For some background.... I'm a automotive technician.
Just recently transitioned into the service writer position. My body can't handle pulling engines, transmissions, and pulling dashes to replace evaporator cores.
I took a job that gave me what I was looking for. They sent me to a 6 month training program....5 days in Atlanta, the rest over video meetings, with certain metrics that needed to be met weekly.
I not only met those metrics, but in a lot of cases, I broke them. Out of 25 other people, I finished in the top 3.
In the final 2 months, my employer seemed to want to sabotage my advancement, always asking for help or needed something that needed to be done NOW, while I was in my meeting. That led to more stress, and me missing required homework or assignments.
While I was able to make up those assignments, they were at a reduced grade. I went from being a service writer to opening, closing the shop, managing the technicians, directing workflow, handling employee lunches, writing monthly reviews of the techs, being asked who goes home when we were slow, sitting in on interviews ( in which they had no intention of hiring) and running weekend workshops for customers.
I was paid basically $750 a week after taxes.
I held a master automotive technician certification, was a fucking bad ass at electrical and diag of check engine lights, could do alignments, reprogramming, and knew who could handle what and where work should go to, so as to not create bottlenecks.
In all this, I've never been able to break making over $38k a year. I feel I've spent my entire life making money for other people, while I've scrapped by and have struggled.
My wife has held the same job for 15 years, makes over 85k, and I've had to move from one place to another since 2019. Either the shop closed, or I couldn't get paid what I was worth. When that happened, I quit doing the hard diagnostic work, and just asked for the easy stuff that every other tech was making bank on.
Pushing back usually ended up with me being let go, only for then to call me back in a 3 months, but unwilling to pay me more than $28 a flag hour.
I start a job in the next week that pays $15 an hour, and I've been on 8 interviews since the beginning of last month.
I hear of people making $65-100k a month...not necessarily in my field of work, but just in general.
What's it like to be able to afford rent, groceries, car insurance, hell....even a new car....I feel like I'm just worthless, and thoughts of ending it all has been on the forefront of my mind lately.
Why am I struggling so hard?