Dysfunctional Planner

I haven’t put a personal blog up in a while but I have been really focused on my Job searching and getting nowhere. It’s frustrating and its getting to the point that I may have to get another shop job so I can earn money.

From the get go i need to let you know that I actually loved working in retail, I loved all the shops I worked for and the teams I built, I am still friends with lots of them. That’s not the reason I don’t want to go back to retail. The main reasons I don’t want to work in retail is the work hours, not only are they normally more than 40 hours a week, mainly on your feet but also it includes lots of weekends and a lot of shitty bosses that demand ridiculous things from you. My old role in jigsaw demanded that everyone arrive 45 minutes before the shift and would have to stay until it was tidy, all of this unpaid, and sometimes it would take hours. I also had to have phone calls from a heinous area manager who would demand why we haven’t made the sales, and if I was honest and replied I would be told that’s the wrong attitude.

Now not all retail is like this but every retail company I have worked for have never ever given me or my team a pay rise even to cover inflation. There are also crappy unsocial able hours as well as ridiculous expectations. I have always stayed far too long in my roles because I loved my team and didn’t feel my skills are transferable.

So now at the tender age of 40 I want to completely pivot my career into an office based role, skills that I have, customer care, multitasking, time management. In my last role I was buying and stock merchandising so I am capable of an office based job but no one wants me. I understand I am competing with energetic 20 year olds with all sorts of skills and confidence.

Has retail killed my confidence? I know I am not a one trick pony but are my skills so varied that no one wants to utilise me? I think lots of people are in the same situation as me. There are not a lot of jobs and lots of people looking, my rejections are frequent and a wee bit sole destroying. At this moment in time I am completely flexible in what I get and will put 100% in to it because I need to support my husband and the new house.