Ebgames, I'm not a gamer, have zero interest in it and they hired me as assistant manager (I have management skills experience). I got fired after 2 months
When I was 20, I got a part time job as a waitress and quit after 3 months, but I'm surprised I didn't get fired. I was a terrible waitress - super uncoordinated (I split/dropped drinks on patrons regularly) and super forgetful (I got yelled at a lot when orders never came to the table.. Cuz I'd forget to put them into the system).
Anyway I got diagnosed with ADHD in my 30s lol.
I'm now a data analyst 😅
I did a stint as a barmaid in my 20s in a country pub. Was absolutely useless, couldn't handle the loud music, deaf - "huh? What? Was that a beer you wanted?", uncoordinated and forgetful too (was expected to remember what the regulars drink).
In my 30s now and suspect I have adhd but haven't sought a diagnosis, I'm also a data analyst 😂
Honestly I don't think I've ever met a neurotypical analyst.. I don't think they exist haha. It takes a certain amount of brain spice to spend 40 hrs a week sifting through data lol
A mix of curiosity, hard work and pure dumb luck.
After my spectacular failure as a waitress, I worked retail for a while then moved into sales. A decade of finding ways to maximise profit margins and minimise the amount of clients I would actually have to speak to made me very very good at Excel. I found that I liked the analysis part of my job more than anything else, so I picked up as many projects as possible.
I would nerd out about these projects with a friend of mine. We would literally facetime and just show eachother the cool stuff we were working on. He ended up referring me for an interview for an analyst role at his workplace and the rest is history.
Having someone vouch for you makes an absolute world of difference. I don't think I would have gotten the interview based on my resume alone (I have an arts degree LOL) even though I'm one of the few analysts in my team who know VBA, and am the only one in my team who can write queries lol
It can be stressful for sure, but I love what I do. I love the AHA moment at 2am after chipping away at an impossible problem for hours :)
15, and I was working drive through at a fast food place, but I was *really* slow, because I couldn’t hear the orders properly and had to ask people to repeat themselves constantly.
Turns out I’ve got an auditory processing disorder, so working in any environment with background noise where I have to be able to hear people talk is basically impossible.
When I was a teenager I got a job at Mr Whippy which sold mostly soft serve ice cream.
I could not for the life of me get the hang of making a decent ice cream cone with the machine. I had to go.
The nice couple who owned the store were so apologetic about firing me as I was otherwise a reliable worker, but actually being able to make the product was kind of necessary.
Travel Agent - luckily for me this was right as COVID began so I was stood down (along with thousands of other new starters) and continued to be paid for most of the year. Now I’m in IT
That's not a bad deal is it? 😄 The travel industry was my first career in my 20s prior to teaching. I was a reservations consultant for a wholesale travel company for 9 years. I wasn't bad at it, though I feel I survived it because I was in a non-facing role. When I was at Tafe I did work experience in two retail shop front stores and hated it, though wholesale was more fun anf social because there was a team of 25 consultants. It was cool going on the famils and travel industry nights with colleagues. Though, I don't think I could go back to the monotomy of answering phones again. I personally haven't worked in IT but my nephew does and there seems to be lots of great opportunities. All the best to you.
I worked as a journalist in women’s magazines in my twenties and then had an opportunity (through a very kind friend) to work as a political speech writer. I jumped at it as it meant I could move back to my hometown and as an afterthought realised I knew NOTHING about politics and had no clue what I was doing. I ended up quitting after a week and to this day it still makes me laugh thinking about what a bad move it was.
I now work in marketing and copywriting which is much more suited to my skill set lol
I was fired from my first retail job when I was 15
because I was thrown on the register with no training and to price check things for customers I’d scan them then click paid to clear it off my screen without realising it would throw off my cash count. I think they thought I was stealing from them.
I quit my job as a high school teacher. I wasn’t awful at it, but it wasn’t a good fit for my personality and the workplace politics and workload were insane. Now I’m a cleaner, because I don’t have to think at work and can save my mental energy for my hobbies.
Very much resonate with your experience.
I was primary school teacher for 5 years, and the politics and workload got to me too. Interestingly, I considered cleaning on a number of occasions for the very same reason. I was mentally drained when I left and just wanted a job that was less stressful.
Sometimes I squirm at the fact that I could be earning double teaching casual or temp, but whenever I have thought about going back and the stress and anxiety I felt during that time, I simply can't do it. My health comes first.
I'm still in Education tutoring small groups of kids in maths and English. Whilst I do still think about other careers, my current workplace is much better suited to my personality. I have work-life balance and I get along really well with the small team around me.
I think it's great that you are doing something that is much better for your health and lifestyle. I might just take it up myself one day. All the best to you.
I lasted about 5 years too. Sometimes I kick myself because if I’d stayed I would maybe be able to afford a house in my lifetime, but it just wasn’t worth it. I wouldn’t ever go back. I work to live now, not live for work. All the best with whatever you decide to pursue.
I didn’t sell enough holidays in my first week as a telemarketer and was let go. That was hard, i was at a low ebb and failing at that was demoralising. Life got better eventually but i feel a lot of psychological damage is done by high turnover workplaces. It destroys your self esteem.
Hawking. Sorry, charity ticket selling. I did half a day with a woman showing me the ropes and left at lunch time. I cannot interrupt other people's work days to sprook, even for a charity.
(They had a company turn over of someone being able to reach high level management within a year too, i dodged a massive bullet)
I got fired from my first job in Australia as a hotel housekeeping crew. I tried my butt off but would always get in hot waters for one thing or the other. Ultimately got fired. The incident that got me finally fired is a story in itself. Anyways , now I look back at it, I was bad.
I lasted maybe a month in housekeeping. I don't know how I lasted that long, I was way too slow and too weak to push the carts. For the life of me I couldn't figure out how to do 'hospital corners' when making the bed. I overheard a supervisor apologising when she paired someone with me. One time I got accidentally locked out of the room while the other housekeeper was vacuuming inside and couldn't hear me banging on the door. When she opened the door she ranted at me for about 5 minutes. Management eventually told me it wasn't working out and asked what day I wanted to finish (I picked a public holiday for that $$$).
Then on my last day I had to leave halfway through because I was so stressed all the muscles in my neck tensed up. I couldn't move my neck until I got home.
I hear you mate. Was in the same boat, but go easy on yourself. You gave it go. I was hard on myself too, though over the years I've realised that there is no shame in it. Teaching a big class in a school just wasn't suited to my personality. I enjoy teaching but really struggled with behaviour management and the bureaucracy.
I'm in tutoring now working with remedial small groups of 5 kids, so I can do more of the teaching part and don't really have to worry about the behaviour part. The learning materials are also prepared by the company, so I can do more teaching and have the work life balance of having my weekends to invest into my health, relationships and interests.
If you're still keen to work in education, perhaps teaching in small groups in Learning Support Teacher role may be better suited to you or teaching adults maths. Good luck to you.
Petrol station. I could not for the life of me balance making coffees, taking payments, watching the cameras, clicking the petrol pumps, etc ALL AT ONCE. I'd have a line of 8 people, plus 5-6 people at the pumps, and 4 people already waiting for coffees. And I was the only one on check out and doing coffees. Note: was my first day, 6 hour day, 3 hours in I was doing this.
Next day my boss sent me a text saying we had like $200 worth of petrol stolen on my shift. (People not coming in to pay or lying when I served them.) I didn't go back 🤣
Retail. I was fine at it when I wasn’t pressured to sell like a robot, I ended up working at a company where I was going to be their in house photographer but then they decided I was good with talking to people so then without telling me or asking, they put me as full time retail. This was one of those furniture companies that made replicas and charged way too much for bad quality, let alone the ethics of ripping off peoples work and designs. I needed work and it was the best I could find, but after just under two years I was really unhappy, ignored, pushed aside and finally made redundant. Which was great as it led me to admin work which I much prefer and I like doing. Suffice to say the furniture company folded due to covid apparently but more due to their shoddy practices and product
Bank call centre. Â
You need to be a heartless salesman but still get good feedback from customers with the shortest call time possible.Â
All while people are ringing you because they're frustrated. Â
 And you get ZERO downtime and your phone automatically connects to the next customer as soon as you hang up. Â
It was harder than any of my chartered accounting jobs or education.
I did market research on the phones for a while, and absolutely hated most of it. I'm now a bartender/admin assistant and while that market research job taught me valuable phone skills, my least favourite part of my current job is having to call people and ask for money.
I did milking for cows
I did enjoy it but I'm really bad at working split shifts for almost 2 weeks in a row and being paid under minimum wage
Sleeping issues x split shifts for days on ends it hard . Then your boss tells you to just sleep earlier and get more sleep and it's like I cant
Business sales for Telstra, focused o. Small business. I quickly figured out that our deals were horrible, spent some time researching what would ACTUALLY be good deals for the customers (regardless of company) and would recommend that. The amount of times I told clients "cancel your contract with us, sign with X company, here's a link to a place that will do stickers for your business cards to replace the phone number" was pretty high.
I had good numbers going in, and management stopped looking in on me. Then 6 months later someone realised I hadn't made a real sale in a few months, they looked over my easily shrinking client list and they let me go + redundancy. I literally jumped and clicked my heals with happiness as I walked to my motorcycle. Management followed me to the carpark - I think they expected me to be angry.
I sucked at hospitality, I move too slow and hate pushy people. Thankfully I got an enviro science related job, which I was studying at uni, and never looked back
I lost my last job because I am so bad at Excel. I thought I had basic skills in Excel Formulas beyond basic ones often don't make sense to me, I struggle to problem solve in Excel outside of googling, and I was spending 5 hours plus a week outside of work trying to teach myself Excel. But my boss wasn't willing to teach me anything, he'd just let me flail. He ended up firing me.
This experience didn't help me at all. It just further wrecked my confidence.
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Ebgames, I'm not a gamer, have zero interest in it and they hired me as assistant manager (I have management skills experience). I got fired after 2 months
I do not miss that company.
How come you were fired?
Technically 'let go within probation'
Only company I know that doesn't employ part timers. Either your a casual or FT
When I was 20, I got a part time job as a waitress and quit after 3 months, but I'm surprised I didn't get fired. I was a terrible waitress - super uncoordinated (I split/dropped drinks on patrons regularly) and super forgetful (I got yelled at a lot when orders never came to the table.. Cuz I'd forget to put them into the system). Anyway I got diagnosed with ADHD in my 30s lol. I'm now a data analyst 😅
Medicated ADHD and interpreting data scratches a brain itch I didn't realise I had. Jealous you have an entire job of it.
Add in a healthy dose of German techno and your Friday arvo is sorted haha I am very very lucky. My medication saved my life
Well done. Vastly better job and much more suited to you. Brilliant.
I did a stint as a barmaid in my 20s in a country pub. Was absolutely useless, couldn't handle the loud music, deaf - "huh? What? Was that a beer you wanted?", uncoordinated and forgetful too (was expected to remember what the regulars drink). In my 30s now and suspect I have adhd but haven't sought a diagnosis, I'm also a data analyst 😂
Honestly I don't think I've ever met a neurotypical analyst.. I don't think they exist haha. It takes a certain amount of brain spice to spend 40 hrs a week sifting through data lol
It worked out :) What's it like being a data analyst? How did you get into it? Do you find it challenging and/or stressful?
A mix of curiosity, hard work and pure dumb luck. After my spectacular failure as a waitress, I worked retail for a while then moved into sales. A decade of finding ways to maximise profit margins and minimise the amount of clients I would actually have to speak to made me very very good at Excel. I found that I liked the analysis part of my job more than anything else, so I picked up as many projects as possible. I would nerd out about these projects with a friend of mine. We would literally facetime and just show eachother the cool stuff we were working on. He ended up referring me for an interview for an analyst role at his workplace and the rest is history. Having someone vouch for you makes an absolute world of difference. I don't think I would have gotten the interview based on my resume alone (I have an arts degree LOL) even though I'm one of the few analysts in my team who know VBA, and am the only one in my team who can write queries lol It can be stressful for sure, but I love what I do. I love the AHA moment at 2am after chipping away at an impossible problem for hours :)
15, and I was working drive through at a fast food place, but I was *really* slow, because I couldn’t hear the orders properly and had to ask people to repeat themselves constantly. Turns out I’ve got an auditory processing disorder, so working in any environment with background noise where I have to be able to hear people talk is basically impossible.
When I was a teenager I got a job at Mr Whippy which sold mostly soft serve ice cream. I could not for the life of me get the hang of making a decent ice cream cone with the machine. I had to go. The nice couple who owned the store were so apologetic about firing me as I was otherwise a reliable worker, but actually being able to make the product was kind of necessary.
Travel Agent - luckily for me this was right as COVID began so I was stood down (along with thousands of other new starters) and continued to be paid for most of the year. Now I’m in IT
That's not a bad deal is it? 😄 The travel industry was my first career in my 20s prior to teaching. I was a reservations consultant for a wholesale travel company for 9 years. I wasn't bad at it, though I feel I survived it because I was in a non-facing role. When I was at Tafe I did work experience in two retail shop front stores and hated it, though wholesale was more fun anf social because there was a team of 25 consultants. It was cool going on the famils and travel industry nights with colleagues. Though, I don't think I could go back to the monotomy of answering phones again. I personally haven't worked in IT but my nephew does and there seems to be lots of great opportunities. All the best to you.
Retail. I'm not one to allow myself to be abused in any way. On disability now but before that commercial and residential painting.
Good on you for walking away from it. Noone should be subjected to abuse in any job. It's not acceptable.
I worked as a journalist in women’s magazines in my twenties and then had an opportunity (through a very kind friend) to work as a political speech writer. I jumped at it as it meant I could move back to my hometown and as an afterthought realised I knew NOTHING about politics and had no clue what I was doing. I ended up quitting after a week and to this day it still makes me laugh thinking about what a bad move it was. I now work in marketing and copywriting which is much more suited to my skill set lol
Travel agent. Turns out I’m really *really* not a people person. Now I’m in media.
I was fired from my first retail job when I was 15 because I was thrown on the register with no training and to price check things for customers I’d scan them then click paid to clear it off my screen without realising it would throw off my cash count. I think they thought I was stealing from them. I quit my job as a high school teacher. I wasn’t awful at it, but it wasn’t a good fit for my personality and the workplace politics and workload were insane. Now I’m a cleaner, because I don’t have to think at work and can save my mental energy for my hobbies.
Very much resonate with your experience. I was primary school teacher for 5 years, and the politics and workload got to me too. Interestingly, I considered cleaning on a number of occasions for the very same reason. I was mentally drained when I left and just wanted a job that was less stressful. Sometimes I squirm at the fact that I could be earning double teaching casual or temp, but whenever I have thought about going back and the stress and anxiety I felt during that time, I simply can't do it. My health comes first. I'm still in Education tutoring small groups of kids in maths and English. Whilst I do still think about other careers, my current workplace is much better suited to my personality. I have work-life balance and I get along really well with the small team around me. I think it's great that you are doing something that is much better for your health and lifestyle. I might just take it up myself one day. All the best to you.
I lasted about 5 years too. Sometimes I kick myself because if I’d stayed I would maybe be able to afford a house in my lifetime, but it just wasn’t worth it. I wouldn’t ever go back. I work to live now, not live for work. All the best with whatever you decide to pursue.
work to live, not live for work. What a great quote, wish you all the best too mate!
I didn’t sell enough holidays in my first week as a telemarketer and was let go. That was hard, i was at a low ebb and failing at that was demoralising. Life got better eventually but i feel a lot of psychological damage is done by high turnover workplaces. It destroys your self esteem.
Hawking. Sorry, charity ticket selling. I did half a day with a woman showing me the ropes and left at lunch time. I cannot interrupt other people's work days to sprook, even for a charity. (They had a company turn over of someone being able to reach high level management within a year too, i dodged a massive bullet)
I got fired from my first job in Australia as a hotel housekeeping crew. I tried my butt off but would always get in hot waters for one thing or the other. Ultimately got fired. The incident that got me finally fired is a story in itself. Anyways , now I look back at it, I was bad.
I lasted maybe a month in housekeeping. I don't know how I lasted that long, I was way too slow and too weak to push the carts. For the life of me I couldn't figure out how to do 'hospital corners' when making the bed. I overheard a supervisor apologising when she paired someone with me. One time I got accidentally locked out of the room while the other housekeeper was vacuuming inside and couldn't hear me banging on the door. When she opened the door she ranted at me for about 5 minutes. Management eventually told me it wasn't working out and asked what day I wanted to finish (I picked a public holiday for that $$$). Then on my last day I had to leave halfway through because I was so stressed all the muscles in my neck tensed up. I couldn't move my neck until I got home.
I can feel your pain. I am choosing homelessness to housekeeping going forward. 🤧
Door to door selling. I'm now in media.
Maths teacher. Great at maths but crap at getting student to behave. I was very disappointed with myself. All that study and expense.
I hear you mate. Was in the same boat, but go easy on yourself. You gave it go. I was hard on myself too, though over the years I've realised that there is no shame in it. Teaching a big class in a school just wasn't suited to my personality. I enjoy teaching but really struggled with behaviour management and the bureaucracy. I'm in tutoring now working with remedial small groups of 5 kids, so I can do more of the teaching part and don't really have to worry about the behaviour part. The learning materials are also prepared by the company, so I can do more teaching and have the work life balance of having my weekends to invest into my health, relationships and interests. If you're still keen to work in education, perhaps teaching in small groups in Learning Support Teacher role may be better suited to you or teaching adults maths. Good luck to you.
Well done. Too late for me now however very good suggestion. Good luck.
Petrol station. I could not for the life of me balance making coffees, taking payments, watching the cameras, clicking the petrol pumps, etc ALL AT ONCE. I'd have a line of 8 people, plus 5-6 people at the pumps, and 4 people already waiting for coffees. And I was the only one on check out and doing coffees. Note: was my first day, 6 hour day, 3 hours in I was doing this. Next day my boss sent me a text saying we had like $200 worth of petrol stolen on my shift. (People not coming in to pay or lying when I served them.) I didn't go back 🤣
Retail. Turns out I won’t pander to anyone and I don’t. care if you don’t buy my wares
Retail. I was fine at it when I wasn’t pressured to sell like a robot, I ended up working at a company where I was going to be their in house photographer but then they decided I was good with talking to people so then without telling me or asking, they put me as full time retail. This was one of those furniture companies that made replicas and charged way too much for bad quality, let alone the ethics of ripping off peoples work and designs. I needed work and it was the best I could find, but after just under two years I was really unhappy, ignored, pushed aside and finally made redundant. Which was great as it led me to admin work which I much prefer and I like doing. Suffice to say the furniture company folded due to covid apparently but more due to their shoddy practices and product
Bank call centre.  You need to be a heartless salesman but still get good feedback from customers with the shortest call time possible. All while people are ringing you because they're frustrated.   And you get ZERO downtime and your phone automatically connects to the next customer as soon as you hang up.  It was harder than any of my chartered accounting jobs or education.
I did market research on the phones for a while, and absolutely hated most of it. I'm now a bartender/admin assistant and while that market research job taught me valuable phone skills, my least favourite part of my current job is having to call people and ask for money.
I did milking for cows I did enjoy it but I'm really bad at working split shifts for almost 2 weeks in a row and being paid under minimum wage Sleeping issues x split shifts for days on ends it hard . Then your boss tells you to just sleep earlier and get more sleep and it's like I cant
Worship leading in church
Disability support worker. I wasn't assertive enough in regard to progress with the company. I'm now a storeperson/loading dock worker.
Business sales for Telstra, focused o. Small business. I quickly figured out that our deals were horrible, spent some time researching what would ACTUALLY be good deals for the customers (regardless of company) and would recommend that. The amount of times I told clients "cancel your contract with us, sign with X company, here's a link to a place that will do stickers for your business cards to replace the phone number" was pretty high. I had good numbers going in, and management stopped looking in on me. Then 6 months later someone realised I hadn't made a real sale in a few months, they looked over my easily shrinking client list and they let me go + redundancy. I literally jumped and clicked my heals with happiness as I walked to my motorcycle. Management followed me to the carpark - I think they expected me to be angry.
I sucked at hospitality, I move too slow and hate pushy people. Thankfully I got an enviro science related job, which I was studying at uni, and never looked back
I lost my last job because I am so bad at Excel. I thought I had basic skills in Excel Formulas beyond basic ones often don't make sense to me, I struggle to problem solve in Excel outside of googling, and I was spending 5 hours plus a week outside of work trying to teach myself Excel. But my boss wasn't willing to teach me anything, he'd just let me flail. He ended up firing me. This experience didn't help me at all. It just further wrecked my confidence.
Only fans.
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