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Brad Hamilton has had enough of the pirate hat in
When people quit their jobs in the movies, it’s usually full of drama and highly satisfying. While many of us dream of quitting in such a memorable and spontaneous way, we rarely do. So, what are some of the most satisfying ways to quit your job? Brazenlife.com recently identified some of the most common ways to say “take this job and shove it.” We’ve found movie examples for each of them, but we’d also love to hear about any great real-life “I quit” stories you have.
1. Personal Humiliation
Perhaps you embarrassed yourself at the office holiday party (who authorized that karaoke machine, anyway?) and can’t face your co-workers. Or, maybe you find wearing a pirate’s costume to be too humiliating, as Judge Reinhold’s character, Brad Hamilton, did in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” Clearly, personal humiliation can be enough to make you say “I’m outta here.”
2. Too Hard
Sometimes, we bite off more than we can chew. Maybe the job itself is too hard. Maybe we find that the needs of the job conflict with the needs of our families, like Steve Martin’s character, Gil, did in “Parenthood.” When we’re in over our heads, we may have to quit in order to come up for air.
Gil quits his job in "Parenthood." Warning: Some of the language is probably not for the kids.
3. Heat of the Moment
While there are many cinematic gems that involve people dramatically quitting in the heat of the moment (like Jennifer Aniston’s character, Joanna, in “Office Space,” who gives her boss the finger in front of customers), this time the best example comes from real life. Who can forget the quit heard ‘round the world by Steven Slater, the notorious Jet Blue flight attendant? First he cussed out a passenger, and then he grabbed a beer and slid down the emergency chute.
JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater made headlines with his version of a resignation letter.
4. Naïve
The naïve quit is that of the younger worker who decides work is just too much, well, work. Again, we turn to “Office Space.” While Ron Livingston’s character, Peter, may technically have been hypnotized, he was the ultimate in disillusioned, naïve workers. Yes, those TPS reports do suck, but the less naïve worker knows that some version of the TPS report will be found pretty much everywhere.
The Bobs are everywhere Peter. But enjoy your new job in construction.
5. Dream Quit
Quitting your job to pursue your lifelong dream is the holy grail of job quits. While owning his own zoo may not have been a lifelong dream for Matt Damon’s character, Benjamin Mee, in “We Bought a Zoo,” it’s a pretty dreamy notion to drastically change your career and life in that manner. Luckily it all worked out in the end.
Before being like Benjamin Mee, remember, "Zoo" is not a documentary.
6. About to be Fired
Upon learning that they were about to be fired or laid off, many would choose to wait it out so they could fall back on unemployment benefits, if needed. But some who learn that they’re about to get the boot take matters into their own hands, reasoning that it’s better to be the dumper than the dumpee. Kevin Spacey’s character, Lester Burnham, in “American Beauty” does this better than anyone. After learning that he’s about to get laid off, he not only tells his boss off, but also blackmails him for $60,000. What he may have lacked in ethics, he more than made up for in style.
Lester Burnham out-scumbags his boss, becoming an "American" icon.
7. Personal Life
Military spouses know this quit better than anyone. When a wife gets a base transfer or a civilian gets a job transfer, it often means that the spouse has to quit his or her job to accommodate a long-distance move. In “Sex and the City,” Carrie Bradshaw, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, pulled one of the most ill-advised personal life quits, when she left her coveted columnist job to follow a guy to Paris.
Carrie explains her career move to Miranda.
8. Ethical Pangs
When your conscience disagrees with your job description, you may feel obligated to take the high road and walk out with your morals intact. Renée Zellweger’s character, Dorothy Boyd, did this beautifully in “Jerry Maguire.” So inspired by Jerry’s memo, pronouncing the importance of honesty in the business, this single mom did the unthinkable and left a good job to follow her scruples.
Dorothy lets herself get carried away out of a job -- for good reason.
9. Side Hustle
You’ve been working on a new gig on the side and you finally feel like it’s ready for prime time. Although Bill Bowerman’s future Nike success and his famous waffle-sole shoe were only hinted at in “Prefontaine,” it was clear that he’d one day be able to say goodbye to his day job and soon say hello to an incredibly lucrative career. As an added bonus, this one’s based on a true story.
10. Career Change
After a few years doing the same old thing, you might find yourself ready for a career change. Renée Zellweger makes a second appearance with a notable quit, this time in “Bridget Jones’ Diary.” Yes, she left a job in publishing to pursue a job in television, but she also quit because of a workplace romance gone south and managed to do it in a highly dramatic (and public) fashion. All in all, one of the best cinematic resignations of all time.
Bridget's public quitting was only one of many of her personal pratfalls.
Do you have a quitting story worthy of the big screen? If so, we’d love to hear it.
Ever made a dramatic exit from a job? Tell us about it.
Dana Macario is a Seattle-area writer who has only dreamed of quitting a job in a wildly spectacular way.
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While I didn't quit any real paying job in a dramatic fashion, I did get the opportunity to do so when a board member for a non-profit. When I found out about financial shenanigans and brought my concerns up the CEO got nasty about it, so I flat out told them they were doing things illegally, outlined the possible consequences, and stated that they weren't paying me enough (nothing) to put myself at risk. I pulled out a letter of resignation, threw it on the table and walked out the door with everyone just sitting there staring at each other wondering what just happened. Boy was that liberating. Oh, and the non-profit is now under investigation by the State's Attorney General.
What about the scene in "Fight Club" where "Narrator" Edward Norton beats himself to a pulp, then says his boss did it, getting himself a great severance package? That's the greatest quitting scene ever, hands down.
Best quit scene ever? Full Metal Jacket, when "Private Pile" kills his drill instructor then himself.
or when George and Fred Weasley quit Hogwarts in the Order of the Phoenix?
After 15 years in the tech industry, I'd finally landed the highest paying, most miserable job of my life with a Silicon Valley giant. Every day was worst than the last.
So there I was sitting in a project manager's meeting. We'd just entered our third hour of arguing over the most innane details of a document when I snapped. I stood up and said I was taking a restroom break. I left my work materials at the conference table and walked back to my cube. Called a friend who was moving to Las Vegas of all places and asked if she wanted a roommate for a year. She squealed "Yes" and that sealed it.
I wrote up a letter of resignation that simply said, "Thanks for the catalyst to change my world", emailed it to my manager (who was still in the meeting), and walked out. I spent a week selling off the majority of my stuff and decided to start fresh. The rule was that if it wouldn't fit into a small SUV, it went away. I sold the big things, donated most of the rest to charities that would help others get a new start, and moved to Vegas 5 days after quitting.
Two days before I left, I went to a local bar to celebrate. Met a guy. I told him that it was a pity I was leaving town because I thought he was awesome.
That year changed my life. The economy in Vegas tanked and I wound up returning to Seattle a year and a half later. The guy I'd met had come to see me a couple of times while I was in Vegas so I called him when I got settled. Three years later, we just celebrated our second wedding anniversary and have a beautiful little boy.
All because I walked out of HP and drove away singing "Born Free" at the top of my lungs.
Job sucks and economy tanks so just stay home and raise a kid. Wish men had that kind of fallback option!
cynical,
Men do have that option. Their are quite a few stay at home dads. I think it's a better option for children since men die sooner.
The majority of changes in my life have been for the best. But our type of society teaches us never to quit. So, too often, such changes would stress me out - until I learned that quitting something can be the best thing that happened.
Surprised that The quitting scene from Half Baked was not on here.
Agreed. That has got to be one of the best.
What about "Gone With The Wind"; Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!
I like the story by a guy who won the lottery. He said when he didn't return to work that was his resignation! I'd love to resign like that!
Mary Steenburgen, quitting her "hostess" job in Melvin & Howard.
My husband and I ended up in a bad real estate deal and the result was we lost our house. We ended up in a small homeless organization run by a husband and wife. To make a very long story short, circumstances dictated that we move from NH to South Carolina. We both quit our jobs (quitting my job was just about the hardest thing I ever had to do: not only did I love that job, but they offered me a SUBSTANTIAL raise if I stayed) and were getting ready to move & stay with my sister-in-law. While setting everything up, the husband who owned the organization said to us, "You both have talents that would really help us in our organization. You could really make a difference here. Would you consider staying?" We told him that we pretty much had everything already arranged but that we would pray about it. We did sit and pray for a while. Soon after that, we got an e-mail from SIL: her boyfriend had proposed and they were getting married, so we couldn't stay with them! With no place to land in SC, we said that we would stay. We worked for & lived in that organization for almost 2 years, and we did make a difference.
I never made an angry quit scene, but the week I announced to my fellow teachers it was my last year, as I walked through the hallways some teachers would smile at me and shake 1 to 5 fingers: the number of years before they were done. Teacher loads got much heavier during the 2000's and creativity was crushed as the standardization of everything became common. Of the 135 teachers I knew at the high school in 2000 (I retired in 2006), about a dozen are still there. So my guess is I missed a couple good quit lines.
During my first few years in college, I worked at a very busy self serve gas station and endured as many 8 to 12 hour shifts as I could to help pay for my education. A new manager was hired to run the 6 local stations in my area and implemented a policy that any shortages during a shift would be taken out of the employees paycheck. A few bucks here and there was not a big deal but after a few months, I was getting paychecks that were hundreds short. Not making much money anyways, working 40 hours and getting a $50 paycheck was not cool at all. Then I heard from another employee that this new manager had a drug problem and was taking money from shifts to help finance his problem. So, after my next drastically reduced paycheck and another 12 hour shift worked, I added up all the hours I had worked that paycheck and the previous and times that by the $3.25/hr I was supposed to make. I deducted out the taxes, took the cash out of the register and left a voice message with the district supervisor telling him about my manager and what he was doing, told him exactly what I was doing by taking the exact amount of cash I had taken, and that they or the police could contact me anytime they wanted too to discuss the matter. A half hour before my shift ended and when there were no customers pumping gas, I turned off the pumps, turned off the lights, locked the doors and left. I was scared to death and waiting for the police to show up to arrest me, but it never happened. A month later I was sent an apology and a check from their corporate offices paying me for the overtime hours that I had not included.
About the most dramatic I can claim so far is when I was a teenager in junior high school. I was working for a pizza chain in Tampa, Fl (Hungry Howies Pizza).
I was responsible for making and portioning dough (130-140#s at a time), slicing ham, chopping onions, mushrooms, shredding cheese, etc... All manual labor in a restaurant that at times hit up to 90-95 degrees or hotter. I was all of 14 years old, and at 5'2 weighed as much as 115 pounds fully dressed, soaking wet.
I reached a point where I could handle all of this by myself. Technically, I probably shouldn't have been doing half of what I did because I was so young. But, I was rather slow at some of what I did.
My supervisor, the store manager had made comments on more than one occasion that alluded to his regretting hiring me. So, one Friday night, I became fed up with his badgering and asked if he still wanted me gone, when he said 'yes', I told him his wish was granted and walked out. I cannot tell you just how much of a load felt lifted off my shoulders at that very moment.
My other decent quit story came on October 31, 2003 about a week after I had landed a new and better job. I was working for Domino's Pizza in an Atlanta suburb. We had brought in another assistant manager from another store and were suddenly having cash shortages. I had initially planned on working part time with Dominos and full time with the other job for at least a couple of months as my then wife was expecting a baby in about 3 months.
I had already made this arrangement with my store manager and area manager. In the last two or three days before I quit, we wound up at least 300 dollars short on all days combined. My manager had come to me and had a "talk" with me about the cash shortage. Though he never came right out and specifically said so, he clearly implied that he thought I was at least partly responsible even though my cash counts historically came out where they should have. After giving it some thought, I decided that I was done with the whole thing pretty well the day I decided to quit.
As I recall, I was supposed to be off that night, and had made plans accordingly. I wound up getting a call that went to voice mail that the store was busy and my presence was "needed" that night. I decided I WASN'T working, I was going to have a night out. About an hour later, another call again demanding my presence. About 10 minutes later, my manager called again and told me that if I wasn't going to be in by 630 or so, then I needed to turn in my keys.
I continued my plans, and showed up at about 700, dressed appropriately for my plans. I walked in with everyone wondering what was going on, and dropped my keys on the counter in front of my manager. I told him I was done, and that he could find someone else to abuse and pin his cash problems on. I wasn't it.
That is also the last time I worked in the food industry.
I once quite as an engineer in a broadcast station (there were only two of us) had been their over a year putting in 60-80 wk. Asked the boss for an evaluation a pay raise - - His response "Go away boy Don't bother me" as a white male in the deep south that rather bothered me so I landed a far far better job that night in a different market - the next morning with my car all packed and my lease cancelled I walked into his morning meeting and told him "You know what you said yesterday? Well I always follow orders, I quit! Turned around and walked out the door with him begging all the way down the elevator to reconsider- right up to my car. That was the last time I ever saw him. By far the most satisfying job transfer of my 56 year career!
I notice you didn't have the nerve to show Mary Steenbergen's "I quit" scene from "Melvin and Howard".