Anyone broken free from professional life? Warning: rant

Thanks all for sharing stories.

I am on my out of this country/city of London after 8 years, I came to the realisation that this is not a place for me culturally and at this moment of my life I need things that faded away from myself.

I got myself somehow into a spiral of depression and anxiety that I never even came close.
Worse workplace I have ever had in my life, best pay, best position I had, very badly managed by CEO who doesn't give a fuck about people but living a luxurious life under the allowance of business while people struggle and work like fucking donkeys, left without any care of duty...during pandemic etc. Atmosphere always was horrible "don't give a fuck attitude" always clashed highly with my work culture.

My kid was abducted for me when he was 6months, took the case to court, self-supported, self-represented as a paralegal is not allowed in court. Was a fortune, money-wise but mentally fucked me up. Besides the fact my son was taken to 600+km from me what makes everything realistically unsustainable.

Eventually realised that needed mental health help, and to date, the only thing I had was replies "sorry but the services cant help due to the number of requests", or a GP who doesn't care but to just prescribe you a pill by default as it does for everyone else, without really assess you as a Human Being...FUCK THEM.

So, I am not staying in a country, culture and system that made me go mental and cant even help me.

I hate the feeling of superficiality, egos and dehumanization in this city so I am leaving.
No real friends, family and even cultural offer that London used us to, is not here anymore, even if there is some signs of it, I don't feel with CV19 in the equation is sensible, is stressful, is not enjoyable. If I could get another job? Yes I could and well paid etc but I just don't want to patch a problem to lead me to a problem 2.0, so fuck this, I rather have less money, more sanity, more vitamin D, more quality of life, more nature, more authentic and real people.

London for me is good to come, study, work your CV/portfolio up a bit and get the hell out and don't look back.

Leaving this place before I kill myself or I end up in jail or something...

Hey mate, stay strong and drop me a text if you wanna have a chat.

Seems appropriate place for this
https://twitter.com/TheFigen/status/1560240689404846081?t=3dJO2QuvEKPNvMs4WuvX8w&s=19

Forgot to put a link here to a post I wrote about why I’ve gone freelance (does not no references to self harm and is a bit Toxic Positivity LinkedIn type post)

https://www.david-salmon.co.uk/post/why-go-freelance

I’ve got an interview for a ‘proper’ job in 2 weeks. I’ve been in sales for about 10 years. The commission’s good and I’m not a super speedy person so I can just about live on what I earn.

It’s a management role so I’m looking at the other side of the fence and wonder how I might adjust. It’s a very us and them mind set where I work so naturally if I get the job the team I’ll be managing will hate me.

I created this thread. No longer a doctor. Now three years into a full time profession as a C# .NET developer.

Software engineering in the City is 100 times less stressful than being a doctor, more creative, more intellectually challenging (in the engineering/logical reasoning sense) oddly.

I like it, the plan is to keep this up for a few more years then go freelance and start frame building half the week. I have a pipe dream to build a stiff classic full size frame using Reynolds tubing, which folds in some clever way. I have hundreds of CAD designs I have done over the years. Want to make it a reality.

this is amazing to hear!

So...

I'm heading back to banking, first interview next Tuesday! Goodbye bike-mech life!

I've thoroughly enjoyed my time, love bikes since I was a kid and been a pleasure working and meeting people still through the pandemic, it was tough and I have no regrets.

Itch scratched then. Good work.

I’m coming up for 2 years away from office work and can see myself being back by next summer. Turns out there are things to be missed about comfy, clean, well-paid work that you’re competent at.

^ can I ask what you've been doing in the time, and how you found it?

The grass is always greener... I'm an Architect and getting through Covid has been really tough.. every job slowing down and causing serious cash flow issues.. We run a small 5 person office but it's quite frankly been brutal.. I've always done homers (extensions) for people but it was taking too much time and clients were wanting more and paying less.. I ended up doing swapping out homers for wedding photography and was doing about 10-15 a year. Good enough money for a days work.. although then reality kicks in of editing, meeting clients etc.. A heart issue stopped me doing weddings for a couple of years but I doubt I would go back.. Although running a small practice is tough and hopefully we are clearing the Covid debt and cashflow issues, but I've been doing 50-60 hour weeks for over 2 years purely to try and get back to were I was pre-covid.. not glamorous and starting to take it's tole..

Sure. I’ve built a house for my lovely little family to live in. I’ve been doing the carpentry and bringing in other trades for the other stuff.

Being constantly out of my comfort zone has been way tougher than I thought it would be, but it’s mainly the loneliness that has got to me, especially is it coincided with the whole lockdown thing.

But it’s nearly finished now. Or it would be if I could motivate myself to crack on rather than dicking around on my phone.

Know them feelz.

As I’ve been building that house^ for 18 months I empathise with your clients trying to save where they can with some materials being 200% up at the peak of silliness, but fully sympathise with you. None of that’s your fault so having to wait longer to be paid and being asked to take a hit is rotten.

It took me 3 years from deciding to leave my previous thing to actually doing it and the big stress for me in that time was employing people. They were all lovely and I miss them, but I found that side of the business, the massive overheads and the general responsibility for other people’s lives proper stressful.

It’s probably rose-cunted spectacles but looking back I liked it best when it was just me, a business partner and one employee.

Sorry to hear about the heart issue, man, sounds like you’re ok now tho.

I think you might find your homers (not heard that before!) keep you going ok from here, in the post banking crash when there weren’t many houses on the market people extended instead of moving.

X

Cheers, heart is all good now thanks... Hopefully we are getting out of it.. We also had a change of premises and refurb, staff off on Maternity and a couple people leave (which was actually a blessing as it stopped us laying them off). Been running the practice for 5 years and hopefully it will be worth it someday, but for the last 5 years it definitely hasn't been ..

Yeah. It will be. Your 5 years is really only 3 given the shit of the last 2.

If you’ve lived through all that and health shit what’s coming next will be marvellous.

And you made a business. Not many people do that.

So...

I'm heading back to banking, first interview next Tuesday! Goodbye bike-mech life!

I've thoroughly enjoyed my time, love bikes since I was a kid and been a pleasure working and meeting people still through the pandemic, it was tough and I have no regrets.

Things moved much quicker than expected.

I tendered my resignation yesterday and should be back in the City by end of Jan.

Felt at home during the interview and strangely good to be back in a suit although casual wear in office is now the norm nowadays.

Time to get a few turtleneck and loafers!

and join the EC1 collective...
https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/292774/

Nah, I'm in EC2N... ;)

Speaking from experience there are a couple of aspects worth considering. For me a far worse thing than just being on the 'treadmill' was the fact that I was good at what I did and felt an equal mix of loathing and exhilaration for the job so making a move was difficult.

The second aspect is that it is easy to get sucked in to the social 'norm' of domesticity / mortgage / others expectations / responsibility to support family etc making it potentially difficult to extricate ones self from a crap job. I am not qualified to offer advice on this dilemma but the saying ' there are no rewards or punishments - just consequences' holds true. Some people compartmentalise their life so work does not impinge on family / personal life. Others create small personal goals that give satisfaction when reached, even a simple thing like walking solo 2 miles a day to get a personal mental space can be valuable. I wish you all a happy new year.

Any managers in the house? I’ve been doing my new job for a couple of months and the small team I’m managing seem a bit useless. No initiative, no drive, they seem throughly demotivated. They didn’t have a manager for about 6 months before me.

How do you create initiative in an individual?

Have the same issue with a new client’s team - very flat energy and all remote working. Not sure how to lift other than be positive/give genuine praise and lightly challenge.

Really draining already though!

Do you know why they're demotivated/flat?

Have you had one to one's with your team outlining your goals for the team over the short, medium and long term as well as finding out what they want/ don't like about things at present?

There's no point in looking for ways to motivate a team without knowing what they want.

C’mon folks, this is the “breaking free from professional life” thread, not the “getting advice about professional life” thread. We come here to dream, not get sucked into the drudgery of someone else’s boring job.

Maybe we'll find out that they're all miserable because they want to quit and become the next youtube fixie crew sensation?