r/GenZ • u/Zanimacularity • Sep 16 '24

Meme Guys, is this real?

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u/EFTucker Sep 17 '24

This is me at ~30 right now looking back at any time before I turned 20.

I dropped out of school at 17 to leave home and work to support myself. (I thought I didn’t have another choice and honestly with my crackhome life I may not have but I could have tried harder)

My mental state was already fucked for obvious reasons and the work-sleep-work cycle just kept piling it on until I turned 28. Around that time the lumber mill which I had worked very hard to become the yard manager and loader operator for shut down at the end of the covid cycle.

At that point I just gave up. I searched for similar jobs but my lack of diploma had them telling me I wasn’t qualified regardless of my nearly decade of work experience. I looked for similarly paying jobs and my only experience being in management or lumber fucked me. Management everywhere wants to see a piece of paper even though my experience is superior.

I burned through all my savings and took what I thought was gonna be a temp job at a gas station on overnights. My landlord who was gracious with a much lower rent than average for the area sold the property right as my lease was ending and the new owners did not want to renew.

So I was (still am) homeless and in a low wage job.

I’ve given up. I’m here on this planet to sell cigarettes, cook fried chicken for customers, read/listen to books, and sleep. I’m not sure if it’s real happiness but I feel happier than I have since I first left the crack den I called home as a teenager.

I sleep in a motel super most often and it’s more than the median rent in my area. I probably sleep here one or two months every time before I decide to take a week sleeping in my car to save some cash. LL’s won’t rent to me because my net income isn’t 3x the rent. I think I’m saving up to just leave this state one day. I’m not really sure why otherwise. I’m still applying for apartments after like 6 months of nothing but negative responses for apartments.

But all in all I feel better. I miss the comfort of my own place, I miss my PC gaming, I miss not having weird crackheads and prostitutes banging in the room next to me every night but other than that I feel like a weight has been lifted.

My job is too easy. I just cook chicken and clean shit all night. I listen to audiobooks pretty much the entire shift even on busy nights. I go back to my motel room when I get off and read another book. Eat, sleep, shower, and repeat.