In short, I have a Master’s degree as well as two Bachelor’s degrees related to my field, but I can’t find a better job than a position as a cashier at a university now that my temporary year position as an editor and my temporary two year position as a teacher just ended. Because I was rejected from the PhD programs I applied to, I have worked at the university for over a year now. Despite just being the “cashier,” my coworkers expect me to do all of their work for them so that they can play around (and I mean actually play with toys for hours), leave early everyday, and still suffer no detriments to their pay, because they’re salaried. Even though this isn’t in my job description and these staff members do not preside over me, my supervisor allows this. I have no benefits whatsoever despite having the same level of education and experience (and sometimes more). My supervisor, for example, has a completely unrelated BA and that’s it.
A full time position just opened up where I work, and it has excellent pay as well as benefits. There’s significantly less work to do and it’s within my department, so I could now enjoy the same situation as the other exploitative staff members. It is better suited to my education and experience. In fact, it only requires a BA. However, the university staff are not eager for me to have it. They’ve gone out of their way to encourage an additional one hundred outside applicants to apply despite claiming I could climb the ladder when they first hired me. They have the power to just give jobs without an interview process, as they’ve done before for my best friend when she worked here one summer. Whenever I’ve tried to speak up about the position just to let them know I’ve applied, they’ve suggested I may not even make it past a telephone interview and have spoken to me with pity in their voice like they already know I won’t be considered. My job reference, whom I work with, revealed she encouraged her friend to apply because she wants her friend to have it. I’m the only inside applicant, so this doesn’t sit right with me. I’ve previously been denied a job there at the same level with the same pay that I only applied for so I wouldn’t have to serve my supervisor anymore.
I’m used to being talked down to by my supervisor. For example, one time, my heart rate and oxygen dropped really low, and I was at risk of going into cardiac arrest, and she accused me of lying and made me start wearing a different pulse oximeter, which just confirmed I was telling the truth, but she never apologized. She did offer to let me go home eventually, but I was afraid they’d fire me if I did that. I’m also used to being denied my fifteen minute breaks, struggling to find someone to let me go to the bathroom, volunteering for free to help the other staff over some of my lunch breaks to demonstrate interest in a promotion, etc.
There’s one particular staff member who regularly gives me projects at the last minute because he’s slack and forgets to do them or is too lazy to do them. Today, he approached and told me I had to cut out seventy shapes by hand (and trace out half of those myself) for a program he was starting… IN TWO MINUTES. This is in addition to doing my actual job. He told me to just “figure it out” and said “It doesn’t matter what they look like. Just get it done.” I was very proud when I had everything cut out quickly (even though I later found out he only needed ten and just had me cut out a bunch of extra ones), but he went behind my back to my supervisor and had her reprimand me because the last ten I cut out apparently weren’t smooth enough on the sides? My supervisor then said that this demonstrates I don’t care about the university, I don’t care about my job, I don’t care about the university’s reputation, and that I do not positively represent the university. This was clearly to hint I would not be receiving the promotion. She also said I wasn’t “enthusiastic” enough about cutting out shapes for the staff member, and that I needed to look more joyful for him. This is for a man whose job I could do easily (I mean, hell, I already do half of it).
When I explained he left me with no choice but to rush because he waited until the last minute, she indicated I was lying and that something I cut out weeks ago wasn’t smooth enough either. This isn’t the first time he’s asked her to scold me for his own bullshit, either. Almost the exact same thing happened previously, but his complaint then was that tape I used to assemble projects for him looked too cloudy. He lied to my supervisor and told her that he asked me to use a different tape, which he absolutely did not, and she then told me I need to be a better listener and was very rude to me about it. I just turned the other cheek.
My supervisor also has a habit of coming back from lunch late to let me go to lunch, but pretending she came back and covered for me at the original time so that it looks like I’ve been gone longer than I was. For example, one time, she came back ten minutes late. When I came back ten minutes late because traffic was horrendous (she had to be at the front desk any way for an extra hour that day, so it isn’t as if I left anything unmonitored; plus, I hadn’t been given my fifteen minute breaks at all that month, so this was definitely owed to me), she lied and said I had been gone for over an extra twenty minutes and this was inexcusable and that I had CHOSEN TO GIVE UP my fifteen minute breaks.
I’m just so tired of being treated this way, and I don’t understand why they’re going to such lengths to make things difficult for me. They know I’m in a bad situation because this is currently my only job, and I’m facing homelessness in a few months if I don’t get this promotion. The person who makes the hiring decision actually offers me the leftover food from university programs because she knows I’m living in poverty right now. I lived off of leftover graham crackers for awhile. I just feel so degraded by my work. I feel devalued and dehumanized and honestly wonder if it wouldn’t be better to just quit and withdraw my application because I don’t want to continue working with people who treat me like this. The entire time I’m at work, my stomach is killing me from the stress. I’ve considered becoming a sex worker because my parents already think I am one anyway from the time when I was working three jobs and making an okay amount of money. I just feel like society won’t value me for anything else and maybe that’s the only way I can survive without jobs like this.
What should I do? Should I report the educator? My supervisor? Should I just quit my job without a safety net, give two weeks notice, or continue to work here and hope they’ll do the right thing and promote me and finally treat me like a human?