I work for a ma and pops shop for what might as well be minimum wage, and I’m worked to the point of constant exhaustion. I hardly have the energy or time to search for another job, but I’m still doing it and I’m going nuts. My coworkers don’t know what my wage is, and I can’t do much of anything without lashback. I got this job through my grandparents, and I needed it because unfortunately, not every court case is a slam dunk and I lost mine and am a felon now. I can’t vote. I can’t get a decent job. Anyways, Saturdays we get food brought for the staff to eat for free, however, we have a breaks shortened to 20 minutes. Nobody follows this rule, and when I take my time to fucking relax, my coworker that supposedly is the only one I could trust through all of this, tells me off for taking slightly more than 20.
I say something against it as another coworker walks in and it goes nowhere, and I walk out and listen to them talking about how full of shit I am, and how I’m lazy. Everyone in this building gets paid well more than me, people several years younger than me (I’m 24) get paid several bucks more than me and it’s embarrassing. I remember my first day, doing a 9 hour cleaning job that nobody was willing to do.
They apparently don’t give any raises until 3 months into the job. I learned that when I told my boss I was living out of my car and desperately needed a raise. Apparently I was being paid a whole dollar less an hour than he thought he hired me at. Every moment he has seen me, I’ve been working hard. I get to the 3 month mark, and he gives me a 50 cent raise and I have to wait 3 weeks for it to kick in. Says that he will look into it again in another 3 months and have to look at financials and sales and things will depend on that. They’ve been making record breaking profits for years, and make hundreds of thousands in profits every month, and have every statistic posted in the break room. This is killing me. I’m tired of grinding my life and youth out for me to live with basically nothing. I have to bust myself outside of my job to meet ends. I don’t have an oven, running water, a bed, a place to use the bathroom, it’s like I’m a savage and everyone just expects me to do better. Just today I had to replace a tire. Tomorrow it’ll be something else. I’m going insane. I can’t afford to live. I can’t afford to survive. How on earth can anybody even imagine not working?