I don’t want to do it and yet I stay because I’m damn good at it, and because I love my coworkers and we’ve all worked super hard to improve our store and it honestly does show and it has payed off.

I really run off of positive energy and praise/attention as shallow as that sounds. Being voted POQ, becoming a trainer, and the fact that I’m well known and popular at my store with the customers and my coworkers all make me feel validated and makes it hard for me to leave. Also this is going to sound strange but the amount of effort I have to put in to my work makes me feel validated too?? I like feeling like I’m under pressure and I like having time limits and lots of things on my list to do. The high stress aspect of the job makes me feel like I’m “doing something”.

But at the same time the stress is arguably killing me. I don’t feel like I’m actually connected to anything I like doing or that I care about anymore because it gets overshadowed by my work. It takes up so much of my time, even when I’m off the clock I’m still thinking about my job even though I try to compartmentalize it and keep work away from other aspects of my life.

And with the fact that our summer hours aren’t great where I live because our business goes way down (in the fall/winter I average like 32-37hrs a week, in the summer I average 20-24) and the pay raise getting pushed back I’ve been wondering what the point even is. I just applied for 2 jobs where I’d get payed 20$/hr, i kind of want to keep doing 20hrs a week at Starbucks so I can get health insurance but I don’t want to feel so tethered to it anymore. I know I’m not actually acting like myself and I’m just being the version of me that Starbucks wants me to be.