A woman who worked as a teacher for 11 years has explained why she made the ‘right choice’ in quitting to instead go and work at Costco.
Janelle Schuurman, from Michigan, knew that she wanted to be a teacher since she was a child in school herself.
She got into teaching in her early 20s, and worked for more than a decade at an elementary school.
However, in 2022 Schuurman ‘got so burned out’ that she decided to give up her dream job, and start working at Costco.
There were a number of reasons why Schuurman gave up teaching, and she’s laid them out in an interview with Insider, starting by pointing out that a teacher’s job definitely doesn’t end at 3pm.
“The job never ends, honestly,” Schuurman said, explaining that time after school is taken up by planning for the next day, and that she was doing ’20 hours of work per week outside of [her] contracted hours just to stay on top of things’.
She struggled to feel supported at her school, dealing with 29 students with no support staff, not to mention the risk to her safety in the wake of seemingly endless school shootings.
Schuurman recalled having a walkie-talkie in her class in case she needed to call other teachers for help, saying: “I thought I was going to change the world, not put my life on the line.”
With so much at risk, Schuurman also resented the low salary that is so often attached to teaching.
Having decided to give up her job, Schuurman explained why she knows she made the right choice.
“Now I’m happy at Costco because I’m paid fairly and have access to benefits like great insurance,” the former teacher said – not to mention the fact she doesn’t have to deal with ‘backseat driving’ parents attempting to tell her how to teach.
“Even though this was the right choice for me, I never thought I’d leave teaching,” she continued.
Schuurman is far from the only teacher to reconsider their line of work, with some educators opening up about supplementing their incomes with OnlyFans accounts, while others have joined Schuurman in leaving to work at retail stores.
One former educator, who goes by the name @millennialmsfrizz on TikTok, says her wellbeing improved massively after she quit her job and started working at Costco.
“I’ve never had this type of energy, everything is better,” she said in a video explaining how her life has changed.
“I can’t believe that I ever felt so limited, that I ever thought I couldn’t do something else. I am better now than I have been in my liveable memory.”
