Before I get on my soapbox, allow me to preface this post with the notion that I do understand how fortunate I am to be in my position. My life, my health, and my job could be a hell of a lot worse, and I recognize the privileges that I have been afforded.. but my mental health is spiraling, and my family are all so stressed out with their own situations I have nowhere else to voice this.
I started at this company in July of last year, I do inside sales for a manufacturing group whose product is essentially an industry staple, our company has such stringent copyrighting and patenting that our product has cemented itself as the industry standard for its application, and per the copyrights and patents, is so legally protected that we will never have a true competitor. In other words, its inconceivable that we will ever fully run out of business, let alone have a random dip in sales. I was told both in the first round of interviewing, as well as the onboarding process that I would not have to 'cold call'. Something I appreciated, as just a year before landing this job I was doing door to door sales. I was brought on to this company's sales team under the circumstance (pretense) that they only had one active ISR, and that ISR was being overloaded and simply needed help receiving customers and doing various paperwork. It aligned with my want for predetermined work where I simply clock in, fulfill my role, and clock out. I do not mind this job, truly, it's manageable, if mindless, work. I'm very technically literate so assimilating to a new CRM and various new pieces of software was seamless. On top of this, I left school early due to distraction and mental health issues, also because I was offered a lucrative job in this same industry with a family friend at the time and wanted to pursue that. I add that detail to let you all know that I do not have a degree, which makes me apprehensive about up and leaving this job. So lets get into the issues. First is my commute, and how unwilling my company is to afford me WFH, or even partial WFH. I, 24y/o with a tight budget, drive a very dated vehicle, a lot of quirky issues with it, not least the broken gas gauge always displaying my fuel to be on empty, which makes me a very paranoid consumer of fuel as to never run out on the interstate or be stuck at work, etc. On top of this, my place is approximately 26 miles from the office, so I have a 50-60minute commute both ways. With the current state of fuel prices in my region of the US, it costs me approximately $14/day just to get to and from work. “Okay”, I thought, I'm the youngest guy in the office, I'm the least tenured guy here, “whatever, I guess that's fair” is what I told myself the first time my WFH request was rejected in January of this year. My reluctant acceptance quickly turned into dejection after being added to my company's office-wide 'Out of Office' calendar a few weeks later, where I could see many of the veteran workers here have multiple days a week that they WFH. Everyone in this office has a 'WFH laptop' except for me. On top of this, I am an hourly worker, not salaried. So calling out sick, dentist appointments etc. I am not being paid for.. But the other workers here, who at this point I can reasonably assume are all salaried, get to WFH on their sick days and still earn a full paycheck. Even if they are hourly like me, they can still clock in on their WFH laptops and earn a full paycheck. I have raised this concern on multiple occasions, to no solution. I am a younger person, and per the aforementioned, very technically literate, I would thrive in a WFH setting, like I said previously I just want to clock in, fulfill my role, and clock out. I do not dream of work, I do not aspire to be a 'Company Man', my element is my home office and I really appreciate my free time and hobbies. Their reasons for not granting me WFH (ever?) yet are that I need to 'prove I can do the work', something I've been proving since the first hour of my first day. To paint a picture of my office, it's a completely open floor, I am one of just two younger people in the office. The aforementioned ISR that was struggling to fulfill all of their customers everyday before I came in to help is now my direct coworker, and is seen as the more senior sales rep between us two. They are nice enough, but they are a boomer and definitely embody traditionalist office culture. They talk very loudly on the phone, they overshare about their family, they hold very conservative opinions/values, and they strike up conversation at the worst times. Me being an extreme people pleaser, I reluctantly succumb to all of this meaningless drivel. What's worse, though, is the blatant ageism and hypocrisy I experience here. Like I said — open floor plan, but my particular cubicle is the most open cubicle on the whole floor. I mean, the VP, middle management, any and all coworkers can take a glance at my computer screen from pretty much every angle of this floor, and look into my desk area to see if I'm on my phone, etc. This has presented its fair share of issues, from management telling me that I “seem to be on my phone a bit too much, do we need to give you more work?” to “Hey (my name) whatcha reading there?” in a snarky tone if somebody sees, if only for a brief second, that I'm reading the news during a lull in the day. The other ISR, my direct coworker, is situated opposite of me, and despite the open floor plan, their desk has partitions that were temporarily put up for COVID-19 but some of them have been kept around. So, while my cubicle is possibly the least private, most open on the floor, my direct coworker's is the most closeted and private, allowing them to lounge without shame or judgment. This coworker is on their phone a lot of the day playing what sounds like Candy Crush and other puzzle games. They regularly listen to the news and sometimes even TV shows quietly on their speakers. We are allowed to have music at our desks, which is pretty cool, but my coworker blatantly watches/listens to TV and news. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a snitch, in fact I don't really care that they do this, I just care that I am being ran under the bus for it while they get to enjoy themselves without the same expectations and rules. Furthermore, since I've assimilated into the team, I have taken on most of their work. Of course, them being more 'senior' and experienced, they handle our very large clients and process very specific and often tedious orders, but I have essentially shouldered 80-90% of the 'normal work' in our day to day, allowing them to adopt a supervising role, even though it has not been made official by the company. This is frustrating. They get to lounge and be on their phone/non-work related sites. I do most of their job now, and I constantly feel like I'm under surveillance. This person has a WFH laptop (obviously, I'm the only one who doesn't) and due to personal issues they have had to WFH more often recently. Their WFH efforts usually amount to forwarding me all of the email requests they get, the requests they're supposed to be processing as they're.. ya know.. still working and earning money. On top of this, we had our regional sales manager unexpectedly quit last month, which lead us to replacing them with the regional sales person just below them, and that new regional sales manager now temporarily sits behind me in the office. Now, I am being pressured to do a series of, what are basically cold calls each month to random customers, I am constantly being urged to “see what more I can do” throughout the day. For context, I earn $19/hr, and this was made worse when, in the first few months of working here, I hadn't cancelled my automated job-search emails from Ziprecruiter, so I kept receiving emails from Ziprecruiter telling me to apply to a job with a starting salary of $55,000 AT MY COMPANY. I know for a fact I am the least paid worker in this office, yet the most scrutinized and least accommodated. To reiterate, I work for a company whose product is legally required in most industrial applications, whose product will never have a viable competitor, a company who will theoretically never go out of business because of this.. Yet I'm being pushed and prodded to “do more” on $19/hr, where I spend (2) extra hours a day commuting to and from the office, and I, unlike every other worker here, aren't allowed to do WFH seemingly on the basis of my age and perceived laziness within a home setting. WFH would let me eat dinner at a reasonable time, complete more housework during the week, exercise and tend to my aging dog, it would afford me another hour of sleep in the mornings. So I guess my question to you all is rhetorical, and not confined to my company alone.. Why are we like this? Seriously, why is capitalism like this? Why is every first world country obsessed with achieving the highest annual GDP, obsessed with growing their military-industrial complexes to unnecessary and environmentally detrimental new levels. Why are we always 'at war' if not officially and militantly, but economically, with other countries? WHY can't the working class enjoy their lives without being slaves to the corporate elite? I cannot see myself living this life for another year, let alone 50. I just can't wait for our parents to die out and for us to take this planet by the balls and do our best to repair and replace all of toxic piles of corporate idealism bullshit and warmongering, fear-profiting politicians who only care about preserving their interests and none of their constituent's. Record high fuel prices, record high inflation, exorbitant housing prices, mass shootings happening DAILY, but that's alright I just need to shut the fuck up and work hard, right? Put my nose to the grindstone and thank management for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity they've afforded me here, right?