My experience:
Retail: ohhh god this suuuccks
Office: aahhhhhhh this is soooo much worrrse
Back to Retail:
There's Got to Be Something Better
Special Education Slave: OMFG SO HAPPY
I really don't know how people survive in office environments. It's like the most contrived, unnatural environment ever. Retail sucks, but in the office I felt like I was becoming less alive.
Can't wait to get credentials as a "Professional" Special Educator so I can get paid a living wage AND do something that doesn't make me hate the world, lol.
My old retail fellow associates ask me how the office job I got back after relocating to a different state is going, my response, "Blissfully boring." My Last job was a high pressure sales job that I started not believing in due to the company I worked for going back to their old ways. Is my office job boring? Hell yes, but when I go home do I worry that I did enough work to make enough money that day, hell no. I use my work-stress free life to work on other ventures to get myself into business for myself, and the pay raise from moving back into the office workplace definitely helps me get there faster. Biggest negative to working in the office is the weight gain, I actually have to add working out back into my daily schedule for myself. But my motto is "Why complain - Being positive is more fun!" (someone else said it first, don't ask I do not remember) and that is how I handle each day of boring work. Some co-worker wants to complain about something I just smile and listen, we have to sit in on boring meeting I take notes ask the presenter a question to make them think about what they are saying and I just smile, I have to do the same repetitive task endlessly I make a game out of it. The best part about it is that I get paid because I have work experience and I can prove to my manager that I more than competent at my job. My Wife, Mother-in-law and Sister-in-law all work for the same company and the in-laws complain incessantly about how they hate their job. Now the Wife and I do not like our jobs daily functions as our dream jobs but we treat this job as a bus stop to something better, whether that be 1, 5 or 10 years down the road. I only hope others could take a look at their situation (if they are complaining about a job) and just be happy to be employed, I spent time from October 2008 to March 2009 unemployed (moved to a new state without a job for myself).
Positiveness and confidence is your friend.
My biggest suggestion to anyone complaining that retail is not paid enough is to go the unionized construction worker route: Find people who work in the industry you want to work in (be it construction, finance, service etc.) and ask them what they did to get there. Keep on asking as many people as possible until you get there (by following their advice hopefully).
I am not working where I want to by any means, but if I work in this business until I retire I know I can support my family even if my professional dreams are not met. It is my dream to have a family first and foremost, and secondly if my Wife and myself become successful in business that is just a plus. So make your plan and stick to it, and try some positive additude re-adjustments on yourself, potential employers love positiveness (I got into my current field the 1st time around because my boss said' "I liked your positiveness and confidence...)
Now come on you complainers, complain until you get tired of complaining and go do something positive about it. Your move.
