An unconventional fashion blogger trying to find her place on the internet

Click bait title or what? But seriously, this is a very recent, very true story that I’m about to share with you all and I’m absolutely gutted that everything didn’t turn out the way I was planning – unfortunately that’s life and we all learn from these experiences right?

As you’ll know if you’ve been following me for a while, I started a new job with ASOS in their Customer Care Transformation department as an Implementation Support Lead – not only was I going to be doing something I’d gained experience in previously, I was going to be working for an amazing fashion company with great discounts and sample sales. I started on the 1st of May and was buzzing, the offices were amazing, the people were great, the radio played along while you worked and you were encouraged to be unforgivably yourself – no smoke and mirrors, no facades, just you. I loved it and was raring to get going, I’d been so excited to get my teeth into something once I’d been through training and had been observing people on my team.

The first month felt good, I was slowly coming to the realisation that I’m a massive introvert and was starting to struggle with not quite fitting in. I couldn’t tell you exactly what was wrong, but something felt off – nobody was horrible or flat out ignored me, but I felt a huge gap between me and the rest of the team. I felt impatience when I was asking questions and I was practicing things over and over to get them into my head – the job was turning out to be a lot more tech-based than I’d initially thought and it definitely wasn’t my strong-suit – I’ve always been more creative and this role didn’t seem to have anything that I could really apply that to.

So I carried on for another month, working through my on-boarding document and learning more as I went along – I was still struggling with fitting in and I found it harder when I was getting feedback about repeating the same questions (let’s just put this out there – I don’t remember this and made a conscious effort to make notes after getting some advice a few weeks prior) along with some other bits and bobs to work on. I’m going to put this out there – I’m terrible at getting criticism and will 99% of the time tear up or flat out cry (there’s no controlling it – I’ve tried) so I’m sure you can imagine that I spent a few “toilet” sessions blubbering to myself, trying to make sure I didn’t look like a complete mess before going back.

It got to the eighth week and I was getting to feel really shit, I was doing the work and felt a bit better but not so much that I wanted to smash the initial feedback out of the park, because I knew the job wasn’t for me. After a tearful catch up with my team leader on a Thursday afternoon, I went home and spoke to Aaron about my concerns – I wasn’t ready for the end of my probation to roll around in a month’s time for them to tell me what I already knew – this job is not for me. So I started to have a mooch at other jobs for the rest of the evening and thought I might feel better in the morning.

Well, that’s when I did something so out of character, I sat at my desk reading an email summary of my feedback from the previous day and decided I couldn’t do it, I’d rather cut my losses now than to continue sitting there feeling shit about myself. So before I did anything fucking insane I was going to call my husband and ask him if I should just bite the bullet and do it – I had some money put aside and the rent was paid for a couple of months – and he knew I needed to do what I wanted to, so he agreed.

The next thing you know, I’m telling the manager how the job wasn’t for me, I don’t think I fit in with the team (looking back it’s probably because they were a lot more into the job than me) and I’d like to go. I obviously cried, because I was devastated that my “dream job” of working for ASOS just wasn’t right. I was gutted, but felt more free having let it out than I had for a good month. I think two months is a good amount of time to get a feel for whether something is right for you and is the whole point of having a probation (or on-boarding as they like to call it) period – it’s not just for an employer to assess whether you’re a suitable candidate, it’s a time for you to do the same thing.

After a couple of chats with the managers, they agreed I could go home and didn’t need to work my notice period, I went back to my desk, sent off an email with some external vision suggestions, picked up my stuff and went.

An hour after my call with Aaron I was walking out to my car in the sunshine, crying and getting into my car asking myself out loud “What the actual fuck?! Who the fuck are you?!” – I didn’t have a job lined up and that was the most uncharacteristic thing of it all. I called my sister when I was driving home (she’s done this a few times) and she was howling with laughter after asking me “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK GAB?!” at how out of character it was, that she was always the one to do this kind of shit, so it was great for her to be the one on the other end of the phone.

As for what’s next, I haven’t the foggiest – but I’m on the hunt for a job so if you know if anything going that’s creative and in Hertfordshire – hit me up!

The final thing I want to say is that I couldn’t fault any of the team leaders or management that I worked with, they were supportive, compassionate and understanding throughout my short time there. I love ASOS as a company, they’re forward thinking, innovative and have been taking admirable steps to become a more ethical online fashion retailer – which I’m obviously all about.

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