Thinking about quitting the YMCA.

[Man Titties]

Okay here's the dealio.
I'm 18 years old. Great track record, great grades in school, already graduated from HS.
I'm a pretty sour person to be honest, I spend most of my time angry or depressed, discouraged with the way shit is in society. (I'm a Voluntaryist/Anarchist) and most of all, I am an artist. Art is what I do. Ever since I was little. I'm hugely involved with the graffiti scene, hugely involved with socio-political drawings and paintings, and a lot of digital art and web design as well. (Mainly CSS and HTML) i also have a basic understanding of programming and the Ruby language.

Here's where my problem is. I'm an honest person. I'm bitter, but honest. I can see that the YMCA is full of shit. All their "Annual Campaign" bullshit and pressuring their employees to donate money out of the paychecks to the YMCA, and pushing us to do things outside of our job description... I.e. they wanted me to do a mural for free, I said no. I only make 8.15 an hour doing reception and membership work, and dealing with pissed off members. After the taxes it's 7.3 an hr. I work 25 hrs a week on top of going to a community college, and i have no time to do anything else. My paychecks come in at about 350 every 2 weeks. So 700 a month.

my question is: should I quit, and pursue what I'm passionate about? Or should I keep my job for the 700 bucks? Can I make that 700 a month doing like web designing for people?

What should I do.

[Zanick]

That's not too many hours. Almost every company you work for will be shitty and self-serving like that, but you should still look for something better with your availability, network and pursue art in your free time. You can successfully balance those things with 25 hours. Once you commit to something serious, you'll be saying goodbye to the opportunities you have now, so try to drive yourself and explore while you can.

[Ragus]

Just get another/different/better job ? 

[Man Titties]

Just get another/different/better job ?

The problem is, I have to work part time so I can still go to school to get my core classes done before transferring to a full on university. The only part time jobs available for people without a college education is retail, customer service, and restaurants pretty much. I refuse to work in any of those. Until I have a college education I feel like I can't actually get a good job doing what I want.

[RustyShackleford]

You're going to have a much easier time making money doing web stuffs than anything else. You're right unfortunately about the degree, well mostly, you could potentially be big without one. Even though you don't have it yet you could still find better part time work a lot of places will hire college students. The flip side being that the work is less permanent more internship type stuff.

If you're doing 25hrs and going to school full time it can be a lot of work - depending on how easy your classes are. Invest your spare time in finding a better job and work your way from there. Nobody finishes college with only the Y as experience you will get left in the fucking dust, shit aint as good as they say on TV and you better have some type of relevant experience before you graduate if you want a shot at entering any industry.

If you are about to transfer it doesn't help your immediate situation, but see if you can find any job at your university they tend to be a lot nicer environments, then look for relevant work - or just start applying for relevant work now. The Y is soul crushing, it chews people up and shits them out. Get something else asap, hell I'd even prioritize that over school. People are going to care more about your work than your degree, the degree is an afterthought (unless you plan on working for the corporate / gubmint world).

Kind of long winded but that's my 2 cents. The sooner you have some solid experience the sooner you can do more interesting things. Just do whatever you gotta do to find it, don't settle for unpaid work that makes you look bad. I was doing menial work up until this fall and I graduate in the spring. My resume is baller now, but I was definitely stressing for a bit. So your in good shape and people will respect any work experience over nothing, especially working 20+ hours and going to school full time.

[Man Titties]

Thanks for the solid advice. I think that's what I'm going to do. Im just going to test the waters on working for myself doing web designing and murals for people