Anxiety has ruled most aspects of my life since a very young age and has affected me in even the most simplistic of tasks. One of my biggest fears until about a few years ago was paying for things in shops. I know, stupid, right? I literally would freak out about not having enough money (even though I counted it at least 1200 times) and predominantly what the cashier was thinking about me, like they were telepathic or something. I cringe now thinking back about the amount of nice clothes and yummy food I missed out on all because I was too scared to go to a till. (It did save me a lot of money though...)
This all changed one fateful day in the Summer of 2014. I had just finished my second year of A levels and decided that in order to get some money together for university I would have to get a job. So, after applying for 50+ jobs and being repeatedly turned down because I had no experience (although I had volunteered for various things numerous times through my school years.) I finally got a phone call from a well known UK and US based supermarket offering me an interview. I was ecstatic, someone was finally giving me a chance! Then it hit me.. I actually had to go into a room with people I didn't know and answer their questioning, oh dear. To anyone out there who's worried about interviews or falls apart in them, I recommend acting. Seriously, it sounds silly but the way I got through my interview was to envision myself as a more confident character and step into the role of confident me, not cocky or arrogant but just quietly confident.
So, I arrived to my interview in the smartest clothes I could find and smiled, smiled at everyone I met because even though I was a bag of nerves, I at least looked happy to be there. It transpired I was to have a group interview, I had some mixed feeling about this at the time but in hindsight, it was so much easier than 1-1. We were put into a random group of 4 and did some presentations, all whilst being watched to see how we interacted. So my acting idea worked pretty well, I even had an audience.
It turns out the interview went well and within a few hours I had a call back - There was just ONE problem, the department that wanted me was checkouts, I was to become the cashier I was so afraid of. I then started worrying about what the customers thought of me, would they get angry at me if I was slow? or I got their change wrong? Being dyslexic as well, I knew I would struggle with trying to learn how the till worked but I needed the money badly, so I agreed to it.
A few weeks went on, I did my health and safety training and then I was ready to begin my first shift. I started with shadowing a very kind woman who, as it turned out, actually only lived down the road from me! She showed me how to scan items and weigh them and how to use the codes to type things in, it was immensely hard and fast-paced - and I can even remember cringing as I Id'd a man who turned out to be 30! (whoops.) and I gave out the wrong change more than once. I actually went home and cried after that shift thinking I would never be good at it, I was planning on handing my notice in when I could.
Luckily, as time went on, I got more confident, my anxiety started to dissipate, I even made some amazing friends whilst I was working there. yes, I still give out the wrong change occasionally, upset a few customers who I had to ID (they were the ones who didn't have ID and stormed off in a huff.) but this whole experience made me feel so much more at ease with the world and helped my anxiety more than most therapies. It can still be hard on bad days to get through my shifts but I have a fantastic group of co-workers and a great people's manager who help me through. If you're reading this and are currently looking for a job or still having a few teething problems in overcoming work anxiety, just don't give up, it does get better and easier the more you learn and adapt your coping mechanisms. If it does get really bad then talk to your manager, funnily enough, they're pretty good people too and can be very understanding of the situation. Just keep on trucking and of course, just think of payday! ;)
I'm thoroughly looking forward to going back to work over Christmas but my thoughts are with everyone working in retail over black Friday and these busy pre-Christmas months,. I salute you!
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