This is not even a tale of woe, just a peculiar feeling I experienced the other day.
I use to work in IT, mostly doing freelance stuff, often for private individuals and small companies. The pay was…not great. There were good weeks. There were very bad weeks when people just stiffed you. I was supporting another gig on the side, but eventually I got to the point where I had to make a big decision: move to support a partner or break up. I moved, and that led to going back to school.
The plan was for me to become an academic (I know, I know) but by the end of the undergrad experience I was so burned out and miserable I couldn't consider it.
But hey, I had a really high GPA undergrad degree. I had years of tech experience. Surely that would count for something. I ended up doing manual labour and then working in a call centre and back on a farm at one point. Every interview I scored would casually mention how they were barely paying minimum wage. I now had student loans and I'd really like dental benefits. Fuckit, I got into a Masters programme that bragged about 94% placement, huge growing field, yadda. Graduated and ended up doing minimum wage labour again.
Anyway, eventually a friend of a friend got me an interview with the local municipality to do tech support for…eh, ok, i guess money. But I was eventually turned down because I didn't have an A+ cert (I had two degrees, ten year's experience but no A+). After being turned down they said they would keep an eye out for me. How about this clerical officer position that paid better than IT? I could do that. I had customer service experience!
No, you needed something called a Business Computing, a two year diploma at the local college. I had never heard of it. The syllabus was “we teach you how to use computing for work.” And this was a no fucking around requirement: the system kicked you out if you tried to apply without it. Welp. All to, you know, process parking fees and hand out recycling bins.
A year later, I have a job related to my masters in a small town government two towns over. Shit pay for the qualifications they wanted, but it was ok apart from the absolutely shit pay. I worked beside, but not with municipal workers. We chatted. They did their thing, I did mine. The contract ended, I did something else. A few months later, they started asking to hire me back for another year. You're so good at [thing] we need you to come back. We'll give you a pay rise. We will increase your title. It's going to be great for your resume.
So I come back, doing the old job, but…there's so many “other duties as assigned” I am basically now a junior staff member backing up the municipal staff. I am better paid than most of them (yay), but I am also doing their jobs and expected to leap up for my titled job to assist with the Other Duties As Assigned. I'm actually nervous doing the job I was hired for, because as far as everyone in the office is concerned, I am the newbie floater, and I should be ready to be the newbie floater at all times. Screw off, guys, I am trying to get the project you hired me to do done! But nope:
Processing parking fees and handing out recycling bins.
So somehow I've gone from “absolutely not qualified for this role in this region” to “underpaid fancier role” to “better paid but somehow doing the job I was absolutely not qualified for two towns over”
Which is all a very long way of saying: qualifications, experience requirements, job descriptions? It's all makey up bullshit.