SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hello, and I hope you all are having a lovely summer. I wrote earlier about the terrible time I had at work last year as a teacher. I got pushed out of the job but truthfully I kind of felt ready to leave. I mean, I really really REALLY wanted, needed in fact, that full pension. I still grieve the loss of that every single day. But mentally I felt so drained and spent! I felt like I gave, gave, gave it my all and got no appreciation or respect back.

Anyway, I will admit I am a bit sad and wistful as I see the reports on the news about teachers returning to work at my previous district to start off the new school year, and I hear about back-to-school from former colleague acquaintances I have too. As much as I always dreaded going back to work each year (the entire month of August was always miserable for me because I would spend it dreading the upcoming restart of work), now I feel guilty. If you're filthy not working, and still not having a job lined up. I feel guilty for not being good enough at the job to the point that they had me feel like I was being forced to quit. Guilty because my late parents always raised me not to job hop or to quit a job without another. So I've been grappling with that pretty badly.

I tried applying to a few jobs but so far no call back. A few people suggested age discrimination. Some people here suggested retail, but let me explain something. In my state, the minimum wage is still $7.25 an hour. Retail has always paid not much at all above the minimum wage. That would not be enough to live off of. I would end up spending a lot of money on commute expenses, gas, meals out, just to not make much in my paychecks. I don't know what to do at this point and I just feel like my parents are looking down at me with disappointment.

Has anyone else going through this, especially while also battling unfaithful relationships? I feel like I have no support anywhere. Heck, I don't even have a union anymore! Not that they really did much to defend me, but at least I knew I had a union. Now I feel like I have no one in my corner to help out.

[This message edited by teacherjoggergal at 9:46 PM, Monday, August 25th]

I’ve been following your struggles and feel badly at the ending.

Are you entitled to any portion of the pension or was it all or nothing?

Would you consider tutoring? How about teaching in a different school or virtual environment?

I have gone through similar. I was fired during our limbo year after discovering the A due to performance and a management change. They weren’t wrong on the performance- I was a mess for a long time. But office politics got into it, the boss who was giving me grace was let go and they got rid of me. Layoff of one… me. I got a little severance and then my house burned down, so it was a really crappy year.

I knew I didn’t want to go back to the job I was doing, but I decided to take another job in that field that was a little lower stress (and paid less) and got my masters degree while working there. This gave me the skills and accomplishments to get me into a different but related field that I enjoy a lot more.

If you can’t afford to retire, then you have to work. You have had the summer to relax and decompress from all that stress. Now you need to make a plan. Whether you can just step in to the role (tutoring, subbing, working at a different school type like charter or alternative) or adjacent like training teachers, teaching online courses, course development OR retrain for something different altogether, you need to make a plan. I needed to retrain while working, so I took I job I didn’t love for a couple years while I retrained. 🤷‍♀️ Bills had to be paid, ya know?

You didn’t like your job. So this is opportunity to do something else. It sucks that you lost your pension (and I really hope you talked to lawyer to make sure you got everything you are entitled to) but it is the kick in the pants we sometimes need to make difficult but necessary changes.

Good luck, TJgal.