as to what to do now.

my boss told me yesterday that i need to reevaluate where my priorities lie -- work or school.

for those of you that dont know, im currently going to school. im attending the University of Oklahoma in the Mathematics Education schema. I.E. i want to teach high school math class. ive worked for this company for 6 years now, working just about every department available, in addition to supervising the jewelry department while i was supervisor, the jewelry department regularly had the HIGHEST penetration of every jewelry department in the district. that means that while the store may not have been on par with the other stores in the district (theres 11 stores in our district), the jewelry departments peice of the pie chart of sales at our store was consistently quite a bit larger than the other jewelry departments pie charts. i was the supervisor of jewelry for 2 years while going to school.

recently i was moved to shoes supervisor. shortly thereafter i went i vacation during the Back to School season (which id been planning for 6 months, already okay'd through the store manager, and was completely upfront with my boss about). ive been back a week and am struggling to straighten the department back out again before the christmas season comes and i want to die.

but yesterday, my boss said that he "seriously doubts whether it will continue to be advantageous to him or the store to have a shoes supervisor with restricted availability."

and he wrote me up for job abandonment, on the basis that i was spending too much time in the office. i have to say, the only time ive spent in the office the last week was to print signs for my display shoes. theres a lot, because ive been gone for 3 weeks. i tried to explain that to him, but he didnt want an explanation. he wanted me to open my availability up completely, which means no school.

my fiance says i should quite school this semester. but if i do that, theres no reason to assume next semester will be any different, or the semester after that.

this is not my career. this is "a job" to get me through school. but who else will meet my requirements?

i have to make >=$1300 a month, and i can only work MWF 2-10:30 and any time Sat/Sun. i have an associates degree in Secondary Education, but to the best of my knowledge, theres nothing i can do with it. A degree for teaching is only good if youre accredited through the state, basically. and they wont accredit me until ive got a bachelors degree.

monster.com has nothing, though im continuing to look
the university has nothing to offer
a couple of competing retailers have interest until i mention my availability
no public school around me is hiring, at least, not according to the websites


. . . so im at a loss.

Tough it out get things back up to par in your Dept.. Show them they are wrong.

Well, I can understand for people that need money during school, you may not have a choice but to find some sort of work. You're going to school for your career, so if you think about it, you're basically quitting your future job as a teacher so you can work at this current place. I would never advocate someone quitting school to keep a job unless it'* necessary for the famly, etc. This place seems to want to lock you in, you should definitely try and find some alternative to quitting school, even for a semester (or use your semester off to find a new job that will let you work during school).

sorry, i forgot to mention the most important fact:
he told me he was giving me 2 weeks to try to find alternate employment or to open my availability, then hed start accepting applications for my job.

i emailed the district manager and asked that i be able to speak with him next time hes in town (later this week). ive always gotten along with him, and he knows im a good worker. at least, i think he knows that.

Honestly, I wouldn't quit school. Exactly like you said, why would the next semester be any different? Continuing your education and getting a job that you WANT would be much more worthwile in the long run IMHO.

The bad part is that you NEED to make that much money every month, is there any way you could eliminate some of that needed money?

monthly, i pay

$310 for my car payment
$150 for my car insurance
$200 for gas, roughly
~$600 for all the incidentals that come from being alive (place to sleep, food, all the bills from having a house)
------
$1260 a month

tuition is $3500 a semester, plus about $500-$750 for books.

Retail sales sucks sometimes. I was front end manager for compUSA for 7 years and I spent most that time sitting in the cash office and the operations manager hated that but hey I had thongs under control.

Here'* a thought. If yo quit school won't you have to start repaying your student loans immediately? I thought that is how it worked. Can you afford to do that? I know you don't have many options, but just wanted to point that out. Maybe I am wrong though.
Or, do you not have loans and just pay our tuition as you go?
I see you said it $3500 a semester.

ive managed over the last two years to avoid student loans.

i still have a little over $3000 in student loans left to pay off from then, but they dont start sending bills until 6 months after you drop from full-time status.

and then its $50 a month.