Nobody warns you that your first job might teach you more about people than about the actual work.

That was the situation a new teenage waitress kept running into, caught between genuinely loving parts of her job and dreading it enough to feel sick before every shift.

She’d been picking things up fast, considering nobody had properly trained her on half of what she was doing. But that didn’t prevent her coworkers from bullying her and her boss from scolding her over things she was never even trained on.

So after one particularly challenging shift, she began to wonder whether she was really cut out for the job.

Keep reading for the full story.

Should I quit my job after only 2 weeks?

I’m 16, and this is my first ever job, working as a waitress in a local pub. I initially really wanted the job, and although I was extremely nervous, my first few shifts were actually okay.

With practice, she was able to overcome a few of the initial roadbumps.

I’ve gradually become more confident taking orders, serving customers, cleaning tables, and collecting glasses, and I genuinely enjoy parts of being a waitress. I’ve had some lovely customers, returned a child’s lost toy to their family, received tips, and had older colleagues help me when I’ve made mistakes.

But the job has continued to put a bit of a strain on her mental health.

However, the job has also caused me an enormous amount of anxiety. Before shifts I get knots in my stomach, nausea, bloating, and loss of appetite, and sometimes my entire day is ruined because I know I have to go in. I have very low self-esteem already, so criticism affects me extremely strongly.

She doesn’t exactly get along with her coworkers, which certainly doesn’t help.

There are two younger kitchen staff who I don’t really get on with and often feel excluded by, and one girl around 18 who runs the bar can be very hot and cold towards me. On one shift she was extremely rude and impatient when I didn’t know how to use the card machine, even though I’m still new.

Her boss only makes things worse.

My boss has also criticised me in front of the kitchen staff for standing around when food was being prepared, saying he never wants to see me doing nothing, even though I had previously asked the older woman at the bar if there was anything I could help with, and she told me to collect glasses and wander around.

Often times, the criticisms aren’t really fair.

I’ve also been criticised for not using a tea towel to carry hot plates correctly, I use tissues to grip the plates individually because I’m scared I’ll drop them otherwise, but I’ve struggled to learn the tea towel method. I’ve made plenty of mistakes: forgetting to put orders into the kitchen, forgetting menus when people order drinks, forgetting drinks from an order, writing orders down incorrectly, ripping order-pad paper, and repeatedly struggling with the card machine.

She does her best to try to get better, but her hard work isn’t seeming to pay off.

I always apologise and try to learn from them, and I’ve actually become much more confident overall, but yesterday I had a particularly awful shift where I kept making mistakes and felt like nobody really comforted or supported me. Today I was snapped at repeatedly and came home and immediately broke down crying.

Before long, she was put up for a task she wasn’t adequately trained for.

Tomorrow I’m apparently expected to work from 5pm until close on my own, including completing the restaurant’s closing procedure.

I was only shown the closing chore sheet once and had never actually been given the opportunity to do it because my previous shifts finished before closing, so I didn’t know what “closing down” involved. When I asked an older woman for help, she said I should know by now, although she eventually showed me the list and I realised there were only a few things left to do.

I feel like I haven’t been trained properly but am increasingly expected to know everything. My parents have both seen how badly the job is affecting me and are encouraging me to quit, my dad told me he will always support me.

Now she’s at a real standstill regarding whether she wants to keep the job.

I have three days off after tomorrow, so I’m debating whether to go in tomorrow, get through the shift and use those three days to decide, or quit tonight. I’m worried that if I quit I’ll regret it, especially because I actually like waitressing and wonder whether I’m just overthinking everything. I’m also worried I’ll regret not going tomorrow if it turns out I could have handled it fine.

She has some other options on the horizon, but it’s still a difficult position.

I have another potential job I applied for, but the person said she would let me know by Wednesday, and it’s now Sunday, so I’m assuming I probably didn’t get it, although I haven’t had an actual rejection. I don’t financially need this job immediately, as I have savings/inheritance coming when I’m 18, and I’m starting college in September.

I don’t want to be a quitter or give up just because I’m struggling, but the physical anxiety and impact on my mood are becoming overwhelming.

Should I quit this job, persevere for longer, or at least do tomorrow’s shift and decide during my three days off?

Sometimes you just need to acknowledge when enough is enough.

What did Reddit think?

A little space could provide some much-needed perspective.

Exposure therapy can be a heck of a cure.

If nothing else, this job can provide her with valuable skills she can use later in life.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an ex-Army vet who quit his security guard job after he doesn’t get a promised raise.

When you let a toxic boss get their way, you only give them more power.

This teen is the kind of employee who shows up wanting to get it right, which made the treatment she got even harder to justify.

Nobody handed her a real training plan, yet she was expected to perform like she’d been doing this for years. That’s the trick a lot of workplaces pull: skip the setup, then act shocked when someone stumbles.

Her coworkers weren’t consistent allies, either. Help one shift, hostility the next, which is exhausting in its own right.

The real issue was never her effort. It was a system that set her up to fail.