Lost in a career I despise.

n.d.os

After dragging my heels through a Software Systems Degree graduating with a pass I immediately pursued a management role in a clothes store in my early 20’s. I enjoyed working in fashion but at the same time was young with very little responsibility. In early 2009 I lost my job as an Assistant Store manager after a careless incident at work and felt completely lost. I was unhappy in my personal life and crawled back to my parents for help who encouraged me to go back to college to study marketing as I was pretty good at selling snow to the eskimos.

In the three years that I was in college I slumped right down to my personal lowest to finally discover who I am today and where I want to be in my life. A lot of this was down to my now girlfriend, a caring small business owner who stripped back the false exterior and made me think a lot about who I am and where I want to be in my life. Personally she really helped me get there.

In my last year of college I started a small online business and continued with this until late last year. Did it do well? Yes it did considering that I was only selling one product. Expansion was unrealistic. Money was tight during this period and the fights started to arise between my girlfriend and I. I eventually decided to accept a junior manager’s position in a small supermarket being given this job by a friend. From the very first day I started there, I despised every minute of it, further emphasized by the fact that I found and still find the working environment toxic. Over the last year my personal and professional confidence has slumped but on the positive side I have managed to buy a new house a car and love my life away from work. My relationship is in a great place but professionally I feel dead inside and have started to resent my past decisions professionally. I am starting to drag this unhappiness into my personal life.

Has anybody else been in a similar position? If I could wind back the years I would love to have studied architecture or design but I know that is not feasible at this stage in my life. Marriage, kids and all these things are all the next steps and I can’t be selfish and say I want to put any of them on hold to re-evaluate my career. I want to be an architect, designer, retail business owner and craftsman. All of these different ideas keep floating around in my mind and I can’t find any direction in them. Some advice would be very helpful.

ShowMeTheCash

n.d.os wrote: »

After dragging my heels through a Software Systems Degree graduating with a pass I immediately pursued a management role in a clothes store in my early 20’s. I enjoyed working in fashion but at the same time was young with very little responsibility. In early 2009 I lost my job as an Assistant Store manager after a careless incident at work and felt completely lost. I was unhappy in my personal life and crawled back to my parents for help who encouraged me to go back to college to study marketing as I was pretty good at selling snow to the eskimos.

In the three years that I was in college I slumped right down to my personal lowest to finally discover who I am today and where I want to be in my life. A lot of this was down to my now girlfriend, a caring small business owner who stripped back the false exterior and made me think a lot about who I am and where I want to be in my life. Personally she really helped me get there.

In my last year of college I started a small online business and continued with this until late last year. Did it do well? Yes it did considering that I was only selling one product. Expansion was unrealistic. Money was tight during this period and the fights started to arise between my girlfriend and I. I eventually decided to accept a junior manager’s position in a small supermarket being given this job by a friend. From the very first day I started there, I despised every minute of it, further emphasized by the fact that I found and still find the working environment toxic. Over the last year my personal and professional confidence has slumped but on the positive side I have managed to buy a new house a car and love my life away from work. My relationship is in a great place but professionally I feel dead inside and have started to resent my past decisions professionally. I am starting to drag this unhappiness into my personal life.

Has anybody else been in a similar position? If I could wind back the years I would love to have studied architecture or design but I know that is not feasible at this stage in my life. Marriage, kids and all these things are all the next steps and I can’t be selfish and say I want to put any of them on hold to re-evaluate my career. I want to be an architect, designer, retail business owner and craftsman. All of these different ideas keep floating around in my mind and I can’t find any direction in them. Some advice would be very helpful.

Just to recap as you put an interesting spin on the above details:
You just about graduated from a Software Systems degree.
You jump into a job which has nothing to do what you studied.
You lost your job? Which I take as got fired or quit.
You went back to do another degree which made you even more unhappy.
You attempted an online business which failed.
Did you complete the degree?
You took on a role at a supermarket which you despised from day 1.

You seem like someone who is fickle, therefore any advice would be subject to change.

By the sounds of it I do not think winding back the years would make any difference, your career aspirations are all over the place so even if you had went down another route I suspect you would still be here complaning how much you hate the career you are in.

I would think long and hard about Marriage and Kids as these are not careers you can jump in and out of when you don't like it.

My advice try sticking at something.

n.d.os

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

Just to recap as you put an interesting spin on the above details:
You just about graduated from a Software Systems degree.
You jump into a job which has nothing to do what you studied.
You lost your job? Which I take as got fired or quit.
You went back to do another degree which made you even more unhappy.
You attempted an online business which failed.
Did you complete the degree?
You took on a role at a supermarket which you despised from day 1.

You seem like someone who is fickle, therefore any advice would be subject to change.

By the sounds of it I do not think winding back the years would make any difference, your career aspirations are all over the place so even if you had went down another route I suspect you would still be here complaning how much you hate the career you are in.

I would think long and hard about Marriage and Kids as these are not careers you can jump in and out of when you don't like it.

My advice try sticking at something.

Thanks for the reply. I am very aware that I have jumped around a bit but I am not the first person to return to college after studying something when I was very young that was not right for me. I finished my marketing degree and did very well at it. It is something I am good at but chose to do hastily after loosing my job. With regards to that particular job, no I was not fired nor did I quit. All I am looking for is some advice. I am very aware of my mistakes and all I am looking for is to chat with somebody who has possibly reached a point in their life like myself where they feel trapped in the wrong career due to past failures or poor decisions.

ShowMeTheCash

n.d.os wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. I am very aware that I have jumped around a bit but I am not the first person to return to college after studying something when I was very young that was not right for me. I finished my marketing degree and did very well at it. It is something I am good at but chose to do hastily after loosing my job. With regards to that particular job, no I was not fired nor did I quit. All I am looking for is some advice. I am very aware of my mistakes and all I am looking for is to chat with somebody who has possibly reached a point in their life like myself where they feel trapped in the wrong career due to past failures or poor decisions.

Everyone has "What if's"...

Can I ask how old you are?
In life you need to give things a chance, by the sounds of it you have never really given anything a real chance.

To quote a Cheryl Crowe song "It's not about having what you want, it's abount wanting what you have".

Rubberchikken

you could go back to college. age isn't really an issue there.
what bothers me is would you be in the best place in 3/4 years time after another stint?

you were happy running your own business. maybe that's what you're cut out for, is there any way to following that path?

santana75

n.d.os wrote: »

Has anybody else been in a similar position? If I could wind back the years I would love to have studied architecture or design but I know that is not feasible at this stage in my life. Marriage, kids and all these things are all the next steps and I can’t be selfish and say I want to put any of them on hold to re-evaluate my career. I want to be an architect, designer, retail business owner and craftsman. All of these different ideas keep floating around in my mind and I can’t find any direction in them. Some advice would be very helpful.

Jesus Christ man, of course you can do that. You dont have to get married or have kids. You have to be selfish, if thats what you wanna call it, Id call it something else: Honouring yourself. I know its easy for me to say you should go for it, Im not you, but seriously you cant just settle. Obviously theres something inside nagging at you, trying to get your attention. Yo cant ignore that because if you do and you go down the marriage and kids route, you'll end up resentful of them for being the people who stopped you from following your heart. And thats not fair on anybody, especially you.
Take a look into it, dip your toe. Check out courses and see how you could make it work. Get some facts together. Theres and old saying, if you have a goal and its honourable and genuine, then the universe will conspire to help you make it happen. I know that sounds hokey but personally I've found that this is true and happens all the time.
Dont settle.

stuboy01

I agree with Santana,
It's never too late to retrain. I did it myself in recent years; after 13 years in media I decided it was time to get out and I was in my mid 30's. I even had kids to worry about, but importantly I had the support of my wife who saw what being in a job/industry I no longer liked was doing to me. It took a few years of being 'poor' but now I am back in work and, most importantly, happy with what I am doing. I even got a promotion within the first year; the benefit of doing something you enjoy is that you can progress quickly, regardless of whether you are an employee or self employed.
Don't stay in a job you hate, life is too short.

Yurt2

n.d.os wrote: »

Has anybody else been in a similar position? If I could wind back the years I would love to have studied architecture or design but I know that is not feasible at this stage in my life. Marriage, kids and all these things are all the next steps and I can’t be selfish and say I want to put any of them on hold to re-evaluate my career. I want to be an architect, designer, retail business owner and craftsman. All of these different ideas keep floating around in my mind and I can’t find any direction in them. Some advice would be very helpful.

Leonard Cohen didn't release his first album until he was 33, Gabriel Byrne didn't act until his 30's. Henry Miller didn't publish his first book until he hit his 40's, and Frank McCourt was in his 60's.

If architecture is your calling then an architect you should be.

Beaner1

I think you have to learn to comprise and accept your lot in life. Sure it could be better but it could also be a lot worse.

I think it's ridiculous to see education as the solution to everything. He's had two goes of it and it hasn't made any difference.

PostHack

Some very judgemental replies in this thread...

OP, I can relate to much of your story. It's quite reminiscent of my own career history from about 5 or 6 years ago. I too found myself in a job I despised, that I felt pressured into taking just to keep my head above water. I eventually had to quit as I was worried about my mental health. I ended up on the dole for a year or two and during that time I ended up throwing myself into a hobby that I had recently taken up. A hobby I was told I was good at, but that I didn't realistically see myself being able to pursue professionally. Over time, driven by the fear of going back to a "normal" job, and with the slight possibility of success, I pushed myself completely out of my comfort zone and managed to turn my hobby into a career.

Fast forward a couple of years, and the career has taken off. I'm now probably more successful that any of my peers, have an amazing job that lets me travel the world and lets me do what I love and get paid for it. All this with no formal training whatsoever. Purely self thought using online resources and books. So it can be done...... If you have identified something you want to do with your life (and it sounds like you have) then you already have something that a lot of people don't. Obviously in your case, you have a new house to pay for, so realistically you won't be quitting your job any time soon. But perhaps you could use your free time to train up in your field of choice, of think about an idea for a business? If you're motivated enough you can achieve anything. It's never too late. Good luck.

cloudatlas

I agree with PostHack. There is such a pressure nowadays whether it be by family and friends to pick a vocation asap and stick to it. There is also an intensity to get out there and make as much money as possible. It's so rare to find anyone who is passionate as a teen about something and actually go into that immediately. When I think about people I went to school with only one or two had a passion that they made work out of from the time they left school. Many others followed dead end roots and had to start again maybe two or three times. It's not unusual.

You know what you don't want to do, which is a good start but perhaps you are putting yourself under too much pressure. The damage is not irrevocable, I know people whose business failed in the last few years and they sat down had a long think about it did the research and reinvented themselves. First and foremost look after your head.

n.d.os

Thanks for the advice everyone. A few years on and things are going well. About a year after my original post I left the supermarket job and took on a role as a restaurant/garden center manager. Shortly after moving jobs the business was in trouble and I wasn't being paid so I returned to the original role in the supermarket. The bullying continued but a few colleagues came on board and we all grouped together to push the bully out of the company. A lot of my unhappiness and confusion stemmed from those experiences and looking back on my original post it is clear that I lacked confidence due to a string of bad experiences. I worked with that company for another few years where things improved significantly and I was moved onto the board of Directors as Marketing Director before leaving in 2020. There is a huge amount of pressure to go to college and pick the right degree but life has thought me that things don't always work out that way. Everything I have done with my life from the Software Systems Degree to the Marketing Degree to working in a Supermarket and eventually heading up their marketing department has thought me that every little skill you pick up along the way is useful in its own way and shapes you into who you are as an individual. Careers work themselves out and in a way it's good to explore different things when you are young. Today I work as a product designer and own my own company with 150 stockists worldwide. My marketing, retail, and college experiences thought me how to be good at a lot of different things but I admit I get bored and give up easily so running my own business has thought me to stick at things but also have the freedom to do different things every day. It was interesting to read back over my original post. I don't remember writing it but a few years on things are going well with a happy family and rewarding career.