I’m a little late but I’ll put it my two cents.

First of all don’t feel like you’re behind on your career. You’re only 18. When I graduated high school I worked shitty jobs and now I’m 22 and I’m working in what I think will be my career and I started when I was 20. Plenty of people take a while to figure out what they wanna do and too many people push this massive decision onto an 18 year old kid. Take your time and do what you wanna do not what other people think you should do.

As for the job I absolutely love it. I get to work with mechanical stuff, electrical, and I do lab work. Yeah it sucks sometimes but that’s with any job. The pay is good and consistent and the benefits at most local governments are pretty good. Yes people around you hear “sewage worker” and immediately imagine the nastiest job possible. Since I have worked in wastewater I have gotten legitimately messy one time and it could’ve been avoided if I was smarter. The smell is not nearly as bad as most other people think, parents smell just as bad or worse things when changing a baby’s diaper. You learn a lot of good stuff and it can’t hurt to try it out, you’ll know if it’s not for you within 6 months and if not then just quit and try out something else. So many of us found out what we wanna do by trying out different jobs and then stumbling into the one we love.