After not having a “real” job once I graduated from college I was lead to my job working hourly in retail. After 2 years of doing that I have put in my two weeks.
I have no other job lined up and no prospects to speak of but I simply can’t do this anymore. I can’t work in a place that’s so…pardon my frankness…beneath me. This need to leave has been brewing forever but the last straw finally broke when the check I just received was only 2 dollars higher than my already a month behind bills, leaving me with 2 weeks of living off of the $15.47 in my checking account. Now I am forced to borrow from my savings AGAIN making that debt about 400 dollars.
I was job searching for ever and ever…but eventually just got so frustrated that I kinda gave up. This is the reason I was in that place for two years…well I finally realized that I need to force my own hand. I need to make myself get something better. I don’t care what it is or how…but I need to get out of there and make more money. But until then…it looks like unemployment for me.
If I were you I would hang on to that job until you find something to replace it with; even a temp job would be good. If your finances are precarious right now it doesn’t sound like a good plan to quit without having an exit plan.
With that being said, I know how you feel. I used to work retail too.
How mobile are you? Do you have kids or a spouse? Any reason you should stay where you are? If you’ve got a degree just get your foot in the door somewhere, anywhere and bust your ass to work your way up.
I quit my crappy retail job a few months ago (even though I have another part time job on the side) and it was truly liberating. I honestly haven’t given 5 minutes of thought to that place since I left and I haven’t regretted my decision at all. Fuck retail.
Bolding mine.
Look, I totally understand loathing retail. I totally understand loathing the fact you paid a lot of money to graduate college and work retail. But nothing rankles me more than shit like the bolded piece. So what kind of low-life good for nothings is retail “not beneath”, then? The attitude that you are inherently better than anyone else because of a stupid piece of paper is maddening.
Oh, and the economy sucks really hard for everyone. And an assload of people are in shitty jobs they loathe. You aren’t special, there.
Oh, and the Unemployment Office isn’t gonna give you money just because you’re a special snowflake who couldn’t do work that’s “beneath” him.
Preach it. I have an advanced degree and while I’m not doing retail or making minimum wage, I’m definitely working a gig that I’m way overqualified for. But you know what? I like my job. I’m good at it, it pays the bills and provides great benefits, and I have never had a truly boring day while doing it. And to be honest, the jobs that are tailor-made for my degree would probably stress the hell out of me. If I had turned down my job offer simply because I considered it “beneathe me”, I’d probably be like a young woman I know, who’s been on a three-year long job search because she wants a job suited to her “abilities”.
In this economy, one is truly lucky to even have a job. Unfortunately, that includes even bad, soul-sucking jobs. I can’t even imagine how hard it is being unemployed right now. I get all clammy just thinking about the prospect that one day I might be laid off (or heaven forbid) fired.
I hope you didn’t make a foolish mistake by bailing out without a parachute. I wish you a nice and successful landing.
I got EI after I quit a job once - after I gave them my well-documented story about how I was bullied out of that job (apparently the Government went and had a chat with that company about their responsibilities to creating a harassment-free workplace after that). Just quitting because I couldn’t stand it any longer - I don’t know about that. You used to be able to get EI; I don’t know how it would work now.
I agree that no job is beneath someone; there are many reasons to hate a job; it could be too low-paying, too high stress, too much customer contact, too many crappy co-workers, too easy, too hard, you could be over-qualified or whatever, but a day’s work for a wage isn’t beneath anyone.
Best of luck with your job search, Sir T-Cups. Make sure you take what you’ve learned at your old job and apply it to your search for a new job.
Because his check was only $2 more than his bills, and he had $15.47 in his checking account. The implication is that he needs an income. If someone loses a job, the usual stop-gap income is provided by unemployment insurance. Generally speaking, you don’t get unemployment benefits if you quit your job.
I guess that works too…
Overall I can say no…I am not filing for unemployment and never even considered it. I have enough money in my savings (that I constantly borrow from anyway) to tide me over the amount of time that I will need to get another job. Something that I didn’t say earlier is that my roommate (friend from college) pays the bills to the companies, then I pay him. He is very supportive of my decision to move jobs and has a “you’ll pay me when you can” attitude about bills and such. He has a very high paying job and can afford for me to be late on payments.
I was worried about saying that little bit. I didn’t mean anything against everyone else who works in retail, and I don’t have anything against anyone who does. The one line I always go back to is that I went to college so I DON’T have to work retail. If you’re a shift manager or something that requires a degree and you do it then more power to you. But for the education I have, and the work I put into it…the end result wasn’t doing this. Think of it this way: I am not better than anyone individually, but I’m cheating myself by doing it.
That’s the difference though. You are siding with the thought process that I am not better than anyone doing the job I hate…but your example is that you like your job. There’s a big difference between “God I hate my job…but it pays well and I have to slough through it…” and my life of “God I hate my job…and it only pays me $8.00 an hour”. Trust me…if I was happy doing this I wouldn’t be leaving at all.
Right now I am in limbo with turning in my two weeks because the top brass needs to have meetings in doing whatever they can to keep me. They really like me there and I do a lot for them. Since nothing short of keeping my job the same, but just paying me a shitload more is gonna keep me there, I’m hoping to find my end-date here sometime soon (today?).
Then I am going to finalize my resume. Which leads me to a question…should I put this retail job on my resume? I already have my one page resume packed with everything else that I want to put on there, and there really isn’t all that much room for this. Aside from the “trust me I wasn’t just sitting on my ass for two years” statement it makes, it doesn’t really help my resume at all. Should I include it still?
Once I get my resume down I am gonna apply for stuff online for probably only a short time. But my overall endgame is probably going to get a headhunter/job placement thing so that I can work in the mailroom at somewhere…but it would be at least in my desired field (Advertising).