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Antiwork

My husband’s workplace thinks little of him yet he tries too hard, and it harms our marriage. It also just sucks. I feel sorry for him.

I don't even know where to begin. He has a bachelors degree in chemistry and was struggling to find work shortly after graduation (which was almost 3 years ago). Found a position at an environmental lab. Our minimum wage is 15/hr, they offered him 16. He took it because it was the only position open that was related to his field. And honestly over the past few years it was unfortunate to hear him complain and how stressed he was over this job. Lots of times the stress comes from the clients who send samples to the lab for testing; management doesn't tell clients to stop when there are already way too many samples, and it overloads everyone. The majority of the time, they hire people on contract because most people don't stay past 6 months to begin with– they find something better or just had enough of what's going…


I don't even know where to begin. He has a bachelors degree in chemistry and was struggling to find work shortly after graduation (which was almost 3 years ago). Found a position at an environmental lab. Our minimum wage is 15/hr, they offered him 16. He took it because it was the only position open that was related to his field.

And honestly over the past few years it was unfortunate to hear him complain and how stressed he was over this job. Lots of times the stress comes from the clients who send samples to the lab for testing; management doesn't tell clients to stop when there are already way too many samples, and it overloads everyone. The majority of the time, they hire people on contract because most people don't stay past 6 months to begin with– they find something better or just had enough of what's going on there.

The stress has resulted in him snapping at me over legitimately meaningless things. We've had a lot of very strange spats that went out of control because he was emotionally overwhelmed. He's apologized, sure, but it doesn't stop it from continuing to happen.

He ended up getting a raise to 22/hr because he got promoted to coordinator. This position is below supervisor. He has a decent level of authority and can do virtually everything in his department. The thing is, the supervisor and manager don't tell him a single goddamn thing and get mad at him for nothing. They act like they don't trust him even though he didn't do anything. As a result his job is unnecessarily more difficult because he often goes in every day blindly.

At some point I got a summer job with the company. I was working in the same department. They got very weird about a married couple being in the same lab. The supervisor kept assuming he was helping me and doing things for me, and put me into the most physically demanding room in the lab. I am legally physically disabled and this room had made my condition significantly worse. They knew this. They didn't care as long as they could separate us. They were even more silent towards my husband and told him less than they did before. And then because of that, they got more angry at him. They said it was his responsibility to be informed, even though he can't just access work emails that weren't sent to him.

It was a pretty awful workplace. Major shitshow. I just hate how it's changed my husband to be tired and bitter (rightfully so) about everything to do with jobs and money. Because myself and someone else left a week ago, it's been harder to catch up and as a result he's not home as much due to staying late. It really does put a damper in plans and activities because he already works late enough and we have shit to do and places to be sometimes. Honestly as I'm typing this we're late to visiting my mom's place that we promised to be at an hour ago, all because his workplace is so fucking cheap that they don't pay anyone enough to incentivize them to stay, so they don't, and then throw a bunch of work at the employees. My mom's birthday is a week from now and we have plans for dinner, and I already know we will be late for that. They have a great relationship and my dad was planning to treat us all to dinner, and it's embarrassing being late at a restaurant.

Granted, he hates it too. I'm talking a lot on his behalf and things that bother me, but he's not happy with that workplace at all. He's always looking at other jobs he qualifies for. We're always worried about money because we have rent and bills, and mouths to feed; it's us and a few cats we rescued, and we're not going to let them starve. We both just wish it was better, that he was paid what he's worth or that UBI becomes legalized here or something.

We can never have dates anymore. We can never really have quality time because he's so tired from picking up slack and doing 50 things the supervisor demands him to do. We can never figure out when to do chores because he'll be forced to stay an hour late. We can never really do shit we plan to because of his goddamn fucking management pushing him around. I always want to tell him to stop trying so hard because they don't care and never will, but he's afraid of what will happen if he does.

Thank you for reading.

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