This is a newer account but I've been using Reddit for 3 years and have spent a lot of that time as a member of this sub. Let me preface by saying that now I am in a very privileged position; my spouse makes enough money in a job he likes so I am currently not working. I have been willfully unemployed for 10.5 months.
A year ago I was actually working a job that wasn't too bad, but the burnout got so severe that I was fantasizing about crashing my car in the hopes that a few days in the hospital would give me a much needed break. I was in a totally new field, having been there about a year and a half, and was making more money than I ever have before.
Before that, I spent about 13 years in a medical profession that included a Board Certification and I also spent several years of that time as a practice manager. I made less money as a manager than I did as a newbie in my last job. In fact, when my male assistant manager was hired his pay was so close to mine (despite having expired credentials and being out of the field for the past year) that his take-home pay before things like insurance deductions kicked in was actually more than what I was bringing home even though I outranked him.
I have always been a hard worker and when I started in that office I was a receptionist/floor employee and in the 6 years I worked there I made my way up to Office Manager and basically became the business owner's protégé. I came in on the weekend to help him put together furniture, spent New Year's Eve repainting the front desk, was the defacto late night person because I was single with no kids (including one night where a pair of patients kept me for TWO HOURS after the office closed). I maintained our social networking, was the main interface for our online appointment system, troubleshooted new practice software, designed a lot of the displays we had in the office, helped shop for artwork for new exam rooms, crawled under desks and on shelves to reboot routers or check phone and printer lines, went to our affiliate offices after hours to exchange paperwork, brought deposits to the bank, changed burned out lightbulbs, you name it and I did it. My fingerprints were all over everything in that office and I made the mistake of considering my boss a friend. We had a similar sense of humor and got on really well, at least until I started pushing back on his abusing of my free time.
When I started there at the bottom, I was making $12/hr (which was exactly what I was making at my pervious job but I was so desperate to get out due to understaffing that I didn't fight it). When I left, after everything I gave to that place and all the work I put into it, I was making around $17/hr. I was salaried by then so I don't remember the exact figure but it was around there. The last job I had where I was new to the field had me making $19something/hr.
There was a post here recently that someone's boomer boss was saying that millennials are entitled and lazy for expecting to make more than 50k per year by age 35. I was pissed when I saw that because at 36 years old, after working my ass off for almost 20 years since I entered the working world with a majority of that being spent in what most would consider as a respectable long term career, I've never even made 40k in a year. I thought about how different my quality of life would have been had I been making 50k a year. At the time I was managing that place I was living in a shitty apartment in one of the worst parts of town, and at one point I was struggling so hard financially that I was behind on my car payments in order to make rent because the loser I was dating at the time couldn't keep a job. It go so bad that I tried getting benefits but I wasn't poor enough to qualify.
So now I ask, WHAT THE FUCK WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO?! I did everything right, I worked so damn hard, I climbed the ladder from the bottom to the top, I put my blood, sweat, and tears into that place. I had to leave after 6 years because the stress was so bad that I was neglecting family and friends due to being such a miserable, cranky person every night after work. And because my old boss was such a cheapskate I continued to get fucked for the rest of my career because he had instilled it in my head that this kind of pay was normal so when I started in new positions I didn't ask for nearly enough of a pay bump.
And now my husband, who has been in his job for less time than we've been together, makes significantly more money than I ever have and probably ever will. It's wonderful that we can afford the life we have but at the same time I am so insanely jealous that he's made so much in such a short period of time (don't get me wrong, he is also an incredibly hard worker and has risen in the ranks several times, so he's definitely earned it). But I imagine how much better our lives could be if I was making the kind of money I deserved to be making as well.
I've considered getting another job for extra spending money and something to do but this subreddit has changed my standards so much that I don't know if I will find anything I deem acceptable. I do miss my old field, I miss it a lot sometimes, but I've had to come to the understanding that it's just not financially sustainable. There are parts of that job I loved but I just can't afford to do it anymore (it's also not worth dealing with the blatant sexism in the field but that's another story).
I've only recently acknowledged to myself how much I was taken advantage of, and by a job I really did love. I am so angry at the boss I thought was my friend, at the field I thought I could have a lifelong career in, at the disrespect along the way. I am betrayed, and bitter, and feel like a fool. It has warped my sense of what is acceptable which is a good thing but also makes it really hard for me because by nature I am a person who likes to work hard and be the best I can at my job. And I was DAMN good at my job. But now I am going to be forever paranoid that any place I'm working at will do everything it can to screw me and in most cases I'd probably be right but I hate carrying that feeling with me. I have learned the hard way that my loyalty and hard work won't earn what I deserve and it hurts. I couldn't afford to finish college and everything I've achieved I've done on my own, I took the initiative, I put in the time and effort. And it's still not good enough.
So what's the fucking point of trying?
TL;DR – I'm only now realizing how poorly I was compensated in all my time as a working person and it is really pissing me off.