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30 People On Twitter Are Sharing How Much Stress They Deal With At Their Jobs That Pay Less Than $40 Grand A Year
Former Westpac CEO David Morgan talked with The Age about life as the head of the company. He said that even though company chief executives are "ridiculously overpaid", they feel so much pressure that some of them "literally weep" behind closed doors. This caused a huge wave of anger among Twitter users.
People went crazy when Twitter user Frankie Zelnick responded to The Age's tweet with "Raise your hand if you’ve “literally wept” from stress at a job that paid you less than 40 grand a year". There's a common misconception that a lower salary means lower stress levels and that is simply not true. From crying in the bathroom to anxiety attacks and serious health issues, the users shared many upsetting stories.
Scroll down and check out some of the most heartbreaking comments Bored Panda picked out from this thread. And if you ever experienced anything like this, remember that you can always share your experience in the comments below.
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I work in the labs of a pharmaceutical company, overworked, overstressed, ever shorter deadlines, not enough staff etc, we had a rarely used lab that was known as the crying room when that converted to offices we were really worried about where we could go. Toilets were on another floor so if you had a sudden breakdown the whole building would see. It now takes support and coordination of colleagues to give you space in one of the other labs for a good cry.
Quitting your job or getting fired might seem like putting yourself in an extremely difficult situation. However, you might be surprised to find out that feeling stressed at work might actually be worse than not having a job at all. A study by The University of Manchester found that people employed in low-paying or demanding jobs may not actually enjoy better health than those who remain unemployed.
Over 1000 adults aged 35-75 were monitored during their unemployment in 2009-2010. Later on, researchers followed up with them "about their self-reported health and their levels of chronic stress as indicated by their hormones and other biomarkers related to stress". The results were clear, those participants who moved into poor quality work had higher levels of chronic stress than those who remained jobless.
As if there's not enough stress revolving around our jobs, the pandemic has put even more pressure on it. The American Psychological Association commissioned a survey to look at how workplaces are dealing with the pandemic, measure stress levels, and capture what workers are looking for from their employers as it relates to their mental health.
As it turns out, low salaries, long hours, heavy workloads, and unrealistic expectations are the most common reasons you might feel stressed at work. "When it comes to job level, lower-level employees are more likely to experience negative impacts of work-related stress," the report suggests. "And more than one in three front line workers (35%) have felt fed up at work quite frequently or more often in the past 30 days."
my parents always told me to "grow thicker skin" and to "stop being so sensitive" or "stop being so dramatic" but now my skin is so thick that i hate everyone all the time (except a few close friends, my chosen family) and they still wonder "why do you act like you hate me?"
There are certain things managers can do to create a healthy work environment and support employees’ mental health. Respondents offered suggestions like giving flexible hours, encouraging workers to take care of their health, and taking breaks during the workday.
However, some people might feel so sick and tired of their situation that they see no other choice but to quit. According to the Guardian, teachers across the US are leaving their jobs in huge numbers due to exhaustion and low wages. Teaching during the pandemic and dealing with tightly packed and poorly ventilated classrooms leaves them stressed out.
In 2009, the minimum wage was raised to $7.25 an hour. The average house cost in 2009 was about $200,000. the average gas price was $2.35/gallon. Presently, the average cost of a home is around $400,000. The average gas price is $3.398/gallon and the minimum wage is STILL $7.25 AN HOUR!
Steven Singer, a middle school teacher from Pennsylvania, said that "the stress of the pandemic is taking a toll on me and all of us. We’re just at a breaking point. This crisis for teachers didn’t start with Covid. We have low pay, low respect, low autonomy, and no one listens to us. Now we’re being forced to risk our lives and our health."
those people are the absolute worst. they dont deserve the poor animals they're neglecting.
This sort of approach make literally NO sense and yet it's so common. Unless an incumbent is bad at their job - in which case take steps to rectify or let them go - then paying them more is a massive investment. You get less turnover, spend less time hiring and training, and generally it's better for the company. I don't understand not doing this.
Cathy Bullington, an elementary school art teacher, is thinking of retiring early because she feels left out of the decision-making process. “Teaching during the pandemic has been the most difficult thing I have had to do in my 30-year teaching career. Nothing prepares you for this. We had no plan for this and now the plan keeps changing,” she said.
Every day. I feel like there's nobody who feels like the same but I guess I was wrong. I entered this profession 18 years ago to try to make a difference in people's lives and I come home covered in sweat and s**t
That's how Amazon and Walmart do things. Many of their employees are on welfare and other social programs.
No one should be asked to pay this kind of price. Even if some level of stress could be considered beneficial and motivating, most of the time, it becomes overwhelming and can have a huge impact on a person’s mental health. It's important to recognize the signs and take slow steps towards managing this pressure.
My mom is a teacher. When she started 40 years ago the class was calm and quiet, if a kid occasionally misbehaved they got a note to be signed by parents who would punish the kid. The biggest scandal ever was a kid caught smoking behind the bins. Today the class is like a herd of wild animals who can't keep quiet for 5 seconds. Kids get bullied for not having the latest iphone or sneakers. 12 year old stabbed his classmate during class. Sending a kid home with a note means his parents will come next day to scream at the teacher swearing their Kayden couldn't have done wrong. Hats off to anyone willing to teach these days.
I used to be a lab tech in a major trauma hospital. A two year degree was required. When I got hired, I was told it would be M-F with one Saturday a month. I was also told major holidays would be off, with pay. The reality of it was working six days a week, every week, no holidays off. For six years I worked in a windowless basement laboratory, six days a week, arriving in the lab when it was dark outside and leaving when it was dark outside, driving 1.5 hours each way to and from, never having Christmas or any other US holidays off (such as Thanksgiving, 4th of July, etc), missing everything my then-young son was doing in school, never taking a single vacation in that time. When I contracted swine flu from work during the outbreak and was subsequently hospitalized with pneumonia as a complication, I was written up upon my return for missing 10 days of work...because I was in the hospital on a respirator. The lab directors had the audacity to wonder why the turnover rate was so high.
Had to deal with a racist security guard at one job who hated people of Latino decent. Apparently because I have olive toned skin (Mediterranean descent), can speak some Spanish (thank you school languages classes), and once lived in New York I MUST have been from Spanish Harlem and therefore hated. First off, NY is big damn state and I was from somewhere way tf away from the city. Second, we were living in Florida at the time which has an extremely high population of Latinos. He thankfully got over after that particular facet of his personality was found out. Never understood hating people based on racial grouping. Guess it’s good he never found out I was attempting to learn Korean, German, Italian, and Arabic (fairly unsuccessfully ☹️).
My mom is a teacher's assistant in the San Francisco Bay Area in California aka one of the most expensive places to live in the USA and she barely clears 1500 a month after taxes and she has been doing it for 20 years!
If you think about $20 and what that can get you, then think of time, about 2 hours, and ask yourself if 2 hours of the work you do is worth $20, you'll get the perspective that we're all working for nuts.
Worked at a U-Haul traffic dept call center I cannot count on 2 hands the amount of times I was yelled at, cussed out, or had my life threatened because someone kept the trunk over their scheduled time or a reserved truck was put of commission because the catalytic converter was stolen off of it.
Reading all these stories reminded me of the time I got a disciplinary hearing due to missing work. my father in law was in a coma after a heart attack and I was responsible for making his health decisions. oh yeah his heart attack happened cause he was overworked at a kitchen that payed him minimal wage and also took money out of his paycheck for eating there weather he did or not. One of those we will give you one meal on the clock things. Anyways I was made to feel guilty that my coworker had to miss his grandchilds school play. Like sorry he missed that but you're trying to guilt me over a life and death situation that was in my hands. I worked 12 hour shifts 7 days a week had one day off a month from this job. I was eventually injured from overworking at this job now I have lost alot of the ability of the use of my primary arm but that's my fault somehow. I guess it's my fault for not leaving sooner.
Note: this post originally had 77 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
I am devastated to read how cruel people can be. Treat people with respect. I greet everybody. The cleaning lady is equally important as my CEO! And if you have a complaint, deal with it nicely... Shouting never helps to solve a situation.
You would think working at Nintendo of Americas call center would be fun and exciting. It can also be a heavy emotional toll. One rep told me that a child was asking him questions about games and could hear someone in the background yelling "Where are you, you little sh*t?!?" He asked if the kid was ok. The kid explained his step-father was drunk again, but it was ok..his mom would be home soon. One 5 -year old that I talked to was crying because his mom and dad took off for a run and left him at home alone. And my husband took a call from a man that was threatening to commit suicide. Luckily, with his caller ID, we got the police there in time to stop him. And now you know why Nintendo call center has a high turn around rate.
Knowing how the gaming community acts, working as a call centre rep at any gaming company would terrify me. I don't even think I could work as a character artist.
Load More Replies... British nurse here , I don't earn £30000. We got a 3% payrise for our hard work....inflation is 4.1%>>.....
I’ve had jobs that didn’t pay well, and that I would quite literally throw up at the thought of going to. The worst part is being stuck in that job because you still haven’t even gotten an interview at the numerous other jobs you’ve applied for.
I used to have more sympathy for the stress executives are under. Sure, they have six or eight figure salaries and hopefully make smarter investments with their disposable income than, like, boats; but I also wouldn’t want to be responsible for making bad multi-million-dollar decisions. On the third hand, as was already mentioned, they have more of a say than the guys on be front line; and “have more of a say” also includes a hefty dose of “roll the s**t of blame all the way downhill” that is immune to almost everything short of very bad publicity.
One boss gave me panic attacks and made me cry. She was eventually fired because so many people reported her to the higher-ups. Her replacement has been much better, but the line of work is still stressful. Being a journalist has its ups and downs. No one goes into this field for the money.
The only time I have cried about a job, was when I was so mad at a co worker! And I don't work in the US! I have had s**t jobs and have had to suck it up for a paycheck, its not f*****g fun!!!! My demeanour tells people without telling people , I will not put up with any bullshit!! If they tried, they got snapped at!
I've worked many fast food jobs but the worst job was a call center where i answered claims questions for blue cross blue shield. People would scream at us because the claims were paid to the doctor and not to them! The provider is who gets paid by your insurance! Also a few horror stories of people's insurance being cut off while in a coma etc. At 20 i didn't understand pension insurance and it wasn't explained to us. Eventually i figured out by asking questions that some factories were cutting out pensions and insurance for retired employees when the factory had new owner. Having to suggest this to someone whose spouse is in a coma or in hospital with a heart attack is horrible. Everyone there smoked and cried outside on break.
Worked in food service for a couple years. The day before I quit with no notice I was berated so cruelly right after clocking in that I spent my entire shift silently crying at the register. Eight hours of telling customers that I just had allergies to explain my wet face and red, swollen eyes. The thing I was yelled at for?? I hadn't even done or had anything to do with at all.
Worked in restaurants in the 90s (cooking) spent 12 hours a day getting screamed at by management (litterly) and servers as s**t rolls downhill. on top of that, couldn't afford a place of my own so bounced between my abusive parents and being invisibly homeless. Yeah CEOs weep behind the closed doors of their fancy offices and lux homes. I got to weep while trying to sleep in a car. These tone deaf morons can suck eggs.
Social worker... 30k was the absolute BEST pay I've ever gotten, not that anyone gets into that line of work for the money. When I was an in-house case manager for a PSH project, we had a manager who'd never worked a day in that position, and regularly told all of us that she had "no idea what we did back there all day". Of course she didn't, she never had to be the person on the phone for hours with medical providers/benefits services etc. on behalf of someone too mentally ill to advocate for themself. And then she tried to get me fired on her way out the door. We would also find bodies sometimes. Clients we'd known and loved and cared for for years. Worse than that was finding a client who had had a stroke and was still alive. Weeks of tears and nightmares right there. The EMTs were always really callous towards our clients, too...
I decided to educate myself a little further the next year and try to get my bachelor. Have finally some money in my account to do that. And if i have to quit my job, i would do that anyways. My boss is mad at me for having this plans, but i do not care anymore. Drunk people throw stuff at me, rude customers, people wants to start fights with me not going along with them and i´m mostly alone. Almost snapped at a chatty customer today. I think it's more then time to move further.
...as I get ready to go in to work, too. I work overnights at a retirement home with 15 residents, all severely disabled in the ID/DD community. I love the residents dearly, and will stay for them, but it's insulting the ways in which I've watched the CEO & board of directors try everything EXCEPT raising pay to deal with the staff shortages & turnover. We change their diapers, deal with behaviors, administer medications, and the other night we got to evacuate everyone (again!) in the middle of the night due to malfunction in the sprinkler system - multiple people being wheelchair dependant & 2 complete quadriplegic, on top of cleaning, cooking, & documentation. Me & 1 other staff overnight, making $11.33/hr.
I work at a call center. It sucks. Do not yell at operators! We just do the damned tickets, we can't fix what ever is wrong with you that you can't go out and spray where you want to dig! People just think we are around to yell at. This is why you get hung up on, we won't take it anymore People are just assholes, if they can't see you, you are fair game.
The amount of teaching-related occupations is really concerning. Is it that bad in the US? (I am a teacher at a private language school in Slovakia, and I really love my job.)
Well, it is not only in the US. In Germany you get mostly fixed-term contracts as a teacher, that means over the summer, you have no income. The countries try to safe money and that is a legal way to do it. We have unemployment benefit, but i have no idea if this cover the gap.
Load More Replies...
How does an American 40k job compare to Europe's euro's? To me a 40k euro job looks like a very decent wage. Perhaps not in the big cities in Europe.
It’s a bad salary in America, but not the absolute worst. It’s a low end middle class salary. You can’t live on 40k alone but if you’re in a couple where each person is making 40k, you’d be fine.
Load More Replies... You don't like your job? Then quit! It's that simple. Make way for people that want to contribute.
I am devastated to read how cruel people can be. Treat people with respect. I greet everybody. The cleaning lady is equally important as my CEO! And if you have a complaint, deal with it nicely... Shouting never helps to solve a situation.
You would think working at Nintendo of Americas call center would be fun and exciting. It can also be a heavy emotional toll. One rep told me that a child was asking him questions about games and could hear someone in the background yelling "Where are you, you little sh*t?!?" He asked if the kid was ok. The kid explained his step-father was drunk again, but it was ok..his mom would be home soon. One 5 -year old that I talked to was crying because his mom and dad took off for a run and left him at home alone. And my husband took a call from a man that was threatening to commit suicide. Luckily, with his caller ID, we got the police there in time to stop him. And now you know why Nintendo call center has a high turn around rate.
Knowing how the gaming community acts, working as a call centre rep at any gaming company would terrify me. I don't even think I could work as a character artist.
Load More Replies... British nurse here , I don't earn £30000. We got a 3% payrise for our hard work....inflation is 4.1%>>.....
I’ve had jobs that didn’t pay well, and that I would quite literally throw up at the thought of going to. The worst part is being stuck in that job because you still haven’t even gotten an interview at the numerous other jobs you’ve applied for.
I used to have more sympathy for the stress executives are under. Sure, they have six or eight figure salaries and hopefully make smarter investments with their disposable income than, like, boats; but I also wouldn’t want to be responsible for making bad multi-million-dollar decisions. On the third hand, as was already mentioned, they have more of a say than the guys on be front line; and “have more of a say” also includes a hefty dose of “roll the s**t of blame all the way downhill” that is immune to almost everything short of very bad publicity.
One boss gave me panic attacks and made me cry. She was eventually fired because so many people reported her to the higher-ups. Her replacement has been much better, but the line of work is still stressful. Being a journalist has its ups and downs. No one goes into this field for the money.
The only time I have cried about a job, was when I was so mad at a co worker! And I don't work in the US! I have had s**t jobs and have had to suck it up for a paycheck, its not f*****g fun!!!! My demeanour tells people without telling people , I will not put up with any bullshit!! If they tried, they got snapped at!
I've worked many fast food jobs but the worst job was a call center where i answered claims questions for blue cross blue shield. People would scream at us because the claims were paid to the doctor and not to them! The provider is who gets paid by your insurance! Also a few horror stories of people's insurance being cut off while in a coma etc. At 20 i didn't understand pension insurance and it wasn't explained to us. Eventually i figured out by asking questions that some factories were cutting out pensions and insurance for retired employees when the factory had new owner. Having to suggest this to someone whose spouse is in a coma or in hospital with a heart attack is horrible. Everyone there smoked and cried outside on break.
Worked in food service for a couple years. The day before I quit with no notice I was berated so cruelly right after clocking in that I spent my entire shift silently crying at the register. Eight hours of telling customers that I just had allergies to explain my wet face and red, swollen eyes. The thing I was yelled at for?? I hadn't even done or had anything to do with at all.
Worked in restaurants in the 90s (cooking) spent 12 hours a day getting screamed at by management (litterly) and servers as s**t rolls downhill. on top of that, couldn't afford a place of my own so bounced between my abusive parents and being invisibly homeless. Yeah CEOs weep behind the closed doors of their fancy offices and lux homes. I got to weep while trying to sleep in a car. These tone deaf morons can suck eggs.
Social worker... 30k was the absolute BEST pay I've ever gotten, not that anyone gets into that line of work for the money. When I was an in-house case manager for a PSH project, we had a manager who'd never worked a day in that position, and regularly told all of us that she had "no idea what we did back there all day". Of course she didn't, she never had to be the person on the phone for hours with medical providers/benefits services etc. on behalf of someone too mentally ill to advocate for themself. And then she tried to get me fired on her way out the door. We would also find bodies sometimes. Clients we'd known and loved and cared for for years. Worse than that was finding a client who had had a stroke and was still alive. Weeks of tears and nightmares right there. The EMTs were always really callous towards our clients, too...
I decided to educate myself a little further the next year and try to get my bachelor. Have finally some money in my account to do that. And if i have to quit my job, i would do that anyways. My boss is mad at me for having this plans, but i do not care anymore. Drunk people throw stuff at me, rude customers, people wants to start fights with me not going along with them and i´m mostly alone. Almost snapped at a chatty customer today. I think it's more then time to move further.
...as I get ready to go in to work, too. I work overnights at a retirement home with 15 residents, all severely disabled in the ID/DD community. I love the residents dearly, and will stay for them, but it's insulting the ways in which I've watched the CEO & board of directors try everything EXCEPT raising pay to deal with the staff shortages & turnover. We change their diapers, deal with behaviors, administer medications, and the other night we got to evacuate everyone (again!) in the middle of the night due to malfunction in the sprinkler system - multiple people being wheelchair dependant & 2 complete quadriplegic, on top of cleaning, cooking, & documentation. Me & 1 other staff overnight, making $11.33/hr.
I work at a call center. It sucks. Do not yell at operators! We just do the damned tickets, we can't fix what ever is wrong with you that you can't go out and spray where you want to dig! People just think we are around to yell at. This is why you get hung up on, we won't take it anymore People are just assholes, if they can't see you, you are fair game.
The amount of teaching-related occupations is really concerning. Is it that bad in the US? (I am a teacher at a private language school in Slovakia, and I really love my job.)
Well, it is not only in the US. In Germany you get mostly fixed-term contracts as a teacher, that means over the summer, you have no income. The countries try to safe money and that is a legal way to do it. We have unemployment benefit, but i have no idea if this cover the gap.
Load More Replies... How does an American 40k job compare to Europe's euro's? To me a 40k euro job looks like a very decent wage. Perhaps not in the big cities in Europe.
It’s a bad salary in America, but not the absolute worst. It’s a low end middle class salary. You can’t live on 40k alone but if you’re in a couple where each person is making 40k, you’d be fine.
Load More Replies... You don't like your job? Then quit! It's that simple. Make way for people that want to contribute.
