A demotivated dollar-store worker quit retail after an impressed customer told her to apply to a law firm. She got the job, and now earns $3-an-hour more, plus benefits.

• Retail workers across the US are abandoning low-paying jobs at stores and restaurants for new opportunities.
• Christina Noles, 34, is among them. Noles left her job at a dollar store for a law firm, she told The Washington Post.
• She learned about the law-firm job from a customer who was impressed by her work ethic, she said.

A dollar-store worker who was tired of working in retail quit her job to work at a law firm after being recommended by a customer, The Washington Post reported.

Christina Noles, 34, was earning $10.25-an-hour working closing shifts during the pandemic, and increasingly felt that a future in retail was "untenable," she told The Post. During one busy shift, a customer approached Noles and said they were impressed by her work ethic. The customer told Noles to apply for an opening at their law firm.

Noles applied, and was offered the job shortly after, per The Post. She is now pulling in $3-and-hour more than at the dollar store, plus benefits, as an intake specialist, she said.

"There's a part of me that feels like this must all be a dream," Noles told The Post. "There were a lot of things I liked about retail: I love talking to people and helping them, but the pandemic made me realize it was untenable."

Noles is one of many retail workers abandoning low-paying jobs at stores and restaurants to find new opportunities.

As Insider's Mary Meisenzahl reported, many workers say demanding customers and the stress of the work isn't worth their while.

Read more: Dissatisfied retail workers are leaving the industry because of abusive customers and low pay, and that's making the labor crunch worse

Businesses across the US are grappling with a national labor shortage, and are trying to attract workers back. Some US business owners have had to get more creative on who they hire, and are tapping teen workers to fill these spaces.

According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, cited by The Wall Street Journal, teen unemployment rates in the US are at their lowest level since 1953, and the number of teens in work has reached the highest rate since 2008.

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