Potential

[ericadawn16]

Leo Babauta: Staying in your current job will not only continue to make you unhappy, but you are not realizing your full potential in life.

My entire span of time at the restaurant, everyone except my mom was telling me how I could do better, how I should do better so I know I should think of it closing as even God agrees that this is not what I should be doing...

But despite having to listen to everyone complain about how I should be doing something else even though they hate their jobs, listening to customers put me down and put me in a stereotypical box for having a fast-food job and putting up with threats of being fired over the stupidest things...mystery shops are not indicative of how a restaurant is being run!

There were things I liked. I liked my coworkers, I liked the satisfaction of getting something done and I liked doing customer service so they got what they wanted within reason.

Still, I need to move on and see if I can do this "full potential" thing...I just don't know how that works.

Comments

[winter-mirage.livejournal.com]

I get that "full potential" lecture from my dad on a daily basis, and with me, he at least has some valid point. I've dragged my feet long enough deciding what I wanted to do, and once I finally did decide and got an education for it, the bottom fell out on the job market for that particular skill. (I went to school for criminal justice/law enforcement, and there's a hiring freeze in Minnesota for almost all civil service jobs right now.)

What I can say from my experience: don't worry about what everyone else thinks your "full potential" should be, and don't get so wrapped up in the words full potential that you forget what you want. Notice Leo says as well, "Full potential in life," not full potential at work. I keep trying to explain to my dad that full potential isn't completely tied to what a person does for a living, but rather what makes them the best all around person they can be.

Now granted, even though I hate stereotypes, you DO seem like you're too smart to be working at Whataburger. Can you find something doing similar customer service work at a place that more utilizes the skills you have? You have a bachelor's degree, and that alone speaks volumes to people that want to hire you. My first major in college was communications, and I would think that would encompass such a broad variety of career fields, you would have the option of going in several different directions.

No one can tell you what your full potential is. You have to discover that on your own. But you don't have to know right now. It's not like it's a quiz that you have to answer right away. Take a bit of time and adjust to being without a job, and go from there.