I am not into being stuck with a job I hate for 40 years and the grind culture off work hours.
I need a little advice and maybe just to vent a bit about my life right now.
I’m 26 and I just got married two months ago, everything was pretty good, both my now husband and I were doing fairly well mentally and physically. But ever since I came back from the honeymoon, my motivation is in the toilet.
I wake up tired every day (I’m up at 5:15 to go to the gym every day and I was super happy to do it but now I even feel dead there), and I hate my job. I’m definitely not the first or the last to hate their job, and I already didn’t like it before I got it a few months before the wedding, but every time I hear my boss walk into the office (an 88 year old woman with a cane who barely hobbles in every day) my heart sinks and my anxiety grows. To be clear, because sometimes she doesn’t come in, not because I hope she died. Which she certainly might and then what.
I managed to land this job by luck and I was certainly underqualified for it, in the interview process I was asked if I could do x x and x (my degree is aligned with this job but it’s my first professional job). I responded honestly and openly, saying that no I didn’t know how to do these things but I was taught the basics in school and could learn. When my boss said I could have the job without asking much more (at a fairly decent wage which makes it even more difficult to think of leaving) I assumed that meant I’d have the support to do the job well.
That was a mistake. I came to learn this company is essentially organized chaos and a passion project for our elderly boss: no HR, no management, employees are toxic to one another and nobody does anything about it because there are a total of 10 people working here and half of them are remote. My boss “hates hiring” and if I had to guess I’m the only person she interviewed. The only other person who can train me is remote and I learned she threatened to quit and that’s the only reason I was hired, to help reduce her workload. She’s overworked, unresponsive to emails, and I doubt she knew she’d be responsible for training me to this magnitude. My boss is typically pissed at me that I can’t do x when I clearly stated I couldn’t when she hired me. (And it’s become clear they don’t exactly do things industry standard either, or up even to date). I spend half of my time not doing anything because I don’t have anything to do or I’m not fully ready to be completely independent with it. I also swear my boss is trying to catch me off task because she sneaks into my office and asks me “what are you doing?” and I don’t think she does it to anybody else (5 employees in the office) even though our shipping guy sits in the back on Facebook and Twitch all day.
She’s disrespectful and belittling when she talks to me (and it sounds like to others) and constantly questions everything I do and can’t understand how anything works because she’s technologically illiterate. Last week she called me into her office and said “tell me what you did wrong” and I said I didn’t know several times until she gave me a hint and I figured it out saying “I should know this.” I also remember when she hired me she asked me what I wanted for a salary and I gave her a number and she said “you think you’re worth that much?” Should have been my first red flag, but I’d been searching for a job for a year already.
The company server is completely disorganized with random shit saved in random places, so it’s extremely difficult to find anything without having worked here for a while and just knowing offhand where something is. I do not feel like I am furthering my career here and there is no possibility for advancement, but now I work 40 hours and I finally understand why my parents were so tired and fought after work.
The job marketplace is also currently terrible, I’ve been looking for and applying for other jobs but I think my resume and portfolio need revamped. Getting a job is really hard right now, seems like everyone is understaffed but not hiring. I want to try to convince my boss to let me work remotely since there’s no real need for me to be in the office except for her satisfaction (she hates the remote workers, so I’m not sure what I could tell her to convince me to do it), I thought about hybrid at-home in-office but I’m not sure she’d go for that. Another consideration might be to just cut my hours and work four days a week so I could spend one day looking for another job, but I’m also not sure what I’d tell her. I talked to my family and they urged me to just quit, but I want the “experience” on my resume… I just feel stuck, and I do really want to quit.
I was also recently job scammed. I got offered a position that would’ve been a big break for us, and I got so excited I ignored some warning signs until the recruiter said some shady things and I realized what was going on. It would’ve been an amazing opportunity for me… it was heart breaking, I thought somebody found me off my merit (they messaged me from my portfolio), but no it was just a check scam.
I am lucky enough to be in a unique position to have a strong support network that I could just quit and not be in financial trouble. My husband moved here for a new job that pays pretty well, but unfortunately he also does not like his new job. He’s talked about quitting too, so I think both of us are feeding off the negative energy and even though we’re not really fighting it causes our relationship (now marriage) to suffer. I’ve even questioned if getting married was the right choice in recent weeks since we went so downhill. We can’t buy a house in our area, starter houses are around 500k if you’re lucky and it’s just dumb.
We’re looking at other places to live, but that would mean my husband losing his very well-paid job, as it can’t be done remotely. The city we’re living in is small and has essentially no opportunities for my industry, so I’d be stuck with remote work. Which would be okay, but I don’t have the experience or skills to land a job it seems like. At this point I’d do an unpaid internship just to get the experience, but there’s nothing here and remote pickings are slim.
I was considering a career change too, but the idea of going back to school and being in debt does not sound appealing—especially when I don’t really need a degree to work in that field, but it would help me form connections and build some experience.
I don’t know what I want to do with my life. Like everyone else really. We’re joking about quitting our jobs and just moving to Columbia or living in Planet Fitness parking lots. Definitely sounds like depression.
Suffice it to say I’ve always been kinda anti-work, but it does not feel viable not to.