I’m a 20-year-old student working alone at a convenience store for $19/hour, about 24 hours a week. We sell a lot of cigarettes, alcohol, and lottery tickets.
My managers and coworkers are great, but the job is becoming mentally draining.
Most shifts I’m alone. If I need to go to the bathroom, I have to lock the store. I don’t get proper breaks because customers come in constantly, so eating during a shift can be difficult.
The customer interactions are what wear me down. I’ve had customers make inappropriate comments, ask if I was an exotic dancer, make racist remarks, hang around the store for long periods just to talk, or come in obviously intoxicated.
One customer went on a rant about not wanting to support Arabs because they’re “terrorists,” then asked me to recommend a Lebanese restaurant. He also made racist comments about a soccer team. Another customer regularly buys a drink and then stays around trying to chat for a long time. He wont leave. Customers that are grown adults (40 years old ) smoking weed in front of the store and tweaking out.
Recently, a customer was yelling and causing a scene. Afterwards, two women told me they felt bad for me and thanked me for my patience. I ended up crying because I realized other customers could see how stressful the situation was.
The other day I had to step outside and vape because I felt like I was going to cry for the rest of my shift.
I started at the end of April. The pay is $19/hour, which isn’t terrible, but I don’t know if the stress is worth it, I mentally cannot do more than 24 hours a week so I only get 1800$ a month.
Am I overreacting, or is this a reasonable reason to leave a job after only a couple of months?