I debated whether to post this from the Bureaucrat account because it's srs bsns, but I'm fully committed to the bit because it brings me joy.
But idk what to do about my career situation and am either looking for advice or just to commiserate. I have golden handcuffs that I don't know how to shed. I want to do something that I feel has actual value to society or at least doesn't make me hate my work day.
I work fully remote in the US in a non-tech job and make enough money to live comfortably in a low - medium cost of living area along with my partner's wages (shit like Boston and NYC is way out of budget still). So like I'm lucky and I don't have anything real to complain about, given that we have users on here who rely on the mutual aid comm to stay float sometimes.
But I've worked in the same organization for 5 years and this specific job for 2 of those. It's very heavily public facing and I'm in private 1:1 meetings all day. I couldn't say this to my co-workers, but I despise a large portion of the people I serve because they're expected to be college educated but apparently can't read very simple information, seemingly don't even know how to use computers, and can't follow deadlines. They then pour all their stress out on me by asking me to help them last minute because that's my job.
Idealists in my role would say "that's what we're here for" and I love the moments I get to help someone with something genuine like going through their options if a family member died and they need to disconnect for a while. Taking that stress away feels good because it's a situation I can empathize with. I can't empathize with not doing a simple google search before wasting 30 minutes of someone else's time (because that's what our time slot is for, even if their question takes 2 minutes). Those former moments are rare and I feel like a babysitter otherwise. It makes me feel like I'm just spinning my wheels and will be wasting my valuable life force on bullshit until I die. Like nothing has changed since I escaped my teenage retail work.
The problem is that pivoting to pretty much any job I'm interested in (I don't even know WHAT I'm interested in tbh) would require going back to school for a master's degree, potentially taking an uncomfortable pay cut in the meantime because it's really hard to study and work full-time, and coming out at the other end with 20k less dollars (on top of my 20k existing student debt) than I had but making maybe 2 - 3k more a year. I also support several of our family members due to medical circumstances and have to occasionally cover someone's entire month of rent, assist with buying food, medical bills, etc. Which I am very happy to be able to do, but it also adds to the emotional burden, since if I can't help, there's nobody else who can.
There's no world where it's cost effective and doesn't just drain the savings we've finally been able to start accumulating. Which is something neither of our families have ever been able to do.
But I can't keep doing this job either. And I can't keep living in the middle of nowhere just to save money because I basically have 0 friends or real support nearby other than my partner.
So I'm just wondering if someone has been a similar position of having to leave a relatively comfortable career, dealt with being a financial caretaker for family/friends, learned to cope with a job they hate, or anything else they think might help.
twice in my life i have taken a significant pay cut to make a big change / get away from a dead future. once was to completely re-skill and after a few years, go to school to further develop and contextualize my new skills. up until then i had the steady job with OK income out of my friends. i was the one who could cover peoples' bills and front cash for emergencies.
the problem was i loathed my job. after a few years of that realization gnawing at me, i made a drastic change. took my savings, moved far away and started doing something wildly different that i was inspired by. after a few years of having my passionate idealism exploited in the field, i went to school for it at the age of 29. then i worked in small non profits before being poached away for a large non profit institution.
i was there for 10 years and though i loved what i was doing in my role and was comfortable materially, the institution was corrupted and getting worse. i knew my role would eventually evaporate down the line in favor of careerist bullshit and much of my mental/emotional energy had become devoted to managing the toxicity of a public institution in imposed decline.
so i took another pay cut and moved even farther away to begin again, though in the same field so my experience and CV made me extremely attractive for an entry level, unionized position with better benefits and a collectively bargained payscale that would catch up/surpass my old position within a few years.
some people are very much blown away that i have, more than once, moved away from everyone i knew to start over in a new community in a new role with a new organization multiple times in my life. i am an introverted person, so i don't want to downplay the heroic effort it takes to rebuild oneself. it is a huge lift, but having done it before i can tell you that what you rebuild over time will make your past life seem like a faraway prison.
the takeaway here for you in your situation is that if you're going to make a huge change, you need to find something you are intensely curious and passionate about. don't worry about what the job/career would be associated with it, that's a trap to limit your imagination. you have to find the thing first that would make you want to read books and watch documentaries. it's the topic that you love to discuss with others so you can learn and grow. the thing you could see yourself practicing, developing, and mastering into your retirement just for your own enrichment. the thing you could let yourself be exploited by some master for a season to harvest their knowledge... not saying anyone should set out to do this, but it has been a strategy for millenia when formal and equitable avenues aren't available. i did it and came out the other side with great experience, but i also now recognize some of my mentors were small minded and emotionally stunted men. and they respect me far more now than i ever respected them. i acted and spoke with deference until i got what i needed, then i was out the door. to pursue knowledge in the traditional mentor/mentee paradigm is fraught, but one of the things that bad mentors don't realize is that if they gratuitously shit on their mentees, it comes back on them over and over. apologies for the digression.
if you find something like that, you will pursue it. while you may no longer find yourself in the position to materially support the people around you to the degree you do now, they will understand why. only the selfish will begrudge you for it.
ill leave you with one other observation: student loan debt is the right kind of debt. yes, it sucks. all debt sucks. but the assets you acquire cannot be repossessed. the credential, the social capital, the relationships, the knowledge and experience. houses and cars and everything else can be seized. but education can never be taken back and you take it with you wherever you go for the rest of your life.