Leaving teaching to work in a shop

[crochetmonkey74]

Anyone done this? I'm very tempted. I have a 20 plus year career behind me, but it's becoming more and more unsustainable. I've been looking at all the staff in waitrose and other christmassy places and feeling a real pang of jealousy for a simpler life. Anyone left teaching and done similar?

Can you take the financial hit?
I went from class teaching to daily supply, and the difference in stress levels was enormous. Evenings and weekends to myself, no taking work home, no targets and performance management…days off of my choosing…but the pay is a lot less.

I do like the idea of finishing my shift, getting my bag out of my locker and going home with no consideration of work until my next shift starts

hmm I hadn't thought of this weirdly.

I can take the financial hit luckily. I think I would like the total emotional and mental break from school.

That is absolutely one of my favourite things about the job.

I've worked in offices (high pressure environment), I've been self employed - both of which comes with the 'never being able to fully switch off' thing.

I am very lucky to work in a shop with fantastic colleagues and a (usually) very good working environment. I know not all retail experiences are the same. I have a colleague that worked in a different branch of the same company, and the atmosphere there was less than welcoming.

It has it's issues - mainly not getting full time hours and low pay. If it paid better I don't think I would ever consider leaving!

I'm in the process of leaving education and and going to work in the charity sector. The relief I currently feel is worth the loss of money. Working in education at the moment is soul destroying - the DfE, OFSTED, the trust, safeguarding, working 2 hours unpaid in the morning plus countless hours from home, literally wolfing my lunch down in 7 mins before the bell goes and lunchtime duty starts - I think I was on the brink of burnout. Do it OP. 💐

When I left teaching I also worked in various low skills jobs. Honestly. (I'm not undermining these jobs) I loved them! Pay was crap , fewer holidays , but end of shift go home and forget about it , no working until midnight then checking emails again at 6 to firefight that days problems before I got to work. No ofsted pressures.

Do it!

I realise that my user name and my job experience look like they don't match up - my user name is a reference to another thread where someone described working in a supermarket as a 'crappy job'. 😁

Plenty of roles in retail involve sales planning, staying late to sort things, taking work home to organise shift patters, marketing strategies etc.

Working on a till isn’t the only role in retail and yes it is patronising to claim they all have an easier life.

If OP wanted to take less work home with her she could.

Minimum wage and the general public can be vile

in retail I’ve been threatened ,spat at and had goods thrown at me

It sounds like holidays and finances arent an issue, and I guess after 20 years of teaching you'll have a pretty amazing pension entitlement (compared to most retail workers anyway), probably no concerns about maternity/ job security/ lack of union /etc.

So it basically boils down to you having a job you dont like and find stressful, but dont need to earn as much, nor need the "perks" of the job you have. Why WOULDN'T you go find something you do enjoy?!

@Conkersinautumn What do you have to do as a mid-day supervisor?
OP. I know of quite a few nurses who have gone into retail as nursing became too much. Not one of them regrets doing it.

This has made me cry- you know what is really stressing me out most days? I can never seem to just go for a wee. It's always stressful in some way!

Yes it can be horrible.... the British public can be vile!

I was in retail for 10 years and left to work for the prison service. Prisoners are much nicer!

I'd never go back to retail

I'd want a very basic retail assistant level of role.
I really couldn't take less work home at the moment- my timetable this year means that all my PPA time is taken up with meetings or working groups so all my planning and marking is after hours. I already come in for 7am to get an hour and 15 minutes before the kids come in- and as explained, it's the mental/ stress/emotional load that I am struggling with

I absolutely hated working in a shop! Terrible hours, some staff could be very bitchy, customers can be so incredibly rude and aggressive! Same thing everyday! Bad pay too!

If you can take the pay cut to work in retail, could you not just reduce your working hours as a teacher to make it easier to handle the stress etc. Presumably working fewer hours would mean fewer classes to teach, less homework to mark, etc etc??

funnily enough, my friend is a nurse and she has a daydream of working in Costa!

without giving too much detail, my role means I cannot be part time at my current school, but I could maybe look into this at a different school- although I fear I may just be at the end of my tolerance for being a teacher

Several colleagues who have left teaching say they don't miss the holidays at all. The relief of being able to clock off and not have to bring work home every day more than makes up for it. Having 52 weekends free + regular annual leave to be taken whenever it suits them has easily balanced out weekends dominated by planning and marking plus the extra weeks of teacher's holidays.
Personally, I envy office workers and people in non-customer facing roles, who are able to go to work when they're feeling a bit ropey and just put their head down and crack on. In primary education, teaching when you're sick is really horrible.

I can tell you for nothing that none of the managers in my store take work home as a matter of course - I suspect that's more common in small owner operated businesses, as it is in many kinds of self employment. Yes, occasionally they do, but it's very uncommon. The most they do at home on a daily basis is check in on the Whatsapp group to keep abreast of what's going on.

I work nights in a supermarket so no customer nteractions and it is lovely that the end of the shift is just the end. The downside is constant criticism from management- it doesn't even matter if we've got everything done, it will be wrong somehow, and the closer to Christmas the worse it gets.

There's a lovely book shop near me where the staff are paid comparatively to the local supermarkets, but the shop closes at 6 every day, so there's no late nights involved. Sounds ideal to me!

I totally understand where you're coming from OP. I have a stressful job too that often keeps me awake at night and the thought of having a job that I can just leave at the door on my way out makes me question my life choices! Unfortunately I can't financially give it all up just now, but I will certainly be aiming to retire well before I'm 68!

I'd suggest going in to supply to see if the drop in stress resulting from that makes you enjoy the classroom again. If not, you can always go down the retail route.

@crochetmonkey74 - yes that's the other thing you can't find time for, emptying your bladder! It's not just you, it's most of my colleagues and probably most of yours too (business support and teaching staff). The dread I was waking up to at 5.30am wasn't normal. I'll miss the kids, so much but ultimately I had to take the hard decision to put my family and myself first. Sadly, it won't get any easier - a virtual hug to you. I hope you find something that allows you to put your mental and physical health first.

It's interesting isn't it. I though I would miss the holidays too but nope, even with my meagre 28 days I have loads left to take by end of December and I am not knackered either. When teaching my holidays were usually mad with doing life admin, then getting ill then back to it 😆 apart from summer.

Now I do long weekends away and feeel more rested than I ever did with 13 weeks off a year 🤷‍♀️

Who knew!

Indeed.

I've done both,working full-time in shops/supermarkets and also teaching. As much as teaching was hard and I was very happy to be able to retire,working in a shop can be equally hard (physically) and you will be have the same stressful unreasonable demands by supervisors and managers for less money and worse working conditions.