I had the unfortunate luck of joining the workforce right in the middle of Covid, and because of this I learned a lot of things early. The main one being that they will take advantage of you. With so many people quarantining we were always low on staff. No matter what job I had. My previous bosses would move us around to compensate, but when they found out they could have people like me working two peoples’ jobs they decided I could just keep doing it. You all know how it goes I’m sure. Double the work and no increase in pay.
So after having two jobs that worked me to the ground I decided this time would be different. This week will mark a year of me working as a daycare teacher making 11 dollars an hour. From the very beginning I have maintained a oblivious or just plain stupid persona. If one of my coworkers asked me to do something that would require me to go above and beyond my pay grade, then I would act like I don’t understand what they mean. If they had me try something that was outside of my job description, then I would pretend it’s too much for me to handle. I fake being a master at one thing and one thing only. What I was hired to do. I’ve done it so much that it comes out naturally for me. For the record, I’m blonde, so this works like a charm lol.
Ever since I have started putting on this facade I have been able to avoid doing double the work for less pay. My boss sees me as too fragile to do anything extra than what I am given. By this point they don’t even ask me if I can go the extra mile anymore. They have completely excluded me from their list of people they manipulate. I watch my coworkers bend over backwards for the company. Working hours overtime to compensate for our extremely low staff (that they don’t bother to deal with anymore), and taking more children into their classroom than legally allowed to compensate for the high volume of new students. I’ve honestly tried to talk to one of them about it and they are so far gone they act like it’s actually apart of their job now. So every employee for themselves I guess, but damn does it feel good to not be in that same position again.