Bloganuary the 14th – Challenges

Today’s prompt is ‘Write about a challenge you faced and overcame‘.

Does going to work and facing the public virtually every day count?

No? Fair enough. This is about work though.

When I originally left my original bathroom consultant role, I went to work for a large and popular furniture retailer. The nature of sales in this new environment were very different to what I had been used to, with KPIs everywhere. Some of it I could understand and targets are a part of any job, but the obsession with KPIs felt stifling. I wanted to go to work, sell some furniture, and come home, rather than get grilled over numbers in boxes and whether they were red or green. I don’t mind admitting it was a tough environment for me to get used to.

The company operates (well, at least they did back then) with a two-year probation period. As such, there was the added pressure that, at any point if they felt my performance was not adequate, I could find myself out of a job. On top of that, I felt… squeezed, personality-wise. I didn’t feel I could be myself in that place. From a career perspective, it was one of the most stressful experiences I’ve been through. Come the end though, I got through my probation – and then got offered a role as a bathroom consultant with my old boss from the previous role! I was down the pub with my boss from my office supply retail days when my then-current furniture boss confirmed I’d passed my probation, having had the interview about bathrooms the day before!

I toughed it out. I fought, scraped, I got stressed out and I gritted my teeth, and I did it. I proved I could survive in the somewhat ruthless world of commission-only sales. There is absolutely no desire to repeat that experience, but I know I can do it.

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