25 Stories Of The Straw That Broke The Camel's Back

Throughout our lives, we learn to tolerate a great deal. Often, we go along with things we may not want to do just to keep the peace. However, even the most easy-going individuals have their limits. Those ‘enough is enough’ moments may be rare for those who avoid confrontation, but everyone has boundaries—even the most empathetic and understanding among us. Disrespect those boundaries enough, and eventually, people will stand firm and say, ‘That’s it,’ choosing to walk away. The loss of patience can strike at any moment; perhaps a trivial interaction on the street triggers an outburst, or it could arise from frustrations in a close relationship. There’s only so much nonsense one can tolerate before walking away becomes the better option. In fact, leaving an untenable situation can often feel quite liberating, according to people’s stories shared in response to a Reddit discussion on the subject. 

#1

Image source: undead_opossum, Matheus Bertelli Set the wayback machine to the year 2000. All of my friends threw a millennium party, apparently it was a rager. Nobody tells me about it at all, because the mother of my child is bringing her side guy to it. Finally a couple weeks later one of them tells me that it even happened and what went down. Wrote the whole lot of them off, spoke to almost none of them again. Best thing I ever did.

#2

Image source: anon, Dmitry Shulga I was about 17 and lived in a rural area. Used to hitchhike everywhere. One day I’m in the back of a car, 2 guys up front. They’re talking kinda quiet. After a minute or two I hear one say ‘ok but this time we’ll go somewhere else’. Then he looks in the mirror at me. I looked away out the window, proper s******g my pants. As we went through a village we had to stop at a junction and I blurted something about a friend living nearby and I opened that door and ran. Probably nothing in it but I still get chills remembering it.

#3

Image source: WhisperingFlame, Vlada Karpovich Lived with a good friend for a while years ago. I was around 5 months clean from m**h when I started living there, so just barely sober in my eyes. Knew I could still cave at any given moment. Friend gets this new boyfriend and he's alright. She, her boyfriend, me, and a bunch of other people party together regularly while I'm living there. No big deal, but something is weird about the boyfriend. I don't trust him. I can feel that he's hiding something. One afternoon she's downstairs and I go into her room to borrow makeup and walk in on her boyfriend blow drying his m**h pipe after cleaning it. Turned around, went to my room, pulled out every bag I had, and packed all my s**t up. I was in my car looking for a place to go within the hour. Still pretty proud of myself for that one, I'll admit. Never did touch the s**t again.

#4

Image source: Rachel1578, fauxels When 8th graders had me crying into my pillow every night and drinking wine every time I could. I quit teaching and joined a lab.

#5

Image source: cyainanotherlifebro, Studio Republic I was hired as a temp, on day 91 I was told that they in fact didn’t have to hire me after 90 days and they were gonna keep me on as a temp. I clocked out for lunch and never went back.

#6

Image source: _kasper, John Matychuk I’m a middle school teacher, and it’s also worth mentioning that I’m a very petite woman and most of my students are bigger than me. Many year ago when I was considered one of the young and pretty teachers, I was walking down the hall. An 8th grade boy slapped me on the a*s and mentioned my car’s make and model, implying that he was going to wait for me in the parking lot. I immediately went to my principal who told me that reporting the incident would “reflect poorly on me” and I “don’t want a complaint like that in my file.” I put in my resignation from that particular school the next day. The more I mention it, the more I realize that many teachers have similar experiences.

#7

Image source: Trumpsyeruncle, Raze Solar I was roofing and getting paid by the day, after a few months I asked to get paid piece work. My pay for that week was about double and the boss said he had to put me back to daily rate next week....I said goodbye and started my own business.

#8

Image source: anon, Anna Shvets I was a temp worker in a factory that made mayonnaise, during my break I get a call from my mom's work. She's had 5-6 strokes at the same time. I went to my supervisor and told him what happened. When he replied with "can't you wait until your shift is over?" I took of my uniform and left the building without another word. For those who are interested: ER doctors told me my mom only survived because her coworkers reacted fast and because the clumps of blood cutting her blood flow to her brain were rather small.

#9

Image source: gemini_vision, Edward Eyer I was on the third date with this guy I really liked. We started making out on his couch, things started steaming up and that’s when it began. The baby voice. He couldn’t stop talking to me in a baby voice. I was out.

#10

Image source: Master_Maniac, Alena Darmel Just a few weeks ago actually. It's a long story so I'll try to boil it down to basics. My wife of the last 3 years has cheated on me repeatedly, used her depression as an excuse to abuse our children, manipulated everyone she knows, had repeated breakdowns and refuses medication. About 6 weeks ago she asked me to leave so we could "get our s**t together". I brought our year and a half old baby with me, and after a few days to actually think about it, I decided I wasn't coming back and started the process of filing for custody. Edit for clarity: She has a child from a previous relationship that (although I'd love to) I have no legal grounds to file for custody of. We have one child together. I'm not picking favorites and leaving the other to the wolves, I simply don't have legal recourse to file for custody of her. I'm working on a solution to get her out of there, but that's going to take time.

#11

Image source: Therewasab34m, Yazan Alhaija I was a shift lead at a fast food joint located inside of a gas station. Our manager was worthless at hiring people, so we were perpetually understaffed for months. I was working 50-60 hours a week. Absolutely ridiculous. However, company policy was that there HAD to be two people working at all times. This particular day, someone called out. Nobody would come in to cover the shift, so the manager was forced to stay and work a double. She decided that since the only reason she was there was because we would have to close otherwise, she was just going to hang out in the office and chat with the gas station employees. 3 hours into my shift, and I have been single handedly running the front counter, the drivethru, making all the food, doing prep and doing dishes. The dinner rush hit, I had like 4 cars in the drive thru, 8-9 people inside, and then I ran out of onions. (Because I couldn't get the prep done) My mind just quit. Brain turned off, emotions went cold. I ripped off my headset, told the people inside that they weren't getting their food, walked into the office and tossed my name tag, manager card, and hat at my boss. When she turned around in shock all I said was good luck and walked out the back. Edit: Yoooo my fast food homies got my back. I can only wish I did something more badass.

#12

Image source: LearnerC137, macniak My mother told me I was a waste in her life, 10 years ago. Now I've been living by myself for 10 years, am married and about do graduate!

#13

Image source: GivingUpthe_Ghost, Mikael Blomkvist Recently I was hired by a company to be a foreman. My job was laid out in my interview as follows: Plant maintenance and welding. I would run a crew of 4 guys and do odd jobs at a potato plant 10 miles from my house. This is what I have done for other various companies for the last 15 years. After taking the job they asked me to help another foreman doing the same thing at a different potato plant about 80 miles away. I agreed as it was for a few days. Fast forward 3 weeks. I am still driving 160 miles a day and we have been doing concrete and asphalt prep for a week.(not my vocation) The boss casually mentioned at about 2 in the afternoon that we had to finish a particular part of the project before we left and that we would be there at least till 8p.m. I told him I couldn't work late on short notice because I had plans and still had to drive home. He said " if you don't pick up the pace you will be leaving earlier than that." I told him I agreed and since this wasn't the job I was hired for that I was done. He replied with " see ya" and I said probably not.

#14

Image source: anon, fauxels When I was passed over for a job for a second time at my place of employment. They hired someone with about a 1/10 of the experience and half the education. Twice. I resigned the following month. Found a much better job, got a raise, and cut my commute by 75%. They didn’t think I would leave and tried to talk me out of it. These places will wring you out and suck you dry if you let them. Invest in your people and they will work extra hard for you. Don’t invest and watch you best and brightest walk out the door.

#15

Image source: pavederry, Matt Hardy 4th grade. Down the street at a friend's house. His older brother wants to play a game in the camper. The friend has to do dishes. The brother and I go to the camper to play. He starts saying something about how some games are more fun without clothes. I immediately left and called my dad. Never told my dad why I needed to be picked up. Years later, after high school, he was arrested for being a p*dophile. Scary s**t. Edit: Thanks for all of your replies. I feel happy that I avoided abuse, but I still feel guilty that I didn't say something/stop him from hurting others. Edit2: He wasn't arrested for being a p*dophile. He was arrested for s*xually ab*sing children.

#16

Image source: anon, Craig Adderley Was working 6pm-6am shifts at tesla years ago as a QC inspector. They downgraded my job to picking pieces of foam out of the cars because I was failing too many cars that were missing seals etc which is what I was supposd to do so I said f**k this s**t im out and walked out and never returned.

#17

Image source: eeeegirl, Erik Scheel (TLDR: suddenly realised my friend was awful, f**k this s**t I'm out) I had been friends with this girl for years, and as time went on my life basically revolved around her. I had to be there to answer immediately any time she texted or called me, walk to her house to let her borrow my things or talk to me whenever she asked, night or day. Eventually it got to the point where she once had me walking miles to her house, then sent me back to get changed because she didn't like my outfit. I wasn't eating in front of her unless she approved of what I ate because of the comments she made. I only listened to music she liked, and I apologised to her constantly for every move I made. I won't go into too much detail for the sake of trigger warnings, but she manipulated me into doing a lot of very not nice things. She even once hit me because I forgot to bring something to her that she wanted to borrow. She also cut me off from all my other friends and put a strain on my relationship with my family. These things were all built up slowly, and as much as I liked to believe I'd never let someone treat me that way, I was completely blind to it. I went to a festival with my dad one weekend and he said I could bring a friend, so obviously her. We spent the first day together, doing all the usual fun stuff, and when the time came to go to sleep (I was sharing a bed with her) we talked and then turned the light out to go to sleep. And when I turned onto my side away from her, this one tear just rolled down my face, and it was like I realised everything all at once, it was crazy. I was exhausted from spending time with her, and I just realised how badly I wanted her to be as far away from me as possible. It's like it hadn't occurred to me before ever, but I was suddenly like 'what the hell, I don't even enjoy spending time with her at all, why am I here?' The rest of the weekend was excruciating, and when it was over, I tried to avoid her and when she bombarded me with horrible texts asking where the f**k I was, I just told her I was done saying sorry to her. She tried to tell me off for sassing her like that and we argued over text for 3 solid days and she went back and forth from making me feel like s**t and begging me not to cut her off. When that conversation was over, it hit me how many things I felt free to do now and how awful it was that I was so excited to listen to music and dress how I like and speak to whoever I want. I'm so glad I realised so I could get the hell out of that!

#18

Image source: TheDevilsAdvokaat, Tima Miroshnichenko I was working as a postie.. Normally when a postie gets sick, the other posties have to cover his route. There were 7 of us so it was annoying but not too bad. I'd been there for a couple of years and had covered other people's sick days several times. Anyway I got really sick. The sickest I'd been in my life up till that time. Had the flu but it wound up making me look gray and shrunken and I got a migraine. Finally went back to work, I'd had three days off. Piles of mail were waiting for me. I don;t know if they;d delivered ANY of it. Maybe they did. But there were huge piles waiting for me. And I was still sick, I only went back in because I was worried about the workload on them. I gave my notice, finished the week and then quit.

#19

Image source: anon, Yeh Xintong I was working at this "bakery" that makes cakes and gelatos that then get sold to grocery retailers like Fresh Market and Whole Foods to be sold in their bakery sections. This bakery was basically a reverse "sweat shop" where all the windows were boarded up, you worked Monday - Friday from 6 in the morning until 8 at night with one half hour break, there was no music, we weren't allowed to talk, we had to be in uniform and couldn't wear jackets, it was kept at ice box temperatures so frostings wouldn't melt. It was soul crushing. Then the woman who worked as a janitor quit. Rather than hire someone else, they put me in that role when I'd been hired as a baker. I had to clean the front office, prepare all the shipping boxes, mop every mess, clean the bathrooms. I had two industry degrees and over ten years of experience in culinary at that point, to be reduced to janitor. It was mind-numbing, tedious work. One day, I came back from my lunch break and was told that someone had made a mess in the bathroom, and I needed to stay after work to clean it. I went to the front office to talk to the woman who did most of the manage work. She was chatting with her daughter, who was a teenager who she'd hired to handle their social media, despite knowing that I had social media marketing and SEO as skills on my resume. I waited and waited for about 20 minutes just standing there so I could talk to her about this. I'd thought the janitor thing was to help them out until they hired someone new, but after a month and a half, it was clear they had no intention of hiring someone else. That was just my job now. I wanted to talk to her about how that's not what I'd been hired to do and to see if there was a way I could go back to my original job. Her daughter glanced at me a few times, but this woman, who was facing me but never so much as acknowledged me, just kept ignoring me. So I just clocked out, got my stuff, and walked out. One of the bakery managers followed me out and said how I'd already taken my break and to get back to work. I said "No, I'm not doing this bs anymore." She insisted I needed to tell the manager, the one who had just ignored me for 20 minutes, that I was quitting. I said I tried, and she could go f**k herself for treating me like I'm subhuman. Even if I didn't have the experience or the education I have, even if I was some a*****e off the street - I'm still a f*****g human. F**k that lady. F**k that ice-box-sweat-shop. F**k the owners. F**k the managers. F**k that whole place.

#20

Image source: anon, Chinh Le Duc When I was in a chinese restaurant and I was gone to the toilet and there were cameras in the stalls. My brain be like: f**k this s**t im out.

#21

Image source: Caspers_Shadow, Nadiye Odabaşı I worked at produce market when I was in college. I really, really needed the job. I literally had empty cabinets and only one shelf of food in the fridge on a regular basis. I had been working weekday evenings only for a couple of months, but picked up a Saturday shift. I was helping a customer and the owner walked up and interrupted our conversation: "Is that your yellow car in parking lot?" Me: "Yes". Her (with the most demeaning tone) "On weekends, our parking lot is reserved for customers only. If you value your job you will go punch out, move your car to the lot across the street, and never park in the lot again" I was astonished. I had full-time jobs every summer since I was 15. I picked up holiday jobs. I had a lot of working experience. I had NEVER been talked to like this by any coworker or boss before. Particularly in front of a customer. I told her I was not aware of the parking rules since I always worked weekdays, took off my apron, handed it to her and said I will be punching out, but not punching back in. I quit. I told the customer I was sorry I was not able to finish helping him and walked out. I really needed the job, but was so pissed off I could not stand the idea of working there. My supervisor called me that afternoon and tried to get me to come back, but I just couldn't. Edit: Wow! I did not expect to see so many upvotes and comments on this. Thanks for the awards as well. I guess a lot of us have had crappy supervisors and similar moments. Makes us appreciate the good ones I suppose. Many have asked how it all worked out afterwards. I got a job at the mall a few weeks later and eventually got a roommate that worked at a deli. I ate a lot of sandwiches. The following year I changed schools and went back to work for the company I had worked at through high school and the first couple summers of college. My pay was nearly triple what I was making at the mall. Graduated debt free, started my career. It's all good!

#22

Image source: kritsku, fauxels I think I've told this story again. Student calls, haven't seen him for over a year. Happy to hear him and that all is well. Him too, would like to go for coffee to catch up. I think that this is a bit unexpected since I haven't heard from him or his wife after they stopped attending lessons out of the blue and went no contact without reason, but why not, they seemed like genuinely good people and I wanted to hear what they're up to. Just before leaving for the coffee, I call him up to arrange where and he tells me to go by his office. I arrive at the office expecting to go for coffee somewhere in the building. I get a warm welcome and I'm offered a drink by the wife, I choose tea. Other people are arriving too. I ask him regarding the office, it seems like a land developer's office. It's his dad's but is no longer in business, and they've switched to another type of business. I'm taken to a room with a large conference table with a few other people sitting around casually. I don't know how or why, I understand it' s a herbalife style seminar. F**k this s**t. Everyone is super nice. It's starting soon. It's super weird to get up now and leave. I can't do this. Too awkward. I can't. It's embarrassing and I'm weak. I'm being taken advantage of. It's gonna eat away my precious afternoon time. F**k this s**t. It's hugely disrespectful. I force my body to get up and go to my former student. 'I'm going. Good to see you'. 'Why don't you stick around to see what this is for, you don't know'. 'I came for you guys, not for this'. And I left. I left! I felt really relieved. And proud of myself for my courage. I can't put into words how difficult it was to get up and leave. But I did it. It's beyond me how people fall for crappy schemes and sacrifice friendships..for a line of products.

#23

Image source: anon, Asad Photo Maldives I was working as a Network Engineer and due to mismanagement by owner who took lavish trips every 3 months, with family and kids friends. He had a payroll short fall. His solution was to reduce my medical benefit which included my family to just me. Then 3 months later reducing my salary by 30%. When he told me he also said that he expects me to work 50-60 hrs a week until profits improve, then said what do you think. I said, I Quit. I worked for him 13 years. He has called many times to get me to help with special projects for his clients, I have politely refused.

#24

Image source: jlo_1977, Caroline LM Recently worked for a dentist who was committing all kinds of insurance fraud. Now I’m as honest as they come, and this wasn’t okay with me. Especially knowing my name would be on some of the correspondence. Add to that, this guy was a complete j*****s. He thought nothing of berating me in front of patients. I’ve been doing what I do for a lot longer than him, and that kind of disrespect I won’t tolerate. I left for lunch, sent a text saying I was done and I went home.

#25

Image source: muzzy_logan, Nick van den Berg I got a call from an old friend one day asking if I want to hang out. She asks me to pick her up from the mall and take her to a friends house to chill. We arrive at a house and a young boy answers the door and let's us in. We walk through the living room where the family is watching tv, everything seems alright. We walk into this guys room and he's passed out on the floor half naked. She nudged him repeatedly till he woke up. With out saying anything this guy gets up grabs a butane torch and starts making a glass m**h pipe. I turn to my friend and mouth "WTF" but her attention was entirely fixated this guy making a pipe. I suddenly realize she's just using me to give her a ride to her dealers house to get high. I got the f**k out of there and didn't speak to her for years. After we reconnected I asked her if she remembered that day I picked her up from the mall. Her response was "no". She went on saying there was at least 2 years she couldn't recall while deep into her a*******n. *EDIT* Wow, for those of you who are wondering if she relapsed and left wake of destruction, the answer is no. This happened over 10 years ago and since then she's been clean for half that. She turned her life around, has a career managing a restaurant and surrounds herself with positive, supportive people. She is a wonderful person who like many struggled with a*******n. Thank you all for the kind words.