I have mostly worked in the restaurant industry, and the norm is to work 2-3 jobs filled with nonstop this and that along with constant verbal abuse from customers and managers. It's hard to maintain friendships and even relationships because you're working when they have the time to see you and you're asleep when they're working. All for a barely livable pay with no chance for health insurance or PTO.

I decided three years ago to try out an office job. I never did work at a desk and had no clue what to expect. After a couple months of getting used to things, I realized that all I had to do was three hours of work. The rest of that time could be spent however I wanted, so long as I just kept pretending to work. And everyone around me did this. One of my coworkers had boxes of shoes under her table because every week she'd shop for new pairs to try, and whatever she didn't like she'd send back.

The pandemic honestly made things even slower. When we were working from home, there was no one to really see what we were doing in our spare time. I'd literally get up at 10, do errands until 2, and then log on and work a little until 4:30. All that for a decent pay, healthcare, the works.

And yet I was miserable. I'd get paranoid that all the work that was piling up was going to get me in a shit load of trouble, and in a normal place I would be tarred and feathered for the negligence. It didn't help that it was nonprofit work, and there were actually people on the other side of my work who needed help. As many who are in nonprofit work know, your job is not to help people, but to be the ones who apologize that nothing can be done and take on their real frustrations. My bosses didn't care how well I did my job, so long as there was no lawsuit on the way.

I ended up quitting a few months ago and I'm back in food service. I feel skilled and useful where I am right now and my coworkers are wonderful people. They even offer healthcare, though not an amazing plan. But now I'm back to spending early mornings thinking how I'm going to pay rent. Did I fumble the bag with this other job? Why do bullshit jobs, even with shit NGOs, all pay so much better than fields where you are expected to grind yourself into sludge day in and day out?