I left the JW's about 10 years ago. In the time since, I've managed to advance a bit at my place of employment. I went from customer service representative level I, to Data Quality I, to Data Quality II, and now I'm Business Analyst I, which pays about 50k per year.
I don't have a college degree. I've got a lot of college credit, but mostly Community College, 100 and 200 level stuff hat I've accumulated over many years. But, I read and write fairly well, am analytical, and am fairly tech-savvy, at least by the standards of my workplace. And I'm a lucky basterd too.
It feels so weird to be in the position I'm in, and thus I have this constant, low-level doomsday feeling that any day now I will be exposed as a fraud. I know that a 50k annual salary is not mad money or anything, but throughout my 20's (the time I was involved with the dubbies) I basically scraped by, barely making above minimum wage, and so a 50k salary does seem like an outrageous fortune in comparison to the living that I eek'd out for most of my adult life so far. I never saw myself as being the type of person that would have a serious, middle-class-income career, and I don't think that many people who have known me over the years would either, especially given the laundry list of my Social Retard moments that I could tell you about. I often think, god, there must be 50,000 unemployed, degreed persons living in my city that would be so much better than I am at my job. In summary, the primary feelings i have in relationship to my employment situation are guilt and inadequacy.
I know, this sort of thing is totally first world problems, cry me a river stuff, but seriously, I am having success in life and I just don't know what to think about that!