u/PhinsFan17

32 years old, married, homeowner, no kids.

I have a college degree, but it's in theology. I'd really rather not talk about it. Only mentioned to say that it's questionable at best how relevant or transferable any of that is to the modern job market.

I bounced around from place to place in my 20s, ended up at a tech company doing customer support, then moved into an operational role and I loved it. Fully remote, great pay and benefits, loved my boss and coworkers. Unfortunately I was laid off at the end of 2023 when my entire department was outsourced. I struggled to find another job and ended up taking the only one who would call me back: a program manager role at a non-profit organization where I knew someone who could give me a reference, making an awful lot less than I was before.

I've been here for a little over two years now, and I fucking hate it. The job itself barely even exists. I am not even exaggerating slightly when I say that 90% of my job function is waiting on someone else to fill out a spreadsheet. On paper, a job where you get paid to sit around and do nothing sounds great. But in reality, it is a death sentence. I'm just sitting in a cubicle five days a week conscious of the fact that I am wasting my one lifetime on this earth. There's no room for advancement, the pay and benefits suck, merit increases aren't a thing (we're lucky to get a COLA every other year), and I'm so burnt out that I just genuinely do not care about the work. It's objectively good, we are objectively making our city a better place and helping people who need it, and I just couldn't care less.

And that's where I'm at. I don't even know where to go or what to look for in a new job because... I just can't bring myself to care about anything. I can't get excited about executing deliverables and KPIs and AI integration. The things I enjoy doing and am good at are not things the market deems particularly valuable. I just want a job that pays me enough to cover my bills, doesn't force me to commute to a cube downtown, and doesn't make me want to take a long walk off a short pier.

I don't even know what kind of advice anyone can give me at this point. Maybe I just needed to vent it out. I had a career counselor tell me once "To be completely honest, I have no idea what to do with you", and maybe that's the same response I'll get here.

I play in a 5 piece pop-punk/emo/alternative rock band, and we have three lead vocalists. Our female lead vocalist, and then our bassist and rhythm guitarist take lead on some songs. It creates an interesting dynamic, but it does present its own problems. The main one right now is... the guitarist can't really sing. In fact, I believe he might even be tone-deaf.

We thought maybe it was an issue of hearing himself, but we've been on in-ears for over a year now and it hasn't made enough of an improvement. He's just never able to find the pitch, even on songs he's written. It's bad enough at rehearsal, but we've had people come out to see us perform and tell us that something's gotta be done about his vocals. He also just has no dynamics, he can only sing at full belt. It's at the point where almost everyone has him extremely quite in their mixes.

The issue is he is also the primary songwriter and the founder/leader of the band, so I'm not sure telling him he can't sing anymore is gonna go over well. We've told him before that he needs to hang back on some songs where he isn't singing lead because he'll just jump in on a chorus where the rest of us are doing a three part harmony and he just wrecks it, and sometimes he does and other times he just gets excited and wants to so he sings anyway. We've brought it up before and sometimes he laughs it off and other times it very obviously upsets him.

The band is very important to him, so I feel like if we keep that centered, then he'll take it better, but on the other hand, the band is very important to him and I don't think he'll take it well. I feel bad because he does have his talents and I don't want him to feel like he's being attacked, but I am torn between being a good friend and being a good bandmember. I just worry that we're never gonna get farther than we are right now unless we address it.

What would you do? Suggest singing lessons?

EDIT: Dang, you guys are pretty unhelpful. If I wanted to quit, I would just quit, so stop suggesting that. And this is a guy whose friendship I value so just being a brazen asshole about it isn't really an option either.

Crowdsourcing some wisdom here! My band is putting together a tribute show for Halloween this year where we will be performing A Fever You Can't Sweat Out in its entirety (including the covers of "Karma Police" and "Tonight, Tonight" from Live in Denver). We need two other tribute acts to join our bill as openers and we are trying to find who would make the most sense. My Chemical Romance is one I have heard a bunch, and they would definitely vibe with the Halloween-ness of it all. We were thinking Fall Out Boy for the third, but I am wondering if that is a bit too obvious. Is there an act that we are simply not thinking of?

If you were going to buy a ticket to this, what openers would you hope to see?