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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To have lost interest in working after 20 years?!?

161 replies

brownmouse · 13/03/2018 22:09

I've worked for 20+ years. Another 25 to go...!

I'm bored with it! I'n disappointed in my career and just not really INTERESTED in it anymore. And I didn't even VAGUELY achieve what I hadn't hoped. But I also don't want to retrain.

Nothing interests me work wise. I'm sure in my 20s and 30s I was full of passion and wanting to ACHIEVE SHIT. Now I just want to stay at home and vacuum and drink tea and read books and hum to
myself.

I have another 25 years left to work.... I can't work part-time.

AIBU?!? Does anyone else feel the same?

OP posts:
DontCallMeCharlotte · 13/03/2018 22:12

Oh yes. Have worked FT for 35 years and I am so sick of it. It feels like a prison sentence now.

Godotsarrived · 13/03/2018 22:13

Yep. Just made the decision to step down from big corporate head honcho type of career to a less pressured less time consuming job. I want to do yoga, charity work and to sing with the spare time..

megletthesecond · 13/03/2018 22:13

Yanbu. In my 40s and SO over work. It doesn't stimulate me or use my brain, neither is the office very chatty. Non sleeping children ended my OU course.

If I didn't work I could read more, volunteer, speak to people and not have to rush all the time.

But I'm a LP with a mortgage so I've got another 25 years of work to go.

Original poster
brownmouse · 13/03/2018 22:32

That is it Meglet: work doesn't stimulate me any more. It's so boring! But I just feel DONE with being stimulated anyway. :/

OP posts:
MelanieSmooter · 13/03/2018 22:34

Yeah I’m not even 30 yet and I’m there. Feel like I don’t want to waste my life in work - there are much better things to do! Alas, I need money to pay for them, so I am part time (and term time only) and planning on dropping a day or too. No plans to work full time - ever.

ilovesooty · 13/03/2018 22:37

The undeniable fact is that unless people have another source of income either from inheritance or lottery or someone else's hard work leading the sort of undemanding life you talk about is an impossibility.

Jaygee61 · 13/03/2018 22:41

Yes. Have worked 37 years full time no breaks. But I’ve more or less decided to take my work pension and run when I get to 60 in three years.

JoJoSM2 · 13/03/2018 22:42

ilocesooty, it's not that bad. It can be possible to support yourself whilst working part time.

ilovesooty · 13/03/2018 22:44

Of course JoJo, but you do need to have some financial backup such I mentioned to stop at home completely doing nothing very much.

RosaRosaRose · 13/03/2018 22:45

Yep. I've been in harness for more than 40 years. No high flyer and had career changes but I don't get to stop yet, so have just applied for another role in my present company. A very slight step up, but with new challenges, just to reignite my interest. No one but me to pay the bills.

frankchickens · 13/03/2018 22:45

YANBU at all.

theoldtrout01876 · 13/03/2018 22:45

I have worked full time for 37 years. Well I had 18 months as a stay at home mother when my oldest two were tiny. Then I worked part time for a few years, went back to full time 16 years ago.
Im sooo done with it all. I want to make sausages, bacon and meat pies (yes really Grin ). I want to potter and do this at my own speed. I cant though cos we need my salary and the bloody state does not let you make and sell meat products in the home.

Nomorechickens · 13/03/2018 22:46

10% of people have jobs they really love, another 30% enjoy some aspects of their job, I'm afraid you are one of the other 60%. So either find something you love doing and make it into a job (no, no idea how you do that) or learn to live on no money. Sorry that's the best I can come up with

StealthPolarBear · 13/03/2018 22:46

But wouldn't volunteering be just as rushed as work but without the pay?
I've never understood when people say they cut down on their hours at work to reduce stress and volunteer more

otherdoor · 13/03/2018 22:48

Yep. I'm only ten years in and I feel the same.

Do you think maybe we just picked the wrong careers?

ilovesooty · 13/03/2018 22:48

I wonder how many people who are in relationships would be understanding if their husbands or partners said the same thing?

DuchessMinnie · 13/03/2018 22:52

25 years in here with 15 years of huge mortgage payments still to make so can't yet see light at the end of the tunnel. I love my job but it's exhausting and I'm a LP so have to do all the child stuff too. I am on a constant treadmill now for the foreseeable future.

I used to think that people in their 40s with retirement countdown apps on their phones were really sad but I think I get it a bit now.

Mary1935 · 13/03/2018 22:52

Yes I know the feeling. I've always worked since I was 16 - until I was 30 I always had 2 jobs - working full time and then working in bars Friday and Saturday evenings. Went into nursing when I was 30 - worked for 12 years full time then had my son at 43 - took 18 months off - went back part time. I know I'm fortunate only having to work part time but I'd leave in a heartbeat!! I'm 53 now - I will have to carry on till I'm 60 at least - I feel your pains.

speakout · 13/03/2018 22:52

I have zero interest in working for someone else.
I gave up working full time 20 years ago,
Working for me is hugely exciting.

nursy1 · 13/03/2018 23:12

Work is vastly overrated for most people. I’m sort of retired now (do the odd bit of locum work). If I had m Tim again I’d do less work and concentrate on family more.
If you want holidays, nice cars/ house then I was tol u ad to work hard, I did. I got that stuff but not sure it’s worth it. Very possible to live with less stuff and be happy.

GaraMedouar · 13/03/2018 23:16

I feel the same. Been in my job 20 years, another 20 until retirement age! But I am a single mum with 3 kids - youngest is only 6 so will be at home at least another 12 years.
I feel stuck.

LanguidLobster · 13/03/2018 23:25

That was quite a passionate post!

Sounds like you need time out to focus on other things which bring you enjoyment and fulfilment at the moment.

NotCornflakes · 13/03/2018 23:25

Oh my God, me too! I've only been working for 15 years, but I am so sick of it. Unfortunately have no choice if I want to support myself. My job is pretty easy, but I find that working for other people is increasingly frustrating the older and more jaded I get. I dream of a life of study, writing and travel but I'm going to have to grow a magic money tree first!

lidoshuffle · 13/03/2018 23:45

I've always said that for most people, the novelty of work wears off at about 30 then you just have to grind your way through the next 30 (or nearer 40 nowShock), trying to enjoy it as much as you can.

I've just gone part time and it's so lovely to study and to pootle, have nice lunches in country pubs etc, but it's been a bloody long time coming.

TiaraAndFluffy · 14/03/2018 00:08

I'm 11 years in and lost all interest. I'm on maternity leave and never want to go back but will. However I have no intention of ever working full time again.