For the last 10 years I've been in food manufacturing trying to scale the ladder starting at the bottom as a processing worker. I've worked up and down the east coast of Australia for numerous companies, making sure to make a good impression on my bosses.
At the beginning of the year I had a pretty significant mental breakdown at my job and after taking 2 months of stress leave and still not being in the right frame of mind I quit my job and took some time to get my head right. In that time I made the realisation that the money I gained from being promoted several times never outweighed the extra responsibility and work that was lumped on to me.
This week I went back to work as a processing worker again and I'm quite happy to keep it that way. I can go in do my job get paid and go home. I don't have to stress if the machines breakdown or if staff don't turn up. I save my mental energy to work on my hobbies and building my side business of pet photography.