I’m starting to think that my life is over and I don’t want to live anymore. As of writing this I am a 23 year old woman with no qualifications or education. I have learning disabilities and my IQ is just 76. I struggle with things like talking, maths and spelling and I can’t find a job.
When I was a kid I knew I was different. Things that were easy for the other kids to do took me ages to learn. Kids used to make fun of me because of the way I talked and in general I could fit in. As I got older my learning disabilities become more noticeable. I was diagnosed with ADHD and low intelligence and therefore struggled academically but my dad refused to put me in a special education program because he thought it would be an embarrassment. School was very hard for me. I would work my ass off just to get C’s and B’s and my father was very abusive. He would expect me to do well in school and if I didn’t he would beat and punish me. I had to repeat the 7th and 9th grade but I eventually graduated but very poor grades and no qualifications. When I was around 15-18 started to do drugs like weed and alcohol just to cope.
I left my parents house when I was 19 and went to live with a friend. I have very little money as I’m addicted to drugs and my lack of education makes getting a job practically impossible. I don’t see my life going anywhere and when I’m not on drugs I’m miserable. My brothers and sisters have done so much better then me and it makes me so jealous, angry and ashamed. I know this may sound cringe but I honestly can’t do this anymore.
EDIT: I now have a job at Burger King as a cook. It’s not glamorous but it’s some money.
Yeah that’s an intentionally extreme example. I’ve also seen garbage truck drivers being used in that context. The point is more that we need people on all tiers of jobs, even the literal shit ones. We need truck drivers, we need train drivers, we need people to pick up crops, we need people to take the trash out, we need people to maintain the sewers, we need people to empty out sceptic tanks. They’re critical infrastructure, and one shouldn’t feel bad because they ended up being a garbage truck driver. If you want a cozy repeated job and come home at 5 to your kids and family, that’s perfectly acceptable.
We put way too much emphasis on “success” and its connection to highly educated and high paying jobs.
IMO the fact that fastfood jobs are considered temporary bootstrap jobs that you’re expected to be exploited to hell is bullshit and an indication of the absolutely broken moral compass of the corporate world. We could do without fast food, but that doesn’t mean we should pay them them minimum wage. Everyone deserves a livable wage no matter what they do.
I appreciate your good humor since I think I came off as hostile
I guess my perspective is that we’re talking about what OP wants to do in the present world, not what she could do in a hypothetical utopia (or just fairer society). So yeah, fast food jobs could be less terrible and should be, but at the moment they are absolutely not something to aspire to or even to recommend in many places because, again, they don’t even pay enough to live. Maybe OP is still living for free with a friend, in which case I guess it’s better than nothing, but in general it seems bad as a survival strategy.
Ah I see. I wasn’t using those as job suggestions but rather examples of jobs that are considered “loser” jobs and use those to drive the point that they’re important too, and there’s nothing wrong with ending up with those for your whole life. A job’s purpose is to give you money. Trying to comfort OP by removing the “loser” label and not focus as much on “well you could go flip burgers” because that just doesn’t help the emotional side of the situation.
I wish her to aspire to do a little more than those, but even assuming she’s as dumb as she claims to be, there’s still options, some granted less good than others, but just as important to society. I do think she’s got more potential than she thinks though, she reminds me a bit of my wife when I met her and now she’s competing with me as DevOps/SRE.
As another example: I’m autistic, I struggle with a lot of things. I make frequent use of DoorDash, I also hire cleaners every now and then to clean, and handymen to repair stuff in the house I just can’t deal with on my own. All of those jobs, people shit on continuously, and me too because I can’t manage some quite basic tasks. But using those services let me focus on what I’m good at, which is keeping thousands of computers happy. I make a fair bit of money which gets shared with all those that support me in being a productive member of society: cooks, waiters, delivery drivers, cleaners, trades. It’s good for the economy, it’s good for society. Those people deserve respect for their somewhat hidden contributions. Not having those people would ultimately make me fail, that would drag my employer with it, other companies wouldn’t have the software they need to operate.
Every one that contributes to society is important and valueble, whether people recognize it or not.