For 17 years after I graduated from high school, I worked at a grocery store. I started as a cashier, was promoted to customer service, and eventually worked in the pricing department. I loved my job and it fit my skills perfectly of being very meticulous and detail oriented. But sometimes the hours were kind of crazy, like on Saturdays when I had to work until noon, then go home and eat, go to bed, and then be back up by 7:00 p.m. to eat before I started at 9:00 p.m. to work the overnight shift to put the ad on.
But at some point, my sister enticed me to come work at her school as an assistant teacher. And at the time the fact that it was a Monday through Friday, 8:00 to 4:00 job was very appealing after my weird hours. I even took a pay cut to go work there! But I realized later that it wasn’t all that I had hoped. For instance, I wanted to teach but most of what we did was behavior management. And that ended up being a very stressful job. So yes, I did regret it and that’s my first very long answer to one of your questions.
As far as to what I did about it, I’m not one to hop around from job to job. So I actually stayed there for 12 years. That may or may not have been a good idea because it did take a toll on my health, and thankfully I’m not working there anymore. I have what I would almost call a plush job at a church. Not because I just sit around and twiddle my thumbs all day because I wouldn’t like that at any job. But it’s just the right amount of work with not too much stress. All the people there, both that I work with, like the pastor and assistant pastor, and then everybody who I interact with is just super nice, and the stress is maybe 5% of what I had at my other job.