The story of how my life became richer after switching from a 2500 yen/hour job to an 1100 yen/hour part-time job

Back when I quit my part-time medical job paying 2500 yen an hour and tried to apply to a company in a completely different industry paying 1100 yen an hour.
I wonder how many people tried to stop me back then.

At that time, I wonder how many people tried to stop me.


“Oh, that’s such a waste!”

“Did you start to hate your job?”

“Is it too hard?”

“Did you cause a medical accident or something?!”

I was showered with so many words like that that my heart felt drenched, and I went home kicking pebbles, thinking, “N-nobody supports me…” I gazed at the sunset, then stared blankly at the full moon, and petted my cat.

I spent the night as if someone had pressed the “click” button on my heart’s remote control and turned it to “low” power.

My heart stayed on “low” for a while, but while it was still low, I decided to think about the word I heard most often from everyone: “wasteful.”
I usually only use the word “wasteful” for things like miso soup left behind by my children or leftover rice crackers, so what does “wasteful” mean in terms of a career…?



Are they talking about money, or is it about quitting a job I’d spent about eight years doing? I didn’t ask for details, but it was probably both.



The tuition for the school I attended to get my national qualification wasn’t for nothing, and the skills and experience I gained since I started working, the things I acquired over eight years, were certainly significant.



I also remembered the face of my grandmother, who was happier than anyone when I passed the national exam, and my chest felt a sharp pang.

On top of that, if I kept receiving an hourly wage of 2500 yen, I would earn 20,000 yen for working 8 hours a day, whereas at 1100 yen an hour, it’s 8800 yen.



Yikes. That’s a difference of 11,200 yen!

If this happens over a month, that’s quite a difference, isn’t it?
I was surprised by the difference in salary and felt a bit nervous.
In eight years, I had become able to handle most tasks,


and I no longer had stomach aches from nervousness the night before work like I did when I was a rookie.
I had experienced my fair share of troubles,

and I had acquired a thick-skinned spirit that allowed me to respond calmly even when problems arose.
Does this mean that those eight years of experience and skills would just flutter away like a little bird?

Conversely, I thought about the “waste” of not switching to the part-time job at the company I was interested in.
It’s not about money.

It’s not about experience or skills.
If I had to say, it would be throwing away the excited feeling of “this looks interesting” or “I want to try this.”

I thought that might be the wasteful thing.
And then,



throwing away the excited feeling of “I want to try this,”

versus throwing away “150,000 yen a month” and “eight years of skills”

which one is more wasteful?

I thought about it while agonizing over it.

The result.
I ended up thinking that throwing away the “feeling of wanting to try” was more wasteful.



I thought that money could somehow be generated, but if I wanted to try something, I might not be able to do it later even if I wanted to, and I couldn’t just manufacture that feeling.


Thankfully, my qualifications wouldn’t disappear,
so I thought, well, if I want to work again, I’ll just work then, with a light heart.


In the end, I quit my high-paying part-time job and had an interview for a part-time job at the company I was interested in.


♦︎

Has it been about seven years since then?
I am still working at the company I interviewed with for that part-time job.

I started as a part-timer, and at first, I did odd jobs and administrative work,
but now I am allowed to do things like the production work I love. The excitement from back then hasn’t faded; in fact, I feel it has grown even more.

Although the content of my work is completely different from my previous job,
I also felt that the work experience I learned in my previous job comes to life in a different way in a completely different job.

In fact, perhaps because I had my previous job,
the good things I learned there are mixed in,
creating a new flavor.

Back then,

the excited feeling of “I want to try this”

and the snag in my heart that made me wonder, “Is it really good for me to keep working like this?”
I’m glad I properly caught those feelings.
I’m glad I didn’t just toss my own feelings into the trash can.
I sometimes think that that is the most wasteful thing in the true sense of the word.