I've been working in tech for a while now, but I've also been in school so they've used that as an excuse to underpay me by over 50% of my positions market value.
Daily I'll go to work early in the day and deal with bullshit from boomers who want everything right now and from executives who don't understand we are needed. Then I get on the 2 hour bus ride back home and read or study on the way. When I get home its workout routines, attending classes and studying, while also studying stuff like networking, programming, robotics, and foreign languages. I'm up until the early morning and cant lessen the workload since I have deadlines coming up that I need to be ready for.
Well, I finally convinced them, after the CEO had a temper tantrum at me because of basic things and was screaming, that I can become a hybrid employee. I handle critical infrastructure and no one else is trained or educated to do my tasks so my department heads must have understood its lose me or let me wfh. I now essentially only work half days because I've automated most of my tasks. So, I only go into the office for 8 hours in total split into two days and the rest is wfh.
Now I can study while “working” and have the bots and scripts I wrote do all the work for me. Of course, I know my time is temporary with these people but at least now I don't have the draining burnout and can actually focus on my studies to get a better job and get a better place and actually eat decent food.
Taking the wins as they come along