TeenHelp - Tortoisian At Work.

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Tortoisian At Work.

I just made a word :dem:. No, apparently it exists but no one uses it :p. Anyways, I wanted to speak to you about my new job. I stack shelves at a well known supermarket in Australia and I have found it to be a lot more difficult than what I thought it was going to be. I have only had one job before this and I will get back to that in a moment, but I have been wrapped in a bit of cotton wool these past twenty years :p. This job is a very physical one.

I have ripped out nails, I have snapped them, I have ripped skin straight off my hands, I have had pinched nerves, my heart has gone a little loco, and I had no idea what I was getting myself in for :p.

The unfortunate thing is that I am not as good at this job as I thought I was going to be. I have not been as fast as I probably should be. My manager spoke to me yesterday, he said that I should be doing one item in one minute, and I am taking five minutes to do some of them. I need to time myself because I frankly think that is bullshit LOL, I know what five minutes feels like and that is not five minutes. Regardless, the easy to thing to say is that I am still learning and I have had multiple people contend that it takes some getting used to and building up pace is not something that happens overnight. Regardless, Christmas is just three weeks away, so there is something to lose by not being quick.

As I mentioned, I had a job before this, washing dishes at an Italian restaurant around where I live. Unfortunately I was sacked from that job after three shifts for not being quick enough, and although I was still learning, customers still rocked up and it got busier and busier, because I worked the weekends. There are a couple of correlations between that job and this one, including that one, the fact that there is still a requirement to facilitate really busy days. The other correlation is that both jobs are in industries that require high stress environments, high speed and high stakes, I mean especially in the restaurant, you know what lifestyle chefs and restaurant managers lead XD.

Unfortunately, I don't think I am made for that. However, I ask the question, what jobs am I made for? Are all jobs like this?

Re: Tortoisian At Work.

I wish I had the answer to that. I didn't get fired from my job because it was a paid work study and professors wouldn't fire a student unless they were being disrespectful or breaking the law. That being said I had labor intensive job and I was also the only female and already viewed as too weak and it was me trying to prove myself, but instead getting injured and/or messing up. The following semester I switched from scene shop to costume shop. Was constantly disappointing my supervisor for not bring quick enough or having to redo a costume. Also high stakes, high stress, and high speed for this job as was the scene shop. Theater department can be like that especially around opening night.

I had several positions between volunteer and paid work. And i had the same problems as you throughout. Although i excelled eorking at the daycare and highly enjoyed ut, i would say that was the one job thst could have been less stressful and less speediness of tasks if my supervisor was not greedy (theres more to that too)

All my jobs I had some satisfaction out of them and like you I've learned a lot, but like you I wonder if there are jobs out there that are less stressful and allows for a learning curve. That I would say may be possible. I imagine certain self employment/entrepreneurial options would be that way but that's not to say that has problems of its own too. And it may mean sacrificing other things. It may mean less income or inconsistent/unpredictable income and it may mean working longer hours than the average work day.

On the other hand my aunt is a professor and researcher and she told me this semester she isn't teaching and only doing research and she loves the uninterrupted blocks of time she has all for herself.

Re: Tortoisian At Work.

Well, there are a lot of different jobs with a lot of different expectations. Speed is always and issue, but there are jobs where there are more important things than speed. For example, getting along with costumers/partners and stuff, or accuracy.

Like if you work as a waiter for example. You still have to be fast and it is a lot of stress, but it's even more imporatent, that you are nice and friendly to the costumers and get along well with the people. They probably wouldn't sack you for being slow as long as there are no complaints.
Also many office jobs don't need you to be super fast, but they will need you to not make any mistakes in the paperwork and stuff. Or if you have a job where you try to sell some things to other companys or simply are the one wh speeks with buisness partners for your company. They don't need you to be fast. They need you to be convincing, friendly, easy to talk to and so on.
You could also look into jobs with animals or children and such.
So there are a lot of jobs, you can look for, depending on your education. You just have to find the one, that fits your abilities and that may take a few tries.
Just don't give up, I'm sure you will find a job that's made for you :)