. I was grossly underpaid but being single w/no kids and having that leven of comfort knowing your job inside out, I decided to stay and never seek opportunites elsewhere. Sadly my mother got sick w/dementia around 2019 and I was forced to step away from the my career (did get 1 yr od severance) to take care of her along with my father who is also up there in age. She eventually passed from covid, so it was just me left with my father (who was early 80s at the time).
I decided to give up my apt and move back to the family home (wasn't far anyway...long island, ny) to watch over my dad. I also decided that I wasn't going to stress about working again as a hack for some thankless corporation and decided to just drive Uber. I'll tell ya what, the last 5 years have been the most stress free and happiest of my adult working life! I'm eventually going to inherit the family home (valued at 1.2M), and along with making about $1200 a week (while only paying about 5% on taxes since we're considered "gig" workers...I've realized that happiness isn't about banking big check every week...it's about using what time you have left on this planet to enjoy yourself and do the things in life you love. I can easily cover my monthly nut, which isn't much.
Sure, I live frugaly and I'm able to pull this off because I don't have kids but nevertheless I don't think I'll ever work for a major corp. again stressing everyday and hating life. Doing uber allows me to go hang out on a whim with my 7yr old nephew, take him to soccer practice or maybe an afternoon movie on the weekends, etc, etc, etc.
I was a former D1 college soccer player and I even took up coaching my old high school team. Life is great. Most of us ki-l ourselves working to our early 60s only to then have maybe 5 good healthy years left.
Fk that.