I’ve been at my job for 6 years, started during my college years and worked through all of them, even left school multiple times to prioritize work because I thought it was more important to be able to eat and pay rent than to chase a piece of paper and waste $5k-$7k in out-of-pocket tuition every semester for an art degree that I knew was useless but had to complete after my family demanded that I finish college by any means necessary… and I am fucking exhausted. I have been. For almost 3 years now.
I worked through the entire pandemic, I worked and did school full time, I’ve worked multiple jobs at once on top of both, and I’m fucking burned out. I started taking mental health breaks this last semester (Fall 2021) where I’d just have a random single day off a week and ask for it to be unpaid if needed, just so I could catch up on homework and fucking breathe. And I was making about $1030-$1130 doing that, depending on if I missed once or twice in the pay period.
Now, I’ve been working solid without missing a single day because my new boss is kind of a bitch and not nearly as lenient as my last boss with things like this, and I’m now making significantly lower money. My check today was $897, and my friend told me a portion of it is probably due to tax inflation rates and all, but that’s also after a supposed raise that they said government workers were getting that would’ve put me at about $20/hr. And yeah everything is extra expensive right now, but getting paid barely above the new $15 minimum wage isn’t going to help. I have a second PT job that I only do about 20-24hrs per week, $13/hr for a nonprofit where I actually enjoy what I do, and if I worked part time there, I’d still be pretty close to what I’m now making FT at my government job.
I’m just lost on what to do. My boss at the clinic keeps asking if I want to do FT because another guy is moving, and I’m so much happier there but can’t afford anything without both jobs… and now my main job truly isn’t even worth the pay anymore. I feel like I’m just super pissed all the time at my main job, and to know I’m not even being paid for it like I expect to be, I just want to walk out. I’m sitting at my desk right now and thinking how much I want to go home and be with my pets or even call my clinic job and offer to do some overtime.
I just sort of needed to vent about this. I’m exhausted and I’m tired of how expensive everything is, and the rising prices of groceries and gas and especially rent are just overwhelming if I’m being paid so little for a job I’ve maxed out my position at.