Having to go through a lengthy and strenuous process of employment verification for a government contract job I am going to start brought back memories from one of the hardest times in my life.
Around 9 ago I used to be a Consumer Support Technician at an antivirus company that primarily marketed on the Home Shopping Network, i.e. aimed at older/retired people with some expendable income. All I did was answer phone calls for technical issues with the program, assist people installing it, and run triage on cleaning their system if they got a virus. I also had to deal with scared people getting the fake “You have a virus! Call Microsoft at this number!” pop-ups in Edge, back when Edge came out and had no pop-up controls.
There were only around 8 of us on the Consumer side, about the same number on the Business side, and around 200 other people in the company. We had, I think, around 10,000+ users. And only 16 total people to handle tech support issues. I got good at that job. I was able to determine issues and resolve them quickly, or send them to our developers if it was some program failure. I helped calm people down when they thought they were hacked. I was even on a few three-way calls with users and the scummy “Microsoft Tech Support” people, telling the caller this “Tech” is a scammer and making the scammer rage. I would train new hires on the product and make sure they could handle it all themselves. I averaged around 40+ calls a day. I kept my call times low while still maintaining quality service. I ended up taking around 10,000 calls in a year. The customers were happy, my manager was happy, and upper management was happy.
I was only making $12/hour. I chose the cheapest option for medical insurance, and declined vision and dental. I would often clock in early to get some extra OT pay. The call queue closed at 9PM, but any calls still in the queue after 9PM had to be cleared out, so we often worked later to handle that. I was lucky if I got $800 on my paycheck. Every month was a very delicate balancing game of making sure I had enough money for rent and utilities, as well as food and litter for my cat. Food for myself came dead last. I considered it a good month if I had $50 left to buy food with. Work did provide free snacks in the break room, things like packets of cup-a-soup, cereal bars, etc. I would always leave work with some in my pocket. When food was catered in for the sales team and people asked if others would like to take the leftovers home, I was always first to respond. There were times when my dinner was spoonfuls of peanut butter. If I was lucky enough to have some extra money, I'd buy tortillas and put peanut butter on that. I'm 5'7″ and I was only 100 pounds back then.
When my yearly performance review came around my manager told me I was doing an absolutely stellar job. My performance was out of the park, call times were low and customers were generally happy. My ability to diagnose issues quickly and effectively was praised. I got “Exceeds Expectations” on almost everything. When I asked about pay raises, he dropped that bomb: “We don't do raises here. You'll need to move to a different department to get more money.” He said this with a straight face. My rent was going up, like rent does every year, and $12/hour was going to not be enough anymore. He gets paid more than me to watch sport videos on his computer and barely do any work, and he's telling me, someone who actually works harder than he does, that I won't be getting a raise.
I found out about a week later that everyone else in the company got raises, except for all of the technical support staff. I couldn't just stop working because I didn't want to be homeless, but I did stop putting in effort. I wasn't as quick on calls anymore. I stopped with my friendly customer service voice and just used a neutral tone that has been described by my girlfriend as “the verbal equivalent of resting bitch face.” I no longer trained new people. I started shit talking in our department chat shared with the business techs and the developers. They couldn't fire me because I still did a good job and they couldn't afford to let the call queues reach disastrous levels. And they knew that I knew. I stole more snacks from the break room to offset the cost of food I was giving up as rent was going up, because they could at least afford to replace them, even if they couldn't afford to give me a raise. Every time someone wanted to speak to a manager or supervisor I didn't even try to de-escalate the situation, I would just tell my manager there's an unhappy customer that wants to speak with him. Maybe you should do your fucking job now instead of watching sports videos, David.
Around that time one of the people I previously trained and helped out left. He was a cool dude who would still come to me for advice and information after getting good at the job. After almost a year of continuous job searching and suffering at this job, he reached out to me to ask if I was interested in working at a Medicare and Medicaid company he was at. He was moving to a new department and recommended me as his replacement. I jumped on his offer. They were impressed with all of the things I had done at my antivirus job. They wanted to hire me at the end of the interview. I was hoping to make $15 or $16/hour. They offered me $20/hour. The next day I gave my manager 1 week's notice.
During my exit interview with HR, I told them all about how us techs didn't get raises, despite all the work we did. I pointed out my previous review and all of the numbers to back it up and thought no raise was insulting. The HR lady seemed very surprised that we were told this. She asked about me staying there and I flat out said no. Not for that little pay. She asked about my new job and I only told her my new pay, stating clearly that they did offer yearly raises, and options to move up in the company.
I was able to get my old team lead a job in the same team at my new company, and he told me that after I left the call queues went from manageable to “Oh god, everyone and everything is on fire!” They had to hire 3 people to replace me because of the amount of calls I was taking, and 1 of them up and quit a few months in. They apparently had money to hire people, but I guess raises were too much. I left the Medicare job after nearly 5 years for the one I'm currently at, and I'm about to start a new job as a System Administrator for an aerospace company near me making $40/hour, so I've come a long way from struggling to live at $12/hour.
I feel like I lost something working at that job that I haven't gotten back. It really colored my attitude when it came to working.
Points to clarify as they didn't really fit well into my story:
I would sometimes hit up the local food pantry when I could. I couldn't get much, but that place definitely helped and I'm eternally grateful to places like it. I donate food to them when I can because I know that struggle.
I had food stamps, but it was only $30/month. It really helped when rent went up.
I didn't get money from relatives, because it wasn't something I was comfortable asking for. I was able to make rent and pay bills, I just couldn't afford much food, let alone anything extra. My relatives did, however, give me food when they could. It wasn't a lot, but a couple cans of soup or vegetables and some fresh grapes where life savers. My mother brought me a whole roasted chicken from Publix once and my cat and I ate like kings for a few days.
I ate so much ramen that I couldn't even smell it without getting violently ill until recently. Same thing with peanut butter.
I couldn't afford to move because my apartment was already my cheapest option, and I definitely couldn't afford an application fee, admin fee, and first month's rent for a new place. Nor could I move in with family, or have someone I don't trust move in with me.