Have you ever scorched earth quit a job?

Not a scorched earther, but I did receive a call one early afternoon and it was a super intendant that my crews did work for. He cussed me out which I can put up with a little, but he started in with the mother fucker, cock sucker and I hung up. I got in my truck drove the 45 minutes to his job trailer, walked in the door and introduced myself, and asked him if he wanted to say that shit to my face. I was a ready to grab by the throat, but then he started stammering and apologizing, never had another issue 

I did have one guy come into my office and he was quitting and somewhat upset, I was sitting down and he was over me and my ghetto instincts detected he was going to sucker punch me while I was sitting down, so I stood up and he kinda a lost his nerve. I love the construction industry but we do get some wild ones that come through the doors. 
 

Back in the day we had those two way radios and you could hear everyone else's communications. I was driving down the road and I heard one of our crazier employees, and a guy I liked, on the radio saying he was getting ready to kill some roofers. I was near by so I drove to the job site and sure enough he was out front of the home with a long screwdriver in his hand with two roofers in front of him and they were squaring off. I calmed it down, and the fighting was over the radio. This was the same employee that told me to teach gun safety to his kid, he had his kid zap his own arm with a stun gun. He also had a gun in every room of his home and a locked gun powder room. 
 

can we do people pulling guns in pick up basketball games next?

Worked for a small business, owned by a married couple, Harvey and Marilyn... terrible people. As I was quitting I said, "Harvey,  I don't know how you look at yourself in the mirror. Marilyn, you can suck my ass."  Marilyn was mortified, Harvey laughed. 

i had my boss call me out in front of the whole team. Said I was lying to him. I was not and just happened to learn my mom had a new form of cancer earlier that day so wasn't in the mood to put up with his BS.  He wouldn't believe me and kept escalating the situation as I was trying to work. I told him to F-off in front of everyone. Never got so many pats on the back in my life. HR said I could quit or apologize despite everyone noting that he instigated it. Mortgage, kids, etc made me keep the job even though I had my resignation letter written.   

He decides to go find someone else to take my future leadership position because that's how he rolls.  New guy is brought in and HR/leadership denies he's been hired for the role although we all know. New guy is a shit show. Boss has mud on his face. Those two don't talk and hate each other. 

I now have boss's job and he's relegated to the corner in another country.  Should I have left?  Likely.  Am i happy, absolutely.     

Multiple times. The details I'll leave off but I can say with confidence I was glad I did it the way I did. Because these people knew much about me, let's just say I feel they think about me every time since when they hear a Dylan-Young or Dead song for the rest of their lives 

Yes, 4 times maybe - once when i was a young Lighting designer for a house band in Ft Lauderdale @ City Limits, circa' 86 maybe..got into an argument with the club owner and he had the band fire me. They told me the following Tuesday that the upcoming Sunday night would be my last night. uh. OK sure. I did Tues, Wed, even went to the Thursday ' new song day ' rehearsal ( it was a top 40 club ) the band was supposed to learn one or two of the newest top hits...

after the last set Thursday night i went to the dimmer room and un-patched and pulled all the labels from the entire lighting rig and went home never intending to go back...they left me a voice mail that they werent going to pay me the 500 for that week. it was worth every penny

In my short lived career framing houses. I remember I lied about my age to get the job so must have been 17 or 16. This work site was a complete shit show. We were framing a three story apartment building about 20 units in all so a big place. They didn't have a drill to anchor the building to the anchor bolts but they did have a sledge hammer so they just bent the anchor bolts over and drove in a few concrete nails. 

Everyone on the crew would smoke out at lunch and the Roach Coach sold speed and did a brisk business. Anyway I had no idea what I was doing and the crew leader would yell at me hourly as his training method. So after a couple of weeks of this I told him he could take his studs and shove them up his ass and walked off. Probably ended up saving myself from losing a few digits. 

I have a few of my own that revolve around seriously jerk mgt, etc AND, despite the approved time off back in the day, "what's more important - your job here or seeing that fkn band more times?" but one favorite is a good friend leaving a large dead fish in the toilet tank at an establishment that scammed him on pay, a promised promotion, and a stake in the company after he more than delivered.

Of course. Doesn't everybody?

i called from hawaii saying i wouldn't be back.

About 20 years ago I was a Television Sales Manager. In short, my job was to bring products from development to on-air sales on QVC, from the R&D to manufacturing to scripting the on-air sale.

After 9 months I had double the previous year's sales, and was on track for a 145% increase. I was making salary instead of commission, and was supposed to get a raise after 6 months. For perspective, had I been pulling in 10% commission, I would have made 5x my salary. Boss-man kept putting it off. I asked about it on a Monday morning. He hedged. I said, "Friday."

Friday morning came and nothing. Friday afternoon I walked in and handed him a letter of resignation. He lost his shit in a way that I didn't expect. It was ridiculous.

"How can you do this to me? We have a Today's Special Value in 3 weeks and that's all you." If you know QVC, you know the TSV is a big thing. "I can see that you're upset. I gave you ample chance. If I was that valuable you'd be paying me more."

Then he got dickish. "Good. You stole all my accounts and I can't have that." He was purple with rage. I said, "You went on vacation for a month and I did as you asked and serviced your accounts. They all requested me as a rep because I did a better job than you."

Now he's purple and in tears. "Everyone else is losing money. I can't pay you more because I need your money to float the entire company." Wrong thing to say. I was pissed, so I dropped the bomb. "Well, you've been on vacation for 3 out of the last 9 months, have bought 2 houses, and $500,000 in new cars. It seems like you're paying yourself really well for my hard work."

I ended it with, "You're a gambling man, and you gambled that I would keep bringing you in big bucks with sub-par pay. You lost the bet this time. At that, I have work to do." I went back to my desk.

He came to my desk 5 minutes later, check in one hand and a box in another, with a crow-eating look on his face. As expected, I was done right then. The HR guy came over and said, "Let's forego the exit interview. I understand what happened."

I don't think that company ever did much on QVC after that. The buyers loved me because I was up-and-up, and his history with them was as a sheister. Nobody wanted to deal with him.

As an aside, on one visit to QVC I was meeting with a buyer, and she commented on my Garcia tie. We got to talking and it turns out her husband was a Zoner. Small world.

Nice. Some organization and people more than deserve being served like that.

I was working for a small technical organization of maybe a dozen employees in the NW Chicagoland suburbs that I found out was stealing designs and configurations from other companies which became clearly obvious at a trade show where we had a booth. The owner's wife wouldn't butt out of anything. The owner would angrily call me on Sunday afternoons saying that he needed me and wondered why I was not available. A lot problems were building up. Before the trade show there was an all-hands meeting where the owner said that we would very likely be getting some big orders so if anyone was going to leave to do it now - 2 people walked out, adding to the stress. On a Friday afternoon before a Labor Day Holiday Weekend, said wifey decides that I need to truck it way down to the south suburbs of Chicagoland to pick up some items that I knew we did not immediately need. She insisted and I said, "OK, but I won't be back on Tuesday." "Yea, whatever" she mumbles as she's walking away. I made the pick-up and got back to the office around 8 PM, left all of my keys on my desk and checked out. The owner was pathetically calling me a few times daily for a couple weeks. "I know you are there - your line was just busy!" I eventually called him to put a stop to that nonsense. He was begging me to come back but it was all long over-cooked by then.

Throwaway job, cook at a Holiday Inn. Sunday show at The Spectrum. 2 weeks ahead told them I wasn't gonna be in that day. On the Saturday night before said I had to come in or I'm fired. Walked out on the spot. Happy Saturday night!

Funniest one i saw was a young salesman who was a nice guy, but worked for a true Type A. Last day there, he took a huge shit ( no witnesses though) on the men's bathroom floor, circled it with permanent marker and wrote, "Rogers's self portrait" ( the president) in giant letters with an arrow ( for accuracy?) pointing to it.  And then he quietly walked out and never came back...lol.

I still smile when i think of the thought coming into his head as he decided that this is how I'm going out. 

OK, Dise, I’ll play. Hope all is well with you.
I only quit one job without giving proper notice.
It was July of 1971 and I needed two jobs that summer. My ex-uncle got me a $1.75/hr.+ tips gig at the carwash he was managing. He was just about to move to a Native American reservation in the southwest and after a couple of weeks, the owner’s son took over as manager.
Even though cars were mainly washed through the machine, a crew of about 5 to 7, depending on the day of the week, still had to hand clean stuff, like vacuuming, windows, tires, etc.
It was a blistering hot Saturday afternoon and I had windows. Windows was a good job, because they were the last to be cleaned before turning the car over to the customer, which often brought an extra quarter or fifty-cent tip. Cars were coming constantly and I had already been cleaning windows for about 4 hours straight with no break.
Finally, I had to pee. I had just finished up one of those cars with an extremely slanted, hard-to-clean rear window, like a Mercury Cyclone. Sweat was pouring out of me as I went to tell the attractive blonde lady her car was ready. The manager was talking with her, when I interrupted. I tell the lady her car was ready and the manager looks over at her car and tells me I missed a spot on the rear window and I needed to clean it again. I told him I’d do it as soon as I came back from the restroom. He said, “You’ll do it NOW!” So, I get into the back of the car and start cleaning the window as quickly, but as carefully as I could.
I get out of the car and as I’m walking back to the lady and the manager, I hear him giving her a line of BS about how he owns a chain of carwashes and he also own this and he owns that. I tell the lady her car is done now. She’s ready to go, but the manger tells me he doesn’t think I did a good enough job on the window yet and I need to do it again. The lady says the car looks fine. I’m even seeing a little pity in her face as I must have looked overheated, as well as in some bladder distress. The manager insists I “get it right” because the customer deserves the best, or some such rot. Again, I tell him, I’d be happy to do whatever he wants if I could just have a few minutes. He starts yelling at me, asking me who do I think I’m talking to and telling me I’m supposed to do what I’m told or I could look for another job. So, I take my rag and window cleaner and I put them into his hands. I tell him, “You’re the boss, so you must know exactly what this lady deserves and I’m sure you can do a better job for her than me.” I tell him I’ll be back to pick up my paycheck on payday, but first I’m going to use the restroom. The woman hands me a dollar bill. I say thanks and head for the head. I hear the manager yelling at me to come back, but I was gone. And, so was the lady.

My Grandpa told me a good one years ago about a job he quit many years before that. Both he and my Grandma worked at the Sunbeam factory in Chicago in the 40's. My Grandpa was a set-up man on a die-press that cut steel plates for small appliances and my Grandma worked on the assembly line. The foreman apparently had a "sweet eye" for my Grandma so he was routinely back-handing my Grandpa as it were. One day my Grandpa is doing his work and the foreman is literally breathing down his neck. My Grandpa holds the show to turn around and say, "This is not a 2-man job. Either I can continue doing it or you can do it but we're both not going to do it together. Take your pick." Foreman loses his shit so my Grandpa hands him the tools to turn the task at hand over to him. Almost the best part is that he then heads down to "personnel" and they pay him up to date on his way out from the petty cash box - which also apparently happened very payday as well back in those days too. Hard to believe how tangled up things have gotten since then with HR, IRS, etc. 

"Momma Dear, I really tried - to live out on .... live out on the other side,

But industry and 9 to 5 could not keep me soul alive"

I wrote those lyrics right after that day. I had followed a couple of co-workers when a peer opened up his own technical recruiting firm. He was a top biller as a recruiter, but had no clue how to be a manager and I'm not very good at taking direction. In the same business today, but self-employed since 1990.

We worked in an 8 office building with 4 of 8 offices empty, so there were plenty of spots among the 16 spots located under the office building on ground level. But after a year at the job, employees were told that the lease states only 2 spots per business, so we all must start parking in a lot a football field away. I responded that I would be happy to move if another business moved in, but boss-man insisted.

It was kind of the excuse that I was looking, as I was ready to make a move with my music (I did indeed support myself with my wooden guitar for the 5 years that followed...). 

I continued to park where I always had and it escalated over 3 days - he would confront me on the issue, turn his back and walk back into his office.

Before long, it was "Move the car or don't come back...." he stomped back in his office and shut the door.

That was when, in inspiration at the cosmic symbolism of it all, I removed my tie, lit it on fire, and placed the burning tie in my (empty) desk-side trash can and calmly left the office, silly smile on my face.

What I later learned was .... since I was wearing a cheap polyester tie, it did not actually burn. It kind of flamed up, melted and began filling the office with toxic fumes (!). My peers left the room - laughing and gagging, and one of them banged on the bosses door on the way out. Ohhh to be a fly (in a gas mask) on the wall when he opened his door!

Was working at Loon Mountain as a lift attendant. Season was pretty much over, and was a dismal snow year -  when we got a bit of fresh snow spring 1980 we couldn't resist but engage in some fun with the fresh snow. The manager "Smitty" fired us for tossing snow balls at some co-workers as they boarded the lift. But then added that he needed us to work for 2 more weeks at the ski area. East Basin lift was pretty remote and nobody wanted that assignment. We didn't mind the location.. being a new couple and we  found ways of keeping warm in the isolated little hut all winter long. We later learned that Smitty would find excuses to fire workers towards the end of the season to avoid paying into unemployment and those of us who probably weren't going to be returning for another season were targeted. So, the dimwit actually expected us to show up to  work  the following day after we were "fired."  Next morning we're hanging at  our apartment in the company town of Lincoln. We were in our PJ's cooking up breakfast. He pounded on our door and proceeded to berate us for not showing up to work that day.  At that point we told him to get bent and I suppose that could be considered going "scorced earth" quitting because he actually expected us to be at work that day. Never laughed so hard seeing him run from our apartment. 

The following year, I found work at  the Scandinavi Inn - when the  owners refused to pay me for 2 weeks of "training. "  I quit and gave Inga and Ray an earful then promptly   filed a complaint with the State and Federal labor boards.  State of NH didn't do much, a quick hearing and I got my back pay. The Feds though really enjoyed talking to me and after their investigation Ray and Inga  had to pay back wages and punitive damages to the entire staff. One waitress named Darlene got a check for $2000 and called to let me know that everyone who worked there was so grateful. 

This is a great thread.

Nothing to add though, I've never had to quit under negative circumstances.

Yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GBEMCExaQw

I lasted through 35 sec of that vid Bss  point well made ....

Hours are turned in on Wednesday where I'm at now. I have been planning on quitting next Tuesday for a very long time. Lots and lots o' next Tuesdays.

When the hospital I worked at threw me under the bus after I broke my leg (just like the ICU / ER nurses told me it would happen), I threw the CEO of the entire system under the bus for sexual harassment....   I even had evidence so it wasnt a he said (s)he said moment.  

No, but this is the closest I got.

In the spring of 1998, I worked at a local bar & grill in the kitchen. I got permission to take leave for Summer 1998 Furthur Tour. I was 19 and the highest paid dishwasher/kitchen assistant cause if you gave me a stereo I could seriously make stuff happen-wash dishes, prep food, clean, set up plates, I was a machine.

The day cook was a nice guy named Bill, but he was pretty lazy. He enjoyed watching the TV we had in the kitchen more than anything. Even worse, his younger brother, about my age, worked there as a kitchen assistant and he was pretty useless. He got in the way, he was contrary, not friendly to anyone, but he was the cook's brother, so we tolerated him.

On my last day before taking off for the summer, Bill the cook disappears somewhere. I'm on dish duty, and younger brother is very slowly cutting celery, as he was famous for doing, for hours. Suddenly a mass of people show up at the bar. Like a bus full of folks-orders come flying down. Little brother loses his mind, runs off to go find his brother the cook. I'm down there alone trying to get stuff set up, but I felt kinda ticked that little brother left his post and once again, I was running the show. Little brother comes back and can't find the cook.

I said, look man, now's your moment to shine. We are gonna step it up make this place rock. He's sweating and in over his head. He gets real nasty with me about it all. Twenty minutes into it, clearly we are in the weeds and its bad. THe cook never appears.

It's my last day, and I just decided to let little brother finally live up to all the hard work he thinks he does. I go to the restroom, then I just leave. Then I go home, then go on tour and don't come back until the late fall.

Still glad I did it, it all worked out, and I bet little brother still remembers it too

Not scorched Earth, but........

I worked for a guy who has a somewhat iconic reputation here in Mo Town. I sold calendars and books. He screwed me over financially at the end of the previous year, but I continued to work for him after a "settlement", which he also didn't finish honoring later. 

I had gone to Hawaii in May and then told him I'm going on a river trip in June. He had just returned from one. He said I couldn't go. "Decide what you want to do. Go down the river or work for me."   

I thought to myself "Shit, that's easy." Possibly one of the easiest questions I've ever been asked. 

Went on the trip, came back, and went to the office. He asked "What are you doing here?" Told him I was here to work he said no, so I left. 

Without a sales force, and a shit pot load of unsent catalogs sitting in the office, his debt riddled calendar company went bankrupt the next year. Karma. 

Now he has a bookstore.  And I've heard stories about that. 

Hahaha sure have! ((((pisces>taurus>sagi)))))

One fave was a million years ago in Connecticut working as the admin for the sales department of the coupon mailer called Valpak.

The owner was this horrific Piggy Virgo phony Christian who wore what he called was a "genuine piece of the Cross" around his neck. He was so creepy: sitting next to me at my desk getting his thigh all up against mine, not only acting like it was perfectly normal, but that I should enjoy it. 

He was a racist misogynist, saying he'd only hire whites, how men were worth more but hot chicks made bigger sales, etc. 

This was back in the early 90s when jobs were easy to get and paid pretty well.

so my (unexpected) last day there, he came in enraged with his Burger King bag of breakfast in hand. He proceeded to call the restaurant and demand to the manager that the kid who served him needs to be immediately fired, because he forgot to give him his syrup for his French toast or whatever the fuck he got

That's when I got up from my desk and let him have it. I told him that he was a self aggrandizing groping phony Christian and that he wasn't worthy of having me work for him, and that his treatment of me was not personal, that he's repulsive to everybone he encounters.

I proceeded to tell my folks in the sales department how nice it was working with them and I walked out never to return 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hTOKJTRHMdw

I worked at Total Wine about 10 years ago. They're a warehouse big box alcohol chain. My supervisor kept getting her ass chewed for no reason by the manager, probably because she knew what she was doing and was funny as hell. One day the regional manager was there and was digging in to her. She looked him in the eyes and snapped at him to go suck a bag of dicks, calmly put her earpiece on a shelf and walked out the door. She instantly became a personal hero.  I worked with some great people there. Management was as bad as retail management gets. The wine discount was great.

Valpak -  Oh my

Retail Management - know the horrors well

Not exactly, but when I was like 20 I gave notice that I was quitting my job at the local backpack shop two weeks before their 'Summer Madness Sale' (a special kind of retail hell to work).

The boss begged me to just stay and work that sales event, so I said I would only do it for trade for a number of items I had had my eye on.  After the weekend I loaded up a my new backpack with a new sleeping bag and a few other goodies and walked out to the astonishment of the other minimum wage employees who had no idea I had struck a deal.

I started my new job at the local bicycle shop that week, which allowed me to get wholesale pricing on bike parts for my newest addiction, mountain biking. 

To this day I'm still an avid cyclist and backpacker, but I haven't quit a job since I left the bike shop back in 1986 (my brother and I still run the very small tech company my father started in his garage).

Wow, you people sure have had some shitty jobs & bosses. Personally, in my life I've only officially quit one job, and I definitely could have left some burn marks on my way out of that one, but I wisely chose to keep it professional, which ultimately worked out very well.

It was a shit job and they basically lied to me about what it would entail, presenting it as a middle school teacher's assistant focusing on reading skills with special needs kids, but it turned out to be a security guard for a pack of SED lunatics who weren't allowed in the general population because they hit, spit, kicked, peed on the floor & threw feces. It was no bueno and I was pissed that they weren't up-front about the job, but there was no scorched earth when I left; I held my tongue, put in my notice and just moved on.

I've always believed that it's better to build bridges than burn them, because you never know when in the future there will be something you want and you'll need a bridge to get it, and that turned out to be spot-on in this case, as I crossed paths with that middle school teacher & the sucky administer a number of years later (who were both incompetent dicks) and my good rep with them had a direct impact on me scoring the best job I've ever had.

As for my other jobs, I got fired from my first three because I was lazy, young & dumb and a stoner who only cared about going to concerts & ballgames. After I got booted from the third job I wised up a bit and for the next 17 years I worked in a variety of capacities for a company that ran preschools & a private elementary school. The last few years with them I worked as a substitute, but I never quit them, I eventually just sort of drifted away.

During that time I also began working for Bill Graham Presents and then Live Nation, who 37 years later I officially still work for. During the Live Nation years there were definitely times I could have walked and left behind some scorched earth, because in some ways they are as bad/as amateur hour as you think they are, but I looked at the bigger picture and didn't see the point of burning bridges for the sake of a little momentary satisfaction, and that again worked out OK and I had some more good times toward the end. I am done with them now, but I haven't "quit" as I figure it doesn't hurt to stay on their active payroll.

Finally, I retired two years ago with a nice pension & benefits from the job I got in part because of the positive way I left my feces ducking job. Over the years that job also had it's bad managers and challenging moments, but hanging in there through those times ultimately paid off.

So, here's another question - since most of you folks aren't kids I'm assuming many of you have been/are managers. If so, how often has YOUR earth been scorched by one of your employees walking on you? And did you deserve it?

In my experience as a manager, it isn't easy to be the boss and employees often can't or just don't see the bigger picture behind decisions and they get pissed.

So zoner managers, any burn marks in your history?

>So zoner managers, any burn marks in your history?
Nope. I did have to fire an employee once because she could not meet the mandatory AWOL for five days with no communication rule.
I tried everything and every way to help her, but no one could find her. All she had to do was make contact with me or anyone in our office and I would have been able to keep her position open for her.
She would have lost pay, but she would have been able to keep her job and benefits. I knew she was having trouble at home, but not specifics. About a month or so later, I read in the paper that her husband committed suicide. Tragic. She was one of my best employees.
My management style was "commit to the team, get the job done and we'll all have fun." I always looked at my job as a boss/manager as more of a resource for direction and help and a buffer to upper management.

I've had people walk on me. I ran the classified ad department at the SF Bay Guardian in the late 90's during the first dot com boom when you could get a job at a start up as a VP of Marketing if you had a pulse. Finding people to sell classified ads, which in those days, in large part consisted of taking cash payments from sex workers was not easy. (Side note on that. The sex workers would all complain that their ads never worked and weren't worth the money they paid for them. Then one day we ran the wrong phone number which turned out to be a grandma living in the Sunset. She was very unhappy that her phone wouldn't stop ringing.)

We had some real characters working in that department including the scruffy bearded guy who liked to wear evening gowns to work - who after working there for while came in one day with the sign up sheet to buy girl scout cookies for his daughter. Anyway I had people walk on me all the time there. We had one person start and a couple of hours later she said she was going to the car to get her sweater and she never came back. So that became the short hand for people quitting - they were getting their sweater. But no one ever yelled at me. 

We had a female employee who sued our company for sexual harassment.  She had been with us for a number years and had worked side by side with the employee she was accusing and had never once brought any impropriety to our attention.

We are a small family company and if anything we were overly involved in company goings on and we had never seen anything remotely resembling what she was alleging.  We also couldn't figure out her motivation until later when it came out in the depositions that she had had a history of this kind of thing on her way out of jobs.  The glowing review we had gotten from her previous employer turned out to be all lies.  In truth, she had a attacked another female employee on the job (leaving clumps of pulled out hair and blood on the assembly line). She then threatened to sue the company for hostile work environment (LOL) if charges were pressed.  She also demanded that they give her a positive review, also under threat of lawsuit.  Apparently they didn't want a fight and were more than happy to give her what she wanted if she would just GTFO.

So now she wanted to move on from us and had apparently decided she could get herself nice chunky going away bonus. Wrong. Our philosophy was we would rather help put our lawyers' kids through school than hers', plus her case was pretty weak... she saw his thigh when he was wearing shorts, he smiled at her, etc., but nothing overt, and not one of the other employees was witness to any of her allegations.

Hilariously, she brought a hidden and undisclosed recording device into a closed meeting with us and later sprung the recording at a deposition.  Besides this being illegal, it didn't even have any incriminating information, so we were able to pressure her attorney into withdrawing her case by threatening to counter sue.

And to remove any remaining motivation on her attorney's part to go to court, we agreed to pay a her attorney's fee, but we made the check out directly her (our ex-employee) as a bonus and then submitted W-9s to the State and IRS, so she even though she had to use the money to pay her lawyer, she also had to pay taxes on it.  

And of course that was the end of her getting positive reviews.

We also found that during the time the lawsuit was going on that we had enough assembly people and didn't actually need to refill her postilion, so not having to pay her salary/benefits eventually more than paid for the case.  This was a 40 hour a week, Mon-Fri assembly job in the 1990's that paid 50K a year plus full medical/dental, paid vacation and sick leave, as well as matched 401K contributions.  It was also in an area that usually required people to commute over the Santa Cruz Mountains on the dreaded Hwy 17 to Silicone Valley for those types of jobs and from what I hear, she never got that kind of work in the area again.

So what would that be called, a double reverse around the earth scorcher?