Employee hires marching band to quit toxic workplace in style and it's cathartic

Who among us hasn't dreamt of quitting a toxic job in grand fashion? Announcing "I quit" in the middle of the day in a dramatic fashion before walking out. Throwing your resignation letter at your boss. Even if we never got to play them out in reality, we are all entitled to justice, even if it may be in our dreams. One person who got to live out their fantasy is La Neve. She worked at a hotel in Providence, Rhode Island, and found her job toxic. One day, she decided enough was enough and decided to make a statement as she quit her job. She hired a marching band and had them play boisterous tunes and she handed her boss her resignation letter with the letters "I quit," reported The HuffPost. The result was a glorious video that eventually found its way to YouTube titled "Joey Quits." It racked up 2 million hits and has since been viewed more than 10 million times on various different platforms. The video was captioned: "This is a video about supporting unions and workers' rights." 

The incident happened in 2011 but it has resurfaced on the internet and it's as glorious as ever. Especially in the wake of the 'Great Resignation' that has seen thousands of workers quit their jobs, La Neve's brave act stands as an inspiration for the working class to reject a toxic workplace. La Neve had worked there for three years before calling it quits. "I hated them, and they hated me," said La Neve. "It was this big drawn-out war we were having with management ... I knew I had to get one last shot at them."

"They treat us like s***," La Neve announces at the start of the video. "I'm going to go and quit right now with the help of my bandmates." She can be seen waiting for her boss along with the marching band in an alley. Once her boss arrives, she holds out her resignation letter. He refuses to take it. La Neve says, "I quit," before dropping the letter. The band starts playing loud music. The marching band really enjoyed themselves and La Neve looked liberated. She raised her hands in the sky. It was a moment of pure joy. "La Neve is the hero of all downtrodden workers because she is the embodiment of 'take this job and shove it.' She's living out the fantasies of countless workers who also hate their bosses," said Allison Hemming, CEO of the Hired Guns, a digital marketing and talent agency, reported CNN. "Managers should remember that if you're terrible to your people while they are working for you, your formerly silent former employees will have a platform to out you in a potentially very public way. And that sentiment can affect your business too."

The video resurfaced on Reddit where it has gone viral again. "Must have been a real sh*t job or a terrible boss for all that preparation but I think I could die happy If I ever pulled off something like that," wrote one person. "I need one of these bands for when I stop pumping gas at exactly $10.00," commented another. "I love the music they played! I would love to have friends to do that with. Maybe cause chaos around town whole playing that lol," wrote another user.

La Neve also said she had fought for better working conditions at the hotel, which the workers eventually won. "Before I quit, my co-workers and I spent years organizing together against management to better working conditions. They continued to fight after I left and won a contract," she wrote.

La Neve has moved on and become a music artist, singing about revolution and guillotines. A member of the 'The Downtown Boys,' she released 'The Vital Cord,' a solo project, recently. "In Rhode Island, you can very clearly see the history and money made in the slave trade and put into factories and banks... this cord of horrors of capital still constructing our will today," she said in an interview with i-D. She believes it's important for the labor movement to be inclusive. "Coming from my background as a labor organizer, it’s been so clear that queer, trans, and labor rights are all intersecting, and the labor movement must take the fight for queer rights seriously because we’re all workers. If we’re not serious about fighting for all of us, it weakens every other movement," she said.

You can catch her work on YouTube, Twitter, and her website.