Clueless & need advice asap

Hi, I'm Sheila - obviously.I will say right away - I am not very computer savvy. Worked in retail 25 yrs and couldn't really afford a personal one, so only used at work - for very little. Anyway, I now have a chromebook I really like, but need a windows os laptop for a new job(working from home) where the computer programs used are windows based. Purchased an Asus VivoBook 15 from Walmart.com. Took a frigging week to get here, and it constantly will disconnect from the internet. When I click the troubleshooting, it will tell me it doesn't know what the problem is. We have wifi, and chromebook doesn't have these issues. At this point, I just need advice on a different laptop. This is what I will be using the laptop for:

• personal internet research (I love to look up things I know nothing about)
• watching Netflix - don't really watch a television anymore, so good resolution, full HD if possible
• job-related work - unfortunately I don't know everything this will entail, except programs are windows based. So maybe a decent amount of memory? I do know that I will be using Zoom a lot. I don't know what all affects how well zoom works, but I figure I would like a decent webcam, and I would guess it affects the processor speed?
• I prefer it be as fast as possible (who wouldn't?)
• I need all of this under $300 if possible, no more than 400.

I would appreciate any advice I can get. I have a habit recently of buying "lemon" products. The chromebook I have runs slower that it should (going to contact Acer) - only 3-4 months old and have tried factory reset. The Samsung A20 I got in April from Metro PCS keeps feezing, etc. Had it looked at and they wiped it and restored - talked to Samsung today, am going to send it in to have the motherboard replaced. Now this ASUS that won't stay connected to the internet - I also factory reset this. I got this laptop a week ago. Thanks in advance!