am i deluded?

[ararejul]

I recently finished  reading this article - http://nymag.com/news/features/my-generation-2011-10/ - and started to question many things about life, the universe, and the answer to everything.

A lot of the article discusses something that I am currently dealing with; so, a quick back story before I begin.  In high school I was not the most popular,

Comments

[cicatrixtwigs]

After a year when I was really at the end of a tether following a performance review where my manager told me she couldn’t actually do her job without me (which I knew, I did all her work allocation for the entire team and kept everything ticking over) I got a downgraded end of year rating - and therefore lower pay rise and bonus - because I’d made mistakes in training (not on real work) on processes I didn’t know how to do. I still argue that was incredibly unfair. Training is supposed to be a safe, risk free environment. Anyway, I digress.

Shortly after… I went through a redundancy exercise myself. I was up against my whole department for either a like-for-like grade admin job, or a promotion to a project support job - a job that would finally let me use my degree!

I made some big mistakes there. I was apparently argued over by both jobs. They both wanted me and I had a lot of leverage. But I was so desperate to have a job and not be unemployed that I took the first package shown to me. I should have haggled. I should have asked for a lot more money, but I didn’t. I was too scared of being unemployed. That said - the job was a great opportunity and I seized it with both hands. I did really well, got great feedback.

But… new business dried up. There was no work for me to do. Then we were brought by another company who made their own new business department the chiefs, and we got stored away for use on back office retention projects. So here I sit, 2 years later.

I’m still not earning the average graduate starting wage after 2 promotions, annual salary increases and 5 years work. I’ve consistently had excellent feedback and performance reviews. I’m currently (unpaid) acting up to a grade higher than my current one, and as we’ve now been told our office is closing at the end of 2012, I’m never going to get that promotion.

And when I look at the job market? The only jobs I seem to get offered interviews for are ones that as soon as I have interviewed, I get told I’ll be “bored out of your mind” - yet the advice of recruiters is to dumb down my accomplishments to make me look like a more realistic hire. I’m always going to get angry at the comment “you’ll be bored” - if I’ll be bored doing your higher grade and higher salaried job, don’t you think that’s better than me being bored in my lower grade, lower pay job? Doing be ridiculous. The only time that should be relevant when it’s a direct mapping - grade and salary like for like, or so even it makes no odds.

The advice of my current manager? That I need to lie about my salary so they don’t see how poorly I am paid and assume I’m not doing the work I’m actually capable of. My low salary makes it look like I’m lying about the work I actually do, because someone doing the work I do should be on at least 10k more than I am.

So I’m stuck. Stuck in a loop of being overqualified for stepping stone jobs, but I look like I’m lying about my experience in the jobs I AM qualified for.

And all around me I see people my age who have been through multiple redundancies. I know 2 people who are using their degrees for what they originally intended - a pharmacist and a psychologist. That’s it. That’s out of everyone I went to uni and school with. Everyone I’ve met. I know multiple people who get the career break they needed, only to be made redundant within months and spend the next few years unable to get work.

I’m really scared of becoming one of them, and therefore I’m easy to take advantage of in the job market. And I know I’m not alone on that. Our generating has the unemployed at our heels snapping up any job, and companies taking advantage of staff with less time under their belts because that’s better for them when they have to pay redundancy packages.

[cicatrixtwigs]

All the career fairs I attended. All the sessions I went to at school. No one EVER told me the keys for a career. I was never given any idea on how to negotiate a salary. Never given any idea on how to position myself as a brand. Never taught how to portray my accomplishments in a positive light. I’ve always been good at interviews, but I didn’t really pull any of this together until the last year, until I hit this career wall so solidly.

I know so many couples reliant on the income of one person, meaning that person can’t take risks in their own career. I worry sometimes that Gus would like to take more risks - he could earn a lot more money if he took on contracts rather than permanent jobs. But with me working in financial services and my career being in jeopardy every 2 years, he can’t if we want to stay living together and pay our bills. I think he’s okay with this, he likes being the man of the house as much as it rankles me being a militant equalitist (not a real thing, whatever). But it’s not how I want to live my life. I want to work hard and get rewarded for it. I want to pay my taxes and contribute to society. I want to reach my potential.

But it’s a constant battle. And it really sucks.