Job Search

by Jon
(Gainesville, Fl)

This is a pretty simple story about me finding a new job, but it taught me a lot about myself. I was not happy and didn't know why, and thanks to what I learned about myself, I am a much easier going person.

I began working at a certain retail store that isn't the largest, but is well known. They use four red letters. If you think about it long enough, you can figure it out-especially if you have ever shopped there. But it doesn't really matter what store it was. What matters is that I was completely unhappy and I hated my life the moment I walked in until the moment I walked out. Ok, not my life, just my choice of work places.

The store I worked in was very disorganized. Everything from the management, to what was in stock, whether on the floor or in the back-everything was a mess. I was a sales floor associate and this made things very hard while trying to serve customers. Even though I wasn't getting paid a bucket's worth of dirt, I still felt it was my duty to do my absolute best, but I felt that was impossible because of the way the store was managed. Therefore, I became very depressed and frustrated.

After the third day, actually the second day, I realized I absolutely hated where I worked, but I wasn't sure why. It was a simple job with simple tasks. I had never hated much of anything else in my life as much as I did this job.

I worked there for several months before realizing why I hated this place. It was because of how disorganized the management was and because of the random tasks and unpredictability of customer needs that comes with a retail job. I think I would not have been so stressed if my managers had given me a reason to respect them. When a bottom of the totem poll worker is working 5 times harder than what he/she should really be for the amount of money he/she is getting paid because his/her manager doesn't know how to do his/her job, then that is when you have to forget duty, be honest with yourself, and find something that better suits who you are as a person.

So from this experience, I learned that working in a very unpredictable environment is incredibly stressing for me and I am very happy where I work now-which is in a very predictable environment where I feel I have a chance to do my absolute best.