Life has considerably gotten better since I quit working at the food factory. I tell everyone that cares to listen to never work at a food factory or a warehouse as a picker but if I'm being honest, you should take any legal job you can find if it's the only available option. With my strong disdain for factory/warehouse jobs, you'd think I worked there for a long while. I was only there for 2 months which seemed like an awful long time to me. I hated it so much and would cry every time I had to go. It was a 10hr shift, 6pm to 4am of standing while making sandwiches. It was actually 15hrs if commute time is added and I had to do this twice a week. Twice a week of doing this doesn't sound like a lot, but my body needed more than the other 5 days to recover from the stress.
It was the first job I'd gotten a week after I arrived the country and I had been eager to start earning seeing that we arrived with almost zero to our name and were neck deep in debt. When I resumed school a month later, I met lots of people still job hunting who wouldn't stop talking about how lucky I was to have been working since my arrival. The same people couldn't believe it when I told them I had stopped working at the factory and now job hunting. If I could read their minds based on their expressions, I think they must have called me a stupid girl making dumb decisions.
I had a shift one day and I was all dressed up. I burst into tears and said I couldn't do it. I had just recovered from being ill and the thought of putting my body through another bout of stress that night was overwhelming. I immediately sent a text to the agency to cancel and then an email to respectfully quit and claim my holiday pay. If I hadn't abruptly quit, I probably would have been working there for much longer as there is a high tendency to get stuck there. Over a month later, I got a support worker role with a charity organisation. I was so happy about it and I still am because in comparison to my previous job here, this job is a breeze plus I acquire transferable skills here that would be useful for other job applications.
In regards to job applications, my advice to first timers in a new country, especially as a student would be to not be in such a hurry to start working immediately you arrive. If you're not built for the freezer and picker-packer life, you're just not. There are several jobs available but you might not be open to see them if you're in too much of a hurry to begin whatever.
So far so good, I'm alive and kicking, almost done with school and will soon be able to work full-time. My job does offer sponsorship to work and live in the UK but at the moment I'm unsure if that is the route I'd be going with. There are promising opportunities for me here and I know these things can take time but then again, I do have a lucky streak so I'm hopeful.
