Too many hats

Jo Gale didn’t become a manager at a global fast fashion retailer on purpose; it was part of the visual merchandiser job she was hired to do. 

She did love the creative aspects of her job—she had gone to school for textile design, and liked the challenge of making displays look great—but the management part felt a little more difficult to get used to. “In the fast fashion world, those companies make money by getting people to do multiple jobs,” she says, “So I was all of a sudden in charge of staff in addition to my merchandising responsibilities.” 

From the jump, this aspect of the job didn’t feel like a good fit. “I came into it with a kind of punk rock attitude that just never went away,” she says. “Bei