&quot;DevOps consultants&quot; can probably afford better (I should hope so). She was doing a low-level call center job, something that requires no skills other than basic literacy. It&#x27;s awful work, and pays little more than minimum wage.<p>Throw in the uniquely American problem of employee-provided health insurance (with no insurance for low-end employees), and you have a real recipe for suffering. A friend of mine once worked in a call center for a major phone carrier. In order to qualify for health insurance as part of her job, she had to spend six months as a &quot;manager&quot;. &quot;Managers&quot; didn&#x27;t actually manage anyone, and had <i>less</i> authority to solve problems than regular customer service reps. The job consisted of taking the calls of people who screamed &quot;I WANT TO SPEAK TO A MANAGER!!!!&quot;, not so much for authority but for a target to yell out their frustrations. Her job, then, was to get yelled at, all day, every day, and not be able to do anything to help the angry people. For a sensitive soul, it was torture.<p>Welcome to America.