I just need some validation that I'm not losing my mind. I feel like everyone around me looks at me like I'm an idiot when I bring this up and I have nowhere else to vent.
I live in the southern US and I'm in school to be a medical lab tech. Everyone who does these types of programs has to go through a “clinical rotation” where we're supposed to go to a lab and shadow to help us “learn”. What happens is I go in and they prefer us to come in as little days as possible. So I end up going in for 12 hours, doing someone's job for them, wasting an entire day because most of them hate teaching, and going home and going to bed. I'm about to be doing 40 hours a week and I know they'll try to convince me to do it in 3 days instead of 5. And then I'm expected to work an actual job on my days off to pay my bills. But, I can't find a job that pays enough to upkeep my expenses with half the time available. On top of that, my program is extremely outdated so when I end up taking my certification exam, basically nothing I learned in class will be on there. I've taken the practice exams, I don't recognize 80% of it. I feel like I've wasted 2 years of my life.
Once I graduate, I'll be pushed into a toxic work environment making mediocre money where I'm expected to work 12 hour shifts and start on nights. That's the norm. I already struggle with mental health and I cannot handle long hours and not sleeping at night. People look at me like I'm an idiot when I tell them this. “We all do it and we're fine.” But, they're literally not. Strokes and chronic migraines are so common in healthcare.
I just needed to vent because I didn't expect it to be this depressing. I just thought I would do it and get it over with, but my mental health is getting worse as the days go by. I'm too far in now to quit. I just feel stuck. Am I crazy for feeling like I should be getting paid for doing someone else's job for them?