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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to have ‘gone off’ working?

426 replies

haribofiend · 10/01/2022 23:26

Okay so I realise I am unreasonable!

But does anyone else feel the same?

I’m not a lazy person, have always worked v.hard, too hard at times, if anything!

But lately (since Covid / lockdown, but maybe it’s just a coincidence) I’m so fed up of it. I’m not in the wrong job - I like my work well enough… but not as much as I’d like leisure time Blush I find I’m wistfully looking forward to retirement, and I’m only 34!!

I’m a bit shocked at myself tbh. Is it just me who’s had this change of heart lately and needs a big old boot up the bum?

OP posts:
UserBot989 · 11/01/2022 08:15

@stuntbubbles

About 25-50 years out would rejuvenate me Grin
Ha ha yes. I would like to set up my out of office to say back in 2037
UserBot989 · 11/01/2022 08:15

'and then have a retirement party. And then retire..

JustJam4Tea · 11/01/2022 08:16

@rookiemere that’s such a good point about holidays. They got me through…supposed to be going away to Spain for a week at end of Jan and just can’t get enthused.

Mostly because this year was supposed to be 3 weeks in Japan. Fucking covid.

Sleepyquest · 11/01/2022 08:16

I feel this. I don't enjoy my job but I'm good at it. I get so so bored. I need a job I'm passionate about but just don't see it happening.

Booksandwine80 · 11/01/2022 08:18

I hate working 🤣 I’ve always been a “worker” going above and beyond. I find myself doing bare minimum some days 😳

Parsley1234 · 11/01/2022 08:18

First lockdown although my businesses went and I was stressed about that I found peace I was walking running yoga eating better taking time in nature I miss that stable mental health I had never had it before. Now I’m still in bed and putting makeup on is a chore jeez it is low level depression I know it is but I can’t be bothered to do anything about it it all seems so pointless

vixeyann · 11/01/2022 08:19

Same. 40 and dreading opening the laptop each day. Job is okay and I had a decent rise this year but there are plenty of other things I would prefer to do. I live in a rural village and have WFH from just before March 2020. Feel trapped here, so much so I'm looking to move this year so know I can't really do anything to change the job without sorting that first.

Whatliesbeneath707 · 11/01/2022 08:20

Yep, I'm 49 and can't imagine doing this for another 10-15 years. My job doesn't fit into full-time hours - it spills over and really all I want to do is read, go to the coast & listen to podcasts Smile. So hard to get the balance.

UserBot989 · 11/01/2022 08:20

@iggly have you read Tom Hodgkinson's ''How to be Free''.
It's a good read even if you can't manage to pull of his master stroke of having no mortgage. The book is not a new book so by now his children must be through university and or have left home. But even if I didn't have the liquidity in my home to sell up and buy a much cheaper (but still gorgeous) home in a seaside town somewhere, and live mortgage free somewhere, I still liked his way of viewing life. One thing that's stuck with me is ''don't outsource your entertainment''. He didn't say Netflix, because this book is older than netflix. But he meant don't sit there watching tv and then say you've no time to do watercolours/little clay scultpures/make your own clothes.
His words stuck with me but when I get home from work ............ I feel like these things are too much trouble to set up so I do the very thing he advises you not to do if you want to be free and I outsource my entertainment in a really passive way.

vodkaredbullgirl · 11/01/2022 08:21

Yes every time I go to work and there is only 2 staff for a night shift. It pisses me right off and it's busy non stop.

Gilly12345 · 11/01/2022 08:23

I feel this way and I am 52 and have been working since I was 16, you are going to have to win the lottery or just get on with it.

Iggly · 11/01/2022 08:24

[quote UserBot989]@iggly have you read Tom Hodgkinson's ''How to be Free''.
It's a good read even if you can't manage to pull of his master stroke of having no mortgage. The book is not a new book so by now his children must be through university and or have left home. But even if I didn't have the liquidity in my home to sell up and buy a much cheaper (but still gorgeous) home in a seaside town somewhere, and live mortgage free somewhere, I still liked his way of viewing life. One thing that's stuck with me is ''don't outsource your entertainment''. He didn't say Netflix, because this book is older than netflix. But he meant don't sit there watching tv and then say you've no time to do watercolours/little clay scultpures/make your own clothes.
His words stuck with me but when I get home from work ............ I feel like these things are too much trouble to set up so I do the very thing he advises you not to do if you want to be free and I outsource my entertainment in a really passive way.[/quote]
I will have a read!

I do spend a lot of my free time doing things like sewing, running and reading. My DH always raises an eyebrow at how “busy” I am outside of work - as I complain about work - but I tell him I like to do things I enjoy as well and that means busy leisure time 😂

User135644 · 11/01/2022 08:24

Is there anything more pointless than team meetings? Especially regular ones, now and again okay. Just send a bloody email to cover what needs covering. The amount of hours you waste when you could have read an email in two minutes.

MyGreenTutu · 11/01/2022 08:26

I work in a school and all the fun and sociability has been sucked out of it. Constant low level fear about the germy environment and catching Covid, most the nice things about being in a school community cancelled - the plays, concerts, daytrips, school holidays, even whole school assemblies which used to be a big deal for our school. The culture has changed beyond recognition and everyone there is exhausted after this two year battle and fed up with government's constant unrealistic demands. It's really depressing. The kids must feel the same.

I only work three days a week but I do them, leave on the dot of 4pm and try not to think about that part of my life until I arrive again for my next workday. I've got no pride in my job any more.

Frymetothemoon · 11/01/2022 08:28

I am mid-40s but can identify totally. I already know my early retirement date (not until 2033) and I can't wait.

My job is perfect for me, on paper, but it brings me nothing. No other occupation appeals to me

Mumofteens2 · 11/01/2022 08:28

I felt like this in my early 30s too. Had a year off on maternity and realised how much I needed to work for my sanity. Went back part time and will never go back full time (late 40s now. Ideal balance if you can afford to/ can find a suitable job. Lots of agencies specialise in part time jobs for experienced people

PinchOfVom · 11/01/2022 08:28

Oh I think it’s totally normal, I remember feeling like this at 33 signing a contract

SlipperTripper · 11/01/2022 08:28

33 and exactly the same. Am self employed and have wfh for years, but did get at least used to get to go meetings/events etc - feels like I haven't left the house for two years.

Am pregnant, due in April, and stopped my contracts to go on maternity leave at the end of December. Not because i had to, but because I just couldn't be arsed pretending to care any longer. Totally ridiculous, I'm now just fannying around annoying myself (sorry to shit on any strawberries, but flapping about all day is no better than working) and have now got to stretch my maternity savings thinner. But between the feeling meh and the hormones, I was a total mess every bloody day.

Languishing is about right!

Parsley1234 · 11/01/2022 08:29

What I’ve worked out through never having a proper job before and always being self employed is just how much people are justifying their existence hence the meeting the emails the pointless shite that no one reads it’s all fucking nuts ! Civil service is the most joke place to work

tigerbear · 11/01/2022 08:36

Same here.
I’m 44, and just can’t be arsed anymore.
Also work from home (self employed), so tbh I spend most of the day here on MN 😬
Just can’t get motivated!

dubyalass · 11/01/2022 08:36

I’m so glad you’ve posted this, I feel exactly the same. I have a new job which I’m really enjoying, but my attention span (which was never great) has dwindled to almost nothing. I wondered if it’s because I’m perimenopausal but the fact that so many of you in your thirties are saying the same is very interesting. I could cheerfully fill my days with hobbies if retirement was an option, I’m not bored per se, but I definitely feel like my world has got smaller. Which is a very privileged thing to say.

dubyalass · 11/01/2022 08:37

Oh yes, and also mostly working from home, although I will be partly back in the office when we’re allowed, and I’m looking forward to that.

UserBot989 · 11/01/2022 08:38

Interesting that so many people on this thread are early/mid 30s.
I think that if you have young children, then working full time as well is a nightmare stage of your life. If you don't have children then you wouldn't be human if you didn't feel your were handing over your life and your time for an amount of money that probably leaves you with not very much after bills and groceries. It seems such a pointless trade.

When I got back in to the work place pt when m son was about 8 and then ft when he was 10, I was really gung ho for 5 years, wey hey! after years of being a mother (and a single mother on benefits, that much maligned creature in the media) I felt so important again, to be working, to have a JOB. But now I think fuck having a job, I want time.

I want what precious time I have to be my own. It really is dawning on me here at 51 that life is on a clock.

Celebrities my age die!!! OK, maybe they take various drugs and I do not. But it is brought home to you at about this age that people of 51 die and people are a little shocked. They feel he/she died a little too young. Robbed of a little of his life. Deprived of some of his/her old age.

Am I already mentally in that age where I feel that this is bonus time. I'm healthy and I could live to 95 but I don't know that.

tttigress · 11/01/2022 08:42

I personally think it's to do with lockdowns / working from home.

I have been WFH during the lockdown, it just seems to bring out a real lethargy in my, I am not in the UK, so not allowed to return to work.

UserBot989 · 11/01/2022 08:42

@iggly that is fantastic because how to be free and how to be happy really overlap! passive leisure time makes you feel like you're stagnating eventually but I have slipped in to just that. It takes so long to take out the sewing machine or get out the clay. But it only takes 6 seconds for next episode to play.