'Fuck it attitude' to everything work-related since hitting 50...

[YankeeDoodleWhat]

That's it. I can't say this in real life but since hitting 50 I just don't seem to care about work-related 'stuff'.

I do my job and am in a very senior role but I've lost all attachment to it. I'm more shocked than anyone as I used to love work and everything surrounding it. Now, I'm annoyed if I have to work an evening or weekend.

Not sure why I've posted, just a rant as I can't say this out loud in the real world 🙂

If anyone's been here and come through, please let me know how. I can't afford to retire or do fewer hours.

46 and same!

I work for a brilliant company, in a senior role that’s well paid and my motivation has been dwindling for a decade and has pretty much gone over the past couple of years. As far as my bosses are concerned I do my job to a high level but I can do it with my eyes closed and could be much more productive if I wanted to be.

I worked for a big company in a middle management role for years and then worked for a few smaller companies in senior roles where the work isn’t as demanding/complex - as someone said to me when I left the big company I’ve “cashed in my experience chips” and have been coasting on the skills built up in the earlier part of my career ever since. I’m bored but also can’t be bothered pushing myself to do something else. I look around at work and strongly suspect that a lot of others are the same.

I’m absolutely fine in all other areas of my life and get joy from my friends, family, hobbies etc - I’ve got a great life and I feel very lucky.

I find not being motivated at work to be a problem because 1. I liked finding my job interesting/motivating and would love to find that again 2. I find it quite draining spending my days trying to work up the energy to do my work - when I have the odd day when I end up being busy/productive I feel so much better.

This was me in 2022, and 2023 in part. A combo of pandemic stuff, burnout and perimenopause I think. I was 45 and just managed to get by on the bare minimum. Obviously can't afford to not work but also can't face changing jobs right now. Things did improve through 2023 and are better now I'm on hrt. I still don't care as much, and probably never will, but I feel a bit more 'out the other side'. Maybe it helps that I'm not particularly senior and don't manage people (I would hate that) so I can let some stuff wash over me.

I'd definitely stop working if a decent lottery win came along mind!

Oh I'm 42 and lost the fire ages ago. Like selling your soul to the devil daily.
I want to fund the DC school fees then uni. After which I'll happily downsize my entire life. Maybe do a 25 hour a week job. I don't even need holidays or much, quite happy just not working.

Same here. Have always loved my job but getting really irritated by people now , counting down to retirement.

I am massively over-qualified in my role but my organisation (which is in education!) does not value qualifications. When I was turned down for promotion that was well-deserved over 3 years ago, I quietly quit. Despite having fulfilled most of the role for nearly a year, a colleague half my age with a fraction of my qualifications and experience was appointed. My team manager is as thick as shit and not a fraction qualified compared to me, but she can't take it when I challenge her (and I am not the only one to have the same experience!)

I had a horrible micro-managing thick as shit line manager who made my life a misery, to the extent I had two spells of LTS. TG she moved to another role when I came back the last time, and I now have an an amazing line manager, so totally different!

I'm nearly 61 though and I have lost the will to live. I am never getting promoted despite being professionally qualified and having achieved a MSc with distinction when I had three young children and worked full-time. I also completed other managerial courses since then. I feel so sore about it. It just feels so unfair. However, I am looking to flexible retirement and they can all go to fuck!

So many of my colleagues are nearing retirement or praying for redundancy, mind you half of it is because the business don't seem to value us anymore so have lost any incentive to go the extra mile.

I'm a bit like that
There's some admin stuff at work we are meant to do to make our job easier. Nobody does it except me, and I'm sick of whinging about it to my boss
I said I was stopping doing it and well, it was like the world exploded
Everyone has the hump I don't do it any more but can't say anything or they would have to actually start doing it

So now our work is harder and it fucks me off but not as much as doing something that nobody else CBA doing

It's the equivalent of deleting a piece of data you have dealt with, so you don't keep going into old data. If everyone did it, work would be much less... work but there you go

Thank you for sharing your inner voice and get it loud here! Exactly the same situation .
I am turning 50 soon, I used to be very enthusiastic about everything I do at my job, excited about improving processes, generating ideas but now my only motivation is the uni accommodation fees for the next 2.5 years I need to support our DD with. Due to my salary she got low maintenance meaning I need to put up with everything until she finishes. I am looking forward to the day i can lower my days to 4 days a week-another motivation and something to look forward to! How sad

Oh and my boss was "you've stopped complaining people aren't deleting the old data"
Me "yep. I don't delete it now either"
Boss "but.. what.. but.. you always do it?! Who will do it now?!"
Me "should have thought of that when I brought it up the last 100 times that people weren't doing it, I did tell you"
Boss.....

I feel like this but I also think working has changed. It's not enough to go into work and do your bloody job any more, we've all got to be passionate and committed - about being in a bloody office. God give me strength. I'd understand it if it was Red Cross on the front line in Gaza but fuck me the day I get passionate about updating a fucking departmental document is the day I sit myself down for the final time in the library with a glass of whisky and a fucking gun.

There is so much bullshit everywhere at the same time as people are generally doing more work for less money, comparative to twenty years ago. I don't even think it's perimenopause, more a perfectly normal reaction to thirty years of ever increasing horse manure.

@Lookingatthesunset sorry to hear about what's happening with you. Employers very often don't financially reward older women's skillsets.

Yep right with you there. I'm 57, outwardly I'm mostly saying all the right things and still take pride in my job but inwardly I'm done with most people around me, the politics, the arse licking. Just collecting my pay cheque and in 3 years the mortgage will be gone and so will I.

Totally.

For me, its all the bullshit and red tape. Health & safety, wellness, pronouns, drills, eco policies, whistleblowing, the endless meetings, webinars etc..

I’ve felt like this for years, ever since I started working in managerial/ leadership positions. The less I care the more I keep getting promoted. Like PP I can get away with doing virtually nothing. For me it’s the realisation how meaningless the work is, it’s just lots of made up nonsense that pays my bills.

I can't remember exactly when it happened to me, but when I was offered voluntary redundancy at 59 I grabbed it with both hands and ran out the door laughing!!

After that I only worked in temp jobs, with gaps in-between, and then took on a part time role in a place I had been temping at on and off since I left my full-time job. I've given up the whole lot now and retired one year early. My life is so, so, much better now and looking back why on earth did I ever go into administration in the first place? I enjoyed the labouring temp jobs I had more than being in an office.

I've never cared enough about my work to give it any more than the bare minimum, despite holding a senior position.
I go to work for a pay packet and that's it. I start and finish on the dot of my contracted time and when I'm not there, I don't give it a thought.
The people at work are just that, people at work. I'm not interested in them or their chit chat and gossip.
To the company, you're nothing more than a dispensable number on their payroll, to me they're just a way of making a living.

As my username suggests I’ve had enough!
like a pp I was overlooked for promotion and new boss is incredibly patronising and micromanaging without the knowledge or experience to back it up. And the management speak bullshit is unreal. I’ve always had great relationships with previous bosses and learned so much from them.
It has really knocked my confidence and made me feel old and past it, when I’m really not.

I'm like this. Started last year at 38! Never felt like this. Can't shake it off. We've been doing the maths and we might be able to retire at 55 or work very part time. I already do 4 days.

Yep.
I think it was the realisation that when redundancy was in the offing, it would be the posts not the people who would go so it didn't matter how hard I worked, if my post was gone then so was I.
Seeing others work half as much for the same salary in a different team also didn't help.

Same here! 43 now, and have felt this way since around 40!

. I don't even think it's perimenopause, more a perfectly normal reaction to thirty years of ever increasing horse manure.

yes this! I’ve been working in the same field for 30 years (voluntary sector working closely with nhs) and we’re still having the same conversations we had 30 years ago. Effecting actual change is nigh on impossible on the frontline becatse the dead hand of dept of health/NHSE/ICB mitigates against it. I’ve gone through more restructures than hot dinners, all of which Sap motivation & energy & at the end of the day tinker at the edges while absorbing huge amounts of time & money. Sick to death of it

I think the reverse is true actually. When I was in my early career in the 80s and 90s, you really did need to live for the job, at least in my sector. Turn up for all the networking, work long hours un the office, look for "development opportunities", which meant taking on more senior.worj for no extra money. Now it's all you can do to get young people to come into the office and everyone'sworried about work life balance.

That might be a good thing, but work hasn't got more demanding IMO

Yes, me too. Turned 50 this year and for the past 20 years have gone above and beyond in my NHS job ( I was keen and thorough and wanted to do a good job) - have done various roles within that time and am now fairly senior but have realised that I’m basically being taken advantage of. I’m expected to do things that are firmly in the banding above me.

Im tired of propping up lazy or less capable same banded colleagues and have realised too late that it’s my fault for allowing it to happen. I’m in the process of detaching but it’s a steep learning curve!

This is 100% me. I went down to 4 days just over a year ago. Have you looked at whether you can afford to do that? If you're a higher rate tax payer you might be surprised at the net difference.

I could have written this post, I'm 51 and plan to retire in about 7/8 years.

I'm fairly senior and used to be very work oriented, now I just do a good job then clock off and just don't give it another thought.