Garbage Out, Garbage Out

I am working as a field manager for a company that has a small team. They recently hired two new guys who are fairly green to the industry but not totally brain-dead.

One guy, [New Hire], is kind of quiet and keeps his head down. As his direct supervisor, it is up to me to train him up, and I have a distinct feeling that he doesn’t like me. Granted, I’m not the best teacher, as I am somewhat blunt and direct, but I am never insulting or demeaning.

It’s a slow week, and we’re cleaning up our warehouse. The five of us are all knocking it out so we can get out early, but [New Hire] is kind of slacking off. Since he’s not really putting much effort in, I ask:

Me: “Hey, [New Hire], can you run the garbage out?”

He loads up the truck and heads out to the dumpsters behind the building; we have a lot of trash. But he leaves behind the cardboard. I think he’s making two runs — to kind of stretch out the workload, right?

He comes back and does not take the cardboard.

Me: “Yo, [New Hire], can you also do the cardboard?”

He gets pissed, storms out to the office, and proceeds to scream to the bosses about me being a d**k to him.

I don’t know that this is what he’s doing when he storms out. I figure he is going to hit the bathroom.

I walk into the office about five minutes later to hear him complaining about how I’m an a**hole. The people he’s talking to look at me over his shoulder, and I realize that he’s talking mad s*** about me. He notices where they’re looking, turns around, and has a classic “Oh, f***” moment.

Boss: “[New Hire], [My Name] is your supervisor. While you may not like them, you have to at least do as they ask, provided it’s within reason. Taking garbage and cardboard out is part of our regular duties, and we all take care of it.”

[New Hire] gets insanely pissed, starts screaming about how we’re all just buddy-buddy, and quits. He removes his keys from his belt, literally THROWS THEM at my boss, and storms out cursing.

We’re all in shock, and I’m feeling kind of bashful.

[New Hire] comes back in five minutes later.

New Hire: “Can I see those keys? My car keys and house keys are attached to them.”

[Boss] hands him the keys and he removes his personal ones.

New Hire: *To all of us* “F*** you.”

And he stormed out.

So epic. To this day, this is still my all-time favorite quitting story.