We've all been there. We've all felt the pain of breaking up with our first job. It wasn't an easy decision, not at all. For one reason or another, we had to choose between another job, our well-being and our current job.
For me, it came down to scheduling. I wasn't getting the hours a struggling college student needed. Unfortunately for me, I fell in love with the people I worked with and the job I had become really good at. That was my first and last mistake I will ever make.
For the past few days, I've been feeling every sort of emotion possible. I was angry, then I was sad. I was extremely anxious handing in my resignation letter and I felt as if I had a lump in my throat. My words were choppy, and I didn't have much to say, or at least I couldn't think of a logical thing to say. What do you say to your first job that gave you so many good memories? As I walked the short distance between the parking lot and the entrance, I remembered every team game night, every laugh I've shared with my co-workers, every aggravating customer, every time I got annoyed with my co-workers and every less-than-glamorous moment I spent there.
I'm sure my managers think it was an easy decision to leave, but I can promise them it was not. I didn’t want to have to look for employment elsewhere. I didn’t want to have the schedules conflict and have to choose between one store and the other. I didn’t want to be backed into a corner and defend doing what was right for me. I didn’t want to walk into that store with my resignation letter and look at my friends and tell them next Thursday is my last day. However, the strangest thing happened when I handed my resignation letter over. I felt free.
Now, I wasn’t happy, not in the slightest. But suddenly I didn’t feel so terrible anymore. I felt good that I had the guts to follow through on something that was benefitting not only my shrinking bank account, but my well-being, too. It was in that moment I had realized how much anguish I had gone through for this job, and I was so relieved to be done with it. I didn’t have the responsibility of finding coverage for my shifts anymore, or feel the crushing weight of defeat when I felt like I wasn’t enough for the management team. They no longer could expect anything from me, and I liked that.
In the end, I absolutely wish that I didn’t have to quit my first job. It taught me so much about the retail industry, and brought so many amazing people into my life. They helped me survive my first holiday season working in retail, my first year of college, and my first break-up. Through it all I had so many people to vent to and lean on, and I am truly going to miss that.
It’s taken a long time of sitting in a corner, hating the way my life is going to come to this decision. I wish that maybe things could’ve been handled better on both my part and the management team’s part, and ultimately I wish that I had gotten more hours so I didn’t have to look for another job. But for my first job, I handled everything gracefully and tactfully, and they couldn’t expect any more from me.
So, Build-A-Bear Workshop, if there is anything I could say to you about our time together, it would be this:
Thank you for being my first job. Thank you for giving me a chance when no one else would. Thank you for every good day and bad. I will miss you and the memories made there. Times change, and so do people, and this is where I have to leave you. I didn’t want it to be this way, but I’m sure you understand better than most. Life doesn’t adjust for anyone, no matter how much we want things to work out a certain way. Don’t worry too much, I’m still going to pop in every now and then and annoy every single one of you. Don’t think I’m going to forget about you so soon.
All my love,
Your Ex-Bear Builder Associate
