Hi everyone. So I'm going to start off with a little bit of background info this might be really long but I feel so confused and lost I don't know where else to go. I am based in the US btw.
So in college I majored in Business Analytics and IT and quite frankly never understood or even enjoyed a single course related to it. I was also a COVID student so all my classes related to my major were online. I graduated a semester early with a 3.9 GPA and started a job 2 weeks after graduation. Throughout college, I honestly did not know a single classmate since we went online my Sophomore year and classes related to my major started Junior year.
Fast-forward to my first job out of college in January 2022 and I was absolutely miserable. This is a completely remote IT consulting role and I'd be thrown into calls by myself in front of the client having no idea what to say. No one would show up to my 1:1's. I felt so lost and had no idea what I was doing. I did get positive feedback but I was absolutely miserable and my mental health was awful. All of my colleagues were overworked and it was a very “hustle culture” “grind” mentality. My manager would always tell me that your 20's are your time to grind as much as possible.
This job and COVID in general made my anxiety so bad that I started to go to therapy in April. I have really bad social anxiety that worsened during the pandemic and in this role as well as just overall anxiety in general. I have gotten a little better but I am still really struggling today. I quit my job after 8 months in August because I just could not do it and started a new IT/tech role in a fortune 500 company in September. This role is also mainly remote.
Now in my current role I am in a similar situation. My team is extremely overworked. My coworkers are putting in 12+ hours a day and I am not receiving training. My manager told me that I need to basically be an experienced worker even though this is an entry level role marketed towards college grads. She does not show up to our 1:1's or provide any guidance on the tasks given to me and then gets upset when I am struggling. She never really answers my messages either. She told me this is a “hustle culture” and “fast-paced” and I need to be a “driver.” This is the exact opposite of what I was told by HR in the interview and this is the exact environment I wanted to leave. The role is more tech-based than IT overall and I genuinely do not understand anything.
I feel so lost and have no idea what I am doing. I am so miserable I do not know what to do and just am not interested in what I am doing. The problem is I have no idea what I want to do or how to proceed. If I leave this role in under a year I have to pay back all my bonuses but I have not spent any of it yet. I live at home with no debt, which I am lucky for and have around 50k saved, so financially I am okay but I do want to move out eventually and am worried I won't have stability. I am having trouble finding any motivation for this role anymore and just feel so useless.
I can't tell if I'm the problem and I just cannot function in a corporate role or if I just have no received proper training. In my past internship at another company I did get good feedback but my manager would show me how to do everything and would meet with me everyday which is something I need but I think is extremely hard to find.
The thought of doing this for the next 60 years just makes me feel so miserable. I don't know if I should change careers, go back to school, take a gap year, I just have no idea. I am so confused and terrified that I am just going to feel this way at any job.
I think I realized that I just want a role that provides adequate training, an involved manager, work/life balance, and pays me enough to support myself. I don't need to be a millionaire and just do not fit this “hustle” and aggressive/competitive culture. I just do not want to be so stressed out and only enjoy 2 days out of every week since over 2/3's of our life is spent at our jobs.
And I know it is going to be extremely difficult to find a job nowadays with the recession so I am just so confused on what to do. I know my anxiety issues probably play a role and I am working on it with therapy and have seen improvement but I still do have a long way to go.
Are there any career paths/companies that fit with what I am looking for? I do not want to be a failure or burden my parents. It feels like everyone else is able to function in their corporate roles but me. I feel so lost so any help would be appreciated.