Help me understand this dystopia
I just got a fucking job after a year of searching. I'd been underemployed and working sad jobs that don't reward me. This job market is soooo fucking awful but I had to accept this job. I had no choice.
This is the lowest paying job I've ever had, I made better money when I was fresh out of college at 22. Somehow now, I'm earning less. I'm mad because this job is in the office 5 days a week. For a job that very clearly can be done remotely.
I find new business for the company. I make calls and send emails. They've already told me how to access the CRM and databases at home for when I'll need to bring work home. So, if the job can be done remotely, why is it not remote? I need to understand why.
I don't work at a call center. I'm not waiting for phone calls to come in. I make the phone calls. Again it can literally just as easy be done at home. But I have to come into the office. I need a return to office warrior to debate me and help me understand why this is the reality I'm living in.
I go into the office, they have fist pumping club music playing throughout the speakers all day every day. They have a million tv's displaying sports center the entire day. The coffee is fucking disgusting and tastes like cigarette ash. Don't even get me started on the fucking bathrooms. They look and smell like a nuclear explosion. I step into the office and it is the first thing I can smell. I don't even know how because the office is so fucking big. apparently I have amazing smell.
my point is, that return to office warriors like to say shit like "well, there are fewer distractions at work!" really? the stinky bathroom, loud club music, sports on the tv all day, listening in on everyones phone calls, smelling reheated salmon and garlic in the microwave, how is any of that not a distraction? better yet, how am I less distracted here than I am at home? At home, I have complete solitude and quiet. I don't have to wait until a certain hour to eat food. I can nourish myself whenever I please. I can take care of personal shit, I can make personal calls, I can call chase bank about that matter. I can't do that at the office.
"Oh but you need to be in the office so that we can all collaborate and work as a team!" The only means of communication we use is teams. If you can teams me at work you can teams me at home and we'll communicate the exact same. Any meeting is done at teams. I don't go to a conference room. I sit at my cubicle and join the call. I-? Ok now it is getting confusing.
It feels like people want to micromanage me. They want to peer down my neck as I work all day.
Either that, or a bad real estate investment was made and I have to be punished for that. I think that years ago, whoever leased this building leased it for X amount of years, and if they were to let people wfh then that would be a waste of investment and money. Which I find unfortunate for whoever would waste X amount of dollars on that. But then....we have to be punished? I have to be trapped here for 40 hours a week because of real estate? It's either real estate, or you are obsessed with power and control and micro managing. And the idea of turning your employees loose to work at home sends you into a tizzy because you wouldn't be able to watch them all day. It's one of these two. and I would respect any CEO that said "I'm not letting you wfh because I made a bad real estate investment." or said "I'm not letting you wfh because I have a serious trust issue and need to watch all of you guys work otherwise I'll freak out". I could respect that. I do not respect the reuse of "people work more efficiently in the office".
I'm soooooo incredibly mad that I have to stare at a screen for 40 hours a week. I'm sentenced to screen staring for 40 hours a week. My eyes hurt by the end of the day, my head feels liquified, I can't think, I have no energy, I can't do anything for myself after work. I'm mad that after 100 years of technological advancements, email, internet, phones, texting, zoom, teams, I'm so mad that throughout all of that, the work week hasn't even been slightly adjusted.
I like cannot fathom, I refuse to accept, I cannot understand how as humans we are just...supposed to stare at screens for 40 hours for the rest of our lives. If someone told me this 10 years ago, I would have been able to pick a career that wouldn't involve screen staring. I like sales because I like going out and making deals happen. Outside sales. but because of how shitty the job market is, I had to accept this shitty role in office finding new business via phone calls. my dad told me he would go crazy doing this job. umm I didn't pick it?! I would much rather be doing outside sales and setting appointments and visiting customers. but I have to take what the world gives me and that's this. I am literally out of choices and money I cannot afford to be choosy anymore. It's so fucking stupid. The way old people talk about jobs, they just do not fucking get it. They do not live in the same world that I do.
I just fucking started and I'm already mad and shitty and I just. I could move on and find another job. If I'm lucky. but it's just another sentence of screen staring for 40 hours a week.
I know there are people who micromanage on teams like crazy. That they check if you're not active. Blah blah. I need CEO's to just fully admit that they enjoy making us miserable. I feel like they want us to be as miserable as possible. It feels like I'm at the other end of someone's deep rooted psychological issues wherein they need to wield power.
This is obviously a rant. but I'm just so sick of the job market. I'm mad that it forced me into taking this shitty position just so I could progress my career, have insurance, have a continuous paycheck. I'm mad that a 40 hour work week even exists still. If I had a high power job working for the government or health field or a firefighter I might feel differently. But I do not feel essential to the world while making phone calls and staring at s screen all week. someone make it make sense.