I'm 55 with a college degree, working in retail to stay afloat. It's been hard to get past the shame and find purpose.

At first, I felt shame about working a retail job. Now, I'm grateful to be doing it and recognize the value of helping others in different ways. Tammy Rabideau At 55, I took a part-time job at a department store. I didn't expect to be working retail at my age. I have a degree and decades of experience in social work, but I liked this job's flexibility. This job offers less stress and only slightly lower pay than another role in my field I applied for. I'd been up since 4 a.m., sitting at my computer with an email ready to rescind my acceptance of a customer-service job at a large department store. It was August 2025, and I was supposed to start that morning. Shame had me hovering over the "send" button. I wondered how it had come to this.