So I've worked at this company for over 4 years now and honestly it wasn't until last year that I really began to dislike my work. The first ~2 years I worked full time in the field that I went to college for, it wasn't the best pay but it was decent enough and anyway it wasn't a place I could imagine I'd stay at for long.
Aside from the pay being slightly lower I did overall like the job, I liked it so much that when I decided to go back to school I gave my employer 9 months notice so that I could help train my replacement and I guess I was liked enough because I was then offered a part time position with them where they would work around my school hours. At the time this was best case scenario for me, I was worried that I'd have to go back to making minimum wage and deal with nightmares like retail while trying to keep my head afloat.
But it turned out that this would lead to me just hating this job, the first year was fine, then we hired someone new in upper-management, someone who's job it would be to help with communication across departments and who would help with budget. It didn't take long until she called me in for a meeting with her where she informed me that she would be cutting my pay by four dollars an hour, still above minimum wage but not by much and her reasoning for this was that I was getting paid my pay for my full time position and that I was making more than my coworker who had been working here for almost 10 years. So kinda dumbfound and unsure what to do I agreed to signing a new contract as I was worried my only other option was to be fired.
Shortly after this I spoke with my coworker only to find that she had worked for this company for years at only a few cents above minimum wage before getting a raise which I thought was insane. Raises had been previously brought up by other coworkers but the response they always got was that it wasn't in the budget. Obviously that was a lie and it became apparent when one of my coworkers announced that he had been offered another job because all of a sudden my current place of employment had an extra 5$ per hour to offer him if he stayed. He was smart though and left for the other job.
After this I went straight to that new person who was hired in upper-management and told her that I needed a raise and that it was ridiculous that I'd worked here for so long without ever getting anything. For the first time in years employees at my company got a raise but honestly it was a joke. I got an extra dollar and I hear a whisper through the grape vine that they might be looking to cap me at my current pay rate so no more raises.
I don't know what the point of working is anymore, they obviously don't care about me, I had covid, they did nothing to help me, shortly after that I wound up so sick I could hardly stand but I still had to show up to work because I had to go through my money set aside to pay the bills I couldn't pay due to the hours I missed with covid. They refuse to give sick days, I don't feel valued in the slightest and I've more or less stopped caring. I used to work hard, now according to my phone ever since I picked up full time hours in the summer I spend an average of 7 hours a day on it always during work hours, I used to be willing to go above and beyond but now I show exactly when my shift starts and I leave at least five minutes early. My therapist recommended that I either quit my job or find something else because it's impacted my mental health. Basically every work day I remind myself that I only need to deal with this place for 2 more years and then I get to graduate and move onto something better. I feel like these next two years are gonna be hell and I'm just trapped here because I need the money.