WWYD? Career crossroads or just tired?

[3quarters]

Looooong time lurker here, hoping for some perspective from like-minded people. Obviously I ultimately need to do what's right for me, but besides my partner I know no one IRL with even a hint of FIRE mentality, so it's hard to see my options clearly.

I feel like I'm at some sort of inflection point in my career/FIRE journey, but I'm not sure if I'm burned out, being a whiny baby, or just ready for a change. A little background:

Unmarried couple with no kids, no plans to have any. Together 13+ years, no immediate plans to marry and I trust that if we separated it would be amicable and equitable. I'm 36, he's 46.

NW ~$820k, $280k of that in non-retirement, liquid assets.
Realistically, we'd be comfortable FIREing on $900k, but I keep moving the goal posts (more on that) and am shooting for $1.25M.

Based in the U.S. Southeast. Currently renters, we recently sold our house in NC but do plan to buy again, likely in Florida. We want to stay in the SE for family reasons (certainly not for any love of humidity or palm trees).

FIRE for me probably will involve occasional paid work, either through monetizable hobbies or professional engagements, but I don't want to count on it.

We work remotely (permanently, not COVID-related) for the same company. I was recruited by my boss, who I'd worked with previously, to take a pretty demanding role as her second in command in the marketing arm of a start-up consulting firm. My partner came on board a year and a half later (he is my employee) as he had recently made a mid-life career transition that ended in his being underemployed and miserable. Together we bring in $185k, but that much money is a pretty recent development as we'd been living on my salary alone (~75–95k) for a few years, and before that neither of us were particularly high earners. Health insurance is covered by the employer, but no bonuses or retirement matches as of yet.

All sounds pretty great on paper, and I am certainly grateful for the good income (we both have art degrees, after all) and remote employment, which makes it all the harder not to feel like crap that I am OVER IT. I don't work crazy long hours, ~45-55/week, but my cache in what I do is that I work fast and intensely, which comes at a cost to my health and energy. I produce an ungodly amount of quality work for 6–8 clients at any given time, so much so that each time we add a client I get whispered questions from my colleagues about whether I can handle another one (not from my boss, mind you). It was 3 clients when I started over two years ago. I'm a bit of a jack-of-all-trades with a hand in creative direction, content development, branding, writing, social media, web, project management, and more. I enjoy the variety but am not naturally a people person, and as a director am stuck in loads of meetings and am very client facing. We have just added two new clients with no word of increasing my staff and I am already just keeping my head above water.

On the staffing front, I have two employees. My partner is easy — I trust him, I know his strengths, we're co-located, and I also know his career goal, like mine, is to do well enough to push the eject button at some point. He needs occasional guidance, but not career coaching and management. My other employee is struggling and I have absolutely zero energy to devote to her. And, while I feel bad about it, I never wanted to be a people manager to begin with (my boss knows this).

Re my health, I am overweight and am treated for clinical depression, both of which I know for certain I could manage better with less stress and more time. I'm pushing 40 and know that it's only going to get harder to lose weight, and every year brings me closer to it taking a longer-term toll on my health. I am tired all the time, and while my depression is better managed than in the past (no sobbing for an hour on the bathroom floor or staying in bed for an entire weekend), it's a struggle to function some days — mostly related to how I feel about work.

So, why haven't I taken a break? a) Growing up my dad was the sole earner, and he was laid off more than once inciting relocation and family strife. He's now retired and while they're comfortable, they certainly don't have the retirement they would have pictured for themselves. I've been brought up with the mentality that having a job is the be-all, end-all, and have my mother's voice in my head that if I take time off we'll be destitute in a week and I won't ever be able to re-enter the workforce. Leaving a job without another lined up is unthinkable. b) My boss and most of our organization are workaholics, inexplicably devoted to the firm, and I can't help but wonder if I'm just a lazy, entitled millennial for not feeling the same. c) if I've learned nothing else from therapy, it's that I'm a dyed-in-the-wool people pleaser, and I am terrified of disappointing my boss, colleagues, and family. High achiever in school, perfectionist, the whole kit-n-caboodle.

Any quitting will also involve my partner quitting, as he doesn't want to stay without me (I can't blame him). My colleagues are pretty convinced my boss hired my partner as extra incentive for me not to quit — my recent salary increases have undoubtedly been for the same purpose. Her fear of my leaving (subtly echoed by our CEO) puts me in a place of power, but my insecurities make me doubt just how far that can go.

Why haven't I looked for a new job? My last two were through my network, no interview required, and the thought of starting over and proving myself is more depressing than staying. I have a couple former colleagues who are movers and shakers and may pan out to new opportunities at some point, but nothing on the immediate horizon.

The way I see it, I have a few paths I can take. For the record, my partner is supportive of any of these, even if it upends his own career opportunities.

Stick it out a few more years until we reach FI. The risk here is I move the goal posts again, and/or burn out in some irrevocable fashion in the meantime.

Take a prolonged break. Quit for 3–12 months then get back to it at a new job. I have not had more than two weeks off in over 20 years, so I am curious to see what this does for me. Risk here is I spend the entire time searching for another job because I'm worried I'll be un-hireable.

Negotiate a shorter time off without pay but the opportunity to return. A month or so maybe. My therapist is encouraging this option but my worry is I'll spend the whole time counting the days until I have to go back.

Downshift. We're close enough to FIRE that we could take lesser jobs and just get there more slowly. My fear is that I take a massive pay cut for not a lot less stress, or a crazy boss, or some other crap situation.

Hit eject with some plans to make supplemental income. Part time work, freelancing. I have done some freelancing in the past, our skills are suited to it and my experience can command a decent hourly rate. It's risky, which gives me pause, and we'd also need to speed up buying a house while we're still full time since freelance would make it a lot harder to get a mortgage. I also risk burning myself out all over again.

TLDR: We're within a few years of FIRE but I'm pretty burned out. Should I suck it up or look at my options?

Any advice would be so very appreciated!

[seemsright]

You have the upper hand here. You have FU money, your boss needs you.

Figure out what you want. Less clients? a assistant? Less hours, Friday off? Flexed hours? two hour lunches?

Personally I would ask for 3 weeks off. Sleep and reset. Then set up a meeting and tell the boss what you want.

Please start putting yourself first. Sleep, eat better, deal with the stress, drop the weight, you matter. The job does not.

You have options. Way more options than you think.  Start believing in yourself!

[utaca]

As I was writing, seemsright replied with a similar perspective. It sounds like you are good at your job and they need you. You should figure out what you want, discuss your situation and needs with your boss and negotiate an arrangement that works for you.

As part of your negotiations, I would recommend raising the issue of support - it sounds like you are underwater at your job and you need help. You also need better work-life balance and I'd put the third option you've identified on the table (negotiate a shorter time off without pay but the opportunity to return). I'd also negotiate more time off.

Life is too short to be miserable at work - especially if you have close to a 7 figure stache.

Best of luck!

[youngwildandfree]

It sounds like you need more support at work. If the idea of another employee to manage stresses you out, maybe what you really need is someone else on your level to partner with you and provide the support your struggling employee needs. Maybe talk to your boss about how the company needs two of you, and see if there is a reasonable way to break your job into two pieces. If they are adding more clients this could be the perfect time to state you are maxed out!

[3quarters]

Thanks for the responses! So far it seems like some brief time off to get my head straight would be the popular choice. Given I just sold a house and moved while taking a total of two days off, I could stand a break.

@youngwildandfree I had a similar thought. Late last summer I asked to narrow my focus to creative direction to then hire a communications director counterpart who would take my other employee and some of the work that comes less naturally to me (but would be perfect for someone with a different background). It would be a win for me and for the organization to have someone more experienced in that role. I felt pretty brave to ask.

My boss seemed amenable but after a few weeks came back with "we don't have the budget, so what work do you want to give me instead." She has a ton on her plate already — I could not fathom giving her more, so things just stayed the same (actually worse, I took over a really demanding client around Christmas who's been a hot potato). I sense sometimes she's at her wits' end too but feels responsible to those of us she's recruited to not just bail. I know she comes off as the villain in my story but she's only marginally better off than I am.

I also regularly get told to offload onto contractors, but my workload is unpredictable and a lot of what can be outsourced is actually what I enjoy doing (I can't outsource the client meetings, advisory commitments, administrative BS, learning yet another client's technology platform, and people mgmt.)

[ChpBstrd]

It sounds like the company has grown, but the workforce has not. The owners of the company are making $ every single day they can overwork their staff without adding a new position. As dollars accumulate in their pockets, your health and well being decline. That sort of accounting is terrifying. But as long as you're willing to be a workaholic, they are going to let you. You are very profitable to them, but the damage is being accumulated by you. We've heard this story before; it ends with a heart attack or suicide.

@Malcat offers a good way to think of burnout in the context of a productive vendor/buyer relationship:

In business, no matter what your role, you need to think and act like the executive of your own business, a business that has one resource: you, and that resource is subcontracted out to one client: your employer.

Your client (employer) has control over the role, but the executive (you), has control over the resource (also you). Your primary responsibility is to serve YouCorp, not ThemCorp. You have to keep the YouCorp executive happy, and you do that by doing as well as you can while contracted out to ThemCorp. However, if the only resource YouCorp has starts burning out on an unreasonable contract position, then the executive needs to step in and manage the situation with the client, because burnout can ruin the resource.

So approach this situation as the executive of YouCorp, not the subordinate of ThemCorp. You are the only resource you have, you have to manage that resource responsibly.

If you don't know how to think, communicate, and manage like an executive, then learn. As I said, these are learnable skills.

You show great insight with what you wrote about your values: hard work and people pleasing. You are either on the cusp of realizing or have already realized that these values led you to do the behaviors that you find yourself doing today. If today's situation is unfavorable (stress, health, corporate droid mentality), you should go all the way back to your deeply cherished values and question them. Maybe they were appropriate for a different time and place? Maybe they were a reaction to something that isn't even present any more? Maybe you used those values to accomplish ABC and now you need new values to accomplish XYZ. What is XYZ? What are you out to accomplish with your life, if earning money is no longer the point of life?

This is all hard to contemplate with the blah blah report due tomorrow, but being the captain of your own ship is not just about steering the wheel, it's also about plotting the course. You need a few days off and a new employee or two to buy enough time to pull out the map. If you can't get that, take a year off and don't even look for a job during that time. Tell people it's because you can. They'll admire you for it.

[youngwildandfree]

I don't think your boss comes off as the villain, but the story is one that has been told time and time again. Your boss or your boss's boss is doing a poor job managing resources. It's hard to be objective when you are in the situation, and I think most people with the drive and personality you describe end up here. You can't imagine dumping the work on others. You convince yourself that you can do all the work if you just optimize your time a little better.

ChpBstrd has a great point about approaching the problem as though you are a contractor. Did you seek out these new clients? Did anyone ask you about your bandwidth before the company agreed to new projects? If the answer is no, then the staffing issue is honestly "not your problem". They need to figure out how to meet their commitments with the resources they have, or they need to acquire more resources. 

If you are in a position at your company where you had access to these decisions beforehand (should we take on a new client, what timeline can we propose, etc) and you said yes to your current workload, then the people pleasing issue goes much deeper. But in this case you should also control some of the funding/resource decisions.

[gooki]

My boss seemed amenable but after a few weeks came back with "we don't have the budget, so what work do you want to give me instead." She has a ton on her plate already — I could not fathom giving her more

You're bosses workload is not your problem. Push everything you need to up to them to ensure you have a balanced life. Eventually they'll get someone to help out.

[Anon-E-Mouze]

When you take your break (and it sounds like you need one), I encourage you to think about the specific tasks and experiences you love in your current role (or prior jobs) and rank them on each of the following scales:

1) What you love (versus what you dislike doing);
2) What you're good at (versus what you don't do well);
3) What gives you energy/motivation (versus what depletes you); and
4) What the company (and, separately, clients) value (versus what they don't appreciate).

Now, think realistically about what the mix of those elements would be like if:
a) You stayed at the company and persuaded them to hire the right person with the right skills to support you; and
b) You left the company to freelance.

One of the reasons I'm suggesting you think about this is that it sounds like you like the creative, analytical and strategic side of the work you do for clients but are less interested in the management, administrative, planning and interpersonal side of it. It is quite possible that you would end up doing a lot more proportionally of what you DON'T like doing if you went into business for yourself. It's possible that you could stay at the company (with your partner continuing to work there) if, for example, you could persuade the company to bring on someone like a project manager or client manager/administrator to free you up to do more of the creative and analytical side of your job. That person could be less expensive than you, so it might save the company some money in the long run, and it might also allow you to downsize your job to part-time in the future. Maybe they'd be willing to try someone in that capacity on a contract basis.

[3quarters]

Thank you for such thoughtful responses. A lot of this I know deep down, but it's a daily effort to put my needs first. I have to say to myself often, "Will I get fired for taking 20 minutes to make a healthy breakfast? No? Go do it then." And if I was fired for taking care of myself, why the hell would I want to work for these people.

An important theme I'm seeing here — also something that's been nagging me deep down — is figuring out what I want, then asking for it or making it happen. My career has largely happened to me. Sure, I've made some decisions, even negotiated pay once, but it's largely been directed by luck and what other people have suggested I do and how much they'll pay me for it. Then I work hard at it until something else happens. It's been so much out of my control that I have absolutely no idea what I want, besides more time and a rest. My dreams from childhood and college seem utterly unrealistic and not even all that appealing, but I can't say if that's how I really feel or if it's just the productivity/paycheck treadmill beating me down. For context, my BA was in both fine arts and graphic design. You can imagine I pursued the one that paid the rent more predictably, but while I enjoy some aspects of graphic design, I have never loved it. I read a ton so communications/marketing just kind of got tacked on at some point because I found myself rewriting or proofreading the copy I was given to lay out. I'm organized so let's take some project management. I speak well (inexplicably) so hey here are some client and vendor relationships to manage. Oh you know PowerPoint? You see where this is going.

In another thread someone mentioned the book Now What and I think I might give the exercises a shot to see if it brings me any clarity on my next chapter. Ultimately FIRE for me has always been about creating a financial safety net so I can experiment with more creative endeavors that may or may not be financially viable, but sometimes I just want to kick my own butt and be brave enough to jump with a smaller net.

@Anon-E-Mouze you are very right. The administrative aspects of freelancing bore me to tears but I've managed them. The biggest issue is when the easy targets for clients dry up and I have to attempt to market myself or extend my network. I am simply not passionate enough about what I do to reel in new clients. Social media makes me ill, even building myself a website is something I've started and stopped countless times. It's one part imposter syndrome, two parts just really not being able to fake excitement about helping someone sell more widgets.

[Metalcat]

One of the things I've had to drill into employees over and over and over again is that it's actually *their* responsibility to manage themselves as a resource.

I actually get really annoyed with staff who are willing to run themselves into the ground, work themselves into miserable burnout, and refuse to ever actually establish what their limits are.

An ideal staff member communicates when they are wearing out as a resource, they firmly establish and defend their limits, they make sure that they are doing their role in a sustainable manner, no matter what the pressures around them.

It's a key part of being a mature professional, and no, no one around you will pressure you to do it. No employer will pay you on the head and reward you for having excellent boundaries. This form of high-level professionalism has to come from within, it's what separates the true autonomous professionals from the dependent staff who need to be carefully managed.

I can't tell you how many businesses have brought me in and pointed to their "best" employees only for me to identify that this very person was actually a poison apple who was toxifying the entire workplace. Those people who work as hard as possible and never erect boundaries aren't great employees, they're poison because they let themselves become bitter and broken.

They're often highly valued by shitty management because they don't say no, because they're willing to sacrifice themselves, so that sends the signal to other staff that that's what's valued, and the bitter and broken staff member starts setting the miserable tone for their colleagues.

However, YOUR professionalism should not be defined by shitty management. YOU have to define your own professionalism, your own professional values. You have to be YOUR best, which means not passively allowing whatever is going on in management to define what kind of professional you are.

That's reckless, irresponsible, and inappropriate.

Your interests and your employer's interests won't always perfectly align, so of course your company isn't going to create an environment that perfectly suits your ability to thrive. Really fantastic employees do this for themselves.

I recently told a business owner to fire their "best" employees, who were by far the most demonstrably loyal and dedicated. Why? Because they lacked the ability to be top notch professionals with appropriate boundaries. They had absolutely no ability to communicate their limits. This business wanted to expand, and these managers were a disaster in the making. I needed real professionals in the roles, real autonomous, capable managers who knew when to tell leadership what couldn't be done and they they wouldn't do.

Having limits and expressing boundaries isn't some selfish thing you need to do to protect yourself, it's a basic, fundamental, valuable professional skill that makes you a BETTER EMPLOYEE.

How your employer pressures you to behave isn't actually what your employer needs from you. Those pressures are applied with the expectation that you know your limits, that you won't be reckless with yourself as a resource. They assume you have that part covered.

I train all of my direct reports to defend their boundaries, and as a result, I can push them HARD, I can push them as hard as I want to, I can demand insanity from them, but I can trust that they'll be mature professionals and push back if they can't handle it.

It's your JOB to push back. Even if no one ever tells you that, it is YOUR JOB.

[youngwildandfree]

One of the things I've had to drill into employees over and over and over again is that it's actually *their* responsibility to manage themselves as a resource.

I actually get really annoyed with staff who are willing to run themselves into the ground, work themselves into miserable burnout, and refuse to ever actually establish what their limits are.

An ideal staff member communicates when they are wearing out as a resource, they firmly establish and defend their limits, they make sure that they are doing their role in a sustainable manner, no matter what the pressures around them.

It's a key part of being a mature professional, and no, no one around you will pressure you to do it. No employer will pay you on the head and reward you for having excellent boundaries. This form of high-level professionalism has to come from within, it's what separates the true autonomous professionals from the dependent staff who need to be carefully managed.

I can't tell you how many businesses have brought me in and pointed to their "best" employees only for me to identify that this very person was actually a poison apple who was toxifying the entire workplace. Those people who work as hard as possible and never erect boundaries aren't great employees, they're poison because they let themselves become bitter and broken.

They're often highly valued by shitty management because they don't say no, because they're willing to sacrifice themselves, so that sends the signal to other staff that that's what's valued, and the bitter and broken staff member starts setting the miserable tone for their colleagues.

However, YOUR professionalism should not be defined by shitty management. YOU have to define your own professionalism, your own professional values. You have to be YOUR best, which means not passively allowing whatever is going on in management to define what kind of professional you are.

That's reckless, irresponsible, and inappropriate.

Your interests and your employer's interests won't always perfectly align, so of course your company isn't going to create an environment that perfectly suits your ability to thrive. Really fantastic employees do this for themselves.

I recently told a business owner to fire their "best" employees, who were by far the most demonstrably loyal and dedicated. Why? Because they lacked the ability to be top notch professionals with appropriate boundaries. They had absolutely no ability to communicate their limits. This business wanted to expand, and these managers were a disaster in the making. I needed real professionals in the roles, real autonomous, capable managers who knew when to tell leadership what couldn't be done and they they wouldn't do.

Having limits and expressing boundaries isn't some selfish thing you need to do to protect yourself, it's a basic, fundamental, valuable professional skill that makes you a BETTER EMPLOYEE.

How your employer pressures you to behave isn't actually what your employer needs from you. Those pressures are applied with the expectation that you know your limits, that you won't be reckless with yourself as a resource. They assume you have that part covered.

I train all of my direct reports to defend their boundaries, and as a result, I can push them HARD, I can push them as hard as I want to, I can demand insanity from them, but I can trust that they'll be mature professionals and push back if they can't handle it.

It's your JOB to push back. Even if no one ever tells you that, it is YOUR JOB.

Ugh. All of this. I need to copy this to my hard drive and read it over to myself once a month. Malcat is over here dishing out the though love I need in my life.

But seriously. At my last job my manager told me "one thing I love about you is you never tell me something can't be done", followed up two days later with "if I allow you to work on this side project, even if you do it on the weekends, others in the company will be upset that you aren't prioritizing the work they need done". I loved that boss and I loved the work, but these conversations were my moments of truth.

I found another job where my current manager stated a couple weeks in "we all want this company to be successful, but we need to be realistic about timelines that just don't work" followed a few days later with "why are you telling me about your doctor's appointments? We all have lives, if you need to leave just say you need to leave". I can't even begin to tell you how much my mental health and personal relationships have improved. The work/responsibilities are basically identical.

[Metalcat]

Ugh. All of this. I need to copy this to my hard drive and read it over to myself once a month. Malcat is over here dishing out the though love I need in my life.

But seriously. At my last job my manager told me "one thing I love about you is you never tell me something can't be done", followed up two days later with "if I allow you to work on this side project, even if you do it on the weekends, others in the company will be upset that you aren't prioritizing the work they need done". I loved that boss and I loved the work, but these conversations were my moments of truth.

I found another job where my current manager stated a couple weeks in "we all want this company to be successful, but we need to be realistic about timelines that just don't work" followed a few days later with "why are you telling me about your doctor's appointments? We all have lives, if you need to leave just say you need to leave". I can't even begin to tell you how much my mental health and personal relationships have improved. The work/responsibilities are basically identical.

See, that's exactly my point, you shouldn't be abdicating this responsibility to your direct boss. You can't always guarantee that your direct boss will compensate for your lack of boundaries.

Some will, most won't. How you conduct yourself shouldn't depend on them.

Think of this this way, my professional ethics are mine, not those of my boss. My personal professional ethics don't change depending on the ethics of my boss or company. My ethics are *my* professional standard, they come with me wherever I work, and they are my responsibility alone.

It's the same with professional boundaries. They should come with you no matter who you work for.

If an employer is consistently disrespecting your ethics and making it impossible for you to adhere to them, you would leave. It's the same with boundaries. If your employer truly is too shitty to respect your boundaries, then don't work for them.

The fact is, boundaries are just an extension of your professional ethics. You are the only resource you have, and it is your ethical obligation to protect that resource as you are the ONLY ONE tasked with doing so.

It is unethical to be complicit in letting yourself burn out.

I wrote a long somewhere else recently that your professional obligation is to the CEO of you. If you can find it, I think it might resonate with you.

[ender]

I've liked the idea that employees are fields to be cultivated and not strip mines to be used up asa way to think about this.

It's a useful paradigm shift. Many employers definitely do the strip mining approach...

[youngwildandfree]

Ugh. All of this. I need to copy this to my hard drive and read it over to myself once a month. Malcat is over here dishing out the though love I need in my life.

But seriously. At my last job my manager told me "one thing I love about you is you never tell me something can't be done", followed up two days later with "if I allow you to work on this side project, even if you do it on the weekends, others in the company will be upset that you aren't prioritizing the work they need done". I loved that boss and I loved the work, but these conversations were my moments of truth.

I found another job where my current manager stated a couple weeks in "we all want this company to be successful, but we need to be realistic about timelines that just don't work" followed a few days later with "why are you telling me about your doctor's appointments? We all have lives, if you need to leave just say you need to leave". I can't even begin to tell you how much my mental health and personal relationships have improved. The work/responsibilities are basically identical.

See, that's exactly my point, you shouldn't be abdicating this responsibility to your direct boss. You can't always guarantee that your direct boss will compensate for your lack of boundaries.

Some will, most won't. How you conduct yourself shouldn't depend on them.

Think of this this way, my professional ethics are mine, not those of my boss. My personal professional ethics don't change depending on the ethics of my boss or company. My ethics are *my* professional standard, they come with me wherever I work, and they are my responsibility alone.

It's the same with professional boundaries. They should come with you no matter who you work for.

If an employer is consistently disrespecting your ethics and making it impossible for you to adhere to them, you would leave. It's the same with boundaries. If your employer truly is too shitty to respect your boundaries, then don't work for them.

The fact is, boundaries are just an extension of your professional ethics. You are the only resource you have, and it is your ethical obligation to protect that resource as you are the ONLY ONE tasked with doing so.

It is unethical to be complicit in letting yourself burn out.

I wrote a long somewhere else recently that your professional obligation is to the CEO of you. If you can find it, I think it might resonate with you.

Oh yes. I realized just after I posted this that it sounded like I was saying my last boss was the problem. They were not the problem, I was. But it took those conversations and the job change to realize just how badly I was doing at setting and communicating my boundaries. My current boss does a better job telling me that I need to work/grow in this area but the responsibility is still mine.

[Metalcat]

I've liked the idea that employees are fields to be cultivated and not strip mines to be used up asa way to think about this.

It's a useful paradigm shift. Many employers definitely do the strip mining approach...

The thing is, it's often something that passively happens over time.

Like anything else, maintaining optimal performance takes proactive management and investment, not just being reactive.

I have consulted a number of businesses that were strip mining their staff, but desperately didn't want to, but it was incredibly difficult and painful to do what needed to be done to turn it around, and a lot of senior management found it hard to have faith in the process of what it takes to get there.

As I said, I've advised a lot of people to fire those they think are their best staff. You can imagine that only some follow that recommendation. In one place I was working, it took me two years to get rid of an over working poison apple, and I wasn't consulting there, I was part of management myself.

That's why my starting point has always been to first train junior staff to assert their boundaries. If the human resources simply won't be strip mined, the dysfunctional organizational structure starts falling apart and can be restructured.

It's a horribly painful, gruesome process.

But my point is that these places don't strip mine by design, they do it through ongoing neglect of their systems. And ongoing neglect is the most common business practice out there. Again, not on purpose, but just because being proactive and maintaining optimal performance takes A LOT of skill, foresight, vision, and cooperation at the highest level.

Strip mining is usually a product of erosion, not intention.

Like everything else in life, most things can be attributed to ignorance instead of ill will. Companies don't actually know how to promote effective and efficient practices, and when things erode into strip mining, they have no idea how to turn it around, and continuing seems like the only option, which means that the system starts self perpetuating, promoting good strip mining managers, until the executive are also filled with those conditioned to strip mine.

Cultivating fields is hard fucking work. There just aren't a ton of organizations out there who have the skill and will to do it.

[3quarters]

Malcat's face punch is valuable and deserved.

I have historically had pretty good boundaries — leaving on time, leaving the computer at the office when I do, taking lunch breaks, even a walk or tea break in the afternoon. If I worked on a night or weekend it was for something very specific with a clear beginning and end. I might read an email outside work hours, but I'd never respond to one lest people got the impression they could reach me.

But that was when I was in an office. While I started working remotely long before the pandemic (5 years in now across two jobs) I am only just starting to see myself in all these stories about work/life blur, burnout, and dissolved boundaries. I honestly thought I was doing pretty well, but it turns out I'm a total cliche. I had no idea how much I needed the little social cues to pause, or the up and about of meetings, visiting the copy room, hallway chats. Having my partner working now helps a little. He's paid half what I am and feels zero guilt taking breaks, running a quick errand, and logging off at 5 unless he's really wrapped up in something. And as his boss, I encourage it. He does his work, it meets my expectations, and that's all I need him to do. Why don't I give myself the same grace?

If our CEO uses the term "Servant Leader" as a euphemism for "Willing to answer my 6-page !!High Priority!! Sunday afternoon emails" one more time, I might scream.

[former player]

If our CEO uses the term "Servant Leader" as a euphemism for "Willing to answer my 6-page !!High Priority!! Sunday afternoon emails" one more time, I might scream.

Auto reply on your email is fantastic for this:  "I will next be reading emails on Monday morning" set at 5pm on Friday afternoon does everything you need it to.  Or even auto delete "Any emails received on this system before 8am on Monday morning will be auto-deleted: please re-send after that time if you require your email to be read".

[FLBiker]

This has been a great read, and I really appreciate everyone's contributions.  OP has gotten some good advice, and I just want to echo the importance of both setting boundaries and leveraging your FU money to get a set up that works for you.

Where I work, most folks have terrible boundaries -- checking emails all the time, traveling a lot, etc.  I'm a bit of an anomaly, as I have good boundaries (which my boss supports, even though he doesn't have them himself) -- I work from home and I turn on my computer at 8, take an hour for lunch (where I typically exercise), and turn it off at 5.  I never check work emails outside of those hours, although I will occasionally check in while on vacation if there's something in particular going on (or just to help purge the deluge I'll face on my return).  I also don't travel very much (maybe 5 times a year, but with COVID it's been 0).

At the same time, as we've hit our FI goal ($1.2M) I've found that even this feels like too much.  I've started feeling a little depressed and directionless.  Like, why am I working so hard?  My plan is to propose going to 75% next summer, and maybe 50 or 60% the summer after that.  I'm waiting until next summer because my company just (as in starting August 1) engaged a PEO to employ me legally in Canada (from the US) and I told them I'd give them at least 8 months.

I've been chewing on this for the past few months, and I think it comes down to the fact that my actions / lifestyle isn't really in alignment with my goals anymore.  For many years, our big goal was trying to accumulate enough money to be financially independent, without working too hard in the process.  And then, a couple of years ago, we added the big goal of emigrating to Canada (from the US).  Now we've done that latter goal, and are very close if not done with that former goal, plus DW and I have both realized that neither of us wants to fully retire (we both mentally benefit from the structure and accomplishment of working) and we are DEFINITELY far enough along to coastFIRE.  My day to day life is still set up chasing that original goal, so I need to shift it to one that aligns with the new goal (have more time).  If my current employer accepts this, great.  If not, I'll look for one that does.

And, OP, it sounds like you've reached a point where fitness and mental health have become the priority.  That makes perfect sense.

[formerlydivorcedmom]

I've been there, multiple times.

The first time, I also felt bad handling things to my direct manager (he was swamped), and HIS manager was also swamped.  I ended up crying in the director's office one day because I was so overwhelmed (and then I felt bad about that because it is so unprofessional to cry at work).  I did and did and did and then one day my new boss asked me to do one more thing.  I finally said No, and we ended up having a yelling match in the middle of the cubicles.  "Not a team player", my a$$.  Then he was surprised I quit a few months later.   Didn't try at all to keep me, though - and within a month the other 2 high achievers also quit.  None of them wanted my workload.  Oh, well.

My current job, they try to stress a work-life balance.  I, however, am so burnt out that I am not functioning to the level I know I should be.  There's too much of my job I hate, plus all the pandemic stress.

So, last week I turned in my resignation and told them I didn't have a job lined up but would be taking a few months off.  My director panicked.  We met yesterday and she asked me what I wanted.  We're now negotiating for me to work part-time doing only the part of my job I like.  If the negotiations don't work out, I can leave without feeling the least bit guilty, and they know it.

I encourage you to quit.  Either they will negotiate with you...or they won't.  You will be fine in the long run either way.

[3quarters]

We're now negotiating for me to work part-time doing only the part of my job I like.

This is a possibility I've considered but not attempted. Before he came on full time for us, we contracted my partner to do video work since we didn't have those skills in house — maybe 20–30 hours a month. Ultimately, that's all he really wants to do for us. If I could negotiate maybe 3 days a week for myself as either a part-time employee or contractor, I bet they would be less inclined to waste my time with crap clients and endless meetings...I'd be working instead of wading through all the BS.

In other news, either my boss is a secret mustachian (highly unlikely) or she took my recent not-so-subtle reminder that I never asked to manage people. My other employee has been shifted to someone else, which I am thrilled about and not even just selfishly. I think she'll get a lot more out of her new boss who's more hands on, more of a people person, has management experience, and will challenge her to grow.

Selfishly, that is one more little tether removed...I wouldn't be abandoning an employee if I quit or scaled back.

Now this leaves the issue of relocating before we do anything drastic (to make a mortgage less of a hassle)...

[WalkaboutStache]

Re my health, I am overweight and am treated for clinical depression, both of which I know for certain I could manage better with less stress and more time. I'm pushing 40 and know that it's only going to get harder to lose weight, and every year brings me closer to it taking a longer-term toll on my health. I am tired all the time, and while my depression is better managed than in the past (no sobbing for an hour on the bathroom floor or staying in bed for an entire weekend), it's a struggle to function some days — mostly related to how I feel about work.

Remember the article about debt being an emergency?  You are running a health debt.  Your hair is on fire.  Whatever choice make about the options you have, make sure you follow through.  The advice above is stellar already and I have nothing better to add, but as someone who struggled with mental health in the past I wanted to add that doing nothing is not a good choice.

Maybe stop moving the damn goalposts too.  What good is being "more comfortable" if your mind ends up too shot to enjoy any of it in the end?

[3quarters]

I did make an embarrassingly tiny change for the better at work.

Mornings are the time I'm most in control of — no lunch meetings, no end-of-day exhaustion or errands. That said, I am not a jump-out-of-bed-at-5:30 person. Whatever I do (and I have tried everything), my natural cycle is ~11:30–7:30, and it's even more stubborn now that one of my meds is a bit of a stimulant. So, I asked my boss if she'd mind me working 9–6 rather than 8–5 (the joke being I usually work 8–6 with lunch breaks a crap shoot). She was cool.

So I'm getting up a little later but will still have time to meditate and exercise in a window I'm less likely to make excuses, which would have required a serious circadian rhythm reset without the change in working hours.

It's a small thing to change but a big thing to exercise my power to make work work for me!

[trollwithamustache]

casting a vote for downshift, then work on the health. (no point in ER if you physically can't enjoy it). Do that for a year and then sit down to re evaluate.

[gooki]

Great to see you're scheduling in some exercise.

[Pro_Amateur]

Great read, and great comments from Malcat, especially the comment about "inoculating" junior staff to break the cycle. I really recognize the situation you describe, Malcat!

There's no good translation in my native language for strip mining, but we do use a term which implies overexploitation/overcropping. Burning down a forest, planting and harvesting a crop, then moving on to the next forest. The idea is the same...

[3quarters]

After some thoughtful conversations here's where we're at:

Because we want to buy another house but don't want to break our lease (to the tune of ~$4k and another move in less than a year), it makes sense to remain traditionally employed through next spring for the sake of a mortgage around March. Plus we can hope that the market cools down a touch (the area we're looking in is not insane).

In the meantime, I will work on cultivating better balance, establishing new and re-establishing old boundaries, and working on an "I could walk out the door any minute" attitude without being a jerk.*

Come early summer, short of catastrophic world or personal events, we should be settled into a modest longer-term dwelling and be at or close enough to leanFIRE to do something more drastic. Right now downshifting to 2–3 days a week sounds great to me, and he'd drop down to occasional project work. We would likely still be making enough to cover our expenses without touching our 'stache, but with a whole lot more flexibility than full time. Plus, if they're paying us hourly, we'll more likely get only the work we're uniquely capable of doing, which just happens to coincide with what we enjoy.

*This step will be hard, but clearly I've gotten a lot of good advice for an attitude adjustment.

[youngwildandfree]

In the meantime, I will work on cultivating better balance, establishing new and re-establishing old boundaries, and working on an "I could walk out the door any minute" attitude without being a jerk.*

*This step will be hard, but clearly I've gotten a lot of good advice for an attitude adjustment.

It's mostly in your head! You will probably feel like you are being a jerk, but that is not what others will see. People LIKE having those around them clarify boundaries. They may push back a bit just to see if you are serious, but convincing yourself will really be the hardest part.