WARNING: rant income
I don't even know where I want to go with this. I'm just frustrated and burnt out and want to vent about it all. Essentially, I will be whining for the next few paragraphs, peruse if you dare.
For starters, I work in health care. I chose my job and my field very specifically, to use my strengths as a scientist to help as many people as I can after listening to everyone in my life say “do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life” when I was younger. Yes, we can alllllll laugh at how true that turned out to be.
The thing is, I do actually like my job. I love it, even! If we all had a UBI and no one had to work, I would still choose this position 10x over, because it really is my calling. I also went into my field to try and right a wrong that was done to a family member of mine years ago (not directly, just to try and ensure that it never has to happen to anyone else ever again on my watch). All that to say, I care deeply about my job, my patients, and what I'm able to put out into the world.
The problem? It seems like the world doesn't give a FUCK about me! Or, more accurately, the people in charge of handing out money don't seem to care enough about my position to pay a living wage. I've gone into lab 8-12 hours a day, 5-7 days a week, every single week, since 2019. No pause because of the pandemic, no pause for the riots (anyone else remember summer of 2020? Am I the only person who was emotionally traumatized by it? K, cool), the fires or massive snow storms. No pause. At all. I've gone to work every day. Every year I get a 3% “cost of living” raise in a city that has absolutely skyrocketed in terms of cost. I can't keep up, rent is rising with every lease renewal, groceries are atrocious quality and 5x the price they were 24 months ago, it's all going to shit and I am absolutely drowning.
And then I come on here…and see people post about having a remote job paying them $100k to do absolutely NOTHING of any value to anyone except rich people, being unhappy with that, and turning around and getting another fancy remote job that now pays $180k while they just need to wiggle a mouse every few minutes for a couple hours a day and get to actually go out and, you know, enjoy life.
What about the people whose jobs can't be done from home? The people who can't just dump all their hard work over the past several decades down the drain in order to get a kushy remote job? And what about the people who depend on people like me! What the hell are they supposed to do if everyone like me actually did drop everything and switch to a random remote job since they seem to be the only well paying positions that even exist anymore? What are they supposed to do?
How do I come to terms with the fact that my job is necessary and vital to the lives of some of our most vulnerable populations, that if no one were to do my job then our entire health care system would collapse, but for some god forsaken reason I am destined to suffer forever for caring about what I do?