I stopped by Dollar store to get some stuff and found a huge line, due mostly to only a single cashier. At first I thought I’d tough it out and wait in line. While standing there a talkative old lady in front of me (with a completely full cart) claims no one wants to work.
I inform her that when she entered the workforce in her early years she could likely have bought a house on the money a cashier made at the time, where as kids today would have to work 10 jobs and sell an organ. She squinted at me and in all seriousness said, they shouldn’t be buying houses, they should be happy to buy food.
Wow all that is so rough, but good on your for getting out of this!! It‘s not easy to leave abusive situations and that goes for the workplaces too since not only is there litte support for acknowledging it, some people somehow accept all this as normal and fine! Making you feel crazy for not wanting to deal with it. Glad you got doctors who were on your side there too!
I got gaslighted by people around me a lot to tough things out in my first jobs and my life changed for the better once I realised it‘s bullshit. Now I‘ll pretty much dip at the first sings of abuse, unless there is an active union in which case I might try that avenue and it‘s helped me avoid shitty places too by spotting red flags shared from people on r/antiwork and in general online. Right now I got a nice manager, but if he gets replaced or changes for the worse, I am gone like the wind!
To comment on the main thread, I have a bit of a theory that a lot of the places complaining about a labor shortage are simply suffering the consequences of their actions, since if we all behave like this (move on at sign of abuse) the worst most abusive places will struggle to find anyone at all.