bosslady (they were a couple).
One week, I had a dentist appointment back in the city, and was very much looking forward to the four days off in a row that I had arranged (specifically that time frame and number of days in order to catch a ride with one of my parents). Bosslady had been bitching and moaning about how on earth she was going to fill the schedule with me gone for FOUR WHOLE DAYS. She wanted me to only leave for the day of the appointment, which would require an insane amount of travel nonsense on my end, that I was unwilling to do.
Anyway, it was one of the days of the week that ends in a “Y.” Another girl (we'll call her Othergirl) and I were sent out to a shack behind the building where the office was located, with a vague task to get some things from the shack and bring them to the office. Upon opening the door to the shack, we realized there was something massive blocking almost the entire doorway. We realized we would have to have one of us climb in and hand things through a very small space between the massive thing and the door-frame to the other. We decided to make a *specific* list of items we needed out of the shack, so we sat at a picnic table a few feet from the shack with a notepad. While writing this list, I lit a cigarette (I was outside… what's the problem?). Bossman was driving one of the campground vans, saw us, and stopped the vehicle, loudly exclaiming “You're doing nothing, you're fired.” He refused to listen to a word we had to say about why we were sitting there.
Othergirl got teary eyed, and asked what we were going to do. I marched into the office to call my folks for a ride home, casually saying to Bosslady: “Have fun filling the schedule with two less girls for the rest of the summer! Bossman just fired us.” She was not happy with me as I walked out the front door to wait for my ride, but I think she was more unhappy with Bossman, because moments later, Bossman approached Othergirl and I, sternly saying “I am willing to offer you your jobs back, as long as that behavior isn't repeated” (what behavior? trying to organize ourselves to complete the dumb task we were set in the least convoluted way possible?). Othergirl gasped and thanked him, while apologizing and then Bossman turned to me, condescendingly waiting for me to beg for forgiveness.
I looked at his dumb face, and with quiet but righteous indignation (and the freedom to quit a job that only comes from being a dependent) I said, “Well, I don't know, is this a situation where, because this happened, you're going to lord it over me and hold it over my head constantly?” Bossman spluttered some nonsense, but did respond in the affirmative. I sighed, and said “Okay, then no. I don't want my job back. We didn't do anything wrong.” Bossman stared at me like a moron for a few seconds, before gathering Othergirl to go back into the office, muttering something rude, as I saw my dad pull up. I happily (in a “fuck that shit” sort of way) hopped in. As we turned from the parking lot to the road, my dad asked “…did you tell bossman to fuck himself?” – I said no, to which he said, “good job, I'm proud of you.” (My parents were/are anti-capitalist leftists, but my dad was just proud that I didn't curse out an adult (…this time).)
Anyway, I randomly recalled this earlier today and thought ya'll might enjoy the story. I also deeply yearn for the ability to tell the establishment that it is wrong and walk away from it with no guilt or fear for my finances; but it's been almost 20 years, and I gotta make money to feed my cats somehow…