Sunday doom - has anyone actually given up the corporate job and salary?

[Rach247]

I hate my job. Hours and pressure and stress are very high but I’m paid well.

Constantly day-dreaming about packing it in to do something less demanding and genuinely 9-5, work your hours and leave your job at the office, admin type thing. Or something completely different, like being a postie or working in a coffee shop. I know these can be demanding, but in a different way. But the pay would be low by comparison and I have a mortgage and young kids.

Has anyone actually packed in the corporate job for such a lifestyle change, and how did it go?

I’m an accountant for an SME - busy but not stressful and I earn £65k fte - I’m not fully qualified so wage is low-end for an accountant but perfectly adequate for me.

I’m 9-5, don’t take work home, busy sometimes but not stressful. I take toil or get paid if I do overtime, attend various meetings and events at kids schools etc.

DH earns just over £70k - 9-5 - not expected to work much outside outside of this (some busy times of year) and he works in data analytics.

I did it when I was about 40, went self employed and moved to in-house role, best thing I ever did. I had a proper work-life balance, worked part time some of the time and ended up making a lot more ££ than I was before.

I did. City lawyer moved to civil service. Huge pay cut that at the time was matched by the change in hours and absolutely worth it. Now I work part time and love my work life balance and the job I do is immensely satisfying.

I moved to the public sector, much less stress & no Sunday night dread.

I felt similar so dropped to 4 days so perhaps consider that if you can afford it and your work allows. I wake up on Sundays now so happy that i have an extra day off. Life feels so much better. I appreciate you lose 20% of your pay though so not suitable for everyone

I work in the public sector in a business support role. It’s super stressful with deadlines to meet, awful micromanagement, not enough hours in the day to complete tasks, but without the pay.

Be careful what you wish for..

I moved sideways (transferreable skills) and dropped my hours. Some of my colleagues can't understand why I would move into what I'm currently doing, but it suits me, so I love it.

Oh and I yes to the Sunday blues and the dread of returning from any annual leave.

Certainly not the case where I work!

I did when I was about 40. Quit a fairly well paid job for self employment. First business didn't work out but led to another (ecommerce) which I ran for 10 years, then sold. Another 10 years as a freelancer before covid wiped out my business and I decided to retire.

We had a large mortgage at the time I quit but no kids and OH had a decent job (at the time). We gave up holidays for many years, downsized when we had to move for OH's job and I dropped my designer handbag habit (didn't miss it at all).

I never made serious money and there were times when working for myself was extremely stressful but I don't regret a minute of it. Having one stable income in the household helps as does a supportive partner. And a willingness to live with uncertainty.

Only you can decide if the sacrifices will be worth it.

Quite telling how people go off to the public sector for same money and less work. Just about sums up the mess the public sector is in. Inefficient and grossly underproductive.

I earn less money & still work hard. My employers just don't want blood now which is nice.

This sounds smashing. Once we've moved house, I plan to take up dog boarding and daycare alongside my freelance work. Once my own elderly hounds are no longer resident.

I passed over promotions for 20 years to keep a good work life balance but some of the lower paid jobs in my organisation are just as stressful as the higher paid ones. The stress comes from micro managing, borderline bulling, continual personality clashes and HR issues, perceived unfairness in workloads and responsibilities, increased workload due to absence, middle management incompetent and generally a lack of value placed on the staff. If you are used to being valued and making decisions and implementing your ideas and using your skills you might find the lower paid jobs become even more stressful. Working for yourself might be a way of avoiding this, but that comes with its stresses too. You need to think carefully what you want to replace your job with before you do it.

I do think a lot of posters seem to have gone from highly paid/highly respected roles to entry level roles and then decided that it was a mistake which I find so interesting. There is a middle ground here: why would you go from a senior management to an entry-level admin position? That doesn’t make sense to me. Surely spending a bit of time (and money on say a career coach) to look at alternatives that align more with your needs but still give you job satisfaction would be the way to go rather than going from one extreme to the other?

Yeah this would be my concern in terms of how you might feel, if you’re the type of person to get a high-flying well-paid corporate job in the first place. I have done low level admin before, it wasn’t stressful and it gave me the space to make the most of life outside of work, but the reality is that most of your hours are in work, and I was soul-chewingly bored for the time I was there, there was also something humiliating about underachieving so much and tbh I missed the status of a more demanding role. Having said that, I know work stress is horrible. It’s hard to find the right balance!

ETA: sorry, posted before I saw @KatSlayMoon’s post, they make good points!

I still have a job where I have autonomy which makes a big difference.

@JNicholsonI do worry that a lot of women wait until utter burnout and then can’t see the wood for the trees (understandably) when making these decisions.

As an example, I’m in what I’d call middle management (but process/project management rather than people management) and it’s pretty much strictly 37 hours a week worked flexibly, hybrid, good pension and benefits and decent pay for the sector I’m in. Sometimes I wonder if I should change sectors for the pay increase but in all honesty threads like this always play on my mind.

Me OP, name changed. I couldn’t stay in my toxic workplace any longer so I resigned. Didn’t really have a plan tbh. My notice period ends on 31/12. Single parent to two DC, higher rate taxpayer. I’ve got a healthy savings pot but would like to be earning some money by the start of the new tax year in 26.

I had much more than the Sunday blues though!

Just scrolled up a bit. I think my plan is for interim roles in the medium term. I know quite a few people who have walked away from corporate roles, two fellow solicitors who I worked with, one became a waiter, another a postwoman! Both had been on the verge of a breakdown/burnout. Both are feeling much better/happier.

depends. All these stressful jobs? I'm lucky where I do accounts and I do which part whenever I want, so long as certain bits get done on time, no one questions me.

Be careful what you wish for, because you could step down into a pile of stress. You may be earning £80k or £100k+ in your top role, step down into a £35k admin role, where your nose is to the grindstone every minute of every day and they're expecting you to produce 50 reports a minute, 50 reports a week, with a boss who's micromanaging you.

how is that or any better than the stressful job you had at 100k?

what about instead? Thinking about who you work for? What kind of job you do and why you let yourself get so stressed. And then attacking that head on and thinking about how you can adjust this. Maybe moving slightly sideways into a slightly different area or slightly different company, they're not so demanding.

Went to four days a week almost ten years ago. Monday a non-working day, when my mother was alive was able to do a lot for her including just taking her to places which otherwise she could not visit.

I gave up to set my own studio. Less cash every months but i work project based so sometimes full on and sometimes quieter. I love it. It can be stressfull but I am in charge and I own the relationship with my clients and my contractors / suppliers so thats gives so much freedom. I have no employees as such as I use freelancers at the moment, so no pressures of PAYE.

as someone said the next 20yrs are going to be very long if you dont do something you are passionate about. But being an entrepreneur isnt for everyone especially in this economical climate.

I agree with this. I also think there are ways to look at your company and find stress-free roles and then make a beeline for those, while keeping your pay or similar pay.

Lower paid jobs do not necessarily have less stress. I've been promoted before and for me the job has been easier than a junior job (but I guess depends on your skillset)

I've tried a career making. Didn't work out. Have been married and working part time

I wouldn't mind a career but don't think I'm cut for b.itchiness

I’m in a similar dilemma and it’s interesting to hear from people cautioning on the risks of leaving a stressful but highly paid job for a stressful but less well paid one.

I am searching for a way out long term but I think cutting hours and salary to find yourself in a boring, badly paid and still stressful is probably the worst of all possible scenarios.