6 Reasons Why My Office Job is Better Than Teaching
I never thought I’d be saying this but here we are…
“I could never survive in an office job, ” I joked to my assistant teacher as I sat at my desk in my preschool classroom.
It was October 2019, and I had just begun my 6th year of teaching. I had been the lead teacher for children from 3–5 since I graduated from university, and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I listened to parents complain about their desk jobs and thought to myself, “That could never be me.” I fully expected to spend my entire career in the classroom.
And then I lost my teaching job.
After a few months of unemployment, I got a job as a copywriter at a small start-up. I was excited to start a new career, but the words I said to my assistant haunted me. What if I hated working in an office?
After 10 months in my new position, I can definitively say that I can survive in an office. And I am thriving.
6 reasons why the office is better than a classroom
No more angry parents
So much of my time as a teacher was spent dealing with demanding parents complaining about everything under the sun. I never realized how much my phone was buzzing until it stopped.
My phone doesn’t ping at all hours of the day and night with messages and emails about everything from missing gloves to accusations of bullying. I no longer have to schedule meetings with parents who only want to yell at me.
Honestly, I hardly get any messages anymore. I mostly work alone, so sometimes I’ll go a full workday without a single message or meeting. It is incredibly peaceful.
No more waking up super early
The school I worked at was a 50-minute bike ride away. I had to be in the classroom at 8:20 am which meant that my day started with a 6:15 alarm.
Now my day doesn’t start until 9–9:15 am, so I’m rolling out of bed right around the time I used to be standing in my classroom. For a night owl like myself, this is an absolutely blessing.
No more having to leave the house
Being a teacher is incredibly inflexible. Your hours and location are always fixed, and there’s usually no opportunity for remote work, especially when you teach preschool as I did.
Now I don’t have to come into the office unless I want to (even though it’s only a 15-minute bike ride away). At least 2 days a week, I enjoy working from home. I sit at my desk in shorts and a t-shirt and only bother fixing my hair if I have to hop on a Zoom call.
But that’s not all. I also have the flexibility to work from other countries. I’ll be spending 2 months working from Mexico which definitely wouldn’t have been possible for me as a teacher.
Working on the beach has always been a dream of mine, and it is now my reality.
No more overwhelming noise
Being in a loud classroom with 18 screaming children meant that I got frequent and intense headaches. I even purchased a pair of Loop Earplugs to help stifle the noise because I would often get overwhelmed by the noise.
Now I work in an office so quiet that sometimes all I hear is the sound of typing for hours on end. Because I’m used to working with excessive noise, I sometimes find myself plugging in my headphones and listening to death metal to help me focus. My coworkers find this amusing.
No more getting treated badly
It’s no secret that teachers get treated like total crap. My administration kept adding to my already overloaded plate and accused me of “not being a team player” when I said I had too much to handle. Every time I tried to advocate for myself I was called “selfish” and “stubborn” which would always manipulate me into burning my candle at both ends “for the children”.
Meanwhile, the parents disregarded any boundaries I attempted to set. If I didn’t meet their ridiculous expectations as soon as possible, there was hell to pay.
The bold ones would yell and berate me in front of my students. Sneakier ones would go behind my back and tattle to my principal about how “mean” I was for enforcing my policies. It wasn’t just exhausting. It was abusive.
My current boss and coworkers frequently give me positive feedback and tell me how grateful they are for the work I do. I wish I would have heard this more often as a teacher.
No more stress
When I was a teacher I was on my feet from 8 am-4 pm and so busy that sometimes I wouldn’t be able to take a single bathroom break all day long. The school day was packed so full that I would be lucky to sit down for 4 minutes to eat my lunch.
There were neverending lists of tasks, parent reminders, and student notes to keep track of every single day. It took every ounce of energy to stay organized, and important things would still fall through the cracks, which would lead to complaints and meetings with my principal.
My days are much calmer now. I have only 3–5 tasks that have to get done every day, so I can slow down, take my time, and make sure it gets done correctly. There has not been a single day where I have felt stressed in my current job. It’s liberating.
Having an office job used to be my idea of hell, but boy was I wrong. Over the past 10 months, my job has given me a sense of peace and calm that I could only dream about when I was a teacher. Plus, I get to go to the bathroom anytime I want.
