Work Life Balance
Something we are all familiar with
This section is dedicated to my work journey and how I learn to navigate through life post grad while finding my passions and happiness. As stated, this is all fun and games and will be told in my perspective of the hardships and confusions I go through as I figure out what I want to do and how I fit into the working world.
How it started
I graduated with a bachelors of science from a University in May of 2024. I had a great experience away from home, while also staying close enough to come back whenever I choose. I started college with an undecided major and ultimately chose to go into a communications field because I have more of a creative mindset and I enjoyed my classes (most of the time). Since graduating high school during a pandemic, I was worried about how I would connect with my classmates and find friends that were the right fit for me. As someone who is an extravert, I quickly found my group, some of whom I am still very close with today, and had a memorable experience I wouldn't want to change. There were ups and downs, of course, as there would be in any big life change such as leaving home and going to college, but I knew this was time I could never get back and I wanted to make the most of it. I sure as heck did. Fast forward four years where I get to accomplish a life goal I never knew I would. Graduation.
How it's going
With my degree I was able to find a job pretty quickly. Was it in my field? No. Was it something I enjoyed doing? Not really. I currently work at the same company as I have been applying to new jobs for months and have had no luck. I either get no response at all or the bullshit excuse of "the position has been filled." I am grateful to be employed, don't get me wrong, but I am very unhappy at my job. The company is okay, but they don't appreciate their employees as much as they say they do. We work long hours, inside and outside through the cold winters and extremely hot summers, we are met with some very nice customers and some horrible mean customers who seem to have no awareness of anyone else having their own life and sometimes it feels as though we don't get rewarded for all the hard work we put in. I am 23 and feel like I am already overworked. My friends have their fun city 9-5 jobs while I sometimes get into my office at 6:30am and don't leave until 6:30pm (which was not in the job description). Some things I write in this blog may come off as complaining, and it is. I made this to express how I feel about figuring out who you want to be as yourself and as an employee. I always hear my elders say "Your generation doesn't want to work," or "Gen Z is so lazy," and that's not the case, at least for me. I want to work, I want to be employed. Maybe it's the job market right now or the fact that even buying something as simple as toilet paper is too expensive, but I don't think adults older than me understand how hard it can be for us right now. I can't even imagine being an even more recent college grad looking for a job because every entry-level position requires like 50 years of work experience and a first born child. It's just not as practical as it used to be.
Summer of '25
I've had a lot of fun this summer with traveling, friends and family events. My life is pretty good and I am grateful to have grown up with two parents who love me and two step parents who have welcomed me into their families as their own. As fun and happy as my life may seem at times this isn't always the case, I am still a normal human being. This summer has been a change for me as I am now a year and a half into my job that I still dislike. My mental health started to take a turn this summer because I feel stuck and my company promotes quickly which is great, except when you don't want to be here. I got promoted into a role with more responsibilities and as I learn how to handle that, while still making time for family, a social life, AND my pets, I just feel stuck. That's been my word of the summer. Stuck. I don't want to let my current employer down, but my performance hasn't been the best this summer because I am still learning in this current role where you just get thrown into it with little training (I'll get into that another time), and that's not who I want to be as an employee. I still try every few days to apply to new roles and find something that will work better for my needs and desires, but for the time being I, once again, am still stuck. And maybe stuck isn't the best way to describe it, I don't know. I am writing this out of my pure enjoyment of wanting to express how I feel and hopefully relate to someone going through the same situation or similar.
As of recently, I got offered to nanny part time for a family I have known for years. I have babysat this child since they were in diapers. Great people, cute family. They are looking for someone to help out after the child gets out of what i'm assuming is pre-k. Great hours, but less pay. Now I sit here stuck with a choice of taking less pay for my happiness and allowing me more time to job search, but also I don't want to do that for long. I am scared I will be jobless if I take this route, and this doesn't even include losing my 401k for a little and medical benefits. I also worry that as I apply to places they see my corporate absence as me not working. I still would be working, just not at a corporation. If anyone has any advice, please email me. Do most 20 something year olds go through these mental battles of not knowing what comes next? Not only feeling stuck, but feeling anxious I'm not doing something right or I am missing out on something. I just wish someone could make these decisions for me.