A woman has opened up about why she quit her job as a teacher to work at Costco.
After debating whether or not to leave for two years – feeling like she was simply ‘surviving every moment’ – Maggie Perkins finally decided to quit her job as a teacher in 2020.
Having been both a public and private school teacher, Perkins resolved she wanted to work at her local Costco instead.
The 30-year-old has since revealed why she needed the career change and the affect it’s had on her life and mental wellbeing.
She told Fox Business: “We grew up going to Costcos, and so I’ve always known that Costco employees are treated well and have a high quality of life.
“So when there was a new Costco being built in my town, I immediately applied.”
In a video uploaded to TikTok, Perkins – a.k.a. Millennial Ms. Frizzle – notes that despite being required to work on Christmas Eve her first year at Costco, she doesn’t miss having the winter breaks her role as a teacher gave her.
She says: “I just worked seven days straight including Christmas Eve and I feel fine.
“As a teacher it was like I was just surviving every moment and by the time I got to Christmas break I was so exhausted I got genuinely sick.”
In another video she continues: “I used my breaks often to work to supplement my income as a teacher.”
Perkins has since decided to stop pursuing a career in academia completely.
She explains her ‘goal in life’ used to be to ‘become a researcher, professor and be part of academia,’ however, once she became a full-time PhD student she ‘saw people who were well respected, amazingly articulate, published, everything you could hope for in a researcher and a professor and they were in their fifties and their forties, hustling their tails off still trying to make it’.
Perkins continues: “I realised that there was no end it was, there was no place where you arrive, where you are like, ‘That’s the person, she’s a full professor, she’s tenured’.
“Even if you’re tenured, even if you’re a full professor, you’re still hustling for someone else’s approval.”
The idea of being available ‘at all times of the day’ with ‘constant meetings’ and ‘no schedule’ along with the ‘toxicity which pervaded it’ – people bragging about overworking – wasn’t worth it for Perkins.
In another TikTok video, the former teacher resolves: “I do not miss [teaching] at all. My pace of my work life now is so much better.”
UNILAD has contacted Perkins for comment.