Burning bridges

[The Happy Squirrel]

a replyby Markel to another thread gave me the idea for this thread


have you ever burned any bridges and how and why?

i only did once
i ahd a summer job as a janitor in the high school
we ahd to clean everything, every room top to botom and everything in it

well my two work partners weere
1) a psychotic man hating ball busting old bag who ahd been working there for 30 some years who thought all men are dogs and worthless and sould be treated as such and would openly discuss it with any one who would listen

2) a preppy stuck rich snob with an annoying voice and one eyeborw who thought she was the queen of the wrold
i graduated with this girl and i comepltely hatd her every second of my life since the day i met her

the psycho was my boss though so i had to bite me lip alot
but on the last day i told her where she can shoce her &^*&% mop
it felt great.

anyone ever quit a job in a blaze of glory fashion or whatever??

[welfareloser]

yes. when i quit school, the first day of finals, i had to go in for an "exit interview." the dean told me to at least take the finals and just take a year off; i would at least want the 28 hours of credit even if i dint come back to the program. i said nope. he said well, life is long, you never know, you might want the credits... i said i would rather be a welfare baby machine than take the finals. he asked what i dint like about the program. i said i dunno, but i know i'd be much happier working at walmart. he asked what i was gonna do with my life. i said i was writing a fantasy adventure novel. he really ran out of stuff to say at that point.

i felt i had reached a point where it was really time to burn some bridges. i had spent the last 6 years "keeping my options open..." sometimes you just have to make a friggin decision.

EDIT: not that you should really listen to me. a year and a half later, my life is still a big mess. tho i am pretty sure i am happier now than i would have been had i stayed.

[aglio412]

man, this one time...i was walking along this old railroad bridge and dropped my cigarrette into a puddle of gas...next thing i know..poof the bridge was en fuego.

oh and this other time, i just wanted to see what it would be like to burn a bridge, so i set the 10th st bridge to the southside on fire...it was steel though...

[Markel]

Where is that "Report this post to the FBI" button?

[jase71]

Oh yeah...

I gave about three months notice at a job I was working at in the early 90's. Gave the notice because of the training time it took for the position, and I was going back to school, so I knew exactly when I was leaving.

The department I worked in was very screwed up (large part of why I was leaving), thanks in large part to a nosey micro-manager who made every task 3 times as hard as it should have been.

Since I was leaving, and had nothing to lose, I pushed hard for some serious changes. Went over her head a few times. And burned up every ounce of credibility I had to make things better. I helped fix things, but made enemies in the process.

The manager hated me. But most of what I was trying to change went through. Got emails a few months later from old co-workers thanking me for pushing so hard, and telling me that she had resigned to work somewhere else. The department run MUCH smoother, more efficiently, and the stress level dropped.

I'd never have been able to do it if I wasn't already leaving. I'd have been fired by the manager. But man, it felt good to take her on knowing she couldn't touch me because I was already leaving...

[Burzhui]

Senior year of high school, i had this teacher, she wasn't my teacher but the whole school hated her... in any case i had much power, because i ws in cahuts with the principle and many people who had most power in the school, plus i was the President of the Student Governement (in my school it really meant something because the school was pretty small). In any case i was asked to look over a class who was taking a test... so i'm standing there and because half the people in the class are my acquntances i couldn't care less if they cheated so i steped outside and one of my feet was in the class the other outside and a friend was passing by, so we got to talking... so this teacher passes by and she knew i was supposed to look over that class, so she comes up to me and starts telling me off for being irresponsible, blah blah blah... so i just blew up at her. I was like F*ck you, who the F*ck do you think you are, don't talk to me, don't look at me and get the F*ck away from me... so she left... in about an hour i was called in, by the teacher that gave me the class... and he looked at me, smiled and said... why did you do that, you really shouldn't have you know... and i was like.. SHe really got to me, so he was like well i don't support it but oh well.. In any case she never even came close to me after that, she was afraid... very afraid ... mwahhhhh

[welfareloser]

uhhhh... yeah.

that's not burning a bridge. that's jsut you saying something mean because someone you dint like told you (quite rightfully) that you were irresponsible.

but this is off topic, so wtf.

[aglio412]

hmmmmm...so the bridge was burned how?

[ironchef]

one of my first real, non-cookin' jobs while i was in college was as a computer tech. i worked for a supreme asshead. you know how little dogs yap and yap and yap to make themselves seem fierce? well that was him, all 5'2" of his unstable ass. he used to curse out his wife (she was a biz partner) constantly in front of all of his employees, and would belittle others to the point of tears.

he had this great habit of telling people he said to do something, when in fact had said nothing even remotely like it. so he decided to try this on me one day, calling me from his house while i was in the office. he started bitching and cursing at me, and i started back at him with customers in the store, telling him never to talk to me like that. "i'm not your wife, i won't sit and let you dish that shtuff out," was my favorite comment.

anyway, he wanted me to fax something to him. so i did, and wrote on there, "as of 4:15pm today, i no longer work for you. mail me my check." took off my shirt and left it and keys sitting on my workstation which was formatting itself :)

[Burzhui]

Originally posted by aglio412
hmmmmm...so the bridge was burned how?

I told her off and graduated in a month

[Burzhui]

Originally posted by ironchef

my workstation which was formatting itself :)

Damn they could have totally filed a law suit against you..., funny though

[ironchef]

Originally posted by Burzhui
I told her off and graduated in a month telling off usually requires some sort of moral high ground, or at least implies that you were in the right. cursing at a teacher because she caught you being an ass doesn't sound like either.

[Burzhui]

Originally posted by ironchef
telling off usually requires some sort of moral high ground, or at least implies that you were in the right. cursing at a teacher because she caught you being an ass doesn't sound like either.

Dude trust me the whole school hated her cause she was a bitch, the teachers didn't like her either. And i was right, it was not her class, so what right does she have to do what she did?

[Speedfreak]

Originally posted by The Happy Squirrel
Burning Bridges

Felony.

[attgig]

hmmm, my story...
well, back in highschoool, my senior year (starting off like burz), I was in AP bio class with a 1st time ap bio teacher. Well, he liked his butt being kissed for extra credit, he taught straight out of the book, and he taught stuff that would be considered controversial in regards to evolution..... (obviously, a problem with me)

well, I was also a bum in high school, and I slept in class every day.
He had talks with me, and I was like, stop teaching what I could read, and I'll pay attention and look attentive and junk like that. His response was people in the class aren't up to that speed, and he has to teach what's in the text. I was like, there's non-AP courses where they can do that. He didn't heed that argument...

well, after going through a year of sleeping, and him banging my desk (yeah, i was a punk), he kinda wanted to get back at me....the final marking period, he gave me a '65' lowest passing grade. Well, during that time, I also took the AP exam.....I got a 5.

Went to college, and on my first break at home, went to a CVS. As I was leaving, he was walking in.....I didn't say anything, but just smiled at him (that pompous-*ss grin that I would hate to see anyone give me)...:D<--yeah, kinda like that :D

bridge burned

[welfareloser]

Originally posted by DarkFury


Just curious... was there REALLY something in particular that kept you from just taking the final and then quitting?

yes. good observation. quitting after you have studied for finals but before you have taken them is the mark of a highly unstable individual. i had taken a practical exam that day. very stressful. had to wax a molar. i looked at the diagram, and the diagram showed a waxing of tooth number #30. so i take the stone model of the mouth, level down tooth #30 and then wax it back up. i did a fabulous job. work of art. turn it in, and notice that everyone else's stone casts have the tooth waxed on the OPPOSITE side of the arch - the diagram had it backwards, i misread the instructions. doing the wrong tooth is an automatic failure. i still woulda passed the class and all, but the thought of having to take that exam over jsut killed me.

not that that was a big deal in itself, but that was the precipitating event; if not for that, i woulda finished out the semester and just not come back the next year.

[Fatass]

Had a job painting houses a couple summers ago. Manger was great to look at, but a horrible boss. A friend and I were working on one of her two crews...whenever we called to tell her to bring supplies, there would be at least a 3 hour break before she even started to do anything about it. Well, my friend and I just started looking for jobs...got one lined up, but never told her our plan was to finish the job, then walk. So as we finish our last house, she tells us to meet her at the next job site where she was meeting with the customers. Well, right there in front of the customer, we told her we had new jobs starting the next day and walked. She tried to dump the job on us anyway, but it was damn hard to hear with my back turned. Afterward, I found out that she ended up doing the job on her own, talking a few sucker friends into helping her. Drove by the house a few weeks later to view the work...If I were those people, I'd be pissed as hell...house looked pretty boo. That's the only time that I've ever been so fed up with a job that I couldn't make it through the rest of the summer. Man did it feel good to just bitch her like that...she had it coming for a long time...

[styleee]

i told my old boss that i hated my job so much, and there was nothing that was going to change in the next year, so he should just fire me and put me out of my misery.

and he did.

but, i was also friends w/ him, so he knew i was miserable. and he also knew that there really wasn't going to be any room for advancement anytime in the near (or distant, for that matter) future. plus, the company i worked for was in turmoil, and he was going through the same **** as me. so it was nothing against him, it was against the stupid company i worked for. but now i can't find a job, and it sucks.

i also did sorta a welfareloser thing at the first school i went to. i dispised that place so much, that when i went to do my exit interview, there was a place u could check if you wanted to be completely unenrolled, or if you just wanted to take a leave so that if you wanted to come back you wouldn't have to reapply. so i checked that i wasn't coming back, ever. and then there was a place that asked u to explain why, and i wrote that it SUCKED so bad, and the profs were morons (which all of mine were, especially in comparison to what i've had since) and that they were more concered w/ becoming a "university" then educating its undergraduate students. so the reason why i burned a bridge is because it would have been nice to take some easy summer classes there. but, i wasn't about to reapply :)

[Leon]

Nope, never burnt any bridges. Still on good terms with all my former employers. I must be lucky. :D