I just dont want to be thinking about what other people are doing. Have no problem organising a team and all that but do not want to be thinking about who is off sick, late, appraisals, and all that HR stuff.
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sure, sorry should’ve been clearer. meant in terms of how analogue I feel in the employment market now. haven’t noticed any overt age discrimination, but when an application form puts a mandatory asterisk for those sections, they’re gonna know…
one thing counting against me is that some online portals are restricted to English speaking countries and if you’re in EU or elsewhere you’re excluded. I tried to get around it with a VPN but it’s too unreliable
it’s these little things that actually drive me MAD
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Electrician to now working in healthcare as a support worker. Currently doing a masters to become a psychotherapist. Making the jump was the hard part, but I’ve not looked back.
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I’ve changed career a couple of times, also highly recommend it. The paycut sucks but you pretty soon get that ground back because you’re doing something you love so you can advance pretty quick, and because potential employers seem to appreciate someone that has changed and settled.
One of my coworkers took up a new trade in his early 50s and absolutely loves it.
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There was some story on this I saw ages ago that established that when you break it down after tax etc the financial benefit of a management role -in relative terms to those you manage -is on average in the UK about equivalent to the value of a couple of large domino’s pizzas a week
I’d rather make my own dough…
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I made the decision that no amount of money is worth sacrificing your mental health, especially those jobs that require you to work longer, unpaid hours just to please clients by hitting unrealistic deadlines etc. For me, work/life balance at a lower pay grade has so much reward to it. Nobody ever lay on their death bed remembering with fondness as to how hard they worked lining somebody else’s pockets rather than enjoying what small amount of time we have on this planet. Unless you are working for yourself - that’s the exception.
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I manage around 300 people and I’ll be honest, the further up the corporate ladder I go, the less actual work I do.
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I was perpetually dissatisfied with work up until lockdown. I never really had much of a career in mind and pretty much drifted into what I do now. But after having going into work taken away from me, I see it in a completely different light.
I realised how much I get from having a structure to my day, and how important spending time with people at work is to me. I still really enjoy moving around London and staying at home for longer than a day drives me up the wall. On a very basic level, I get to go to a place where the coffee is free and the humans aren’t so bad, that pays for my life, in a pleasant part of London. I try to focus on how comically lucky I am on a global level to have it.
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Had a long chat yesterday about living a good life and it was basically this
I need the odd nightclub too though
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I need a big blowout once or maybe twice a year, but apart from that I’m quite happy to mellowly amble along though life these days.
Who’d have thought that stopping smashing class A’s on a regular basis, and doing lots of regular exercise, would have such a dramatic effect on one’s mental health…
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Same - was feeling quite rubbish these last six months (lots of people I knew losing people close to them, wasted my talents etc) and I didn’t really feel like there was much to look forward to.
Just got back from Wildwood Disco after quite a blow out and I feel great 
(Probably helps the sun has finally arrived too)
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Wildwood looked great this year Stoo
I don’t have any line reports but I’m in senior management, and I’m in the same position as you. I simply delegate these days. Don’t you find it soul destroying?
It was!
Sean Johnston / Justin Harris / Crazy P stood out.
Loads of other good stuff too and met some really nice people - great crowd.
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Honestly I do and I don’t. I still have enough skin in the outcomes but there are days where I wish I was more day-to-day. What annoys me the most is whenever I visit another site I just get lied to. Everything is perfect. Oh nothing to see over here, etc.
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And you enjoy the blow more 
edit*I mean the blow out more…lol ffs…
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As someone who lives and works in the countryside I totally with both yours and tolstoys statements lol
I feel that. I encounter similar things in my day to day. I don’t want to be doing this anymore. I have a good 10-15 years working life left, and I want something less driven by bullshit and corporate politics. I’m clearly doing the wrong thing, but focusing on £££ for a comfortable retirement.
Hope it improves for you x
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this isn’t meant as a pop at London but one thing I did notice living there is that outside of the party crowd the first thing anyone ever asked me was “what do you do?” (implicit in that was “how much do you earn?”) especially in places like Clapham where everyone seemed to be a proto-yuppie. whereas where I am now in Spain, nobody has any interest at all. You’re not judged in that way and it’s quite refreshing. There is still snobbery but it’s a lot less aggressive.
Shaking that London mentality though is really hard, the constant judgement and oneupmanship. One of the worst things Thatcher ever said imo was that someone was a failure if they still got a bus over the age of 30. It shaped the thinking of so many social climbers and was really destructive, creating ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ a probable catalyst of mental health angst for generations. Even when you don’t agree with it, you can subconsciously absorb the sentiment, worried about how you’re perceived well into middle age and that has probably also fed through to kids desperate for bling and status.
The challenge is letting go and not caring anymore. Sometimes you think you have it nailed and then you read or hear something which knocks your confidence for six. With job ads you feel so raw and exposed and I’m not sure if a machine telling you you’re shit is better or worse than it coming from a human?
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I hear the work related sentiments.
Absolutely crushed here from an infinite increasing workload for which I get paid an insulting amount of reward, with no perks at all.
I’ve been forced into a corner today as the one guy left in a related deptpartment has handed his notice in before it kills him (he just had a week off, blood pressure, hospital visit, etc). He is a broken man mentally and physicaly.
I’ve been told I will now move his department and do his job. I don’t have the skills or the lifetime of experience to do the job that has broken him. I have no alternative but to hand my notice in and hope I don’t end up loosing everything.
He earns about 1k a year more than the local Aldi, Senior Electronic Engineer for the UK and support for the world.
Major electronics brand who can fucking rot in hell asap.
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