My job, on the outside looking in, is pretty great – I make over COL for my area, my team is good, and I work from home. I can't complain about it to anyone in my life because I always get “it could be worse”.
Thing is – I am my job, and my job owns me.
Yes I make over COL but all that extra goes to debt incurred during the pandemic.
Yes, I work from home but in another time zone – meaning the only time I get to myself or to have a social life is a few hours in the late morning (which I more often than not spend online cause I'm a loser). I haven't gone out for dinner, seen my friends, done anything social in months.
This job has ended my marriage. The last six times I requested time off it's been either denied, rescinded, or approved too late and my spouse is sick of it. We spend no time together at home unless I have my laptop in front of me since I am working late into the night.
Plus I have no healthy work boundaries – my team is down two people so I get texts and emails all the time which I of course respond to, I can't lose my job. The company has a lovely habit of firing people without notice – we get emails every Monday of the people fired at EOD Friday, thanking them for their service or whatever. It's like a thinly disguised threat.
Weekends? For errands and housework.
Plus, it's been so long since I've seen anyone that I don't get invited out anymore, to anything.
I have requested new hours, accommodations, time off, time off for mental health, advance vacation bookings, everything I can think of and I keep hitting brick walls.
Basically over the last two years, this job has taken over my entire life. It provides enough for me to live on, so that I can continue working, and it's taken everything else away from me.
I feel like a little lizard in a terrarium and the job is my heat lamp that I can't move away from.