Like many of you I went to college thinking it would at least get my foot in the door with hiring managers. I studied art, design, and worked with game designers/ animators, meeting some of the most wonderful people I have ever known. I got out of college and realized that I couldn't afford to live where the jobs were, because in this field you have to take unpaid or underpaid internships that last a really long time, immediately making it impossible for people without extra money to excel.
Now that I have been out of school for a few years, I am also finding that the design world has already left me behind, and now places are suddenly requiring me to have a Bachelor's, multiple certifications, and many people are recommending I spend thousands MORE dollars on boot camps and frivolous modules that always look like they teach the basics all over again while only adding a tiny kernel of new information into what I am trying to do.
I am bitter because I feel like the goal post keeps moving. I make things on my own at home. I work retail so I can have insurance and some semblance of a retirement package since all the creative jobs pay, well, nothing close to what I need to survive. Nobody respects me once I say I studied for a creative career. They just don't get what I had to do, and explaining it to them is pointless. The amount of work I had to put in for no results is so disheartening. Hiring managers want STEM people. Even for jobs that don't require a STEM education. Doesn't matter.
I feel like crying most days. I put on a fake smile every day I go into work. I try my best to manage my expectations of what my workplace can provide. I deal with being harassed by customers all day long. The older ones are the worst of the bunch, reporting me to our corporate office for telling them a product is out of stock, or that the thing they are looking for is actually not even available anymore. I do a great job, but I am depressed. Extremely depressed.
I feel like I have nowhere to go, and that's just what my employer wants from me; to feel like I have no recourse and that they are my only option for employment. I feel like I need help, but I don't know how to seek therapy or how to practice self care with a schedule that has me working a different time every day and sacrificing every weekend of my life just to help make money for a crusty old CEO who couldn't care less if I died. I feel dead inside already anyway. Every day off I get I apply for jobs and it's always the same reality hitting me in the face. I am unemployable in our current system. If I want a job I have to spend more money on more education, and then it's not even guaranteed that I will get results from that either.
Now I'm sitting here posting to reddit, like a sad teenager, because I am completely dead inside and don't have anymore to give the world. The life has been sucked out of me. At least the weather is getting nicer so I can cry in the sunlight instead of the snow.