Anyone else have a job outside of your comfort zone?

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I just took up bartending and started last night uggh. It was horrible at first. I felt frantic and panicky and was doing everything wrong. As the night progressed it seemed to get better but the whole time I kept thinking about just giving up but kept it going. It felt so draining to try to not be clutzy (I didn't break a single glass), remember some drinks, learn new things, calculate and on top of that, I have issues with opening wine bottles and I cannot open champagne bottles because I'm scared that I will kill someone trying and the sound it makes opening it makes me want to run duck and cover. I don't want to seem incompetant. Should I inform people that I cannot open the champagne bottle? The wine bottle I just need practice.

What kind of jobs have you done beyond your comfort level and did you get better or did you come to the conclusion that it just wasn't for you?

I do want to be a bartender because it might help with certain things, I just hope people have the patience for that.

If you don't get asked to do too many champagne bottles (likely unless you work in a really posh place!) then I wouldn't say anything and play the 'girlie' card on the odd occasion it does come up, don't make a big thing of it.
I worked as a barmaid for a couple of years, was atrocious at first but got quite good at it as far as remembering the cost of various combinations, adding up quickly and serving the actual drinks. I hated the public bar and usually worked in the club bar (bingo games going on so it was periods of calm interspersed with frantic ordering between cards).
I find my current job overwhelming, the science part is fine and I am good at writing publications, and communications via email, but talking to colleagues everyday is exhausting and I am a nervous wreck to the point of thinking of packing in.

I was surprised that they let me stay the first few weeks I was so bad, but then it became second nature and was like having a night out but getting paid for it instead of it cost me!
I left after about 18 months as I was going through a period of depression and was getting complaints from customers about not being 'cheery', the manager started hitting on me also and it made me uncomfortable.

I have never had a job outside of my comfort zone, but I don't really have a comfort zone anymore.

Tim

I always hate new jobs.

I can deal, but having things expected of me while I adjust is difficult.

I have, I used to do SALES!! ! I worked as the assistant manager of a self storage centre, and it was uber busy. Scary social contact was constant and routines were impossible.

On the negative side, I totally lost it after a year and had to move back in with my mum.
On the positive side, I bumped into my boss recently and she said she's never been able to find anyone as good as me.

The job did vastly improve my normally limited self esteem, it showed me I could do things I never thought I was capable of. In the long term though its only sensible to find work you're really suited to.

Yeah. . .
I learned many people skills waiting tables and selling chocolate.

Massively stressful though.

Even though I loved both.

If I could "just be myself" I'd be sending champagne corks flying in a high arc across the room, yelling "FIRE ONE!!" Possibly cackling like a maniac too.

Some people would enjoy it... the ones who think they're "so cool" might not. High confidence and not caring about what they think would pull it off.



I worked sales for years. I was fairly good at it too... but I'd invariable butt heads with management who wanted to push their sales with junk and ripoffs, while my integrity was too high for that. Invariably I'd be pushed out of the job as a "bad employee" despite having the most customer kudos and high sales numbers, even without those @#% extended warranty cash-grabs. But it could be VERY stressful if communication with a customer ever started to break down, or if they became even REMOTELY argumentative or hostile.

When I was in college (the first time around), I worked as go-go dancer, at a very popular club. I felt weird when my friends would come to the club to dance and see me. I felt even weirder when I would run into people from my classes who I did not know or like. The club's manager thought I was a great dancer w/ a great body. However, I felt like Jabba the Hut w/ Cerebral Palsy! The money was good, but I did not last more than few months (LOL)!

hmmm...I don't think the bar people liked me. I think they expected to just throw me in on their grand opening and I automatically know the pricing for everything, how to operate their cash register and the guy told me he liked team work prior to opening so I was trying to be helpful and show him the best way to pour champagne and he seemed mad about it. They said they would call me yesterday and they did not and I didn't want to call them but i did anyway and he was having new people work at the bar but he claimed he would call me over the weekend. I had a feeling that night they would not call me and now I'm not sure if I really want to work there.

For being thrown in with no information which was embarassing, I don't think it was that bad considering I didn't have a nervous breakdown.

It's official. I don't have the job. He didn't tell me that I dont have the job but he told me to call him today to discuss possible weekend work so I did but then he told me he has a guy coming in this weekend that's supposed to be really good. Now I'm officially fed up so I tore up his card and erased his number from my phone.

Because I have a limited schedule that I can work, this was the main reason why I wanted to get into bartending because I can't think of any geeky night jobs in my area!

Speaking of that comfort zone, I found that as I got into more senior technical positions (I am high-tech and have a Ph.D.), I was expected to deal with more meetings, which I hate, unless they are one-on-one with people who are involved with things that are directly relevant to my own concerns at the time.

I am still very content with high-tech as long as people leave me alone, but the trend in corporate culture is towards meetings and all of that, so I am trying to re-work my whole modus operandi in my field.