So I’m planning to quit my crappy retail job in the next couple of months. I’ve been thinking about it most of the 3+ years I’ve been there. I live with my folks, and they’re hoping to move within 6 months. I’m thinking I’ll go with them.
I figure I’ll have to quit then anyway, and if I do it before the move, I’ll have some time to sort my shit out a bit. If I wanted to carry on there, then I’d either have to travel 4 times as far from the new place (which would be ridiculous for the length of my shifts), or start renting my own place where we are now. Either way, if I wanted to maintain that, I’d have to get a lot more hours. And even if I could, I don’t want to. I hate my job! I hate working around the customers, I hate the corporate culture, the atmosphere of fear, the pressure to be outgoing and keep a false smile plastered to your face.
I’ve tried so hard to overcome the anxiety it triggers in me. But I just can’t. There’s no way I can get my mind right with working there. Every work week is a cycle of fear. It totally screws up my digestion and my sleep. I walk around zombified while there, then spend my evenings and days off feeling ill with stomach cramps, and my nights wired, dreading the next day. Even the simple parts of the job have given me chronic back problems. It dominates my entire life, and it’s not even full time! I have no energy to plan any alternative or look for anything better. This last year (since I moved to an earlier shift pattern) has been the worst of my life. I just can’t adjust to it. It’s the first time I’ve really thought seriously about suicide.
I have around £17500 (about $25000) saved, and I figure I can afford to take some time out. My folks don’t ask for much in the way of rent (just my share of utilities), so I only really need to pay for food & transport. I’m pretty frugal, and I figure my savings could keep me going at least 2 years. But I’m thinking I’ll use some of it to try and improve some of my health issues. Get myself in better shape to start something new when we move.
Thing is, I’m afraid to leave. As much as I hate my job, it provides me with a kind of identity. It gives me regular contact with people who know my name, and a bit about me. They may not really like me, but at least they tolerate me. It gives me a small sense of being just like everyone else – of social acceptance. It’s not much, as identities go. It’s not enough to stop me from feeling miserable and alone most of the time. But it is something, and I’m scared of letting it go. I wouldn’t consider any of the people I work with friends. We don’t meet socially, and we won’t keep in touch when I go. With one possible exception (who’s leaving this month anyway), I don’t think I’d really miss any of them specifically. But I’d miss having colleagues – the odd feeling you get of all being in the same boat, moaning about the management together, helping one another out. I’d miss feeling valued, even if it’s on the most superficial level. I’d miss feeling capable. It took me a long time to build that up. To get it so that people remembered my name, and that I could be relied upon, that I was helpful, and sweet, and could even be funny on occassion.
I never had that before this job (my first payroll work), and I’m scared to let it go. I’m worried it’s a step backwards. That without that contact, working with people will once again seem impossible to manage, and I’ll never get another job, even a similarly crappy one. That I’ll return to complete hermitude, avoiding all human contact once again. That my self-doubt will consume me, and I’ll start to believe that I can’t do anything like I did before. And then my folks will get pissed at me again and finally kick me out. And then I really will be as completely alone as I feel.
I want to take that time out, rather than moving directly from one job to another. I hope that’ll give me a chance to figure out something better. Sort my health, improve my anxiety, work out a meaningful career. Move up from just scraping by to a life actually worth living. But I’m scared that’s just an excuse I’m telling myself. That really I’ll retreat back into my room and never come out again. I’m scared that this is me giving in to my anxiety.
Anyway, thanks to anyone who made it through this. Just writing it down made it a bit clearer for me. I’m going to try and talk some of it through with my folks soon, and hopefully that’ll make me feel easier about it.
4 comments
I feel like I can relate, since I’ve just asked for some days off from my crappy store clerk job to think things through and get some much-needed rest. I actually wanted to quit, but then I couldn’t bring myself to it when I sat talking to my kind boss.
Although I’ve only been employed since last summer, I have similar fears to yours: I don’t have many friends outside of my job, it gives me a little self-worth, or a feeling of being a member of society or something. And it’s something I pretty much know how to do.
For me, the clincher is I feel unhappy there. I lack motivation. It goes against my values.
In the beginning, I felt like it sucked, but I did it because it was expected of me. Then I started noticing some benefits to me and believing it could take me somewhere. Then I started working evenings and not getting any quality sleep. Then I started noticing how little of a f*** the higher-ups (not my boss) give about their employees. Then I realised that what we do is cynical beyond belief: we sell addcitive goods at inflated prices to… addicts. Sugar-addicts, nicotine-addicts, alcoholics, gamblers; you name it, we stock it. Then my health started to suffer because I was so sleep-deprived and fell prey to the temptations stacked all around me (i.e. junk food).
The other day I came to work knackered out of my mind. I ripped one of my few remaining pairs of chinos on a sharp shelf-corner. There go my earnings for that day. Then some customers were unpleasant to me for no reason whatsoever. Then I tried to ignore the fact that I’m too old (and think too highly of myself) to be working this dead-end job. Then I pretended not to envy the carefree customers I had to serve. Then I tried to tune the radio to another of the three miserable channels it can receive, to try not to go barking mad from the mind-numbing boredom of the work.
Hmm… sorry, that was long. My point is I think I understand you, and for me I think I will listen to the voice saying I’m better than this and take the plunge into uncertainty. I don’t want to pin my happiness on some job. After all, what happens if I get laid off?
I think while acknowledging the gifts of what you have, it’s important to dare to let go and try something new.
I like my department manager too. It’s weird. I’ve liked all of the managers I’ve worked directly under, but I feel extremely resentful of the management structure and organisation as a whole. Although most of them are decent enough in person, the culture and systems they participate in heap shit upon those lower down the chain. By it’s very nature, the business is damaging to it’s employees. Like you, I slowly realised that there was no way to make it not suck.
I know what you mean about feeling too old for that kind of job. If it was a stop gap while I was working towards something else then fine, but I don’t have any energy left for anything else.
I envy you the freedom to switch the radio station. We have our own corporate station blaring non-stop.
I wouldn’t say I’m better than this. On the shop floor when it’s busy I sometimes find myself thinking that it’s exactly what hell would be like, and I can’t say I don’t have it coming. But I want more, and I don’t think I can find that while I’m there.
I’m just worried that I’ll go from being miserable to being a complete non-person. That I’ll fall back and lose the small amount of progress I’ve made. Before this job, I used to struggle to even leave the house, or go to the store. It all seemed too much. Now it’s just incidental, a minor struggle against the much bigger one of facing work. I’m scared I’ll withdraw back further into my shell, and won’t be able to find the motivation to force myself out again.
But you’re right, I think my fears are probably not a good guide at this point. I just need to hold that thought for long enough to actually go through with it.
🙂 I can so relate to what you wrote about the whole management structure. There is so much knowledge tucked away in the skulls of the people on the front line. But the high-level management rules by fiat: do this, do that, change this, change that, seemingly by whim. It’s ridiculous. I can see the business gradually failing because of it. Modern startups don’t work like that, and they’ll eventually obliterate the dinosaur (or so I believe).
I’ve actually considered turning my home into some sort of club or “hostel” – just to avoid the passiveness that grips me when I’m alone. I guess you’ve learned a lesson about what challenges are good for you (e.g. colleagues, performing a role in society), and what you don’t like (stupid management structures/practises, crappy radio stations). That could be a good guide for what you eventually do next.
For me, I’ve discovered that I like helping people, but actually helping them, not selling them some crap that destroys their body because they feel a craving right now. I also found out I really like simplifying and making goods look good: I’m more of a thorough person than a fast person. I don’t see the point of doing a lot of work poorly.
I’m not very attached to money: what I have saved I don’t much know what to spend on, and it hasn’t made me happier, only somewhat more relaxed with money. I loathe stupid, inefficient, superfluous tasks and think one should eliminate as many as possible. I understand the importance of hiring motivated people and keeping them motivated. I discovered that I like interacting with customers, but that some people are total assholes. While others are unfathomably nice, for no apparent reason.
Bla bla bla. My point is I’ve actually learned a hell of a lot I can use in the future, and so, probably, have you. I think you’ll be all right. You managed it once, you can do it again for something different.
Turning your home into a hostel sounds brave in the extreme. Don’t think I could deal with the lack of privacy. I need my alone time. I just need the motivation to force myself to be around others regularly as well.
I have learned from being there. Guess I just need to hold on to those positives going forward (something I struggle with obviously.)
You’re right, I’ve done it once. Even if I don’t work out something better, there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to get another crappy retail job, especially now that I have three years more experience and a (hopefully) decent reference to put on my resume. I’m scared of the process of applying, interviewing, and all the time it takes to get to know new people, but I’ll have to do that at some point anyway, unless I want to stay where I am indefinitely, which would be even harder. At least this way, I get the break that I want, and a chance to look for something better.