Are you sitting at your desk dreaming of quitting your job? You’re not alone. More than 1.5 million people resigned from their jobs in 2022 and according to our research, most workers have had at least one resignation fantasy during their careers.
Most popular ways to resign
In answer to internal poll that asked, “Have you ever wished you had a dramatic resignation from a job?” 63% of respondents said they wished they had resigned dramatically and 19% said they’d already done it, so we delved a little deeper find out what are the most common and dramatic resignation fantasies.
While fantasies can be a harmless daydream we looked at resignation advice threads on Reddit and found that by far the most popular theme was swearing with over 334,000 upvotes on comments containing a certain four-letter word.
The most highly rated fantasies after that were the traditional letter at just under ten thousand upvotes and “on the spot” resignations at just 747 upvotes, proving internet does have a flair for the dramatic.
| Resignation Fantasy | Number of Upvotes on Reddit |
| Swearing | 334838 |
| Letter | 9934 |
| On the Spot | 747 |
We don’t think swearing is the right way to go when you resign but if you’re not leaving on bad terms then being imaginative can take the sting out of it for your employer and you might even make the news.
Here are a few of our favourite resignation stories
“I Quit” Cake
In 2011, Chris Holmes quit his job as a border force officer at Stansted Airport by handing in a resignation letter on a cake. The message on the cake read “Having a Cake…and eating it too” and included all the details of his departure including the name of his new business, “Mr Cake”.
The Sweary Jet Blue Flight Attendant
In 2010, Steven Slater, a JetBlue flight attendant, quit his job in dramatic fashion. After a passenger refused to follow safety instructions, Slater grabbed the plane’s intercom, spewed a string of profanities, and slid down the emergency slide before leaving the airport. He was sentenced to 12 months’ probation after the stunt.
March to the Beat of Your Own Drum
Joey DeFrancesco, a worker at a hotel in Providence, Rhode Island, quit with a bang in 2010 by flash mobbing his line manager with a marching band and became an overnight sensation.
Speaking Truth to Power
A Walmart employee has gathered hundreds of thousands of views on TikTok after quitting her job in an expletive-laden rant over the store’s intercom for all staff and customers to hear. While the video does contain swearing, she has been praised for publicly calling out alleged mismanagement.
Happy in your job but looking for a change of work scenery? Take a look at our office and coworking spaces and find the perfect office environment for you.
Method and sources:
We partnered with MediaVision to create this blog who conducted an internal poll of their staff on our behalf via strawpoll.
Labour data from ONS
Resignation fantasy total upvotes taken from a variety of Reddit threads on resignations
Dramatic resignation sources:
[Today] https://www.today.com/food/parting-sweet-man-quits-job-resignation-cake-1C9378050
[CNN] https://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/24/living/marching-band-resignation/index.html
[Guardian] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/20/steven-slater-jetblue-flight-attendant-sentence
[Newsweek] https://www.newsweek.com/video-walmart-worker-resignation-viewed-over-230000-times-1630686