Apologies if formatting is bad or anything. I’m on mobile and post on reddit extremely rarely.
Just by reading the title I know a lot of you may at first say that I should for my own mental health but the situation I’m in is a bit out of the norm I’d think. I just turned 21 a week ago and have been working as an Outside Plant engineer for a large telecom company designing their networks in a large city near me since May 2023. I was given this opportunity since I grew up around the industry and nailed the interview since I had so much background knowledge and my first couple days once I was hired weren’t so bad. What I didn’t know is the lead engineer we had in house and the one supposed to train me for the next couple months was leaving the next week after I started. This meant our entire management force was now 2 states away since we operate in multiple regions and they came in with no background knowledge of the industry and I was left with no training. I’ve been doing okay since I understood the job but they then hired another engineer to our office the same month I started and management asked if I could train them since I had more knowledge then they had in the industry which was obviously a MASSIVE red flag but I did it anyways since I’m so young and want to stand out. This individual was a bit inexperienced and they were told I would help them with all of their project while I do mine and they still have yet to do anything on their own and has been my responsibility for these past few months. This has been a downhill spiral basically leading to me constantly having to advise my management what we have to do and making decisions which has then led to them giving me more responsibilities and piling up work with no direction from management other than “if anyone has questions go to [me]”. Obviously this has led me to become increasingly stressed having to take on all these responsibilities and getting paid significantly less than everyone. I would resign in an instant if I wasn’t so young because I recognize I’m extremely lucky to be in the position I am I just feel (as well as some of my peers in other departments) that I am being taken advantage of because of the headstart I kind of had and don’t know what to do
Sorry for ranting lol just have also had that all on my chest for a while. Any advice anyone has would be helpful.