It's long, I'm sorry.
I've recently hit some serious burnout with my job (oil burner technician). The hours are dog shit. 7am to whenever they decide to stop sending me calls. On call 2-3 times a week. Some days I work 15+ hours. I actually got home around 6 pm last night. They started calling me around 9:30 and I just fucking ignored them. That's the first time in 5 months I didn't jump to answer my phone. It made me realize how I feel like a whipped dog. I make okay money (yet still waaaay below the industry standard), but that comes at the expense of literally everything else. No free time to hang out with my girlfriend, play with my cats, see my family, no hobbies, etc. I come home, shower, eat, and pass the fuck out because I'm exhausted.
I left the field before to go work at one of the supply warehouses that I get parts/equipment from. It was boring as shit for 18 bucks an hour. But my corworkers were fucking awesome, regular hours and the work wasn't that hard. It just got boring. I figured getting back into the field would keep me from going stir crazy and pay me better. I wish I never fucking left my last job lol.
Back to my current job. I was offered health insurance through my employer (which would have cost ME $200 a week). I decided not to take it to get an extra $1.50 in my check. Never got it. But my employer saves a good chunk of change from me not taking it. They also have a tendency to short my paychecks and hope I won't notice. They'll stop sending me calls around 3:30 pm if we're not busy. Now, if they do that, I'm technically supposed to be on standby until 4:30 when the office closes. Yet they doc my pay for that hour I sat there waiting for them to send me a call. I got a $150 Xmas bonus, though. Guess that's supposed to make up for all the money I should've gotten.
Now, I've extensively been looking for a new job for the past 2 weeks or so, completely avoiding HVAC as a whole because none of these companies are willing to pay you for your experience, but they have no fucking problem working you to death. I applied for a maintenance position at some property management company, honestly a glorified janitor. They offered me 23 bucks an hour. To mop floors and take out garbage. Yet I currently work for 21 bucks an hour, with a specialized skill I had to go to school for, with 8 years of OTJ experience, to boot. Any able bodied person can mop a floor. You can't just put anyone in front of a broken oil burner and tell them to fix it. How the fuck does that make any fucking sense.
I'll leave it with this: when I finally decided I had enough of this place. 2 days before Christmas. 0° outside, it's like 11 o'clock at night. I'm ankle deep in freezing cold water in some dilapidated basement, trying to get this old lady's heat to work. I've already been there for about 2 hours. I stood back and thought to myself “I'd rather fucking die than be here.” When I finally finished, the lady was super thankful and gave me a $20 tip. She wished me a Merry Christmas. And I just thought to myself “fuck you, lady.” In my right mind I know it wasn't her fault. She didn't go down there and bust up her bruner to inconvenience me. But the stress from being extremely overworked and underpaid is really fucking with my head. I told my 16 year old niece about this story on Christmas day and she said to me “yeah, it's definitely time for a change if you're feeling that way.” And she was right.
Know your worth, everyone. Know your boundaries. And know that it's okay to give up on something when the cons outweigh the pros, or when it no longer benefits you. Happy New Year. Here's to a better one.