In a viral video posted to TikTok, a bartender in Denver, Colorado revealed “the straw that broke the camel’s back” and caused her to quit her last job.
In the video, which has been viewed 106,900 times as of Saturday, user Santana (@maybesantana) said she had already wanted to leave her job due to bad pay, constant scheduling conflicts, and poor management, and that she’d been having issues with one particular co-worker who “never had [her] back in front of customers.”
@maybesantana Replying to @Goddess Coka why i walked out of my last job #barlife #storytime #bartender ♬ original sound – santana
Santana explained that, while she was staying late as a punishment for not volunteering to stay on a previous night, her co-worker was letting customers illegally stay beyond last call, which was at 2am.
The TikToker said that after she tried to kick the patrons out, her co-worker laughed at her and told the customers it was OK to stay.
“Don’t b*tch about me not staying late when you’re making me stay later than I should even be here by letting people be in here illegally,” Santana said in the video.
Behind the bar, she confronted her co-worker, telling him not to laugh at her in front of customers. As they argued, the bar owner was “falling asleep” nearby, she said.
“We’re supposed to have a united front. You’re supposed to have my back and we’re supposed to be a team in this,” she reportedly told her co-worker. “Now I look like the bad guy because I’m just trying to follow the rules.”
When he continued to laugh at her, she threatened to leave, something she said she often did.
“I said ‘F*ck you. F*ck this.’ Grabbed my sh*t,” she said. “‘I’m out, I quit.’”
Santana said the next morning, one of the bar owners called her and offered her a promotion and a significant pay raise to stay on, which she refused.
“Through the weeks my walking out has turned into ‘Santana walked out,’ to ‘Santana got sent home because she was too drunk at work,’ to ‘We had to fire Santana,’” she revealed.
Users commended Santana for her reaction, with some urging her to report her former co-worker for letting customers stay and drink after hours. Others said that, because her former employers claimed to have fired her for drinking on the job, she could potentially sue for defamation if it impacts her ability to be hired somewhere else.
Other users shared their experiences with walking out on the job. “I walked out after I got into trouble for not letting a drunk guest sit me in his lap. I walked out and said, ‘This place won’t last six months.’ Closed,” user Sparky (@513.luanne_platter) wrote.
“I quit on the spot because they were making me do non-doctor approved things with a concussion,” user @stillameg revealed.
The Daily Dot reached out to Santana via TikTok comment.
