AIBU to not want a career?

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I feel it's expected of me, by friends, family and everyone else, that I should be "doing something better work wise", using my qualifications to aim higher but if I'm honest I actually want to do less than I'm currently doing. I don't want career progression. I don't want responsibility and targets anymore.

I want a job where I walk out bang on my finish time. A job that doesn't creep into my thoughts in my free time. I feel like I'm spending the week longing for the weekend and the weekend dreading the week.

I can't shut my mind off work, I'm constantly time managing in my head, planning what I need to do when I'm next there. I've just made the mistake of looking at my work emails out of hours and seen I've been tasked 8 other jobs on top of what I was already mentally planning. Sunday nights fill me with dread.

I know I'm not alone in these feelings but I feel like a lot of my friends thrive on them, it's evidence that they are busy, important, successful. I don't have these needs and aspirations from my work life. I just want to earn some money to enjoy my life. I want to work to live not live to work.

AIBU to have no aspirations and not want work to be my life? I really don't cope well with stress and I can tell in the eyes of colleagues and friends this is a sign of weakness and failure, I'm thinking maybe this is true.

I did it - went from a very stressful job in facilities managing massive offices and various shared office spaces - super intense - working all the time / contactable all the time always working late - always felt super sad on Sunday night with dread for the week ahead etc - it would take a few days to relax into a holiday we couldn’t quite shake work straight away

I now work as an office manager for a much smaller company - paid 12k less initially - but I love it there - work 35 hours a week - never a minute more - don’t even have access to my emails on my phone or anything! I love it there - never dread the end of the weekend anymore - enjoy being there - feel so much happier.

I’ve ended up taking on more responsibility over the last 6 months - so my pay is creeping up a bit - however the hours remain the exact same and I’m not finding myself any more stressed either !
Best thing I ever did tbh

@Prig

You're not alone. Life is too short to do things just because society says that gives us self worth.. As women we've been told that we don't have a choice - work for validation and respect or don't have either of those things. It's false. I'm about the same age as you and know that we grew up in the last era of being allowed to have a quietly fulfilled life, with unique interests, personality and without being attached to a crowd. I am intelligent but content to have a peaceful life and not worry about what people think when they ask "what do you do". Personally I don't believe it's natural to want to be in competition with people who have no care or respect for your life, living with constant restraint and having to be open to criticism 9 hours a day. Would I rather be at home, where I can enhance the environment for me and the people I love, who care and love me too.... Where I can take time to nourish interests and build a healthy mind, or would I rather do what is asked of us with false pretences: run about for a complete stranger who wouldn't care or know about me if they had a choice? Good people have their soul eroded because we live in an extremely competitive working world where we must fight for everything and disregard human decency and individuality to fit in or get on. Get out of the rat race if a) it's not a job/ profession you "love" and/or b) you want to be truly content with yourself and you can afford to not work. Inner happiness is not found by chasing a need for respect because of a title. Been there, done that. If your base line of integrity, emotional intelligence towards others and inner self worth is already higher than most people, you can never, ever be happy working in your average work force. Society has gone backwards and the working world is not built for people to live natural lives anymore. Unfortunately most are too dumbed down to realise it. You are not.

How are you planning to support yourself while you ‘enhance the environment’ and ‘nourish interests’ at home?

I love working and I love my career in general so I can't really relate to this. I thrive on stress and would find a job with no responsibilities and stress a bit pointless.

Nothing wrong with it, though, if its want you want to do. But don't fall into the trap of taking a job with less responsibilities and less pay and finding its actually pretty depressing, you don't get treated very well and you earn peanuts. It's a pyrrhic victory.

I have not personally managed to strike a balance between an interesting job and a work/life balance (as my user name suggests) but I am sure there is a balance to be had. I'm sure there's a middle ground between stacking shelves and being CEO.

OP you need to take more control over the situation. For every extra task your manager gives you ask them what they would like you to drop. A colleague started this a few years ago and eventually the manager realised that he couldn't just pile work onto people. Stop looking at your emails at weekends, start and stop work at your contracted hours, just quietly work to rule.
My DS is very well qualified, has a responsible job, good salary but works for a French company. There's no way any of them works a minute over 35 hours a week, even the top bosses, so if they can do it... When he worked in France they all took every other Friday off and it was frowned upon if you didn't! It's a different culture and mindset. Vive la France!

Bainne to be fair, Prig said "if you can afford not to work" (though the OP doesn't seem to be talking about stopping work).

@Oblahdeeoblahdoe

OP you need to take more control over the situation. For every extra task your manager gives you ask them what they would like you to drop. A colleague started this a few years ago and eventually the manager realised that he couldn't just pile work onto people. Stop looking at your emails at weekends, start and stop work at your contracted hours, just quietly work to rule. My DS is very well qualified, has a responsible job, good salary but works for a French company. There's no way any of them works a minute over 35 hours a week, even the top bosses, so if they can do it... When he worked in France they all took every other Friday off and it was frowned upon if you didn't! It's a different culture and mindset. Vive la France!

Oh wow So the "fewer hours" culture shown in Emily in Paris is not fiction?!

I would love to work hard to passionately follow a career, however life has presented me with a different path. I'm now a single mum of four, I take whatever job puts food on the table and a roof over our heads. Once all children are financially independent, I can forge ahead in a career path of my choosing, just not the time yet. Easy to compare myself to my siblings who are highly successful in their chosen careers, but they've not been thrown the same curve balls that I have!

@LunaHeather I'm sorry I don't know the programme (just did a quick Google). You'll have to enlighten me

I quit my corporate job in my mid 30’s and retrained to work for myself. Sooooo much less stress, I love what I do, can pick my hours, it doesn’t feel like work..........

However, I have the emotional and financial support of my OH and it would be more of a struggle on my own.

I hated the worry and pressure, expectation and time my office job put upon me. I also hated wasting the days stuck indoors. I could never, ever go back!

Others would feel sick at the idea of leaning on someone else financially.
I’m lucky as my DP enjoys his job - it pays well and is low stress.
He is very laid back and refuses to get stressed/rushed by others. He’s the only one who knows how to do his job and he’s done it for 15+ years, so he’s trusted and left alone.

He is happy to see me happy and says I should do whatever I want work-wise.

I pick up more of the household chores and I’m extremely happy with my situation. You have to do what’s right for you, not what others would have you do.

[quote Oblahdeeoblahdoe]@LunaHeather I'm sorry I don't know the programme (just did a quick Google). You'll have to enlighten me [/quote]
I can't find an appropriate clip

But she is American and surprised to find the Paris office opens at 10, has lunch hours, and that she's not supposed to talk about work at work parties. If that's all true, I could work there!

@LunaHeather

Bainne to be fair, Prig said "if you can afford not to work" (though the OP doesn't seem to be talking about stopping work).

Yes, but rather as an afterthought after a long peroration about the rat race and soul erosion, and what seems like a thinly-disguised advocation of being a SAHM as a sign of how your integrity, emotional intelligence and ‘inner self-worth’ are higher than those who work outside the home in the ‘rat race’. Which is complete nonsense, obviously, that I doubt even the most enthusiastic advocates of being a SAHP would agree with. Including the OP, who just wants a less stressful job, but isn’t claiming that only those ‘too dumbed down’ actually work outside the home.

Unless @Prig is in the tiny minority who have an income that does not derive from work, then someone else is supporting her fragrant home life by battling it out in the ‘unnatural’ rat race. I hope she hasn’t told that person he or she is ‘disregarding human decency and individuality’ to fit in to the working world.

Bainne apologies, I didn't see any comments other than the one you quoted.

Just because they are busy, important, successful doesn’t mean they thrive on career challenges. Sometimes mortgages, relatives expectations/needs, not knowing how to change the set up holds individuals in high pressure jobs. If you look closer you will find there are lots of people who don’t want career progression and want a job that doesn’t interfere with their personal life. For others work will offer respite from an abusive partner or relieve loneliness. Everyone has different stresses, needs and different levels of resilience.

Please stop assuming everyone has collective negative thoughts about you. This will not be true. There will be things people really love about you and things they are less keen on. Everyone will find different things concerning. That is normal and it’s important you don’t seek everyone’s approval constantly. Laying your self esteem and self worth on the shoulders of others is far from ideal

@LunaHeather

Bainne apologies, I didn't see any comments other than the one you quoted.

Oh, not to worry, @LunaHeather!

Replied earlier in thread but my aunt recently went through training to become a therapist. She had never worked before but now she's got a good number of clients and it's still a very reasonable workload - and all based from home.

@BloodyCovid would you mind sharing what you do now?

@HBGKC pre-Covid times I work as a life model (I pose nude for art classes - there’s plenty of work if you’re serious, good and available during office hours) and also a fitness trainer with a variety of specialties - going out and about, running classes in village halls, parks, homes etc not affiliated with any gym.

The spring/summer is the busiest time and you can work all hours with the personal training - it dips a bit in the winter months but you retain most of your clients.

Since Covid I do amazon delivery in my own car, have a subscription only page for my modelling shots which has a wider range of poses than for the real life art classes. I also do bits of babysitting work/school pick up etc prior to Covid as I a was a nursery nurse years ago.
That’s a job that pays shit money and you have to give soooo many hours for free....... we weren’t paid for evening meetings, training, weekend open days etc. I look back on how many hours I worked for free in my 20’s for big companies that didn’t give a crap about the staff (or the kids TBH, and feel sad).

I love my work, being my own boss, choosing when to take a day off to go to the beach or wild swimming on a hot day.

Well maybe that's a slight exaggeration but along the right lines. Two hour lunches were only on a Friday if they were in work that day of course. I must say my DS loved living there (and I loved visiting him) There's definitely a culture of working to live rather than the other way round.

Will you still feel the same in 10, 20 years though? I think I'd feel very unfulfilled if I had stayed at the same level throughout my working life. You be watching others around you progress and become part of the management team, possibly even your manager over time.

Looking back over a 25 year career, I'm glad I've taken all the chances that came my way. Now I'm in a very senior position, working for an exceptional company, very well recompensed but with the best work/life balance I've ever had.

I’m looking forward to the day I leave teaching and open a cat sanctuary, frankly.

I think it is very easy to take a job, rather than have a career, if you have a DH or DP who is a high earner. If you are both scraping by on minimum wage and top up with benefits, it can’t be much fun, even if you enjoy what you do.

It depends on how much money you want to earn. I don’t think there are many that you can clock out on time, and not think about work outside work hours that pay well.
I do have a “high flying” career. I had booked a day off to spend one half term day with my child. I spent most of it working on a Big Proposal I’m working on. I think about work constantly. I log on most evenings for an hour or so. Always at weekends as one of my clients works Sundays.
But the upside is that it’s well paid and I like the choices and opportunities that brings. So as with many things, it depends on your priorities.

Yanbu.
I'm pt non managerial but without a management team who knows my job, it's fucking stressful. Too much for my level and pay. The sideways jobs and the higher jobs look like more of a shit show with constant zoom meetings yet still expected to do your actual job. No thanks.
I earn 3 or 4 quid an hour above nmw but hate the job. Work life is so important.

But she is American and surprised to find the Paris office opens at 10, has lunch hours, and that she's not supposed to talk about work at work parties

American work ethic is a bit mad though. Not taking holiday, barely any mat leave, i don’t think they’ve heard of work life balance.

O/p i did it. Packed in a job that caused me a lot of stress for many reasons. Nhs- permanently short staffed, working stupid shift patterns to provide 24 hr cover, lots of lone working, tons of responsibility - for about 50k.

Plus I got to a level where any “career” progress was into management, and effectively a pay cut as you no longer get shift allowance.

So I jacked it in and found a job for half that. Probably nearer 30k by the time shift allowance and overtime is paid. Completely different arena but using the same core skills. I clock in on time, leave on time, barely any responsibility. Any overtime is my choice and I get paid for it. Colleagues actually respect what I do and will say thank you when I help them.

Mentally I am so much better. I get opportunities to move roles but I will only apply if the pay is better and it’s also something i want to do. I’m 50 though so mortgage is paid off, kids will be independent in 5 years, so I’m focussing on my pension so we can have a nice retirement :).

@ChequerBoard

Will you still feel the same in 10, 20 years though? I think I'd feel very unfulfilled if I had stayed at the same level throughout my working life. You be watching others around you progress and become part of the management team, possibly even your manager over time.

Looking back over a 25 year career, I'm glad I've taken all the chances that came my way. Now I'm in a very senior position, working for an exceptional company, very well recompensed but with the best work/life balance I've ever had.

Everyone is not the same. Not everyone wants to have to sit on senior management boards and all the office politics that goes with that. Not everyone wants to manage other people. I spent 38 years in civil service/public sector. Until about 10-15 years ago, if you were happy at the level you were at, and performed satisfactorily you were basically left alone. By the time I left it had completely changed. Everyone had to have a career development plan. Experience and loyalty weren’t valued, only ambition.