Below is a piece I wrote last week, I’m still not sure how to feel right now. I am still in a state of insecurity about all the decisions I have made in life up to this point.
Full-time work is hard for anyone to get into, but there is an added level of difficulty when adjusting if you have been out of a full-time commitment for longer than three months.
Slowly but surely, I think I’m getting used to the balance between work and home life, but then something falls out of sync or goes wrong. It must be because Mercury is in retrograde. Yeah, that’s it.
I feel a bit uneasy about the choice I made back in November because of a few things:
Money
It’s always about finance with me, isn’t it? I get paid minimum wage. I’m not sure how that cost equates to the work I’m doing but I feel like I could be earning more for doing the same thing. My workload has definitely increased since my first month, yet I don’t think it’s paying off. Maybe I just feel a little strung out, but I might be working harder for no real incentive. I like being helpful but I don’t know if I’m being used or made a mug of.
Status
I get it, people have to start somewhere, but it’s still bugging me. It hit my ego a little bit when I overheard my manager refer to me as her assistant while on the phone to a supplier. I’m the office assistant, not her assistant. I do assist her with things, but it doesn’t go into PA territory.
Another thing that flung me into a panic was a message my good friend sent to me. I hadn’t even opened it at the time of writing this but, it literally started with:
“You got a degree in geography…”
Holy s***, I have a degree! I actually forgot about how much crap I had to go through to get that stupid piece of paper and I’m not even using it!
I’m livid!
What If?
Then I started to wonder if my quality of life would have been better if I never went to uni. It may just be part of growing up, but a lot of health problems I developed over the past 5 years started when I started university.
I wonder if I would be happier if I never went. I honestly cannot say. I do appreciate the blessings I have gotten from the experience, the skills I gained, and the life-long friends I have made, but part of me has always wanted to know – what if.
Would I have taken the reins on my social media journey earlier? Would I be a classic textbook “hotshot influencer”? Would I be earning mad coin? Would I be healthier? Would I be a success? Would I be in a worse position?…
The list of questions would go on and on, so I’ll stop here. Please understand that I am not ungrateful, far from it. I just thought my financial and mental struggles would be almost be a thing of the past 1 year and a half after getting my final grades back. Wishful thinking I guess.
Explanation?
I think my recent downward spiral was spurred on by a conversation I had with my mother. I say “conversation”, it was more like a chance for her to tell me that she hates what I’m doing because it doesn’t pay enough. I understand that it doesn’t pay enough for the lifestyle I lead (which is quite minimalist anyway), and it doesn’t help me fix the financial mistakes of my past either.
I’m starting to doubt the justification I gave to myself three months ago to continue with this. All because my mother “reminded” me that this position isn’t for me, it doesn’t pay enough and I have a degree.
This “information” isn’t new, but the way recent events have made those facts stand out, gives me pause. It makes me wonder if I did indeed make a mistake not looking elsewhere. If only I had checked my emails on Thursday of that first week, I could have tried my luck at another place which would have offered up to twice the salary. It’s in the past and therefore, cannot be changed. I do unfortunately now have to make a choice to decide my future.
Management on the apprenticeship end is abysmal, so leaving wouldn’t be a huge issue at this point…
They mixed me up with another student just because both our names began with “Ade”! *eye-roll*
I just don’t want to give up on the relationships I have fostered here. The connections I have made. The growth I have achieved. It would be such a waste.
Sorry to be such a Debbie Downer, but I just wanted to vent a little bit. At least my stress headache is gone now, so this was therapeutic somehow.
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