Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE. This week I discuss workplace culture, and why rearranging furniture is a bad idea.
Weekly Update
I’ve had a few more conversations with recruiters and potential employers, and there’s one opportunity to join a brokerage on a self-employed basis that I’m excited by. With self-employment as a mortgage broker, I would not receive a salary and would be paid purely on commission. This may seem risky to some, but the advantages of being able to set my own hours with total freedom are very attractive.
I mentioned a while back that I’ve bought a bike, and we’ve had a few problems with it. Halfords had misadvertised some of the specs on the bike, and we had a dispute with them about it. I took the bike to a local repair shop to get the tyres replaced with something better, and that was as puncture-resistant as the original was supposed to be. After much back and forth, with Oana handled for me, we got Halfords to pay for the extra work.
On the subject of complaints, we also got a resolution to our Halifax complaint about our mortgage review a few weeks ago. The long and short of it is that the process was made unnecessarily complicated and long-winded. This meant we had an extra month with a higher mortgage payment. The complaint manager said they’d listened to our calls and reviewed the records, and the conversation went something like this:
Halifax: We’d like to offer you £50 as a gesture of goodwill.
Me: No, that’s ok. We are going to take this to the ombudsman, and this happens every time we need to make changes to our mortgage.
Halifax: How much do you want?
Me: I’m not haggling.
Halifax: £100?
Me: Okay.
This redress was in addition to our mortgage being restructured to reflect the interest we should have been charged.
Town Hall
On Friday, we attended a tour of Sheffield’s Town Hall, which is the home of local government. It was an interesting talk and we learned a lot about the history of the building. I never realised how much Thor and Vulcan were a part of the design of both the exterior and interior of the building.
The Gym
I’ve started going back to the gym this week, and so far my elbow seems to be ok. I am taking things very easy and gradually, though. The classic mistake I make every single time is to push myself too far, too soon. So, I’m having to constantly tell myself not to be stupid.
I’m doing one workout where I exercise my chest and triceps, and another where I focus on my back and biceps. My shoulders are also incorporated into both workouts. I’m not doing leg work at the moment because of the issue with my hip that’s been ongoing for a while. I have a physio appointment coming up in a few weeks, so I’ll wait to see what they say about leg work at the gym.
Living Room Experiment
Oana and I were sitting around chilling the other day, and we were thinking about how we could make some more space in the flat. We had an idea to move our sofa away from the wall and use it to almost separate the open-plan living room and kitchen. This would free up the wall, allowing us to put more shelves in place for Lego stuff.
We started moving things about, rolling up the rugs, hoovering up dust from behind bits of furniture and whatnot. After quite a while, we had the new arrangement in place. We sat on the sofa and looked at each other, and both just said “no” at the same time, before completing the whole process in reverse.
Once we had everything back to normal, our anxiety levels also returned to normal. We agreed never to do that again. It was weird. I think we both learned something from this experience.
Sheffield Wednesday
The Dejphon Chansiri era is over. At times, it felt like it would never end, or that he would run the club into the ground. However, he has been forced out.
Now, I’m not trying to gloat or blow my own trumpet, but I’ve been saying for years that there was a simple way to remove Chansiri. The way to do it was to cut off all funding by not spending on tickets, food, drink, and merchandise. I argued that doing this would force him out quickly.
It took some time, but eventually a lot of people came around to the idea, and a formal boycott was planned for our midweek game with Middlesbrough. Days later, we were placed into administration, effectively ending Chansiri’s control over the club.
The next step is for the club to be sold, and there are interested parties out there. This could take anything from weeks to months, but it will be worth it even if we end up in League One next season.
I fully intend to buy a season ticket next season for the first time since the 2017/2018 season. I’ve been gone for too long.
If I could say anything to Chansiri, it would be this…
What I’m Doing
Listening: Record of a Spaceborn Few: Wayfarer Book 3 by Becky Chambers.
Watching: Invasion (Apple TV).
Reading: nothing at the moment.
Invasion isn’t a great show, but it’s entertaining enough. There are a few tropes employed that I roll my eyes at, like what a YouTuber calls the Magical Bullshit Device, and the annoying children who can seemingly only ask “why?” or remind the parent that they’re hungry.
I hate it when writers use an annoying child as a way to hamstring a character. It’s lazy. I’m not saying that child characters are annoying. I’m saying that writers using child characters as a plot device to make life difficult for their guardians by being whiny little shits is just mega lazy.
Financial Update
Assets
Premium Bonds: £23,000.00.
Stocks and Shares ISA: £124,064.00.
Fuck It Fund: £1.60.
Pensions: £107,678.33.
Residential Property Value: £239,368.00.
Total Assets: £494,111.93.
Debts
Residential Mortgage: £175,838.74.
Total Debts: £175,838.74.
Total Wealth: £318,273.19.
More solid growth this week, which is nice considering I’m currently unemployed.
I forgot I had some residual interest in my Fuck It Fund, and now that interest is earning interest. Compound growth; what a time to be alive.
A few milestones are coming up, which I’m excited to pass. One of them is to push my total assets back above £500k. It was previously above that figure when I had my BTL property. Another, and I know I’m reaching here, is for my ISA to go above £125k, also known as an eighth of a million. As I said; reaching.
Why Workplace Culture Is So Important
Workplace culture isn’t just about office perks, motivational slogans, or the odd team-building day. It’s the living, breathing expression of an organisation’s values, or lack thereof. It shapes how people feel on a Sunday night before the working week starts, and how they speak about their employer when they leave.
Over the years, I’ve seen both ends of the cultural spectrum. I’ve worked in environments where honesty and transparency were genuine cornerstones, where leadership encouraged open discussion, and where mistakes were treated as opportunities to learn rather than reasons to punish. I’ve also worked in places where fear, inconsistency, and politics undermined even the most talented people. The contrast is stark, and it drives home just how powerful culture really is.
The Psychological Contract
When you accept a job offer, you don’t just agree to a salary and job description. You enter into something deeper. It’s an unwritten psychological contract. This is the mutual understanding between employer and employee about what each owes the other.
The employer promises fairness, support, and opportunity; the employee offers loyalty, effort, and integrity. When this contract is respected, both sides thrive. When it’s broken, through dishonesty, neglect, or lack of care, trust evaporates. People might stay for the pay cheque, but they’ll have mentally checked out.
A strong workplace culture honours that psychological contract. It recognises that productivity isn’t extracted through pressure, but cultivated through respect and inclusion.
Honesty and Transparency Build Trust
Honesty in the workplace should never be optional. Yet too often, transparency is sacrificed for convenience where managers avoid difficult conversations, leadership keeps staff in the dark, and decisions are made behind closed doors.
This kind of opacity breeds resentment. People can accept tough news like redundancy, restructuring, and change if it’s communicated with respect and openness. What they can’t accept is being misled or treated as disposable.
Transparency doesn’t mean oversharing every corporate secret; it means treating adults like adults. When leaders are open about the “why” behind decisions, it builds credibility. It shows that trust flows both ways.
The Covenant Between Employer and Employee
I’ve always believed that employment is a two-way covenant with a mutual duty of care. Employers have a responsibility to provide a safe, fair, and psychologically healthy environment. Employees, in turn, have a duty to contribute honestly, treat colleagues with respect, and uphold shared values.
When that covenant is balanced, work can be transformative. People bring their best selves to their roles, knowing they’re supported and valued. When the covenant breaks down, cynicism takes root. You see it in rising turnover, declining engagement, and that subtle yet unmistakable shift in tone that spreads through teams like a quiet contagion.
In financial services, where trust and integrity are non-negotiable, this balance is even more crucial. Clients can sense when a team is motivated by genuine care versus when they’re simply surviving a toxic environment. A healthy culture doesn’t just benefit employees; it protects customers too.
This covenant is separate to the contract of employment, and I think many people overlap these two things. On one hand, employment is a business transaction. However, to make things more pleasant for all involved, honouring this covenant improves matters for all.
The Duty of Care
The duty of care in the workplace extends beyond compliance or ticking a “wellbeing” box. It’s about recognising that behind every role title is a human being with personal pressures, ambitions, and vulnerabilities.
Good employers don’t just ask what someone can deliver; they ask how they’re doing. They understand that mental health, burnout, and stress aren’t signs of weakness but warning lights that deserve attention.
I’ve seen firsthand how small gestures like a manager checking in, a company providing genuine flexibility, or a team supporting one another through tough times can change everything. People rarely forget how they were treated when things were difficult.
One thing I was happy with for almost all my time at Lloyds was the support I had on a personal level from most of the managers I worked under. I think this is a large part of why I was there so long, despite not enjoying a lot of the day-to-day stuff.
Culture Is Everyone’s Responsibility
Culture doesn’t live in an HR handbook or on a poster in the break room. It lives in daily interactions; in the tone of an email, the fairness of a policy, the courage to speak up when something’s wrong.
Leaders shape culture through example, but every employee contributes to it through their actions. Choosing kindness, integrity, and transparency day-to-day is how positive cultures sustain themselves.
Workplace culture isn’t just an abstract concept. It’s the difference between people enduring their work and truly engaging with it. Between organisations that thrive and those that merely survive.
In the End
Workplace culture is the unseen foundation of everything else. You can have brilliant strategies, cutting-edge technology, and competitive pay, but if the culture is toxic, it all unravels.
When honesty, transparency, and mutual care are at the heart of how a company operates, it becomes more than just a place to work. It becomes a community: one where people can grow, contribute, and feel genuinely proud to belong.
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:
Biolink
You can now find all my social media pages by checking out my Biolink:
bio.link/davidscothern.