This Costco employee has no regrets after leaving the profession they got a master’s degree for to work at the warehouse. Why did they leave their old job? Was it all worth it?
From the classroom to Costco
Former teacher Maggie Perkins (@itsmaggieperkins) says she is loving her new job at Costco. After getting a master’s degree to be an educator and teaching for several years, she says she realized she needed to make a switch. She explains all the ways she enjoys her Costco job more in one viral video.
Her TikTok is in reply to a comment asking Perkins how the stress levels compare between the two jobs.
“To me, it was less stressful to work in the warehouse at Costco than it was to be a teacher,” she begins, “and I think one of the biggest things was the lack of decision fatigue.”
She explains that being a teacher meant being asked “5,000 questions a day.”
“You’re always making decisions and handling the next most chaotic thing or noticing what’s going to be chaotic very soon if you don’t put a handle on it,” Perkins shares.
Teaching stress vs. Costco stress
While Perkins mentions that at Costco she has to exercise a similar skill of anticipating chaos, she always has team members who can help. However, when she was a teacher, it was just her dealing with those students and parents.
She notes how as a teacher, she was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. For example, an emergency is bound to happen or you’ll likely have an angry parent or something to deal with regarding your principal.
Teacher stress is a real thing. Several studies have shown the ways that teachers are more stressed than people in other fields. According to a study by the American Educational Research Association, teachers are 40% more likely to report levels of anxiety than healthcare workers and 30% more than office workers.
According to Glassdoor, Costco employees gave the company a 4/5 for overall work experience. This puts Costco ahead of several of its competitor companies’ employee ratings like Target, Sam’s Club, Walmart, and Amazon, as reported by Yahoo Finance.
The Daily Dot has previously covered Costco and how customers are boycotting some of these same competitors and siding with Costco for its pledge to keep its diversity efforts.
Viewers understand her side
People couldn’t agree more with Perkins about the stress of being a teacher and understand why she left the field for Costco.
“Plus managing student behaviors, all the trainings, the admin politics, the planning and grading and all the work after hours. It was exhausting teaching,” one user shared.
“Even just the accountability of keeping someone else’s child safe for 6 hours alone is a huge responsibility and then the added responsibility of teaching and learning is under appreciated,” another added.
“Also the gray area of if you’re doing a good job or not/evaluation process vs productivity/performance metrics in a job like Costco,” one usee chimed in.
@itsmaggieperkins Replying to @Angela Harders, M.Ed to me, teaching was way more stressful than working at the Costco warehouse. #formerteacher #costco #costcotiktok ♬ original sound – Maggie Perkins 🍉
“Thank you for taking the time to answer my question!” the person who initially asked Perkins the question commented. “I really appreciate your content. You give so many teachers hope that there is life after teaching – and it can be happy and fulfilling.”
Perkins replied, “In 2022 when I was thinking about leaving teaching, it was the other former teachers on this app who gave me the courage to see the possibilities outside the classroom!”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Perkins for comment via email and TikTok message and to Costco via their media request form.
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