10 Disturbing Moments That Made People Rethink Their Entire Career

Sometimes, it only takes one unsettling moment to shake the foundation of everything you thought you knew about your job. From eerie encounters to morally questionable requests, these situations don’t just make you uncomfortable—they make you question your entire career path.

• I work in construction, and we were sent out to start building this massive house on an empty property just out of town. Everything was fine the first few days but when we started digging the foundations strange things started happening.
  At first, we heard groans and then when we came in the next day, the entire side wall had collapsed. Turns out the owner didn’t have a geological survey done. We were building on a marsh. And to top it all off, he refused to pay us for the work we had done.

• I went to work for our county’s regional bus service as a driver. They wanted a 6am rollout, so pre-trip, fix anything, supplies whatever before 6 am.
  By the way, clock in time is 6am. 5:55 is ok, but no sooner. How do I do Pre-Trip and rollout at 6am if I don’t start work until 6am? You will figure it out.
  I clocked in @ 5:40 and got them for not paying me that 20 minutes. Took them to court and got my back pay. Not much, they fired me because of insubordination. © pickedwisely / Reddit

• Worked as a nanny for over 2 years for a wealthy family. Got super, super sick, hospital and everything. I quit because their kid passed an infectious disease onto me.
  They knew. They didn’t tell me, and I got the sickest I’ve ever been. I quit with no notice. © Cherryberrybean / Reddit
  

• When I was a teen, I worked in a sport apparel store. One day, as my shift was finishing, I saw a guy run out of the store in the hoodie. I don’t know why I did it, but I dropped everything I was busy with and followed him.
  As I was about to step out of the store, something caught my attention, it was a plaque of remembrance. Five years before I started, the manager ran after someone thinking they hadn’t paid and ended up passing away. The person did in fact settle their bill.
  As I stood there reading it, one of my coworkers caught up to me, slightly out of breath, and told me the guy had already paid—he was just in a huge rush and didn’t have time to explain. It was a stark reminder that maybe retail wasn’t the right career for me.

• Working late night maintenance at big red yellow franchise restaurant. The maintenance manager said the large main grill braided stainless steel gas line was frayed.
  I said I’ll start shutting down the ten plus fryers etc.... He said, “No, that’ll take forever, so I’ll just change the gas line live.” I walked out. © Select_Green_6296 / Reddit

• I was an assistant manager in a large retail store. Put in my two-week notice, and the manager absolutely went off on me, cursing and yelling about how inconsiderate I was to be leaving at the height of the season.
  I listened until she took a breath, then reached out and plucked my two-week notice from her hands. Said, “You’re right, I shouldn’t have done that.” Gave her just enough time to see the relief wash over her face, thinking I had changed my mind about leaving.
  Then took off my badge, company phone, and keys and placed them on her desk. Said, “What I mean is that I shouldn’t have given you two weeks notice. I’m out now.” © Helen_A_Handbasket / Reddit

• I was supervising a multimillion dollar project, besides supervision I also worked as a mechanical fitter at the same time, and I was also the crane operator, all at once. For €15 per hour. Already quit the job and will be employed to a much better job soon. © Grothorious / Reddit

• The bosses continually guilt-tripped me for having to take time off work during busy season because my mom had passed away. And I needed to travel across country to clean out her house and deal with things so that I wasn’t paying for two houses (which I definitely couldn’t afford on what they were paying me). I quit on the spot. © Upbeat-Try7409 / Reddit

• One day I was working at Chipotle, and our entire online ordering system went down. Now, people were still able to place orders, but we were not receiving them in-store. On top of that, we started running out of ingredients. I had to manually write down people’s orders on a piece of paper so I could go to the back and make them. © Successful-World9978 / Reddit

• Someone ordered a delivery 5 minutes before we closed all the way across town, I get there and the guy at the apartment listed on the order says he didn’t order anything. Called them back through the delivery app, no answer. I knocked on the dude’s door again and just gave him the food. © CCpoc / Reddit

Not all turning points come with warning signs. For the individuals in these stories, a single disturbing incident was enough to trigger a complete reevaluation of their professional lives.