During my senior year of high school, I felt like I was the only person who didn’t have an after school job. Everyone I knew waited tables, scooped ice cream, or folded clothes at the mall. Some of my friends had been working for years, and as they earned and saved their money, I was still asking mom and dad to lend me $20 before I walked out the door. It was starting to get old, not just for me, but also for my parents (god love them), so I decided it was time for a change. With senior graduation just around the corner, it was time for me to be an adult and get a job.
As fate would have it, a friend of mine had just started working as a restaurant host. He told me the ins and outs of the job, how much money he made an hour, and what would happen if there was a mess up in the kitchen (we could snatch the discarded pizza and eat it ourselves!). The prospect of working with someone I knew seemed ideal, and before I knew it, I was interviewing for a hostess position at his restaurant.
Due in large part to the recommendation of my friend, I was hired on the spot. It all happened extremely fast and within days I was getting ready for my first day on the job – a closing shift that started right after school and went until 10pm. Although I was nervous as hell, I was excited. I finally felt like a grown up, and because of what my friend had told me, I thought it was going to be a breeze. He assured me that I was going to love the job and completely crush it.
Except I didn’t. I remember coming home on that first day and crying into my pillow, exhausted and overwhelmed. I kept thinking about the mistakes I had made, the register I didn’t understand how to work, the phone calls I didn’t understand how to take, and the whiteboard full of Xs and Os that I didn’t understand represented open, full, and dirty tables. My mom told me not to be too hard on myself – everyone makes mistakes, especially during their first day – and it would get better.
But for me, it never got better. The more I worked, the more I dreaded coming in for my shifts. It got to the point where I couldn’t sleep at night because I was so stressed about what would happen the next time I was in charge of the host stand. The fast paced nature of the restaurant business was more than I could handle, and as someone whose first instinct is to cry, no matter what the situation (us Pisces are sensitive creatures), dealing with angry customers and bustling tables and people calling every few seconds to make reservations made my anxiety go through the roof.
By the end of my second week, it was clear this was not the job for me. Although I tried to tell myself that I could stick it out and make it work, I knew, for the sake of my sanity, that I had to leave. It was an awful feeling – having to admit to myself that there was something I couldn’t do. My entire life I had been the hard worker, the person who excelled at everything I set my mind to. I was not a quitter, and yet I knew I had to quit.
For a long time after quitting my first job, I didn’t like to think about it. I tried to forget I had ever stood behind a host stand or led people to their tables. I was embarrassed that I hadn’t even made it a full month, and I felt as if I had let myself down. But now, when I look back on those two weeks, I realize that I learned a valuable lesson. I learned that sometimes it’s okay to put yourself first. Sometimes it’s okay to do what you need to for your own happiness. Taking care of yourself does not mean that you failed or that you should be embarrassed of the choices that you made. We need to stop being so hard on ourselves and cut ourselves some slack. Quitting a job is not the end of the world, and I know it’s cliché, but life really is too short to spend it being unhappy.
Photos courtesy of static.pexels.com, and Eggs N Things.