Just got laid off after being on a PIP from a weird workplace…any advice on where to go next?

Hello everyone, I (32M) was recently let go from my job after getting placed on a PIP (2 days before my wedding mind you) that lasted for 1 month. I will provide some backstory below:

I transitioned to an office role in April of this year. I had been working in hospitality management for years and was getting tired of the schedule and long hours for not enough pay. My boss at the restaurant and I had been working on fleshing out a more administrative role as the business grew and he opened more locations, but he ultimately told me that he would not be able to provide me with that flexibility for at least another 2-3 years. I was not willing to wait for that empty promise. There are many other reasons I left, but that was the main one.

Fast forward to April 2024, I land a new office job as an HR Generalist. Better pay, better hours, more vacation, on the job learning/training, it was a great move. I had been doing all of the HR responsibilities at my previous job but this was a big career shift as I had never worked in an office setting. I was very upfront and honest about my experience going into it, and they said they would train me and be patient and my lack of office experience was not going to count against me. They liked me as a cultural fit and said that was mainly what they were looking for.

3 months in I still received little to no training. The only “training” I would get would be an SOP loosely written out but missing fine details (Think cliffnotes on subjects, no details or fine tuned specific instructions. For an HR position that is very detail oriented, I need the details) My department was small, literally just my boss and I; if I had any questions she would usually get flustered and frustrated and tell me I am distracting her from her duties and she does not have time to help me. If there was anyone else to ask a question to I absolutely would, but she is the only person I could liaise with. This went on for months, and any time I would ask a question she would poke holes in what I was saying and try to understand what I did not understand and why I did not understand it, but confuse both of us in the process because she did not just answer questions like a normal person. Sometimes I would just have a quick question recapping a verbal conversation of a direct action item, something like:

“Hey in relation to that meeting about X, I am going to email Jessica about what we talked about”

“Why are you telling me this”

“I am confirming our conversation and letting you know that this will be taken care of, was there anything you wanted to add to our agenda?”

“We spoke about this already”

“I am aware, just want to keep you in the loop”

“Do you not have an agenda? What are you confused about? Why are you asking this? I don’t have time to help”

“I am just double checking if there was anything else to add since we spoke last week, I will email Jessica, no help needed.”

She always assumed the worst, micro managed whenever she could, and always managed to trip me up by getting flustered and confused and making a big deal out of normal questions. The above exchange could have been summed up with a simple, “Sure, send the email to Jessica, I have nothing to add”. If I did not let her know about the email to Jessica, she would have asked me why I didn’t say anything to her. It got to the point where I wouldn’t tell her things because of how many holes she would poke in them, and if I got it wrong I would just accept it and not bother explaining because she would not listen. Explanations were viewed as “Defensive behavior”. After months of this, I was getting heavy anxiety walking into the office every morning and would need a Xanax to work properly. I think they were looking for someone more senior, who just “knows” the answer to everything.

I was placed on a PIP two days before my wedding, went on my honeymoon, stressed the entire time, and for one month after that any minor error, even a font size too big on an email, was accounted for and used towards my PIP against me. The goal of the PIP was to have 1 month of no questions or mistakes, an impossible feat given my skillset and her unwillingness to actually help.

I was let go last Thursday and am on the job hunt now. I am happy to not work at my old job, but now I do not know where to go from here. Are all office jobs and HR jobs like this? Are the people similar? I really do not want to go back to working in restaurants again but I am doubting my skillset and don’t know if I want to go into another office culture that feels “toxic” (I hate when people use that work, but that’s the only word I can think of to describe how I felt at my last job). I excelled at full life cycle recruitment, onboarding, payroll, and employee relations; most of my issues were with compliance and technology, things that I needed to ask questions about but did not receive any help/training with.

Does anyone have any insight into where my next step should land? Feeling a bit lost right now.