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Walking Away from a Poverty-Wage Job Saved My Life
Why I’ll never work a “real job” again.
I knew it was time to leave my job when I couldn’t stop thinking about killing myself on the way to work.
It was a persistent thought, quiet and subtle, but it struck every time that I drove the I-80 overpass on McCarran Road SE in Reno. Since I had an upcoming turn, I would always be in the far right lane, and it always just kind of struck me . . . all I had to do was jerk the wheel a little to the right, over the sidewalk, over the rail, a brief free fall, and then . . . well, I definitely wouldn’t have to go to work!
My job was a demanding one. I worked in a residential home with young adults with intellectual disabilities. Not an easy job in and of itself. In the first house I worked in, the clients had been non-verbal and fairly low functioning. But in this house, where I spent maybe a grand total of eight months, they were high functioning enough to make my job a living hell. Everything from stealing my food to running away from the house and calling 911 to defecating themselves when they didn’t have the lion’s share of attention.
But it wasn’t just innocuous stuff. They’d refuse to get out of bed and get dressed in the morning. They’d fight over taking their drugs. And when they were angry, they’d get…
