Long time lurker here posting on a throwaway account.
Recently I left working as a restaurant manager to take up a part time job working with my father in athletics. I made good money at my old job and my wife and I were able to save up enough to buy a home we both have masters degrees and up until recently both had jobs paying in the range of $50k per year.
I took the job in coaching because I couldn't stand my old job, the place made me miserable and the nepotism and lack of professionalism was driving me insane, while I don't like my current situation I have no regrets about leaving that place. I was originally told that there would be long hours at the start of the season because the private academy I'd be helping coach at would be building a field that would be completed in early August. This would mean that I would spend a week or two driving the team to practice roughly an hour away in a van until the field was ready. One week of super long hours before I could find a second job to supplement my pay.
Its mid September and the field isn't looking to be done until November, its been over three weeks since anyone has worked on the project and nobody seems to give a shit. Im stuck working 6 or 7 days a week with 60+ hour work weeks at a job that pays me $12k per year. Every morning I come in, do my work, drive an hour to a “home” game/practice, then drive home. Some days I have to stay later to run study hall for the players or we play an away game up to 4-5 hours away. I cannot pick up a second job because I have a long commute home as well and my hours vary by the week. Sometimes we have games on Saturday and Sunday and I don't get a day off those weeks.
The job itself is great and I can't stress that enough, I'm passionate about what I do and I knowingly made the choice to take a pay cut to make the jump back into this line of work. The fact of the matter is though that I could be making more by working 40 hours a week at a minimum wage job instead of spending my entire life working at this place. My father tells me to do nothing but focus on succeeding, and talks about how he made $7k a year back in the day and had to get a second job to make ends meet. I did the math though and that $7k a year paycheck is worth twice what I make now and he had the chance to actually get a second job so he made even more than twice what I make today. How the fuck to I get him to grasp that I can't live like this?
What we thought was going to be a short period of my wife taking up some extra financial strain is turning into her being left as the sole meaningful provider for us. I'm not sure how long we can pay off our house as it stands because I'm burning through my savings so quickly without a way to supplement my income.
I'm so fucking angry, we did god damn everything correct. Got educations, worked hard, saved up against all of the fucking odds and bought a house. We're the rare as hell millennial success story that didn't hinge on rich parents. Every penny that went into buying my house came from the work we put in together. Now its about to all come tumbling down because I tried to pivot into a line of work that didn't make me fucking miserable, and this shithole is perfectly fine having me work 60+ hours a week for dogshit pay despite my education and experience. I can't even complain because they brought me in as a contractor and will just let me go if I say anything to them.
I feel so fucking stupid. I hate this place. I hate this job. I hate this shithole country that let everything get to this point so some rich assholes could live life marginally better.