(no subject)

[dolari]

I'm realizing that my career path is dead-ending. I'm not good enough for IT work, and most technical support/consumer support positions are now starting at $10/hr. I make $16/hr (and apparently the temp agency had to seriously fight for that) and am barely getting by.

It may be time to change things. While I hate communal living, that's the way things are leaning. The New Normal means living with roomies and families. I'm also realizing that since moving back from Seattle, I've made ZERO progress moving forward. I still owe the same debts I had when I moved here (I haven't forgotten you, Lissa) . I don't have any furniture that isn't Dean's in the apartment, and, in general, have been spinning my wheels to the point of burning rubber to stay where I am.

The job is killing me, but I can't quit no matter how bad they treat me at the moment. I'm going to keep looking for work in Austin, but I'm considering a move back home in San Antonio with the family. My lease is up in September, and if I can't find something equal or greater to what I have now, it may be time to throw my hands up and move back in with the parents. 40 years old, living with parents. New Normal.

San Antonio has it's pros and cons. It's a cheaper standard of living there, but less tech jobs. And while it's gotten better over the years, it's still an incredibly homophobic city to live in. Machismo is alive and well in the hispanic community.

I keep considering moving back to Seattle, but the week I spent here with Tess reminded me, that I'm a child of the Hill Country. While going back to Seattle with Crystal and Lissa, and maybe even getting back in with Nintendo, would likely be slightly better than what's happening in Austin - the severe homesickness would just return and make me miserable like I was up there for five years. Also, it would break my parents heart. And I can't do that to them again.

A crowd-funded salary is something I've thought of. "Pay me $35,000 a year, and I'll just draw comics all day." The response I've had from friends is positive...but the actual application from fans was...lacking.

It's a rock and a hard place. But I have until September to figure a way out.

Comments

[amw.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure call center work has ever been a career path. Aside from you, the only people i know who have done it used it as a temporary gig between jobs or while traveling overseas, because it is well known to pay so poorly and have so little opportunity for advancement. If you want to get into tech and find the tech salary, you need to switch to help desk or internal IT. If you want to get into CRM and strategy, you need to fight for and take any supervisor position that comes up. And then leave the call center.

If all you want to do is help customers, then you will remain on $10/hour for the rest of your life. J (my ex wife) had the exact same problem with "real life" customer service. She loved helping people out with their problems, but after 5 years in retail she was still earning the same as she did when she started. So, she cut down her hours and went to community college on a shoestring to get a social work qualification. Now she still gets to help people, she still gets paid shit money, but at least she gets paid shit money on salary with vacations and sick leave. Another friend in retail pushed hard to get ahead and is now a visual merchandiser for a large chain. I, like many of my peers, started in help desk/internal IT and advanced to a high-level engineering position. But none of us are helping customers out the exact same way we were when we started. We chose a different path.

You have to decide what's important to you. If you don't want to live with your parents or with flatmates, if you do want to build your house on your property someday, then you need to rethink how you approach your career. Work the shittiest job in the world if it pays more. Go after every promotion and title you can get, even if you don't get a raise for it. If you see a weakness in your skill set that is stopping you from getting ahead, take the time to teach yourself. Apply for scholarships, try to take classes or see if your employer will pay for training. You will advance if you set your mind to it. But if that rat race is not your bag, then yes, you will have to adjust your lifestyle. It's not the New Normal, it's just normal. That's what it means to be working class.

[jenndolari.livejournal.com]

That's just it - it was a career path. When I started, it wa a viable one. It's only after the dot com bust that it stopped being a viable career. Something I'm only now realizing. I've always said I peaked in 1997. Now I know why.

Now I have to figure out what I want to do next. IT? I had a taste of that, and it was vile. Comics? I'd love to, but I don't think I have the talent. Publishing? I'd done that before, I could probably do it again, and I did like it. I'm decades out of practice, though.

We'll see what happens...

[amw.livejournal.com]

Publishing is very different today, mainly because so much of it is online. Unfortunately, because of the dot com bust, everyone and their dog can wrangle Wordpress/Drupal/etc, so even there it's not really a money-maker. What little money there is, is in targeted/sponsored content these days.

I think the greatest myth America ever bought into was the idea that everyone is middle-class. They're not. A huge chunk of the country is working class, like it always has been. In fact, there are vast swathes of people all over the Western world who live from paycheck-to-paycheck, maybe with extended family or friends, juggling two or more jobs and hustling just to make it by. It's nothing to be disappointed by - in fact, a lot of people are proud of it - but if you still want the middle-class "dream", you can't sit there and wait for it to come to you. Upward mobility doesn't happen by accident.

[amw.livejournal.com]

Anyway, hope i'm not sounding like an ass. If you jump into the rat race then it's not a silver bullet. You will spin your wheels just as much - two steps forward, one step back - but if you don't jump in then you'll never go anywhere anyway. And there's nothing wrong with making a conscious decision to continue working for a low wage if it makes you happy. I hang out with 50-year-olds at my bar who have done exactly that their whole lives and wouldn't have it any other way. But whatever you do, do it consciously - then at least you won't feel disappointed about where your life is going.