DH and I both having a work crisis

[ItWasneaMe]

At the same time. Both recently turned 60 and both losing confidence in our abilities.

He's finding it hard to articulate things as he's moving into areas he isn't that experienced in (he's a senior IT consultant) and the younger people just seem to 'get it'. He is trying to advise teams but without training in the technical stuff they do.

I can't get reports out like I used to for managers and one line manager has just given my latest task to a senior surveyor as I just can't do it. I'm a database analyst so it's always been a major part of my role.

I spent today on the verge of tears and at one point had to go out for a walk to calm down.

We would both love to retire but can't afford to. As I'm a local government employee I have a decent pension plan but not paid enough into it yet. DH is employed by a huge conglomerate but again his pension plan is quite good so we dont want to move jobs really.

I'm just trying to hold on as I need to support him. He earns 3x my salary!

How do we handle a double mid life crisis? Neither of us is keen to move anywhere else at 60.

Could you try counselling/ talk to managers about training courses?

I sympathise, it's very hard when both of you are in a bad patch

That sounds difficult, OP!

I don't have any advice, but I hope things will work out for you both.

And good advice from @CassandraWebb .

CassandraWebb: myself and my assistant recently had advanced training, organised by our useless HR department, which I'd been asking for for months.

It didn't cover anything we needed. We didnt know the curriculum until the day and I complained to HR that it only covered 35% of what was in the training guide! I was then told that if it hadn't suited us, I should go off myself and find a course that my manager could agree to. What do HR do these days?!

To be fair to HR, they can’t be experts in every kind of training needed. If your training course didn’t cover what it was supposed to, then they should be complaining to the training provider and getting a partial refund or some additional training provided to cover what was advertised. However, I don’t think it’s unreasonable of them to ask you to suggest some suitable training yourself – you are the person who best knows where the gaps in your knowledge are after all!

That’s a bit unfair, why should hr find your course, if you want training find the course and ask your manager to agree. You’re taking the it’s not my problem route. If you wish to fix it. Fix it. They’ve told you how.

your husband has to do the same, if he doesn’t understand the tech, then he needs to find training to support him,

Agreed, I've always assumed, as a specialist, that I need to hunt out the training I need not expect HR (who in local govt here are insanely stretched anyway) to know.