For context, I am 24 years old and I am 4 months into my second job working at a marketing agency. I am making about 70% more money than my last position, (60-70k range). I recognize I am in a very privileged position compared to many people, and I am truly grateful for that, however I have been getting very disenfranchised with the concept of working for a few reasons.
To start, this job is probably 5 times more demanding than my last, I am salaried with hours of 9-6, but I often work well past 6. In the recent weeks, I have worked until 8pm,9pm,10pm and even 12am a few times. It is not like I am getting paid overtime due to being salaried. To make this more complicated, the job is remote, so I can't even tell if my workload is normal compared to other coworkers with a similar role as me. It is one of three things, either I am being overworked, I haven't found an efficient workflow, or I am stupid, and I'm pretty sure I'm not stupid. Again, this is only my second job, so it is entirely possible I am just not an efficient worker and need some more time to build up my skills, which would allow me to complete work faster.
I am hesitant to complain to management because if other people are getting the same work as me and finishing it in a timely fashion, then I just come across as a lazy inadequate worker who is complaining, which I do not want.
Furthermore, the actual tasks that I do day to day I have absolutely no passion for. I am not on the creative side of marketing. Mostly what I do is fix, set up, and maintain advertising campaigns, which is essentially endless micromanaging, crunching numbers into reports, and clicking away on a computer for 9 hours +. Does anyone truly have a passion for something like that? Are there truly humans in this world who are actually invigorated and excited about doing monotonous office work? Again, I make really good money for my age, but is it worth it when I dread going to sleep because I know I have to wake up the next morning to the same grind? Or getting anxiety every time I get an email because it may be a work related with a ridiculous request or a mistake I made?
Yeah I make decent money, but I am still a wage slave. I am only working to make our clients rich and my CEO even richer. And I am expected to do this for another 40 years? It just doesn't seem feasible to me. I live for the weekends which is no way to live at all. I feel like I am playing a game that I didn't opt in to and there is no way out because this is the status quo of the world. I am not depressed or anything just really stressed and frustrated.
Am I justified in the way I feel? Am I just being dramatic? Does anyone else feel or has felt the same way? What did you do? The only solution I can think of is to become a boss myself or start a company, so at least I'll be breaking my back for myself and no one else, but obviously that is easier said than done. If you made it this far, thanks for reading