Provisional License Rant
Oh boy. Sorry in advance, gonna just be a stream of consciousness rant.
I have 2 masters degrees and 2 bachelors degrees. I have published research in Neuroscience. I have tons of work experience and volunteer experience. Yet I am being taken advantage of in the workplace STILL after all these years. Every single person in my life just tells me “i need to pay my dues, itll get better.” I have been listening to that bullshit for 10+ years. I have grinded and not complained and did all the things they told you to do to be successful.
I make like 27 dollars an hour. I cannot even afford rent for a small apartment in new jersey after my student loan payments of around 500 a month. Even if that was less, after all the other bills, id still be spending over half my paycheck just to have a place to live. I get 0 autonomy in my clientele. Open slot? Here babysit this 6 year old kid with environmental issues I can do nothing about. Nevermind the fact you have 40 clients this week already filled with other similarly incompatible with specialty cases. Oh dont be ungrateful! Atleast you have a w2 position and are getting paid consistently! It could be fee for service and you could not have benefits and get paid 500 dollars a pay period! Yippee!
This industry is horrible. People dedicating their lives to a good thing - helping and supporting people going through horrific mental pain. And they are just taken advantage of in every way imaginable. And expect you to just go along with it with a smile on your face. And then anyone not in the field is just like “get a new job, that place sounds abusive.” What if i told you that this job is actually the best that can be done? What ifi actually left an even worse prior position for this one? What if you actually took a look at the job market and how awful it is in general?
But just gotta pay my dues! Another year and a half of hours until my paycheck can get bumped by 20k or so when the cost of living and inflation is still exponentially increasing.
This world is a joke.