Please be patient – this may be a bit of a disjointed ramble. In fact I may just be getting this off my chest…

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking over the last few months and one of the things on my mind is – “Is it all worth it?”. I have just gone back into a senior role after 3 months out of work (Which was stressful in itself.) and I’m struggling to understand why I actually have done this for so many years…? I don’t really enjoy I what I do in itself or where I end up doing it, I don’t feel it benefits society apart from tax paid and the roles generally involve long hours and a significant amount of pressure.

Surely, there must be another way? I think some of you have been in similar situations and may have changed the way you live. If so, what did you do? What have you discovered?

I believe I have some idea of what I do want.

– I don’t want a ‘free ride’ – I like working. But I want to work a little less and especially be able to consistently ‘turn off’ when work is done
– Do something more worthwhile and feel that society is getting more from me than ‘the man’
– Avoid corporate politics as much as possible

So, I would welcome your experiences and any questions because I don’t have all the questions let alone all the answers!

As of February I will be working 1.5 days a week as a consultant IT trainer for charities.

I plan on chilling, riding my bikes, doing stuff around the house, brewing beer, doing courses, playing guitar etc

Working for charities is something that has occurred to me and I do use my skills pro bono for one charity in particular. The issue with working exclusively for a charity is the question of job security – I am a little wary on this point after delivering excellently in two contracts for a twelve-month period but then finding it very difficult indeed to get another contract role – even with two superb customer recommendations…

I worked my way up to a senior role because I thought that’s what I wanted, within 12 months I hated the role, people, company etc, I couldn’t relax people who had my phone number would call me day or night no matter what the time. When a role came up further down the chain I jumped at it & effectively demoted myself. It was the perfect solution for me, I kept my pension & favourable T&C’s. I still don’t “love” going to work like some people seem to, for me it’s a means to an end, but I’m much happier & have a much better life for it. The plan now is to be mortgage free ASAP, sell the house & bugger off in my camper to follow the sun round Europe.

Some people seem to thrive on work & the rat race, others just don’t, life is for living & enjoying not working day in day out till you finally drop down.

A good guide is will you lie on your deathbed and think that was a life well spent?

I survived exactly 8 months in the corporate rat race, I’ve never regretted leaving that life for this one. We don’t have much money, but we don’t have many big worries either, I get lots of time with my daughter, and I do something I love every day. We’ll never have a big house or fancy car, we might never afford a foreign holiday again, but those things don’t really matter.

A good guide is will you lie on your deathbed and think that was a life well spent?

Work wise – largely no! I do make life better for those who work for me – I lead teams and take all those responsibilities including pastoral responsibilities very seriously. I have had consistently good feedback from my team members. Most of them stay in consistent contact even after we stop working together.

I worked my way up to a senior role because I thought that’s what I wanted, within 12 months I hated the role

I’ve been in increasingly senior roles for the last 10 years. The awkward level of management just beneath the board and exposed to all the corporate politics (a game I don’t play). Increasingly I wonder if I’m burnt out…

Jamj1974.
Do you have children who are financially dependent on you?
Mortgage & wife?
Would you be happy on less money?

Yes there is another way, there are lots of other ways. Are you brave enough to try them? I ask myself the same questions from time to time, there must be more to life than this. You end up thinking about some utopian job working in a bar in Ibiza or living off grid in a teepee in Wales? But then you’d lose lots of the comforts you currently enjoy, could you live without those comforts?

I guess it’s up to you if the trade-off from a job you don’t like is a lifestyle outside work that you like – if the job pays for a standard of living you enjoy. Even if you have a job you love, there will always be bits that aren’t fun – for me, it’s doing the accounts.

It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you make a change, act now, before the rat race sucks you back in and you die a long lingering death..

Ok…the last bit may be a bit dramatic 🙂 but action is your friend..wish you the best of luck!

Sounds like you are a very conscientious person caught between a rock and a hard place (the boardroom and those you manage).
Going solo/independent is one option people increasingly take – you are still working for the man, but you can tell the man to do one as long as you have a range of clients and good sales channel.
I wish you luck anyhow, it sounds like your burnt out in the short term, but if you’ve never enjoyed it, well like others have said, make longer term plans to do something else and try to enjoy 60-80 percent of your working life.

Work three days myself, spend days off in the gym, riding bike, climbing and in the local with a pint and a cob. Don’t crave stuff, happy with what iv’e got, we ain’t here long, working is a mugs game and i plan to knock the three days on the head in a couple of years, going to live the good life in sunny Wales.
It would probably be a big lifestyle change for you by the sound of it, just contemplating it is the first step. Good luck, the best of your life starts here.

I’m constantly asking myself ‘is this it?’

I’d love to come up with some alternative solutions

I just don’t know what I could do

Try not to stress it too much bud, Serendipity finds you most the time.

I like this article from the inventor of gmail:

Serendipity finds you .

I just don’t know what I could do

Stop doing what makes you unhappy, when that has gone from your life you will have a space to fill, and something will turn up. wish you the best of luck.

Not to hijack the thread, but I have come to a similar conclusion recently, search threads started by me for further info.

Had a month off work to consider my future, very similar in terms of stress, responsibility and wondering what I am doing in life.

I return to work tomorrow morning, much calmer.

My working life in my current role and employer is now very near its end.

I’ll have left one way or another in the next 3 months.

Looking forward to firstly having the spring off, never been out of work ever.
Then look for some short term temporary / contract work.

Will change my lifestyle, as the current situation is just not worth the hassle and stress etc.

I sympathise, current working life is crap for most people. I have similar thoughts on a daily basis but cannot afford to scale back my earrings too much….obviously I could give up the car, bikes, holidays etc but I like them!
In the end I decided it was London and the South East I didn’t like, in fact any town or city come to think of it is crap by my reckoning!

I have kept my job (in the South as I like the money) but live in Wales now. We have total privacy, no neighbours, space, quiet, slower pace of life etc….bliss.

Obviously commuting is a pain and I have to rent a room with a colleague close to work but it’s worth it. I feel so much better and can accept that my hard work pays for something that I simply couldn’t get or afford in the South East (I’m on an average salary in the NHS), I no longer resent working just to pay through the nose for a pokey two up/two down terrace in a crap area all for the supposed prestige or advantages of living in the South….of which I can’t think of any!

If you’re not ready to fully commit to chucking it all in maybe try what I’ve done, I feel semi retired and my mates (who still think London is the centre of the universe) take the piss but I couldn’t care less, we’re happy.
One of my colleagues did an even more extreme example and lives on the Isle of Harris (I think?, somewhere up there anyway!) and is also loving it….I say go for it!

Middle management as a function within the corporate environment does not exist to make people happy or to satisfy their desire to make the world a better place!
It’s a graveyard for ambitious people who aren’t good enough to get to the top…
Corporate organisations bring many benefits to society along the lines of providing jobs and providing services that small organisations simply couldn’t but they’re not designed to make their workers happy…

Speaking from bitter experience, do remember that stress is a choice – you choose your reaction to the situation, and you can do an awful lot about that…

Many years ago I noticed that self-employed people never talked about being stressed – busy, but never stressed and I reckon it’s because they feel more in control of the work they do, who they work with and how they go about it.

After being ‘managed out’ of a corporate role in 2011 without actually knowing quite what I’d done wrong (manager telling lies to HR in front of me) I resolved never to go back into a perm role.

I went contracting and am now fully self-employed. The work is hard, you have a load of admin to do re HMRC and there’s no safety net but you’ll be amazed at the kind of day rate you can ask for and still come in cheaper than a perm person.

I also like to make the world a more pleasant place and as a contractor, you’re often helping people out with a problem they can’t resolve with their current resource – so if you choose to you can position it in your head as helping people out.

You have more control over the work you choose to do, who you work with, and how you do your work. You can focus simply on getting the job done, much less politics and admin, if your client is an idiot you just shrug and think of the money, unlike when your boss is an idiot, they have power over you and it often ruins peoples lives.

Jobs for life are over, I think increasingly even perm roles are going to get more and more scarce as companies seek to cut costs in the face of a stagnant global economy and (in the West) the reduced productivity and burden of an ageing population.

Go independent, earn more, have more flexibility, work hard and enjoy it 🙂

Good luck fella! I’m in a massive rut at work but can’t find the energy to fight it. Hope it works out for you.

I’ll bookmark this. I’m a couple of rungs below the OP in my world (3steps from CEO) and have just embarked on a career change into a key role in one if the business’s biggest and most ambitious projects.

I love what I do now more than what I did (lawyer) but it comes at a price – I’ll be away all this coming week, so miss out on five days of family time. My view is that if the share options come good in 3 years, I can pay down the mortgage by a material amount (poss 100%) and then pick and choose what I do.

Good luck OP. Sounds like you need a goal and then a plan.

MUst be the time of year for it.

I am becoming increasingly disheartened with my current role.

This morning i had a long lie on account of getting in at 3am….

By midday when i woke up i had an email from some middle management fella in the middle east asking why i hadnt responded to a clients non operational emergency email from 8am this morning.

– apparently “- its sunday, its mid day and ive just woke up ” is not an adaquate answer. I shall be bringing this to the attention of my direct manager in the morning as its a joke.

If it was a real emergency and my phone was ringing then thats fine , ill deal with it but if it as so urgent you sent it by email….well it wasnt urgent at all…

My exit strategy goal is formed , i have a wedding to get through first and then as someone said above , i may never afford another foreign holiday again 😉 but the idea of returning to field Engineer is appealing to me as i seem to get a heap more problems and not alot more money – and still end up in the field for being a technical advisor.

Hopefully by the end of the month, we will become financially secure and debt free. Thankfully then we can give up our jobs which neither of us enjoy, sell the house we are in, move and become our own bosses.
Funnily enough though this will also involve us moving to Wales! (Must be a running theme on here).
The job I’m in has run its course, I can’t see much future in the print industry and to be honest I’ve lost complete interest in the trade.
The Mrs wants a change as well, I think we’ll work together as we make a great team. Fingers crossed for a great new start in 2015

Jamj1974.
Do you have children who are financially dependent on you?
Mortgage & wife?
Would you be happy on less money?

Children yes. Wife works full time so is financially independent.

Yes there is another way, there are lots of other ways. Are you brave enough to try them?

This is what I need to find – the other ways!

You end up thinking about some utopian job working in a bar in Ibiza or living off grid in a teepee in Wales?

Probably thinking of something more grounded than that! 🙂

But then you’d lose lots of the comforts you currently enjoy, could you live without those comforts?

I can live without the premium, expensive car, foreign holidays and many of the treats like eating out, more costly clothes and stuff for sure.

It’s a graveyard for ambitious people who aren’t good enough to get to the top…

Pretty good at what I do – but this above is probably a fair statement. To be fair I’ve never applied for a board role in a business.

I’m a couple of rungs below the OP in my world (3steps from CEO)

.
Not sure you are. In recent perm roles been either two or three roles down from CEO.

went contracting and am now fully self-employed. The work is hard, you have a load of admin to do re HMRC and there’s no safety net but you’ll be amazed at the kind of day rate you can ask for and still come in cheaper than a perm person.

Did this for twelve months but work seemed to dry up and just gone back to perm.

Sounds like you are a very conscientious person caught between a rock and a hard place (the boardroom and those you manage).

I would like to think I am conscientious and often the unreasonable treatment of others is something I have to ameliorate.

Going solo/independent is one option people increasingly take – you are still working for the man, but you can tell the man to do one as long as you have a range of clients and good sales channel.

It’s the sales/opportunity management bit I seem rubbish at.

if you’ve never enjoyed it, well like others have said, make longer term plans to do something else and try to enjoy 60-80 percent of your working life.

I did enjoy it for a while but organisations seem to be getting more cutthroat, less reasonable and frankly losing integrity in terms of how they treat people.

Got laid off from a south-east job I really enjoyed; big team and lots of (international) travel in late 2008. Size-figure salary etc, got a decent pay-off.

Didn’t work for 15 months, although was looking but wife a contractor and with the payoff we didn’t suffer.

Contracted for 2 years and then my parents offered us their place (old mill) as it’d got too much, so we sold up and moved into the Scottish Borders.

Didn’t work for a year and then spent a year (banging my head against the wall) working for the NHS, but only 6 miles away. Now working back in the private sector, again 15 mins away.

We have a lovely house (and huge outbuildings), an acre plot and access to many acres (estate next door). Ride 2-3 times per week, including night-riding; and only 35 mins from Glentress.

And today I was trail-building in the hills nearby 🙂

Get yr passport.

Google helpx

Pay the small fee to register.

Build your profile

Browse hosts.

Make yr applications

See you in 5 years. Tell us how you feel then 🙂

Got laid off from a south-east job I really enjoyed; big team and lots of (international) travel in late 2008. Size-figure salary etc, got a decent pay-off.

Didn’t work for 15 months, although was looking but wife a contractor and with the payoff we didn’t suffer.

Contracted for 2 years and then my parents offered us their place (old mill) as it’d got too much, so we sold up and moved into the Scottish Borders.

Didn’t work for a year and then spent a year (banging my head against the wall) working for the NHS, but only 6 miles away. Now working back in the private sector, again 15 mins away.

We have a lovely house (and huge outbuildings), an acre plot and access to many acres (estate next door). Ride 2-3 times per week, including night-riding; and only 35 mins from Glentress.

And today I was trail-building in the hills nearby

Sounds like eventually things came together for you after a bad break. I have had some reasonable salaries, but have never really pushed for more money so in reality haven’t had the cash or a large enough payout to build a safety net. In truth, I probably should have been more prudent.

Get yr passport.

Google helpx

Pay the small fee to register.

Build your profile

Browse hosts.

Make yr applications

See you in 5 years. Tell us how you feel then

Family would probably get in the way…! 🙂

Hopefully by the end of the month, we will become financially secure and debt free. Thankfully then we can give up our jobs which neither of us enjoy, sell the house we are in, move and become our own bosses.
Funnily enough though this will also involve us moving to Wales! (Must be a running theme on here).
The job I’m in has run its course, I can’t see much future in the print industry and to be honest I’ve lost complete interest in the trade.
The Mrs wants a change as well, I think we’ll work together as we make a great team. Fingers crossed for a great new start in 2015

Best of luck to you. Wish you every success in your change!

You will only ever really regret the things you don’t do.
There is only failure in not trying.

good luck!

family would probably get in the way

Oops, sorry I should have reader deeper into the comments. In a good situation a family would not ‘get in the way’ but would be supportive of your happiness as you support theirs, and of course, nipping off all over the world for many years would be selfish in the extreme. But a shorter journey, a shorter placement, might well be just the ticket to allow you to ‘breathe’ and discover ‘just what is it that I would like to do’?

A life spent doing anything else is surely the wrong thing.

I can’t say more than Alan Watts says, and he says it so simply:

[video]http://youtu.be/KSyHWMdH9gk[/video]

That’s really good Malvern Rider. Thanks for posting something which is food for thought!

Many years ago I noticed that self-employed people never talked about being stressed – busy, but never stressed and I reckon it’s because they feel more in control of the work they do, who they work with and how they go about it.

This^ find your niche and get paid for doing it, I wouldn’t last 5 min in a corporate/spreadsheet/PowerPoint/line manager/motivational poster/company car envy/office politics world.
Life is too short to do a job you hate so that you end up resenting every Monday morning.

went contracting and am now fully self-employed. The work is hard, you have a load of admin to do re HMRC and there’s no safety net but you’ll be amazed at the kind of day rate you can ask for and still come in cheaper than a perm person.
Did this for twelve months but work seemed to dry up and just gone back to perm.

Not sure the work did just dry up… you say later on you’re not so good at the sales/opportunity management bit. This is probably because if you’ve been perm at high level corporate all your career, you’ve never had to seek out the work – so your skills are undeveloped. The solution is therefore easy, learn how to sell yourself – if your average salesperson can sell, so you can you.
It’s about deciding what your proposition is to potential clients, communicating that clearly to everyone, making sure everyone knows you’re available for work, keeping in touch with people and most of all, creating the opportunities by spotting problems people have that you can solve, and developing the skill of spotting opportunities and turning them into work. This might mean working outside your core skill set and comfort zone at times but these opportunities merely expand your skill set and comfort zone and make you an even better proposition long term.

And remember, most of all, if people like working with you and you’re fundamentally competent, you’ll be ok…

not read everything….. (normal STW point of view)

I left a full time easy going UK job in the psudo civil service about 3 years ago (nearly to the week)

It all went a bit tits up with the emigrating with the now ex thing but I’m now a consultant in what I used to do, I do a different project every month, I meet loads of interesting people, the stress is better stress than the corporate shit. I’ve just taken a month out come back to the UK and Europe, dome some meetings, met all the other software distributors and got reinvigorated. I’m currently doing about 3 days/week and things are sort of good. I’m glad to be out of the corporate, I’m glad some issues are finally worked out to a conclusion. Am I happier, probably, is it better? Maybe.

Making a big change needs more than just the change, is there something else that is an issue, is there another problem that work is covering. If so change won’t fix it but it will expose it. Take time to make sure you understand your situation and what is the problem and what is just a symptom.

find your niche and get paid for doing it, I wouldn’t last 5 min in a corporate/spreadsheet/PowerPoint/line manager/motivational poster/company car envy/office politics world.

I think my niche is people… It may not come across in my STW forum posts, but I am a people person and I enjoy helping individuals with their problems. I find it really rewarding. I think counselling is something I could do well.

It’s a good niche but counselling might not be the best thing.

For me the best bit of my job is the people stuff, I just need others to hand over the technical stuff too. I at least then don’t have to deal with either the real issues or emotions 🙂

Making a big change needs more than just the change, is there something else that is an issue, is there another problem that work is covering. If so change won’t fix it but it will expose it. Take time to make sure you understand your situation and what is the problem and what is just a symptom.

I have thought about things a hell of a lot for a long time and I think I know what you are driving at.

thats good, just checking do we know each other?

I may be posting from the shitty end of things but it’s stuff I wish I’d really thought of a while ago.

just checking do we know each other?

I don’t think we do Mike – occasionally replied to each other’s posts on here but that’s it.

thats Ok then….

take it as general advice but it’s one of the most important things I have learned in the last few years.