The “dream job” concept tends to get idealized, particularly for teachers, who are perceived to be responding to a calling. Molding minds, educating the future generation it sounds noble, satisfying, even divine. Yet, for most teachers, the experience is much grungier. Endless hours, modest salaries, and continuous pressure can convert passion to burnout. This was the route Maggie has been on until she made an audacious decision in 2022: she quit teaching after eight years and got a job at Costco. Her tale, which has become viral on TikTok, is not merely about a career transition it’s also a lesson about refashioning success and regaining happiness.
1. The Burden of Teaching: A Personal Tipping Point
Maggie Perkins adored teaching. Eight years of pouring her heart into middle school and high school history and language arts classrooms, public and private, was not enough. It wasn’t a job; it was who she was. But by 2022, age 30, the fissures were irreparable. Making $47,000 annually with a master’s degree and almost ten years under her belt, she was putting in 60-hour weeks, much of it uncompensated overtime. Administrative work, testing pressure, and the pandemonium of pandemic teaching left her exhausted. “I was depleted,” she later testified, “and I felt this profound sense of purposelessness.”
I have noticed it in friends who are teachers talented, committed individuals who approach every school year with optimism, to be whittled away by bureaucracy and unrealistic expectations. Maggie’s tale resonated because it captures a larger reality: teaching, though fulfilling, too often asks more of its practitioners than it rewards them with. The 2022 Merrimack College Teacher Survey attested to this, with 44% of teachers planning on leaving the teaching force within two years. Maggie wasn’t alone; she was among an increasing tide of instructors suffering burnout.
Her 2018 try at coping by way of “quiet quitting” grinding out grading on autopilot and holding to contracted hours briefly helped. But it wasn’t sufficient. The systemic problems, from all that paperwork to dealing with student behavior, got to her. So, she jumped, exchanging chalkboards for Costco’s store aisles. Friends and relatives raised an eyebrow, querying, “Is Costco really your dream job?” The comment hurt, suggesting she’d compromised. But Maggie was thinking differently. She wasn’t downscaling she was opting for herself.
2. Costco’s New Chapter: Staying Balanced
When Maggie joined Costco in September 2022, it was a pragmatic step a “good enough for now” opportunity. She had received offers from Amazon as well as Costco but opted for Costco, attracted by the company’s image for treating workers reasonably well. Beginning on the memberships team at a new Athens, Georgia, warehouse, she made $18.50 an hour less than her teacher’s salary but had a predictable 40-hour week with definite breaks: two 15-minute breaks and a 30-minute lunch. A $1-per-hour bump after 1,000 hours was an automatic benefit, something teaching hardly ever provided.
The work was hard on the body, with her spending most of the day on her feet. But the building was a epiphany. In contrast to teaching, where evenings and weekends bleed into work, Costco provided structure. Maggie could leave work at work. This in itself was a lifeline, allowing her time to be present with her husband and two children, to foster hobbies, to breathe.
Then there was a twist. An attack of laryngitis rendered working the cash register impossible, so Maggie asked for a temporary transfer to the bakery department. There, something clicked. The satisfaction she derived baking cakes for milestones a 90th birthday, a PhD party provided a concrete feeling of making a difference. “It was so satisfying,” she said, “to be part of someone’s special day.” In contrast to teaching, where results seemed abstract and far-off, the bakery provided instant gratification. It was a modest but deep change, demonstrating to her that purpose might arise in the unlikeliest of ways.
3. Finding Purpose in a Corporate World
Maggie’s tale did not conclude in the bakery. Costco’s marketing training team visit reignited a new potential. Seeing them at work, she recognized that her teaching skills planning, communicating, working with an audience could flourish in a corporate environment. When an opportunity became available in Issaquah, Washington, she took it. Today, as a content developer and marketing trainer, she produces training materials and goes to warehouses to train new hires.
This job is like a come-full-circle experience. “I still apply my teaching ability,” she reports, “with the end in mind, thinking about the audience, and assessing what they’ve learned.” But as opposed to those classroom days, expectations are defined, workload is reasonable, and pay 50% higher than her salary as a teacher measures her worth. It’s what a 15-year veteran teacher might make, but Maggie accomplished it in a year at Costco.
Most impressive is the way she’s realigned her relationship with work. Teaching had consumed her sense of self, with not much else in her life. Today, she sets boundaries. “My priority is a clear distinction between my personal and professional life,” she says. That translates to giving work energy when she’s at work but leaving it at home to go for hikes with her family or work on her part-time doctorate in language and literacy education. “Never felt more complete,” she announced to her TikTok following, now more than 150,000 strong.
4. A Broader Lesson: Burnout and the Caregiving Trap
Maggie’s story highlights a systemic problem afflicting caregiving professions such as teaching, social work, or nursing. Such work, typically viewed as a calling, requires all-consuming passion but rewards little low wages, minimal support, and boundless “extra stuff” such as committees or field trips. She refers to it as a “deep scarcity mindset” that dismantles professionalism and wellbeing. Her TikTok remark that went viral “my passion couldn’t pay my bills, and it couldn’t help me sleep at night” speaks to the despair of burnout.
Burnout is not just an individual thing, it’s a loss to society. Tired teachers translate to fewer enthusiastic educators for children. Signs such as insomnia, depression, or disconnection (one teacher wrote on Maggie’s TikTok of losing happiness in hobbies) reveal the cost. Maggie’s tip? Establish boundaries, understand your role, and request tools. It’s something she learned the hard way but now adheres to, building a sustainable career that energizes instead of depleting her.
5. A New Definition of Success
Maggie’s story flips the question we’ve all been asked: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” She turns it into something more profound: “Who do you want to be?” For her, it’s a woman who’s present for her family, engaged in her work, and free to grow whether through her job, her studies, or her outdoor pursuits. Costco wasn’t the “dream job” society said it should be, but it was the springboard to a life that she loves.
Her TikTok videos have sparked a movement, resonating with teachers, Costco workers, and others burned out by their jobs. Comments like “I couldn’t read a book to wind down for two years” show how universal her struggle is. As she celebrated her first anniversary at Costco, Maggie radiated joy: “I’ve never been happier.” Her journey proves that fulfillment isn’t tied to a job title but to a life where work serves you, not defines you.
If you find yourself stuck, Maggie’s journey is a reminder to reconsider your course. Success does not necessarily resemble what the world demands. Oftentimes, it is just the steady check, the cake made for a stranger’s milestone, and time spent with the people you care about.
