Lock Please, Issue Resolved
 

I would really appreciate any advise anyone could give me. I'm in college right now and majoring in research psychology and I'm working in retail as a third key.

Lately my job has been really stressful. People rely on me too much and I've been getting called in left and right. The thing is...I'm really easily manipulated, so when they have a good reason for calling in I tend to come in for them, especially since they are good at manipulating. And they always have good reasons.

I don't have any serious reasons for not coming in most of the time, since I don't know yet what my homework will be when they call ahead of time. Then I end up with tons of homework that I don't do and I treat school like it's less important than work, when it's definitely more important to me.

I recently got enough financial aid that I could technically get by without working, but I'm not sure whether that's the right thing to do or not. I could save the money so that when I go to a larger college rather than community college, I won't have to take out as big of a loan. But there's also the fact that work gets in the way of school and I'd definitely get better grades without work.

And if that isn't confusing enough, I just got offered a job at a mental health ward helping teens. Obviously this is much closer to my major than retail is, although I'm majoring in research psychology, not applications or therapy. Either way, it will look better when I'm trying to get a psychology related job...unless of course it's even more stressful and causes my grades to slip even more.

I guess it's a question of whether education or experience is more important. The job sounds really intense and I'm scared to try it. I guess sometimes you have to restrain people and it involves leading group therapies. I'm sure they have training, but it sounds like a very big challenge and I'm not sure if I need a big challenge on top of school right now.

Maybe you need to tell your job you can't "come in" for people anymore due to school and wanting to get better grades... if they fire you for it they're idiots and technically aren't allowed to fire you for that type of reason... as for the one closer to your major... well you might want to look into it and see maybe what the actually job entails... maybe talk to the manager or talk to the employees there and see what they do on a daily basis?

Well... whatever you choose I wish you the best of luck ^^

You're right I do need to be more firm with the people at my job. I've told them that I can't spend so much time there before...they leave me alone for a while and then forget and start calling me again. I won't go into it too much, but the store company I work for doesn't seem to care much whether things are legal or not. I do need to get better at saying no to individuals though. I think I will look into the other job more closely. They probably have a website too. Thank you for your advise and the good luck.

Thanks for the advice kreest. If I do decide to go for the new job, I'll keep the shadowing thing in mind. That's something I hadn't even considered.

I think that I'm going to end up sticking with my job through the summer and then possibly going without a job next fall when school starts up again. I'm guessing that you're right about grades being more important, but I'll ask my psychology teacher what he thinks too. Thanks again for the advice!

Well, my boyfriend worked at a place like that for awhile.
He says it's almost like being a nanny, only with teens that are not very well behaved and that don't listen well. He says you are responsible for a lot of stuff, like giving out meds, documentation, and such. He says yes, it can be intense and violent. He had kids bite and hit him and would have to use the techniques he learned to restrained them.
I don't want to scare you more than you already are, but I feel that it's better for you to be informed. If these are things that you don't feel you could do, you might not want to take the job.
You should still look into the job, and ask all the questions you can because it may not be the same job that my boyfriend had.
Good luck with school and everything.

Thanks for the information about what it can be like to work with troubled teens haven. That was very helpful. From what the person who was offering me the job said, it did sound like the same kind of job your boyfriend was doing. She was talking about the kids beating the employees up. I've never even been in a physical fight before so that idea does kind of scare me away from the job.

Education or job
 

Education is always more important. That way you can get more jobs, you should try to get less clients to work with so you're not manipulated and could think it out.

Thanks for the advice everyone. To update, I just quit my job. Tomarrow is my last day. I'm very excited and feel like a huge burden has been lifted off me. I'm sure this will help me do better at school and improve my grades. Thanks again to everyone who gave me advice. This can probably be locked now.