Dealing with demotion at work.

This is the jist…

Almost 5 years ago I started working at my first real job in retail. I was 19 and ready and eager to work as much as I could. I was always very enthusiastic and wanted to learn as much as possible. I was usually favoured as being one of the best employees we had and as soon as the position became available I was appointed Key Holder along with another colleague.

For a while the 2 of us were working on an equal level until eventually the position because available for a managers contract and my colleague was picked for the position over me. Although this was a bad knock for me at the time I still continued with my position as Key Holder and eventually I was given a Supervisor contract on a secondment.

Some time later another secondment Supervisor contract became available it was given to my colleague (who is also a close friend of mine). When it came to the time where the secondments were up we were both expecting to be signed off on permanent supervisor contracts (by this point I had been on a supervisor secondment for a year).

However when it came down to it they chose to sign off my colleague as a permanent supervisor and demote me back down to Key Holder.

It was not only humiliating but the biggest knock on to my self esteem I have ever experienced.

I wanted to leave straight away. Although I was happy for my friend for her promotion, I just felt like I couldn't work there anymore. Maybe I took my position for granted. Maybe I could have worked harder. You can always look back and say ‘what if’ but all I knew was that I didn't want to work there any longer.

After this I applied for job after job until I was finally offered a full time position working for a company much closer to where I live. The working hours and days are better, and it is a 40 hour contract where as my retail job was only a 30 hour contract. on paper it seems like a no brainer that I immediately took this new position. It’s not in a field I am particularly excited or passionate - about but then neither is retail.

I think I am just having a wobble because have basically spent all of my adult life working in my retail job, a lot of my friends are there, it is all I know.

I am still only 23 years old so I figure it’s ok to still not know exactly what path I want to take in life. And I know that in 10 years time I will look back and think what was I crying about but right now it’s all just getting on top of me a bit.

I am currently working my 4 week notice period before I start my new job. I go through regular waves of excitement about leaving, then immediately followed by a wave of ‘oh my god what have I done?!?!’ But I hope this is normal.

I just need to know that I am not crazy for wanting to leave. Has anyone been through a similar thing? How do you deal with quitting your job after a demotion?