3 Reasons Why Being an Employee Sucks…
Let’s be honest there are more but here are 3
Disclaimer
I don’t want people to quit their jobs or get the idea that I think being an employee is the worst thing you can do. I just want to talk about a few issues with lower income positions, at least from a what I see. Also this post is basically a rant so I apologize a head of time.
You don’t matter
This post is about my wife and the company she works at. I won’t mention any names for obvious reasons but let’s get into why being an employee sucks.
It sounds really awful to hear that you don’t matter, but sadly it’s the truth for most of us. You do your job every day, and you work really hard for your employer. You come home feeling good about the work you did that day, and occasionally you get a pat on the back at work.
As time goes on you get efficient at the work you’re doing, and you really know your job inside and out. You’re an asset to your company and that makes you feel good, I mean we all want to fit in and feel like we matter in the world. Unfortunately the higher ups couldn’t care less about you, if you were to leave they would fill your spot with another person and start the cycle over again.
It isn’t personal, maybe they even really liked you and hate to see you leave but you’re just a number and it’s easy to post that your hiring and get a flood of applicants lining up to take your spot.
For my wife she has worked for her employer for 6 years, at many different positions and from a young age. She knows the business inside and out and she is good friends with the owner of the business and the family that runs it.
Recently she wanted to have more of a challenge and start to broaden her horizons, so she spoke with HR expressing her interests. The company recently lost their marketing employee and we’re looking to have the position filled, and my wife said she would be interested in giving it a try.
The HR lady had told her she isn’t creative enough and suggested a different role (one that my wife absolutely did not want to transition into). At the time she was working in the web job running online orders and deliveries through the company. The HR lady had told her “well we aren’t really sure how we want to fill the position and we don’t know much about it at the moment”.
A few days later my wife finds out her co worker in the web shop was asked to fill the marketing position and my wife was furious. There was no difference between the two candidates, my wife had been at the company for 6 years and this woman had been there for 2 years. Neither of them had much marketing experience and neither of them were considered “creative”. (My wife also had 2 semesters of university majoring in digital marketing).
She felt totally betrayed and lied to about the position and we felt like they were playing favorites because we couldn’t think of a reason they would choose this girl over her.
The next week my wife talked to HR and had expressed her feelings that she had felt and told them she didn’t understand why the handled it the way they did. The HR lady continuously cut off my wife when she was trying to tell her how she felt and this made her feel really under appreciated. To make matters worse, my wife told her she felt so bad that she would look for work else where. The HR lady simple responded, if it has to be that way then so be it.
My wife came home in tears, she worked hard for this company for 6 years learning so many things and giving her time, and they couldn’t care less if she left. They told her to her face that they don’t care if she left. I was disgusted.
This hurts your mental health
If you’re told enough times that you don’t matter or that you aren’t good enough, you’re going to start to believe it. It’s really sad but our careers and those of us around us in our lives have a profound effect on our mental health and well being.
We see people living with toxic partners start to deteriorate, but when they break up their life improves and they have this certain glow about them. The same goes with work, those of us working in a toxic environment, it’s wears at us day in and day out and that damages our health.
It has to be so hard to show up for work and do a good job when you know that your boss doesn’t care about you and couldn’t care less if you left to find work elsewhere.
You trade your time for some cash
When you work 9–5 for an hourly position, you are getting paid the same dollar amount every hour and every day/week/month.
You can come to work feeling down and just slug your way through the day not accomplishing much. You can also come to work with a smile and spark of energy and do an amazing job going above and beyond expectations. The sad thing is, you get paid the exact same either way, no matter what you do or how hard you work.
My wife had received a letter signed by her boss that they were going to give raises out. This was great news because she was getting paid so little but she was basically running the businesses web shop and that was blowing up at the time due to Covid and online shopping.
When she had taken the letter in to ask about her raise (since it wasn’t on her next few paychecks) they told her that it actually wasn’t going to happen.
It was really hard on her because some days she comes home exhausted and crying because work was so busy and so hard, but they don’t pay enough and they have no intention at all in giving her a raise.
I have worked as an employee myself and I’ve had good experiences as well as some bad ones. Most of us have to work for someone to earn a living and that’s just the way it is, but I think the employers have a lot of responsibility taking care of those that dedicate their time to the cause. They should do a better job looking after those that carry the weight of the company and run things day to day.
Thanks for reading my rant and if you have any comments or wish to share your experiences please leave a comment or a like.
