$15-20K/year FT position

Well that tells me either you're not looking that hard or your job just isn't that bad. I bet if you quit you'd find a job real quick.

 

All the more reason to "appreciate" the job you do get hired for.

 

Working unpaid overtime is part of the reason the pay in your industry is embarrassing. If you don't respect yourself why the hell is the employer ever going to.

 

I don't consider myself lucky or entitled. I do my work at a high skill level, and the company profits off of that. If I didn't, I'd be gone.

I'm not saying I work at a high skill level to be boastful or entitled. I'm saying it because, whether they're just bullshitting me or not, I've been told that on plenty of interviews. I've been told I'm overqualified more than once.

Here's an example: my last one was for a school PR job. Candidates had to take a test, in which we were given a scenario, and given multiple options to write about it, between press releases, media announcements, tweets, Facebook postings, letters to parents, etc. and we had an hour to do it. I ended up doing 7 out of the 10 options.

A couple of days later, I got a call from one interviewer. She said the whole group of interviewers were stunned at the volume and quality of what I had written. However, she said that while writing was important, the school was looking for someone with more verbal skills than what I had shown in the interview, so I didn't get to go to the next round. (Side note, it was nice to actually have a response to the interview, unlike many).

And you are being naive if you think the newspaper business has a future. If you need unpaid OT to do work for your own future, then the time that you're spending in hours 1-40 are being wasted.

 

They hire you because you can do the job at a salary that makes it profitable for them. They don't hire you for giggles and shits.

 

Or that there isn't anything better out there.

 

Amazing.

 

So I have had an influence on you. And one of these days, I bet, you're going to square this circle.

 

We all made choices Baron.

Who's responsibility is to fix your unhappiness?

 

So? They're also paying you the money you'll in turn use to pay for the roof over your head, the food in your kids' bellies, etc., when they're under no obligation to do so. Having no appreciation for that is pretty silly and, yes, entitled.

 

There might be a third possibility ...

 

Then if your job is the best you can get, it can't be too bad, right? I mean, it beats the alternative.