Part 310: There was a button. I pushed it.

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE. Big career news this week. Let’s just get into it.

Weekly Update

It’s felt like a bit of a struggle getting through this week, like trying to swim through treacle, but at last it is the weekend.  Friday saw me make a big decision regarding my future as I resigned from my job.  I’ve asked for an early release from my contractual notice period.  It’s not a big deal if they can’t, or won’t, grant that, though.  

So, what does this mean for the future? I don’t know, but it’s not a negative “I don’t know”.  Rather, it’s an exciting opportunity.  With Oana back in work and us having a good amount of savings behind us, there’s no urgency at play.  I can afford to wait for the right opportunity to return to employment, but I’m also going to take some time to work on some personal projects.  

In some ways, it’s a shame it’s ended up like this, but sometimes you have to stand up for yourself, and that’s the power of having FU money.  

Anyway, like I said, it’s been a bit of a struggle this week.  I’ve had a couple of bad nights’ sleep and some long days.

It wasn’t all bad…

It’s not been all bad this week, though.  On Wednesday, Oana and I went for a drink with one of our neighbours, with whom we have always gotten on well.  We had a good laugh and we popped to his place to meet his cat, and she was very cute.  Not quite as cute as Poppy, but then again, no one is.  

Later that night, Oana and I went for a walk around the area as we like to do.  Outside our complex, a group of young guys were hanging around, and we saw them trying to climb into our apartment complex.  We challenged them, and they got a little confrontational.  We didn’t back down, though, and we called the police as they were refusing to leave the area, which is private property.  They left shortly after.

Security in our apartment building is a bit of a concern as we’ve had several parcels go missing, and every now and then, there are reports of people trying apartment doors to see if they are unlocked.  

After shutting my laptop down on Friday, we went out to Peddler Market, as one of our favourite vendors, Kebab Cartel, was present.  We always have a chat with them, and they know us after years of them feeding us.  We tend to order the same thing each time: the Escobar Bowl, and it’s not just great food, it’s a work of art.  

Saturday

I’ve been struggling a little with my eyesight recently, and I was worried it was linked to my diabetes.  I had an appointment at the optician on Saturday morning, and the tests and scans show no sign of diabetic damage, which is good.  The long and short of it is that I’m getting older, I my prescription needs strengthening.  This comes just a couple of weeks after paying for new lenses in my prescription sunglasses, which is not exactly optimal.  

The optician explained that my eyes are having trouble adjusting focus, and it’s perfectly normal as we get older.  Also, she suggested I get a stronger prescription purely for reading. 

It was a horrible rainy day in Sheffield on Saturday, but we had more things to do, including picking up my new bike.  We got soaked making our way to Halfords and even more soaked on the way back.  Once we got back home, we realised we’d left some of the accessories we’d bought at the shop.   

“Did you know, it’s easy to find answers to your questions on our website?”

One thing I hate when calling any business is when there’s an automated message saying it’s easier to handle most queries online.  I called the number for the specific store, but it was transferred to a central customer service team.  I explained the situation, and the agent started asking loads of irrelevant questions; I just wanted to check if they had my bag of stuff.  I asked if I could just speak with the store, and the agent replied, “We can’t just transfer people all over the show.”

Ok, then.  

After a while, I was transferred to the store and they’ve got my stuff.  Not the best morning, which got worse as Sheffield Wednesday were handed a 5-0 pasting by Coventry.  Some people may look at this from the outside and think something along the lines of, “I would have liked to have seen more fight from them.”  The thing is, it’s easy to say that from the outside when you don’t have all the information.  

These players haven’t been paid on time for the fifth time in seven months, and they are dealing with a huge amount of uncertainty.  If you are not allowed to succeed, then it’s much harder to actually succeed.  These players were hamstrung before they even set foot on the pitch.  Think of it like the whole sink or swim example, except these players didn’t even get a chance to go in the water.

“No one wants to work anymore” vs Why Work Feels Broken for a Lot of Us

Not long ago, a post went viral where a young woman admitted she “just can’t do an 8-5 job for the rest of her life.” Cue the internet piling in. Some called her lazy, others said she was entitled. But here’s the thing: her frustration hit a nerve because millions of people feel the same way, whether they admit it online or not.

I’ve spent twenty years working in office environments, with a few more years in retail, and I’ve seen this play out first-hand. It isn’t that younger workers don’t want to work; it’s that the way work is set up today often feels pointless, dehumanising, and unrewarding. And if you look at the bigger picture, it’s not hard to see why.

The deal has broken down

Previous generations were told: get a steady job, put in the hours, and you’ll be rewarded with a house, a pension, and security. That deal is dead. Wages have been flat for years, while housing, childcare, and energy bills have rocketed. Plenty of younger people are working full-time, even juggling multiple jobs, and still can’t afford the basics that their parents had.

So when someone asks why they should grind out 40+ hours a week, only to still feel broke, it’s not entitlement, it’s common sense.  The “normal” working week is what it is purely because that was decided centuries ago.  Some companies and nations are trialling different working patterns, but the reality is that we don’t need to work a forty-hour week anymore.  If we all just decided that the standard working week was 30 hours instead, the world wouldn’t end.  There would be a brief period of adjustment, and then we’d be back to normal.  The only difference would be that this normal would be happier.

Work that feels like “button pushing”

Another issue is the type of work many people are doing. Roles are increasingly chopped up into tiny, repetitive tasks, tracked by KPIs, dashboards, and monitoring software. Instead of seeing the bigger picture, or the value of what they produce, people end up feeling like cogs in a machine.  People are not being judged on what they actually do, but rather how well they can massage the data.  It’s not about what you do or the difference you make; it’s about the spreadsheet.  Don’t get me wrong, I love a good spreadsheet (as all FI nerds do), but sometimes you have to put it to one side and remember the people.

It’s no surprise that David Graeber’s phrase “bullshit jobs” took off, because far too many people genuinely feel like what they do doesn’t matter. And humans need to feel useful. If you can’t see how your work makes a difference, motivation evaporates fast.  There was a line in Friends where Chandler refers to his job, saying; 

“If I don’t input those numbers, it doesn’t make much of a difference.”

Trust a decades-old sitcom to sum up the reality of work in 2025.  

Technology: helper or overseer?

I love technology when it actually helps. But the reality in many jobs is the opposite: tech monitors, scores, and dictates. In some industries, apps decide your workload, your route, even your bathroom breaks. Office jobs aren’t immune either: Slack pings, Teams calls, and constant notifications make it nearly impossible to do focused, meaningful work.

Instead of empowering people, technology too often strips out autonomy and ramps up surveillance. And nobody thrives when they feel like they’re being managed by an algorithm.

Burnout is the norm, not the exception

It’s no wonder burnout rates are soaring. Exhaustion, cynicism, and that nagging feeling you’re not actually achieving much… sound familiar? For younger generations, the pandemic only made it worse. The boundaries between work and home collapsed, workloads piled up, and suddenly people were asking themselves: Is this really it?

Gen Z, in particular, aren’t prepared to accept poor mental health as the price of employment. They want boundaries and balance, and honestly, who can blame them?

Exhaustion

There are different types of exhaustion, with some being positive and some negative.  I can remember many mortgage cases where I put hours of work into trying to get a solution for the customer.  I’m talking about arguing the customer’s case to underwriters, legal teams, and company leaders.  In the end, getting the right result for the customer in these situations can leave you feeling like you’ve run a marathon. 

It’s mentally and emotionally draining, but you’ve achieved something and often made a difference to someone’s life.  I’m thinking of people who’ve had to take on a mortgage on their own after coming out of an abusive relationship, or when they’ve needed to move for a job, or when they’ve needed to refinance because of a financial meltdown that was not their fault and just a case of bad luck.  All these cases made a difference.

On the other side of the spectrum, you have exhaustion that comes from doing nothing, or from being mentally disengaged from the work at hand.  When you realise your job is basically a flowchart; if X then Y, it’s not shit that people mentally check out.

Culture clash

A lot of the tension boils down to clashing expectations. Many organisations still prize “face time” or “busyness” over actual results. Yet younger workers value flexibility, autonomy, and purpose. When those two collide, disengagement follows. That’s where you get “quiet quitting”.  Not people being lazy, but people doing exactly what they’re paid for and nothing more, because going the extra mile doesn’t pay off.  As the phrase goes, the reward for working hard is more work.  

What needs to change

So what’s the fix? There’s no silver bullet, but a few things are obvious:

Jobs need redesigning. Give people ownership of outcomes, not just micro-tasks. Show them how their work connects to the bigger picture.

Managers need better tools. Not spreadsheets and surveillance apps, but training in actually leading people, coaching, listening, helping them grow.  We need to do away with reducing a person’s performance to numbers on a spreadsheet, which has no nuance or understanding of circumstances.  

Workplaces need to adapt. Flexibility, trust, and meaningful development aren’t perks anymore; they’re survival strategies if you want to attract and keep good people.  Jobs are being advertised where things like “uniform provided” and “on-site parking” are being promoted as benefits.  

Policy makers need to wake up. Address the housing crisis, stagnant wages, and student debt. Without that, frustration will keep bubbling over.

That viral post about hating a 9–5 wasn’t some one-off tantrum. It resonated because millions of people see themselves in it. Work is supposed to provide stability, dignity, and some sense of purpose. Right now, for too many, it delivers none of those things.

Until we start rebuilding jobs, companies, and policies around the reality of modern life, people will keep speaking out, and the sympathy they get will only grow louder. Because deep down, we all know something is broken.

What I’m Doing

Listening: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers.

Watching: Billionaires’ Bunker (Netflix).

Reading: nothing at the moment.

Billionaires’ Bunker isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever watched, but it’s in the conversation.  I made it through the first episode and a little into the second before tapping out.  It was made by the same people who made Money Heist, a show that does not interest me in the slightest.  For those of you trying to get me to watch Money Heist, the new show made that even less likely.  

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Financial Update

Assets

Premium Bonds: £23,000.00.

Stocks and Shares ISA: £121,799.13.

Fuck It Fund: £0.00.

Pensions: £105,843.03.

Residential Property Value: £239,368.00. 

Total Assets: £490,010.16.

Debts

Residential Mortgage: £175,838.74. 

Total Debts: £175,838.74.

Total Wealth: £314,171.42.

Another solid week for my investments with decent growth all around.  The house price index should be updated soon, and it will be interesting to see what happens, as there was zero change at the last update.

I’ll be having to use my savings to pay my way until I find new employment, but it will not be a huge drain.  It’s just like a good friend of mine said, if I take a year off and retire a year later, it’s no big deal.  

The Next Chapter

With the job chapter closing, I’ve been thinking carefully about how to use the time ahead. The first priority is to get back into my personal projects. Top of the list is cracking on with the book I’ve been writing, which is rooted in this blog. It’ll bring together my thoughts on financial independence, money, and the realities of mental health; themes that have run through my own life and career. It’s something I’ve wanted to complete for a while, and now I’ve got the headspace to actually get it done.  If I can set aside just a couple of hours a day, three or four days each week, I’ll make huge progress.  

Alongside that, I’m committing properly to looking after myself. Not just paying lip service, but really putting diet, exercise, and mental well-being higher up the agenda. Too often, those things are the first to slip when work becomes overwhelming, and I don’t want to repeat that pattern. If anything, this feels like the ideal moment to reset and build habits that stick.  I’ve been bad at snacking as a sort of stress relief while working.  If I’m not working, then I won’t have that same stress.

No Rush

There’s no rush to dive straight into another role, and that’s the whole point of having a financial cushion. For once, I don’t have to compromise straight away. I can choose carefully, use this time to work on myself and my projects, and step into the next phase on my own terms.  I don’t want to use more of our savings than is necessary, but at the same time, I worked for Lloyds from May 2011 to December 2024, and then started with my current employer in early February 2025.  If it takes a couple of months to find something else, and a month or two for the start date to come around, that’s not a disaster.  

That’s all for this week, and thank you for reading.  Please remember to like, comment, share, and subscribe.

DISCLAIMER

The views and opinions in this blog are my own, and do not represent the views or opinions of my former, current, or future employers, nor should they be considered advice.

If you want personalised financial advice, seek an appropriate professional.  If you are in financial difficulty, seek advice via the resources below:

StepChange

MoneyHelper

Biolink 

You can now find all my social media pages by checking out my Biolink:

bio.link/davidscothern.