Work and career progression apathy.. Is it much more prevalent now?

Narj said:
I had 2 jobs I loved - both were early in my career and both 30-35K in the early 2000s. Pretty simple NOC work for separate Telcos doing transmission stuff.

Had an absolutely great time with both and had amazing managers and a great team environment. I actually looked forward to going to work back then and quite happily took extra shifts. Pub at lunchtime pretty much every day too - often by the river in summer.

Sadly the first one wouldn't bring my pay up - I think because of my age which gave me the hump in the end. The second one made redundancies after about 18 months which was a massive shame. I was gutted but at least it paid for me to go travelling.

Hitting 6 figures is nice until you realise that you can't have nice things and have to dump as much as possible into tax-efficient vehicles, as Freefaller said earlier.
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I'm over the 40pc barrier. But not by much. And I feel the pressure to contribute more to my pension.
But because I've swung to a more "now" attitude, it makes progression with hassle unappealing.

My finance. Brain says "you must put everything over 50k into a pension ass you don't need it"
Which makes sense.
My heart says "if you're living for now, what's the point in trying anymore if you're adding any amount of burden to your life"

Obviously I'm not going to turn down a payrise in a new job I want. But the money driver for a harder job is no longer there.

The real red line is over time. I refuse to take any job that has an expectation of working past 37.5 hours a week.
 
Haggisman said:
I think it's a good thing actually, people are re-evaluating their work/life balance (possibly post-covid/WFH etc. related?) and realising that maximising earnings isn't necessarily a true measure of success and the only goal worth pursuing.

I've certainly developed that mindset over the last few years; I enjoy my job, it pays well enough that we don't have to scrimp and save, and the level of stress & frustration is... let's say "appropriate" for the compensation.

While obviously I wouldn't say no to an extra few ££££, I wouldn't be willing to sacrifice my current work/life balance for it.
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Agreed. At a personal level I think it's empowering. But at a UK productivity level? Probably not so good
 
413x said:
My finance. Brain says "you must put everything over 50k into a pension ass you don't need it"
Which makes sense.
My heart says "if you're living for now, what's the point in trying anymore if you're adding any amount of burden to your life"
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Totally understand the anxiety with pensions as the Government don't seem to be able to stop messing around with them and there's always that nagging feeling that you might not live to see it.

I'm almost at "enough" for my pensions if I do drawdown scenario backtesting so I'm not bothered about taking a lower paid job pretty soon.
 
Ayahuasca said:
I believe there's some truth to that, especially with technological advances enabling us to work more efficiently. Countless hours are wasted each week, either directly or indirectly.
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I'm in my late 30s and I've been working 4 days per week (30hrs) for 3 years now. I'm very nearly at a point financially where I would like to drop to 3 days per week (22.5hrs).
 
I am in my mid-30s (with one child) i have tried to set life goals. You have to set targets and strive to achieve them otherwise you just come complacent.

Stress comes with any job; every role carries an element of stress, period. I found middle management more stressful than senior/director roles. I'm not sure if it was a case of just becoming the norm or if it was due to having more experience and dealing with situations better. Around eight years ago, after spending 8.5 years in the same job (doing the same stuff day in and day out), I decided to leave the industry sector I had solely focused on. This involved making a massive life change. It could have all gone wrong, and I might have failed miserably, but complacency and going to work feeling depressed are things I hope to never return to

I work hard, but I also want to be done and retired by the time I’m 50 to enjoy life.
 
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kai said:
I work hard, but I also want to be done and retired by the time I’m 50 to enjoy life.
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There's no guarantee you'll make it to 50, of course it's more likely than not, but I think it's sad that a lot of people live for the future.

Waiting until you are 50 to really enjoy life because work is in the way is pretty crazy when you think about it, although it is the norm. For most people, retirement comes much later than that.
 
Ayahuasca said:
There's no guarantee you'll make it to 50, of course it's more likely than not, but I think it's sad that a lot of people live for the future.

Waiting until you are 50 to really enjoy life because work is in the way is pretty crazy when you think about it, although it is the norm. For most people, retirement comes much later than that.
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I hope i do :)

As above, I find motivation and purpose in setting long-term goals and working towards them. I do agree on balancing this with enjoying the present and not sacrificing well-being and happiness entirely for future gains. Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, a "that will do" attitude is not something I adopt.
 
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I thought I had a good company I'd work at all my life. Got up to principal dev, seemed set. Then the company got sold, few years later I took redundancy. Then covid happened.

Realised I was burnt out, big time. No extra money is worth the stress.

Realised it was hard to move companies and stay at principal level. Much easier to get a senior level job.

More moves and redundancies later, I'm feeling pretty defeated about the whole thing, there's obvs no such thing as job security. No point getting to a level you cant maintain when you inevitably have to move companies again. No point caring about the future of a product or company because you won't be in that future.

Edit:
I'm kinda doing FIRE, not to the extreme of having a bad life now, but I'm single with no kids so a lot of my income gets invested one way or another. I'm thinking along the lines of getting my NI years then either retire or reduce hours.

Edit2:
I'll inherit practically nothing, it's annoying to see ppl inheriting boomer property wealth. Very unfair.
 
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mrochester said:
I think people are just tired, and have come to realise that there is more to life than working for 40+ years.
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Yes this. Salaries in this country are quite low compared to some other places (I could double my salary in the US for example). But many people are expected to work free extra hours and the company will make people redundant at the drop of a hat. It seems to be very one-sided now, so I think many people are prioritising life over work.

I never wanted to retire. But I'm 55 in a few months and I've just realised I could start drawing some of my pensions if I wanted to, and then just change to an easier part time job. It's really quite tempting.
 
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I'm not convinced that a few £100 a month doesn't change your life. It might be the difference between feeling financially uncomfortable to feeling comfortable again. I'm really looking forward to my student loan being paid off at the end of this year, for example. It'll be £300 a month back to my wife and I. That covers half the increase in our mortgage. We probably won't spend it, but we'll save it and the mental relief will be quite substantial.
 
throwaway4372 said:
Edit2: I'll inherit practically nothing, so that's annoying to see ppl inheriting boomer property wealth. Very unfair.
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it's a tough one. I get on one hand it isn't fair. on the other hand and taking to an extreme...... if I want to work extra hard to save a nest egg for my lad, give.him a property and make sure his debts for education are covered why should the tax man take all that and (over simply I know) give away to families who were not so frugal.

if that were to happen I may as well just blow all my spare cash on holidays abroad rather than putting aside extra money and doing without.

I know plenty of people more well off than me, but I am not jealous. good luck to them.
 
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I don't necessarily mind the extra work that comes with management but there are days when I hate it, especially if several things happen on the same day and I also have my normal work to do.

Saying that, today is my non working day. In April I switched to 9 day fortnight and couldn't be happier with our decision. My gf is on 9 day fortnight since March. I increased my normal work days by half an hour (which I was doing anyway) to offset the hit to paycheck, she's on same pay as her normal work day is/ was shorter than mine.
We're both in the garden now, I was reading my book and she's planting plants we bought earlier today. I'm gonna get the BBQ out and give it a good clean now. :)

I'm fairly sure we'll go down to 3 or 4 day weeks within couple of years.
 
Probably because you're older and, typically, earning more now than when you were striving for the next step up.

It stands to reason that as your peer group increase their earnings more of them will have reached that point where they believe that their work/life/earnings balance is right for them.

Not everyone has the same personal drivers, some people get their satisfaction/validation from a high pay cheque, some from having enough to do what they want with their life.

Some will have reached the point where any increase in salary comes from moving from doing to managing, which is a different thing.

I enjoy what I do less than managing but have reached a point where I manage and do. Any higher and I'd be almost solely managing, have more stress and do more unpaid hours and those hours would be filled with the side of my work I don't enjoy so much. So where's the motivation to go higher if I have enough cash to live how I want?

Obviously if someone said I could have the exact same role for twice the money I'd snap their hands off.
 
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