Title sort of speaks for itself. I started working at a manufacturing place in February — big monopoly — and it quickly turned out to not be the kind of job I thought it was.
This was the best job that I could've gotten with my resume, as I was only 18 and had just worked fast food at the time I was applying. My partner's mom works here and makes good money, so I thought I'd give it a shot, so it felt like a dream when I heard back. No other job in my area would pay me this much, give me three days off a week, and offer me free lunches,
I just can't get over how hard they sold it. Made it sound like the most legit place in the world. Soon after I was hired, I cemented myself as a very efficient worker in the company, like one of the best. There was a promise that working hard would quickly move you up in the plant, and I thought that by putting my best food forward I could assure that. Of course, that was extremely naive of me. In the 7, going on 8 months that I've worked here, I have:
— Submitted PTO and notified the supervisor of my absence a week in advance, which still hadn't gone through. I was pointed with an “unexcused absence” and was not paid for that time. (Maybe that was my fault for not checking to see if it was approved, or even submitted but who knows)
— Was tasked to do my boss' jobs without compensation, just because they knew I would
— Was pulled aside by my supervisor one day who claimed that I was abandoning my work station several times a day in 20 minute intervals and threatened my job over it (None of this happened)
— Alongside my co-workers, was subject to piss-poor communication about our hours. We were not told what days we were expected to come in early and managers just expected us to know. People were pointed if they didn't find out through word of mouth somehow
— Was shuttled from my job to my car in a packed bus without air conditioning in 95° F weather (We park away from the job site and are shuttled to and from our cars)
And on top of that, you have your average shitty workplace gripes as well. Staffing issues, people being moved around because they can't keep workers, incompetent and/or micromanage-y higher-ups, hostile work environment, low morale, degrading work and dehumanizing working conditions, run-down equipment, anti-union meetings and scare tactics, all the works. Laying it all out like this, I'm honestly not sure how I've been able to stick through this long.
So, here's my plight. I really don't know what to do about it, like genuinely. What I have now obviously isn't sustainable, but I don't know what to do about it.
I know it's silly hearing the whole “my life is over” drama from a teenager, but it's truly come to feel that way.
This has only been my second job and it's my first full-time job, and both of these work experiences have been, well, traumatizing. At my first job I would frequently have panic attacks before my shifts just anticipating how bad they would go, and I can feel myself heading in this direction for my current job as well.
I can look for more jobs but to be frank, I am not the most mentally stable person. I have bipolar disorder, I'm autistic, and with that comes a slew of co-occurring issues like anxiety, substance abuse, all that fun stuff, so finding a job that'll have me is hard enough, much less one that I won't stress out over. So it feels sort of hopeless looking through these recruiting sites and finding, well, nothing that sounds fine.
It doesn't help that I'm grappling with this sunk cost fallacy of this job being the only one in my area that will pay me this much and has a four day work week. There's also the worry of, “Well what if I do get a new job and it's worse?”.
I can say “to hell with it” and start going to school or taking online courses, but I was pursuing this job in the first place to get an extremely expensive and life-saving surgery. I'm gonna need an income so that I can have that, and soon.
It sucks. This place is making me spiral and giving me crazy intrusive thoughts. I've been contemplating self-medicating and self-destructive activities like gambling, partying and drugs just to help me get through the week. These are not healthy things to be thinking, but I keep making up excuses to stay here. I just don't know where else I could go with my resume. I wanna have a job that I don't hate, I wanna make enough money to support my lifestyle, and I wanna have enough free time to live. I feel like if I don't have a jump on that as soon as possible, that I have failed my future self.
So sorry for the long rant, I'm just at the end of my rope here. Things are looking dull and I'm sort of at my wit's end, so I thought that I would just scream into the void for a while. Thanks so much for reading, and thank you even more if you'd like to place your two cents under this post.
Have a nice day, and take care!