I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade, and I'm happy for anyone that manages to get a good job and have a meaningful quality of life…but I'd be lying if I said it didn't demoralize me significantly. To be perfectly honest I do feel like I was scammed in life. I grew up going to the best private schools in my city. I went to a private catholic university over a state school. I always got good grades and test scores throughout my schooling. Often in 99th percentile as a kid. I got a 30 on my ACT (can't remember SAT, but it was when they were doing it out of 2400). I got solid grades in college up until my senior year when I kind of had a mental breakdown and was overworked.
My entire life I was told that the purpose of school was to prepare me for a career and a life of working. I was told that if I worked hard in school, studied hard, and got good grades, that I would be rewarded with a good job. I bought into this, because it made sense to me. People who were intelligent and worked hard in school should be able to get good jobs.
Somehow that just didn't happen for me. I want to blame my major, but I know other people who had the same or similar majors and ended up getting decent jobs. And yes I majored in a liberal arts discipline (I thought being well rounded and having good general big picture knowledge would help me get a job I liked, lol).
All my jobs since graduating college 10 years ago have been shit. I make 18 an hour now, that's after working full time for 10 years. My first job out of college in 2013 paid $13.50 an hour. I've worked in a variety of call centers, I've done helpdesk tech support, I've worked in sales, all with a bilingual capacity. My most recent jobs have been in Operations for tech companies.
Anyway, I was reading a really heartwarming story today, about Korean war vet reuniting with his long lost first love, a woman he met in Japan when he was on leave from service:
That's a link to the story, but here's what stuck out to me
An article dated February 3, 1956 from the local Escanaba newspaper, The Daily Press, was the key in finding Yamaguchi. It was discovered by a woman in Vancouver, Canada, who saw Duane Mann’s story online.
The 23-year-old is a researcher for the History Channel. She said she found the old newspaper article with the headline “Tokyo bride makes life in Escanaba.” That article provided a last name and an address to go on.
Anyway, lovely story, but I'm just wondering how a 23 year old got a job as a researcher for the History channel. I'm sure she's smart, and I'm happy for her, but I know that I could absolutely do that job. I pretty much spend all of my free time researching various topics online so that I can better argue with people anyway. Hell, that's basically all I did in undergrad. My entire course of study was basically researching topics and writing papers and essays about that which I researched.
And…I've never once used any of those skills in real life. Not once have I ever had a high enough position at a company where I was tasked with researching something and finding solutions, or just gathering more data for management. It honestly drives me insane. It feels like I spent the first two decades of my life training for something…and then when I was ready to start working, all of that which I trained for was completely meaningless and irrelevant.
I just feel bad for my parents that they sacrificed to put me through good schools. Sometimes I even wish they hadn't paid for my college, and that I took out student loans instead, maybe then I would've been more motivated to major in something lucrative rather than follow my dreams and passions.
I see videos online of these young people, often attractive women, right outside of college and they landed 6 figure jobs as “analysts” or “business consultants” and it just drives me mad. I know I could do exactly what they do, but the handful of times I've applied for those jobs, I don't even get a call back
videos like this just drive me mad: https://youtu.be/4avS00vBDI8
She's 22 years old and makes over 6 figures working at some firm in NYC, and she literally admits that most of her job is just googling stuff for people at companies. I don't get why this is tolerated by society. Again, I'm happy for her, that's awesome, I wish I could be doing the same thing, but it's just so unfair that some people get these opportunities, and it doesn't seem to be dependent on skills or knowledge. Being a consultant at one time was reserved for older people who had worked for years who had experience in a particular field.
I'd be lying if I said, among both men and women, it seems like physical attractiveness plays such a huge role in getting a good job outside of the tech/STEM world. I don't think of myself as an ugly person, but I'm no Adonis. It's just, outside of physical appearance, I really can't think of why I'm not qualified for some of these more high paying jobs.
Anyway that's my rant, and it's a big reason why I hate working. It's just hard for me to see the point when I consistently get turned down for promotions while any company I work for hires from outside instead of promoting internally. It felt like my life was on a continuous upward trajectory from kindergarten onward. Every year learning more, becoming more qualified, developing new skills, and so forth. And then I graduate from college, and it's just like hitting a brick wall. No growth, no career advancement, barely an advancement in wages since graduating a decade ago. The only reason I have any money in the bank and I'm not completely living paycheck to paycheck is because I got unemployment money due to getting fired over having covid last year. If that didn't happen to me I'd be flat broke, especially since I moved to a new city for work and the move alone cost me about $3k (first/last month's rent plus sec deposit, some furniture, etc). I only moved because $18-20 per hour seems to be the maximum I am capable of making at the jobs I can get, and rent is way cheaper in the city I moved to, but the wages I get are the same.
It just seems pointless. I can't save for shit. Not only am I lonely and have no friends where I live (because I moved), but I can't even be frugal for a while and save money for something I want. Even if I could just save enough money for a new car or something, that would go a long way towards me not hating my life. But it seems like the best I can hope for is treading water, and the hope that I don't have anything debilitating happen like a major medical episode or some other unforeseen expense. Anyway that's all I got, I'll probably delete this because I sound like an annoying whiner