Hello,

Firstly, I'm a long-term member of PH but don't feel particularly comfortable posting under my regular username.

What I'm looking for is some advice and opinions from you guys on the below;

I'm 28 and have worked in retail distribution since I graduated six years ago. I'm currently in a decent management position and earn around £45k p/a, plus car and health care etc - I've added these specifics to give this some context and absolutely not to try and boast.

I work long hours, easily 60+ per week, have an enormous responsibility on my back each day, being entirely responsible for a warehouse operation, and all the stress that goes with it. I've been in my current role for a few months now and with the company for around 3 years. This is the third move I've made within 3 years in respect of position and location. Each time I feel like I'm starting again, new area, new friends, new home, etc. This, coupled with having to learn a new role and to perform, is starting to take its toll and has done for a while.

Undoubtedly I'm suffering from work-related stress too. The symptoms are numerous, both physical, mental and emotional. And truth be known, I'm hating my current role. I genuinely dread driving into work. I wouldn't ever approach HR or my line manager regarding this, as it would undoubtedly stick an invisible black mark on any future progression.

It's not the hours, hard work or dedication that I have the issue with. It's more that I do not get any job satisfaction or enjoyment from what I do. There is no real feeling of achievement, no feeling of any of it being worthwhile. Other than it's remuneration in terms of pay. It all feels futile.

For years, on and off, I've suffered from depression. Having seen a counselor from July - December of last year and made good progress, resolving many of the issues I had in this time. My counselor was perplexed from the early stages in what I was doing in respect of my work and continually asked "why?". She explained that she could understand it if I had an end goal, or absolute commitments to something, perhaps financially. And to be fair to her, I was never able to answer her question. It was clear to her that my work was having a large negative impact on my life. She commented on how alive an energised I became though when talking of something that interested me - a total contrast to work.

The depression is now firmly back and has been for around 4 months now. I'm now considering going back to see a therapist once a week.

At school, right through to the point of finishing, I had always been interested in antiques and had toyed about dealing with them as a career, as well as business in general, with my dad being self-employed successfully. I've always been driven and motivated by wanting to make money/do business, to be self made. It's something that makes me feel alive and gives me a buzz. Something totally absent from my current job.

What still really interests me is reclamation and architectural salvage. The idea of scouting, buying and selling. It still appeals massively. To me, this is real day to day business and could lead to really interesting way of making a living. I could be self-employed and I'm confident my own motivation and work ethic would allow me to do well. I live 10 miles from Dover so the potential to do this on the continent cheaply is there too.

So, to the main point, I've two choices as I see it and would like your thoughts and opinions please:

1. Stick with what I have. Be grateful of the money relative to my age and the real potential to progress. Accept that many people don't like their work and that's the reality. Focus my energies on things other than work so that it perhaps doesn't consume me as it does now. Realise that this income could provide some basis and foundation for home and family one day. Understand that perhaps my current frame of mind is blackening my outlook on the job. In PH terms, 'man up'.

2. Take a chance. Start small time with salvage and reclamation and see where it takes me, with the intention of quitting my job within the next 12 months or sooner. Realise that whilst I'm currently financially stable that the money isn't making me happy - it's what I do for 12 hours a day which is making me unhappy to get it - and that I'm never likely to meet anyone to share it with and settle down with whilst I'm the miserable sod I am anyhow.

Keep in mind I'm 28, in a house share so have no financial commitments, no debts and have managed to save £10K I'm willing to put towards a business.

Apologies for this being a bit wordy!

Thoughts and ideas appreciated.

Thanks.

But £45k shouldn't come attached to a 60+ hour week and a truck load of stress.

Sorry to hear OP but it sounds like you need to make yourself an exit strategy. Whether that's a long term, planned move or a sharp exit is up to you but only you can decide that.

I agree with some of the post above re: exercise, diet etc. but you really shouldn't be carrying on like you are. You're burning out and no job is worth that, irrespective of the current financial climate. It's probably true that you need to show willing when times are tough but 60 hours is an additional 50% of your normal working week and that just isn't on.

Is there any scope to do a slightly lower role in the same industry but as a contractor? That may give you the cash you need short term to enable a change into a different industry altogether.

Either way I wish you all the best and hope you get yourself sorted soon

Good advice above - look after yourself.

Although a bit older (46) I've been there and recently took redundancy. Was earning more than you but like you doing silly hours and getting lots of stress/aggravation.

I'm now contemplating what to do next and you know, I'm a little envious of you having your antiques dream. May sound odd but I've got lots of interests but haven't got one that I can see I could turn into a meaningful business (yet!).

So, my advice would be to build as much of a financial cushion as you can while developing your exit plan. You may find that once you have a plan/timescale to get out things become a little easier to deal with. You'll know it's not forever.

Hope it works for you. Feel free to PM me if I can help. Been there with the depression thing.

I promise I'm not a PH spelling Nazi, but your typo highlighted stood out as rather Freudian. At the moment you are simply existing. There is a whole life and world out there waiting for you to grab it.

Apologies for the 'cod pyschology', but you also come across as highly self aware but introspective. In your last post, you talk about your concerns for underperforming in your current job, that you 'should' be grateful for your lot, or of feeling a failure if you quit. None of those things need be self fulfilling prophecies.

IMHO, if you start addressing the now, the rest will begin to fall into place. What seems certain is you need to leave your job. You're only 28, with absolutely no commitments. Don't feel you have to stay, from a misplaced sense of pride or bloody-mindedness, or anything else. It's easy to convince ourselves to just put up with really bad situations, even blaming ourselves and our own mindsets for "not coping". Those situations can end up ingrained as the norm, it takes very little to wake up in 10 years time and realise that you changed nothing but are now even more trapped.

Would it help to set yourself some mental boundaries around your current role? Whilst you may not be able to dictate your own hours, decree your time off as your own, refuse to allow yourself to think about work and fill your time with things you enjoy. The gym and boxing are great, can you overcome your tendency to withdraw and call a friend for a chat, or a family member? Doesn't need to be heavy, just a catch up and small talk can actually be a relief. Start researching and planning your new business venture. By beginning to get out there a little more, and do more, you can begin to open doors and discover things you never knew existed. You may not even end up in antiques, but you may find something that excites you even more.

Don't resign yourself to staying either. Look for other jobs, even hunting just by location (would moving back or closer to wherever 'home' is be better, or be an option?). It's amazing what exists in the world of work. I'm doing a job I didn't even know existed 4 years ago! I've never been afraid to leave and try something new if the opportunity arose, or if I really hated a job or company I was in. It has never served me badly, though others decry this approach, I am faithful only to myself and my happiness, but I have a strong work ethic when in a role, and the end result is I am happy and successful - it took me many years though, sometimes it has been hard and I have questioned myself a lot, but it is worth it. I don't believe I am at 'the end', either, I'm still exploring and pushing new ideas, some may come to nothing, others are viable, but life is so multi-dimensional and in a sense, failure and success are merely constructs, we just make choices in a given moment, and no choice precludes us from moving on and making others. We're never stuck unless we choose to be.

You could easily test the waters by sourcing and selling through ebay to start. It absolutely comes across that you have the aptitude, make use of it before you get too ground down. Keep focusing on what you enjoy and are good at, in some ways that keeps making the field of available choices narrow and it will become clearer as to which direction you'll head in. You appear to put a lot of pressure and expectation on yourself, that can be hugely positive channelled in the right way, rather than just to beat yourself up with.

Give yourself a break, then start pursuing your dreams

Thanks for putting so much effort into your reply. Much appreciated.

Perhaps it was a Freudian slip. Though I'm not at the stage of dreaming about sh*gging my mum!

I still can't help feel that I'm throwing away 'the known'. I know I can progress, earn more, enjoy the nice things. But in the back of my mind I know that I'm not happy. I never, ever wake up looking forward to work. It consumes me. As for the boundaries, I've deliberately avoided signing for a company mobile - and I divert all my calls outside of work so I can screen them. Other than the thought of not wanting to go into work and all the daily crap and worry I have to deal with, I don't think too much of work when I'm outside of it. I think more than anything is that I'm anxious about failing - I'd have chucked in a well paid job and lost at least £10K in the process. And as much it might sound silly, I'm anxious people might finger point, laugh and sneer if that were to happen.

Thanks for the kind words about my introspect, self-awareness and aptitude. I think the therapy helped with that a lot and it was something I put a lot of work into. Certainly the therapist commented on the remarkable progress I made. Mostly because I always craved to understand why I do or say or act the way I do. And to learn from it. I read some really great books too which helped.

And as for the aptitude, I hope it's my desire to do well and be happy that will carry me through, more than anything. I've never run a business before and never even bought or sold any reclamation items. But it's something that's always itched at me to do. Dipping my toe in with Ebay sounds a good start. With France being so close, I keep having the idea of specialising in French items - windows, doors, etc.

Location wise, I'm not hugely close to my family, so that's not the be all and end all for me. But I live in a really lovely city and I feel content here. In fact, I think it'd be an ideal base to set up such a business.

Again, thanks for your reply - and well done for your own actions matching your words too!

As ever, this is a highly complex situation that will require a fairly complex solution; to simplify it may not do your situation justice. A number of internal and external forces are at play here and only a deep understanding and full and honest appreciation of them will allow you to make the right decisions rather than a bad one.

There are lots of good snippets of advice above, but I suspect the root cause has still yet to be fully acknowledged. For example, a move in to self employment, added to your statement "I've always been driven and motivated by wanting to make money/do business, to be self made. It's something that makes me feel alive and gives me a buzz..." may actually bring additional stresses; I know few start-ups who aren't working very long hours, for little reward and who are not very stressed. Hope that adds some value. PM me if you think any further support would help; it's what I do. Good luck!

OP...take the chance. Its your only option.

As a fellow member of the Depression club, I know fully where you are. Ive always found taking the risk, gambling on myself and forcing myself to make a new angle work as an effective mechanism of managing/battling my mind & mental state.

can't really add much to this post other than to wish the OP well, and hope that he finds what he needs.
While I am stuck in a job I despise, it does at least offer decent hours and minimal pressure. Nevertheless I am making an attempt to do something I would really enjoy, so it heartens me also to learn that some people can actually enjoy their work.

Good man - should be easy enough to save ~£1.5-2k month depending how high your fixed costs are

There's no need for a big wall of text like everyone else has done.

If you're not happy in the job you're in then I don't think you should put up with it just for the money.

If the other career path pays enough for you to live happily then go for it!