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August 5, 2015 at 2:50 am #81253lexy99Participant
So I work for a well known UK coffee shop and recently a new store opened up, along with an assistant manager position. I took it because it offered a pay rise and there were a few problems at my current store i couldnt change.
Anyway ive been there approx 2 weeks now and have really been struggling, the store is so so busy, i dont know half the staff and theyre not as experienced which makes handling service that much harder. Along with this, Im not sure if i want the added responsibility. I also just really really miss my old store. Ive worked there for a few years and i feel really attached to it, not like this new place.
I spoke to my current manager about it and shes understanding which is good. Shes said she doesnt want me to go but would rather I be happy. We’re going to give it a bit longer, My old manager has also said that I am welcome back if i want.
Now if I go back I would be back on my original position as team leader, a step down from assistant manager, with a pay decrease as well. In that particular store there is an assistant manager vacancy (that i was supposed to be) but the manager hasnt got around to filling it and is a bit reluctant to due to money issues which is why i took the other vacancy.
BUT I would be back in the store i enjoy working at. I enjoyed working there, I could relax on my days off and not stress about work and actually focus on other things in my life. Now all i do on my time off is worry about work and things like my love life have been completely pushed to the back of my mind since i dont have the energy to think about that too.
So long story short, do i stay where i am with not much happiness, busy store, stress, running the store responsibilities, more money, OR demote myself, go back to the old store where there is a slim chance of promotion(my only chance to move on would be to leave the company), but work with people i know and love, the store i know and love, less money.
The thing im worried about is that one i go back I wont be able to change my mind and think ‘oh crap, maybe i did want to stay after all, why did i turn down that opportunity to earn a bit more money’. Im also worried what people might think. People like my dad are in the frame of mind of ‘this is good opportunity to take, if you dont like the way things are there, change it and make it your own, dont give up and go back’. I dont want to disappoint anyone by being 25 and a forever coffee shop team leader.
Im more of the school of thought that happiness and leading your own way is more important but I just dont want to feel like a failure and disappointment after all this
August 5, 2015 at 7:44 am #81261AnonymousGuestDear lexy99:
I remembered you posted before and that you were NOT happy then. It conflicted in my mind with your report here that you enjoyed your previous place of employment, so I went to your history and read some of your previous writings. I did not find the place where you wrote about your happy time at the other place. Maybe I missed it. I am thinking, it may be also possible that you are nostalgic right now, that is that you have look at the past with pink glasses, see it as if it was better than it actually was. In your current place of work, you are experiencing such distress that you look back viewing what was as if it was good, comforted by the notion that there IS a safer, better place to go back to.
Here is your first post on this website, 10 months and three weeks ago: “Im not sure if this is the right place. Im 24 and still living at home with my parents. We get on great but I feel like my life is hold on at the moment. I have a job ive been in 7 months that I dont enjoy and I dont feel like its what Im meant to be doing. I go straight home at the end of each day, back to my parents house, barely any social life…I feel like when i move out and get my own place my life can finally start as I’ll have freedom and be able to do things the way i want, make new friends… and get up the courage to ‘just do it’ but the main thing im scared about is a new job…Im terrified…How can i get over these fears and have the courage to just go out and live my life? Until i do i feel like im frozen and jus going through the motions of everyday, not living.”
It seems to me that the solution to your problem right now, the long term solution, the solution that will stick, so you un-stuck yourself from the same-old-same-old conflict, dissatisfaction and suffering, is in dealing with the real issue, not the particular details of the current conflict, but with what fuels it:
Your fear.
When did it start? Do you remember as far back as you can, when you were a child: what were you afraid of? Or look into yourself now, what scares you so? Fear is not unusual, of course, it is a great force in everyone’s life, some more than others, but it is in looking into your personal fear that you will find understanding and the self knowledge you need so to have the knowledge you need in particular circumstances.
Without that self knowledge you are likely to be forever stuck in not-knowing-what-to-do every time there is a challenge in your life. Back to my question: tell me, if you choose to, tell me about the fear, and you can go as far back as you want and tell me about it.
anita
August 5, 2015 at 10:05 am #81275lexy99ParticipantHi, thanks for taking such interest. The place I would like to go back is the same place I had worked many years before and ended up back at after taking a year out to try something else. I am still in the same situation as described in my previous post however.
Just over a year ago I tried moving out and getting my own place (well with roommates) and lasted a whole week before I moved back home.
I guess my fear started around 2/3 years ago. After i finished school, i went to uni and loved it, had no fear of moving away from home, living with strangers, I just did it. Since ive been back and not really being sure what i want to do with myself I seem to have retreated further and further into my shell; ive become much more introverted, even social events and the prospect of meeting new people terrifies me whereas, at uni, I would have been right in the middle of it. I dont date because Im terrified of meeting new people. Id still like to get my own place and a new job that i can build a career in but dont want to move away from my family, my village, my street, even though id just be 20/30 mins away – to me, that might as well be 100 miles.
I have no idea what brought this on, maybe a few ‘failed’ attempts at new things. I sailed through uni and graduated (still no fear), then a year later I took on a teaching course that I hated but stayed with anyway. That was a tough year and a tough thing to get through. When i left my job for the year out I had 2 jobs; one an insurance that was depressing, i stayed at for 9 months, and a receptionist job for 3 months. Neither of them fitted me so i went back to my original job, same place, where I was ‘somebody’. I was known and respected and knew what i was doing. So I get promoted and move to the new store but i just want my old one back. Since moving I feel like i dont have room in my personal life for other things (like dating that I am trying to get back into) because I am worrying about work, or recovering from a busy day. As i said, when working at the old store, I relaxed on my days off, did other things, no fear. Now, I dont know what I am afraid of but i just want to get rid of this anxiety and uncertainty. I guess maybe the old store is so predictable, there isnt really any of that.
But thats what im looking for in life. I know that challenges are something that are going to happen whether you like it or not but you dont have to go looking for them? And i dont intend to take my career any further than the position I am in now so in that respect moving back wouldnt be an issue for me.
August 5, 2015 at 10:51 am #81277AnonymousGuestDear lexy99:
I think that your answer is right here in what you wrote above: “I know that challenges are something that are going to happen whether you like it or not but you dont have to go looking for them?”
I hope you go back to your old place of work then. I think you answered your own question. Listen to your emotions when making a decision. Many people think the solution is in purely logical thinking, like your father’s thinking: purely logical- demoting oneslf at work: wrong, promoting: right. But this is purely logical. We, humans, are not purely logical, not even close. We are very much emotional creatures. This is why emotions have to be taken into serious consideration.
You feel fearful and disressed in the new work place. You felt way less distressed and more comfortale in the old- go back to the old. You have to tailor your decisions to who you are, to your personal emotional experience of life, not to anyone else’s. You are the one having to live with your decisons, make your decision so that you can live with them comfortably.
What makes sense in the arena of pure logic is not what makes sense in real life. Real human life is never pure logic, not even close.
anita
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