Comrades, I am about to sound like a whiny bitch, but please indulge me. I am suffering from extreme alienation.
Basically I am in my dream job. It's easy, secure(government), makes good money, tons of vacation, and is low stress enough that I can listen to podcasts all day, but not boring enough that I could read a book all day and not get fired. I'm also in a union which at the moment is full of old timers that aren't radical in the least but at least it's something and possibly something I could take on as a future goal .
The problem is I'm in a total dead end job. I started as a developer(sql developer) and it's turned into more business analyst type work. Since I work in a large organization most our technology is outdated so that combined with the more business analyst type work means my tech skills are stale. I fear if I want to change jobs at all in the next 40 years I will have to basically start over and take a pretty massive pay/benefits cut. Not only that but the group I work with is a disaster and I see very little likelihood of possible improvement or interesting projects down the road. The last few projects we started went nowhere because they were such shitshows. I have tried pushing some modernization efforts on my manager to at least give me something interesting to do, but they weren't interested. My job is totally mind numbing and alienating. I feel like I am just maintaining old shit now one cares about and really should die but it would take too much effort to change. Not only that but because I got promotions I don't have much room to move up without going into management. I feel stuck because on one had this job has what I described above as what I have always wanted, but it is totally killing my soul and the longer I stay here I fear the harder it's going to be leave. The problem is I worry about getting a new job that is also soul destroying but doesn't offer me the time(9-5 and lots of vacation) to pursue my true passions.
So what do you think comrades? Stay in my dead end, but secure, job and let that kill my soul while I use my free time to pursue my interests or take a risk for something that isn't totally soul sucking? For those of you that made it through my whining I thank you. This is the ultimate first world problem but it is literally killing my soul and I need to vent.
Hi Comrade, I was in a very similar situation a couple of years ago. Looking back, it might have been a mistake, to quit the job. I felt depressed at work, nothing would move forward and there wasn't even one day, where I went home and thougt "great, you did something usefull today". Years later I understood that the Job was only partly to blame for my depression. I thought the dead end job made me depressed, now I learned I was depressed long before. I think the ideal way would have been, to stay at this job and build a life around it. What I really want and need is spare time with my loved ones and there would have been a way to have that with my old job. After that, I worked self employed for a while because I thought the freedom of having no boss would make it worth while. Little did I realize, I wouldn't have one boss, every customer was my boss now. Now I part time and further my education 15h/week. It's the first time I really feel free. My job is easy and my heart is in my education. I earn just enough money for rent and food, but that's totally worth it for me. TL;DR capitlism is always alienating. Try do understand what the real reasons for the feeling of being stuck at this job are. Try and understand what you really need to be happy.