An extremely crabby rant about working

I feel so trapped. I work in a shitty work environment doing a job I hate with people who range from "nice enough to work with" to "assholes I wish would die." The building makes people sick, including me. I get approximately 3-4% per year cost of living raise, which ain't bad, until you factor in that I get ABSOLUTELY NO merit-based raises, commission, bonuses, etc. I mean, this is company policy, implied if not actually written. Our sales (although we don't actually offically SELL STUFF, we just answer phones like trained monkeys, which is why we DON'T get commission) went up 40% last year. Meaning we did 40% more work. Same number of people in our understaffed department who could barely keep up the year before. But we pulled it off. What did we get? NAAADAAAAA. We weren't even informed of that until our new manager asked the sales manager, and even then, it was related with clinical dryness. HOW ABOUT A "GOOD JOB, MONKEYS! HERE IS A NICE SHINY BANANA!"

But that wasn't my point, and I could rant about that shithole for days. (I will only briefly mention that I've never had a manager who treated me any better than a small child -- my questions, opinions, concerns, etc. have always been ignored or downright ridiculed. I will also add that, although this is one thing that is improving, it's still about 95% male.) Oh, and I sell fucking doorknobs. Actually, I find people to go fix other people's fucking doorknobs. I mean, let's not sugar-coat it. But if their fucking doorknob's too broke to fix, then I'll sell 'em a new one. Oh, and did I mention that this is pretty much dead-end? I can't fathom where I would go from here in this company, being a) female, b) not related to the owner of my company, and c) not liked by the owner of my company (because I tried and succeeded in getting promoted out of my previous receptionist position -- you do the job you're hired for and shut the fuck up is his motto -- unless you have the right connections or a penis, of course).

My point is that if it sucks so much, I should quit, right? Except, see, I've spent 5 years working my way up from an $8-an-hour peon to where I am here (even shit pay adds up over 5 years). And god only knows fucking why, but I've worked HARD, gotten a couple major promotions and changed companies, to get here. And if I start over somewhere else, I know I'll be making $10 an hour. I can't live on that, and I'm about to turn 30 -- I do not want to have to work two fucking jobs for another 3 years in another probably-shitty field of work just to work my way up to the point of burnout. So I mean, don't get me wrong -- I don't make a lot of money, but it's not peanuts. And I enjoy things like eating real produce and being able to pay my electric bill. Things I probably will not be able to do on $10 an hour at this point in my life. I do not want to go back to eating ramen in the dark and wearing torn clothes, goddamn it. Making it that much harder to start over.

Every time I say I'm going to quit (which is often), I start looking at job listings, and I fall into a depression. I am a very capable person -- I don't care if it sounds assholey to say this, I am smarter, a better learner and just all-around more able than most of the population. But I do not have one fucking marketable skill besides RECEPTIONIST (what I did temping during and between colleges) and hardware monkey. I will never be the least bit happy being a receptionist, and I will never make enough money to live on.

I just don't fit into this setup. Work all day for a paycheck so you can come back to work tomorrow, spend more than half your waking life at, preparing for, going to or coming from this place that makes you want to retch thinking about it. I've never had a job I didn't feel that way about at least to some extent (most jobs I've liked at least one major aspect of the job -- the people suck but I like the work, the work sucks but I like the people -- here, nothing really comes to mind). So although this job sucks absolute ass, I know it's never going to get significantly better. It's not that I don't like having some stuff -- I'm not quite to the point of dropping out of society -- but I have pretty simple tastes for a 21st century American. I'd probably like to upgrade from a studio to a one-bedroom apartment some day, and when my Cavalier I bought from Grandma dies in another 5-10 years, it would be nice to be able to afford a used, low-end Toyota. I rarely go out if it's not happy hour. I do go to the gym. I don't go to the dentist (that's been weighing on me, but while I can afford the trip, I can't afford to actually fix anything if needed). I eat some organic food, some non. Someday, I'd love to take a vacation with a budget of over $500 (I only do the $500 trips about once every two years, although I try to at least visit friends out of state in the off years). My apartment right now is really cute, with some stuff I've inherited from my parents over the years and some new things I've bought. My first new TV, and I got a 20". What I'm saying is that I'm easily fulfilled as far as what I want out of life materially. I want some comfort, some pleasantness, but I don't expect or want luxury. I could do with less of the small things, but I really am as minimal as I can be with the big things (apartment and car). Oh, and I admit with this weight loss I'm going to probably be having fun buying new clothes -- mostly at Target and TJ Maxx -- but I basically usually have about a week's worth of outfits in any given season. Assuming I wear jeans 2 or 3 times. Yeah, it feels good to have a little spending money, but those things are the things I don't really need to be happy. It's just a nice bonus.

But I don't want to have to sell my soul any more. How many more days, weeks, months, years of my life am I going to spend doing something I hate most of the time? And what's wrong with me? Or what's wrong with the rest of the world? I really don't know which it is -- obviously I have a much harder time coping with this fact of life than everyone else on the planet, but there are so many dead-eyed drones just going through the motions -- do they feel the same way I do, or have they just given up? I've really never heard anyone say what I'm feeling. I just don't know how to conform to the world, and I guess I don't want to. It would be nice to be happier with this working-stiff setup, but at the same time, I don't want to just vaccuum out my brain and turn into a vapid drone in an SUV either.

Sigh. I'm sure if any strangers were actually reading this, they'd think I'm some spoiled brat who doesn't value a day's work. I work my ass off at everything I do, even if I don't like it. Well, I admit, I haven't been real good at this job lately -- I kind of decided maybe I'll do 40% less work, since I'm really not getting paid to do it. Fuck it, and fuck them. My secret goal is to get fired and collect unemployment.

Making my real dream of working in film even more possible. But that's another rant for later. I'm getting really disheartened about that. I do have a job coming up, but then what? So I've had less than 10 jobs probably in the past 14 months. Even if they paid REALLY WELL, that does not begin to cut it. And most of them didn't pay. I need to really start throwing myself at people with summer coming up. Please hire meeeeee!!!!