It’s still so weird to say.

Header credit: Ivana Cajina on Unsplash

I can’t say I haven’t looked into leaving earlier. I had a few interviews over the years but nothing to make me quit.

I worked in food service at a grocery store: making hot and cold food, catering, and as of three years ago, alcohol…the bane of my existence.

It was tolerable most of the time. I lucked out and worked with people I usually got along with with some political arguments here and there that I usually tried to avoid. But working with a few of the same people over that time helped. There are, of course, some exceptions like the time a woman I worked with said we need to send a black customer back to Africa…I told on her and she got fired.

However, the bad times were awful. I would have breakdowns before work, crying in my car. I didn’t feel like myself. It drained me physically and mentally. It doesn’t help when you already have mental illness and then to be somewhere you hate really makes it worse.

Also, customer service doesn’t need an explanation. The only good thing I can say is it helped me stand up for myself and deal with assholes better. The first time I talked back to someone I had to go into the cooler and have a panic attack.

But I didn’t want to leave to just go to another service job, even if it paid a little more. I had good insurance and built up 3 weeks vacation over those 7 years.

Then things got bad a few months ago. Rather than get into big detail, I’ll list what finally made me have enough.

• Four people quit over two months, leaving me and my (department) boss
• And those people all have jobs; it’s not like they quit just to not work (like all the customers think.) They didn’t want to work there anymore
• My boss isn’t the nicest person and I never knew what her mood would be
• Management didn’t care that we were working six days overtime over those two months
• They also never offered to help us with anything, which is partially because of my boss, but that also screwed me over
• I despise customer service, even if it helped my socialization skills
• We couldn’t get anyone hired and when we did, they quit not long after because no one wants to do two departments (food and alcohol) and get paid less than everyone else but no one seemed to grasp that
• The meat cutters get paid, at least, $10 more than me and they stand in the hallway doing nothing most of the day (do you want to talk about how mad that can make you)
• The store also cared more about alcohol sales than anything else, so I used to work two hours extra, just standing at our register to ring up people (it’s a stupid state law I don’t want to get into) and I wasn’t hired as a cashier or for alcohol but they just added it onto our daily routine and hired no extra help for it
• I’m starting to rant and I didn’t want to do that
• My friend left to work a job with less hours because she wants to retire soon and wants to spend more time traveling and seeing her family and I didn’t want to be 60 in the same position, no offense to her but that one really got to me
• I want to move on with my life. I’ve basically been stuck all these years, never getting anywhere with my books or writing or life, in general
• I’ve felt miserable and tired and want to put my well-being first
• I wasn’t happy for a long time

I’ll be honest and say over the last few weeks, I’ve been nervous about leaving. I guess you can say I was comfortable, even if I wasn’t happy, I knew what I was getting into every day. Now must be the time because I would’ve left a long time ago if the moment was right, but I think I stayed as long as I needed to.

Moving On

I lucked out. I got a remote typing job which will pay about the same, even more depending on how much I get done during the week. I’m getting insurance through the state and will only pay $28 a month, compared to the $30 a week (thank you United States) I was. I guess all these years typing paid off because I’ll be able to double what the average person does.

My last day is November 30 and I start training the next day. Depending on how quickly I catch onto it, it could take me less than a week to be trained and after that, I’ll be completely remote.

I know it’s going to be weird going from a job standing/walking eight hours a day to sitting and typing, but I plan on getting into a routine, my sister is giving me her standing desk so I don’t have to sit all day, and it may take me a few weeks so even though I want to post more, it may not happen until later into December.

But just thinking about being able to go places and do things, actually be home for the holidays, and have time to work on my book almost makes me cry.

I was super nervous before I put in my two weeks. I only ever did it once before but most people weren’t surprised since they knew how it’s been for us. I have some friends who are really excited for me, but some of the managers have refused to acknowledge my existence.

So, here’s to moving on. Little by little I’m feeling better, and it’s hard to explain. My one friend commented that I don’t look as tired or miserable (I’m not taking that as an insult because I did look really tired for a while.)

Like I said, I want to post more, but I’m also thinking about posting some videos on Youtube, right now it would just be Sims 4 speed builds since I quite enjoy building and used to edit videos back in high school. And there is my book, I crochet, and I am excited to get back into a workout routine. There’s a lot of I’ve wanted to do over the years but I never had the time so the thing I’m most excited about is being creative again.

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