Business & Finance Doing a Runner on a Job

[Phillip Matera]

Has anyone done this before.
There are plenty of shit jobs out there and sometimes it can be too much.
I've done this on a couple of occasions.

Once I was going for this courier driver job and on the same day as the interview they wanted me to start work. I said yes cause I'm too piss weak to say the truth that I don't want it, and for about 5 minutes they left me in this room while they went to get equipment and stuff so I had to quickly make a decision to get the f**k out of there while no one was around and so I bolted out the door, sprinted to my car and was out of there as fast as I could go- Its was such a relief when I was out, I was laughing all the way home.

 

[coldpieswarmbeer]

I once held down a pizza delivery job.. for one whole day.

I borrowed my mums car to do it, and scratched it. when she found out i was in a lot of shit and i never showed my face at that place again. the boss called me asked me what happened i just told him the truth.. i pretended he had the wrong number


that was me as a teenager and it was a shitty job. so i felt no remorse. but i did it as an adult and i look back and regret it

it was a shit company. with shit pay. and shit management. they sent me to qatar for a whole year to manage a multi million dirham project and gave me no support through out, i was basically doing my own thing.. i came back to dubai, got no recognition etc. i'm trying to build the picture that i was unhappy lol

anyways while working there i got a job offer from a great management consulting company.. and i accepted it without telling anyone at my current firm. in fact i told the boss i'll be working from home most days and will try and show up for the evenings, i asked him to continue giving me work.. basically my plan was to try and hold down two jobs.. it didn't work as my new job was very demanding.

about a week into it i got a call from my old job saying where am i etc etc, i told him i'm taking a leave after working a full year non stop in qatar and he said ok you can have a couple of weeks off. i never contacted them again, i never heard from them again..

it was quite strange that i never heard from them again though.

what's funny is that i literally worked in the next building ahaha. how funny if they saw me one day with my suit and tie around their office..

oh, i did send an email like 6 months later.. i came up with a whole story.. i shit you not, here is what i wrote:

Dear Jarrah,

What the hell?!?!

That's the only words I can think of right now... and perhaps you guys are thinking the same thing. Perhaps not

What a strange past few months.

Ok first of all, how have you been?? gee its been a long time - I do hope all is OK

What has been happening at Madar??

As for me, when we last talked it was when Abdul Kader called me to submit a leave application since I hadn't showed up for work all week. I believe that was back in March. In that break I decided to go on a road trip for a week or two round the middle east to get away from it all and have a break - you know i worked my ass off for 6 months in qatar without much thanks from you guys.. shitty salary which i didn't complain about, you guys made me pay for my own hotel bills, car loans etc. so i decided i need a break... some things happened during my trip, which i wont get into but it got extended for a few months and i just got back into the uae recently,

I checked with my Dad, noone called or asked about what happened to me. I know you have his number because you've called him before when you couldn't get through to me
I checked my emails (both Madar and Gmail) and nothing at all from you guys except one email from you saying my salary has been transferred
I find that pretty hard to believe. As if you guys were happy to never hear from me again??

i dont know what the reasons are. The bottom line is :

Am I no longer an employee at Madar?? Look, I'm willing to put it behind me, I'd be happy to still work for madar as a freelancer
i still have receipts that i need madar to re-imburse me for. these include the money YOU owe me, and car rentals which amount to over 10,000 dirhams

I am back in Dubai for the time being. Lets catch up for a drink if you have a chance.

didn't hear from them also


that would have been like a year ago

one week ago i found out the company has folded..

 

[gimp!]

I did a massive runner on a job, I knew straight away it wasn't for me. On the second day, I made up a story of a family emergency and never went back. They were shit anyway, so I feel no regrets. Went back to my old job! ha ha.

EDIT: I just remembered I have actually done it twice! Another time was where I somehow got a job as a Hawker... how depressing is that. Lasted one day on that also.

 

[rhinowce]

A few years back went for a shit kickers job building pallets, the pay wasn't too bad for what I was doing so the next morning I rock up, this when things turned sour the people that I was expected to work with were the biggest bunch of misfits I have ever seen in one warehouse. Guys on the bongs in the car park if they weren't on the bongs they puffing on white ox and even taking hits from a bottle of black Douglas and their cars geewhizz vb commodores with different coloured doors all held together with bog and a heap of pushies cause they had no licence.

So that was just getting in there after gettin past that I thought I'd give it go even if it was just for a week I was broke needed to do something, after all the bullshit it was time to sign out some tools from the workshop. I then notice everyone gets a nail gun!!! What the **** everyone of those bogans I seen has a nailgun you must be kidding me, all I could picture was me copping a few nails in the head. That was it for me dumped the tools in the smoko room grabbed my keys and was out of there for out tellin a soul..

 

[Adrian Shelton]

Done it before, 3 times off a gardening job(was moving from Mt gambier to Melbourne a bit at the time, long story....) And a chook processing job up here(bad trainer as well, but would have had to quit anyway, just went early after i started looking at garden jobs instead of working rather odd hours)

 

[Carl Hooper]

Did it once, working at this garden supplies factory picking and packing orders.. Been there for a few months, fellow workers were annoying as shit.. Got sick of it, then on the weekend of my 18th birthday I walked out on the Friday arvo after one of them gave me 20 bucks to buy a few beers. Felt kinda bad for taking the 20 knowing I'd not come back on monday but ah well.

 

[Sportman1987]

I did the same thing with my pizza job as a kid. Did it a few times (stupidly) in an area I didn't know. Couldn't find my way around, Didn't like it.

Called up an hour before my shift started & told him I'd found another job and wouldn't be coming in again.

It was poor form & I wouldn't do it again but I never lost any sleep over it.

 

[hawksfor2010]

Never done a runner, but had a job where the boss was an absolute bogan, anyways at the end of the day he said he will see me tomorrow morning and i simply replied "yeah sure, cya tomorrow".....never went back to that dump of place.

 

[John Dorian]

I was once a dishpig at a restaurant. Basically my boss was a bitch and the restaurant relies so much on the dishpig, yet I was treated with such little respect and there was no work contract or anything, I was just paid what the boss thought was enough.

After two shifts I gave up, left a message on the machine and never spoke to them again.

 

[bunsen burner]

EDIT: I just remembered I have actually done it twice! Another time was where I somehow got a job as a Hawker... how depressing is that. Lasted one day on that also.

I used to be a hawker. Used to watch people come and go every day. Some of the excuses were amazing. You felt like saying "hey champ, it's a hawker job. Bottom of the barrel. No one would be surprised if you just came out and said ain't doing that shit". But many told elaborate lies as to why they had to quit.

Once saw a girl came back to the office and her excuse for not selling anything was that she lost her voice. She was walking around with a sign saying "lost my voice, can't talk". We all had to keep a straight face and go along with it.

 

[gimp!]

I used to be a hawker. Used to watch people come and go every day. Some of the excuses were amazing. You felt like saying "hey champ, it's a hawker job. Bottom of the barrel. No one would be surprised if you just came out and said ain't doing that shit". But many told elaborate lies as to why they had to quit.

Once saw a girl came back to the office and her excuse for not selling anything was that she lost her voice. She was walking around with a sign saying "lost my voice, can't talk". We all had to keep a straight face and go along with it.

Ha ha, that is gold. How long did you last???

 

[lovely]

I have only done it once, which was like a month ago...

Stupid lingerie store. I loved all the discounts, but seriously, people seem to be under the impression that just because you work there you're accustomed to being flashed at every opportunity...

oh and the only boys who came in were transvestites, who seemed to get off asking me about my linguine preferences...

most mentally scarring job ever!

 

[bunsen burner]

Ha ha, that is gold. How long did you last???

At that company? 3 years. As a hawker or running such businesses? Over 10 years. I was exceptionally good at it.

 

[bunsen burner]

I have only done it once, which was like a month ago...

Stupid lingerie store. I loved all the discounts, but seriously, people seem to be under the impression that just because you work there you're accustomed to being flashed at every opportunity...

oh and the only boys who came in were transvestites, who seemed to get off asking me about my linguine preferences...

most mentally scarring job ever!

My partner once worked at a lingerie store. A guy rang her up and was asking her question about what he should get his girlfriend and what size she might be etc. Then my partner twigged that he was just trying to keep her on the phone. So she said "I'm hanging up now" and he said (in a desperate voice) "not just yet, i'm just about to come".

 

[YOTC]

I have only done it once, which was like a month ago...

Stupid lingerie store. I loved all the discounts, but seriously, people seem to be under the impression that just because you work there you're accustomed to being flashed at every opportunity...

oh and the only boys who came in were transvestites, who seemed to get off asking me about my linguine preferences...

most mentally scarring job ever!

Personally I prefer 'soft and supple cannelloni'

 

[Rustin Cohle]

My partner once worked at a lingerie store. A guy rang her up and was asking her question about what he should get his girlfriend and what size she might be etc. Then my partner twigged that he was just trying to keep her on the phone. So she said "I'm hanging up now" and he said (in a desperate voice) "not just yet, i'm just about to come".

Hot. Keep going, I'm about to come.

 

[raskolnikov]

A few years ago I ended up teaching at a shit school in South Korea. I did what is called a midnight run in Korea. Because of the difficulties getting out of your contract and because there are a lot of shitty teaching in Korea there is a huge number of people that have to resort to doing a midnight run. I packed my bags in the morning, went and taught my morning classes. As soon as my morning classes had finished I took a taxi straight to the airport and caught a plane home. I would have been at the airport when the school found out I had done a runner and I was sweating thinking that they would come up and apprehend me. I was so relieved once I was on the plane.

 

[Big Cox]

Didnt do a runner on a job but did a job so badly and half assed the place wishes i did

Used to work at Woolworths in the produce department every Saturday as a kid. Ah some of the things we got up too

- Went to see a movie while on shift. Came back 2 hours later
- Ate about $400 of mangoes between us cos well we were hungry
- Went to Kmart to watch the entire Grand Final despite the blowout
- Played a 4 hour game of cricket. 50 overs each. I lost 345 to 323

And thats the tip of the iceberg. How we werent fired is beyond me

 

[Plugger35]

When I was living in San Diego, I got a job as a spare parts delivery driver. The job required a Californian drivers license, I didn't have one so I just borrowed my mates drivers license and showed them that.

Of course that meant that I had to pretend I was my mate and it was pretty wierd with people there all calling me by a different name. Got used to after a while though. Was a pretty cruisy job too, did a delivery run once an hour and most of the time there was only 1 or 2 parts to deliver and then the rest of the time I'd just cruise around in the van listening to the radio or hang out at the warehouse.

Everything was going along swimmingly until I got busted by the cops for speeding. I had to give them my real Australian drivers license as I didn't have my mates Californian license with me. Anyway they gave me a speeding ticket but because I was driving a company vehicle they must have sent a copy to the company I worked for as well.

The shit hit the fan a week or so later. I came back from one of my delivery runs and my boss confronted me with a copy of the speeding ticket with a different name on it to the name they thought I was. My boss was like "What's going on, who the f*** are you man?".

I tried to talk my way out of it and said they must have made a mistake or something, wasn't very convincing. He then told me to go down to the DMV (Dept of Motor Vehicles) and sort it out. I was planning on finishing up there in a week or two anyway as I was heading to the UK so I just got in my car and drove off into the sunset. Never to return.

Lost a few days pay in the end but I thought I might have been in the shit big time if I went back there, better to just cut my losses and run. Felt a bit bad as they were a pretty good bunch of guys that worked there. Was still a bit worried for the last few weeks before I left that I was going to run into one of them.

 

[ash_1050]

Did it about a month ago for a cold calling place in North Melbourne. On the phone they said it was inbound calls only, I turned up for an interview which was non existant, they just put me on a phone with a script for cold calling and after one trial said I had the job. I stayed an hour as part of the trial and an hour and a half into it (no one bothered to tell me my trial was up and I didn't notice the time) I simply got up and walked out.

 

[r dub 19]

WTF is a hawker?

 

[bunsen burner]

WTF is a hawker?

door to door sales person. There's a shop in Oxford St Leederville called The Hawker's Hut. This is a direct sales company and every day this is where all the door to door sales people of Perth go and pick up their bag of stock from.

 

[Hawk Dork]

Had 6 labourers working for me out of a mining town Qld.(contracting to a mining company)
You needed 6 because it guaranteed 4 would turn up.
A few wouldn't come back for a few days after pay day.
Others liked to take Monday or Friday off.
Others would disappear during the day
We had a permanent sign up around town,wanting labourers.
You couldn't sack them, because there was no one else.(middle of nowhere expensive rents,caravan parks full)
You didn't lose money on them, as their hours where covered by the Mining company plus profit.
All nice guys,doing as they pleased.
All where just there waiting to get a proper mining job.(fair enough)
As they got them, they would disappear without a word

 

[rofltown]

ha yes

a telemarketing job trying to convert people to a different enegery company
about 15 minutes into my first shift i got up and casually walked down the stairs and left
pretty much ran to the train station and was laughing the whole way home

don't regret it at all, would have killed myself after working there for a week

 

[GameOver]

I used to be a hawker. Used to watch people come and go every day. Some of the excuses were amazing. You felt like saying "hey champ, it's a hawker job. Bottom of the barrel. No one would be surprised if you just came out and said ain't doing that shit". But many told elaborate lies as to why they had to quit.

Once saw a girl came back to the office and her excuse for not selling anything was that she lost her voice. She was walking around with a sign saying "lost my voice, can't talk". We all had to keep a straight face and go along with it.

I worked as a hawker for 5-6 months... I always looked at it as a temporary job until I decided what to do with uni (was between courses)... looking back, it was the most unprofessional scam I've encountered... but I enjoyed the work for 3-4 months and the atmosphere around the place... saw a lot of backpackers work through that job and also a lot of no hopers that couldn't dress themselves... anyway, I got sick of the job and decided to do something else for the remaining 6 months (1 year off uni) and just didn't show up 1 day... no call from manager, co-workers etc... they obviously got used to that sort of thing happening... still see some of the old co-workers out and about and some of them still doing the same job... was interesting cause' while all the s%!t kickers were out rain, hail or shine walking the streets flogging crap products, the boss was test driving new cars every day... I think it was part of the facade to show people you could make money