advice/guidance needed - building superintendent

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what am I doing wrong?

I'm 31, I have a (normal) highschool diploma and 1 year of college studying comp sci. I've been working as an assistant building superintendent for about two years now. It's the most dead-end job you could possibly imagine. The superintendent I work for is also the building owner and he is poor and very nasty to deal with. he demoralizes and puts me down, but its just his personality type, he does it to everyone who works for him. There are a dozen vacancies and no one seems to want to rent in this building because it's in a high-crime inner-city type of neighborhood. I also smoke weed a few times a week, it helps me cope with depression and the feeling that i'm spending my life living in the bottom most layer of the barrel. Most superintendents I have come across in this neighborhood are either visa workers or heavy drug-addicts, and in some cases both... the stories never end well, it seems they either spend the rest of their lives working this kind of job or they end up in jail or rehab.. so things could always be worse. I get a free small basement apartment and a wage equal to that of the average walmart employee and in return I have to stay on call 24/7 mostly to unclog peoples toilets and let them in when they lock themselves out. There is no promotion possible for me here and I'm finding myself stuck. i'm on call all the time so I cant schedule other interviews and even when I do, the pay is just the same except it doesn't offer an apartment. How is it possible to rent a place on a small hourly wage? The more I do the math, the more it seems completely impossible.

The last few months, nothing has changed, but i've been feeling very depressed and lonely and just about ready to quit and try to survive out in the woods somewhere.. I have nowhere else to go.

I feel trapped... I feel like i'm going to be a slave the rest of my life... is this something I should try to get used to and accept? is it even worth living to fill in that pathetic need employers have for minimal-wage workers? I know an illegal worker would feel a lot more satisfied with my wage than I do, maybe everyone would be better off if I quit and just disappeared... i'm a hard worker and a smart worker but i'm seeing that none of that matters... I will always be treated and paid like i'm some sort of low-life unworthy slave.... i'm so sick of it.

I need advice... career advice, life advice, whatever information or experience you guy have will really help me out

thanks my fellow aspies

I can't give you any advice. I'd be a fool to try because all the jobs I've ever had in life sucked and I felt down-trodden and dead in them.

I'm writing because I can sympathize with your employment anguish. I felt trapped like a dog in my jobs and did it ONLY because I needed the money to pay the rent.

I think there are tons of folks who are also dissatisfied with their jobs, so at least you're not alone in that regard.

BTW, I've lived in the woods like Chris McCandless (Alex Supertramp). It wasn't much fun.

Hi, there is a way of half-quiting a job. And that is to tell the guy, 'I have a family situation I have to take care of.'

'No, I can't tell you more, but it's something I have to take care of.'

Then, you can take off for a couple of days, or just two days, or more, entirely at your own choosing. And you can do the same thing as needed in three weeks, or six weeks or eight weeks, again entirely at your own choosing.

'It's a family member I have to help.'

And under no circumstances do you tell the guy more. Now, understand this is half-quitting. Please don't come back to me down the road and say, hey, man, you didn't tell me . . . I'm telling you now. This may lead to the loss of your job, but between half-quiting and full quiting, I'll take half-quiting.

Okay, obviously this building owner is a first-rate jackass, and his negatively almost certainly spills over. And plus, some of the residents probably really believe that people in lower status jobs are lesser human beings, and act in accordance with this.

So negative throughout, probably very seldom a casual, everyday, normal interaction with another human being. Only thing I might think of is being an informal coach and builder with co-workers, although my guess would be that you all mainly work individually.

And the questions you bring up are very much economic justice questions and the decline of the middle class, very pertinent to the current world.

Now, the baseline with entrepreneurship endeavors is that 80% of new businesses fail, yes 8 out of 10, typically due to undercapitalization. So, think of service businesses you can start out of your home or car if you have one. Maybe mobile car repair where you focus on three types of repairs and advertise them. Maybe computer set-up, defrag, viral clean up, etc, except that it's easy to undercharge and then have the person make follow-up phone calls and they think this is included, too.

Or, if you're good enough at math, you could offer tutoring 'course there's a lot of transport time. But, if you build up to SAT math tutoring on Saturdays where you have 10 students each paying $35, you're suddenly talking some real money.

And longer term, just to speak of three major cities, New York, Philly, Boston, if you were to do "Urban Music Boston," for example, and charge slightly lower than 99 cents a download, you might catch a wave and make some real money. Of course, some money needed to outsource the work needed on pay pal, and also setting up the rights and royalties, and that part would kind of drive me crazy.

And I'm not sure how much any of this will work with a 24/7 on call schedule with a jackass boss.

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PS I might be a little bit unusual in that I want to work both the social justice and the entrepreneurship sides of the street.