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Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city
I'm 34. I work in quant finance in London, UK (in ML/statistics). I graduated with a PhD in CS and sort of fell into this field when a recruiter contacted me with the promise of $$$ that is hard to get in any other field unless you're at Google. I'm on a pretty decent salary even by London standards, but I'm utterly miserable.
1. The job is meaningless. When I first started in the field I thought I enjoyed it, but now I see that the bonuses were what excited me about the job, not the actual work.
2. Although the money is good, an 'adequate' house in London would cost at least 10 times my salary. I'm renting a flat with my partner. It's a reasonably decent flat by London standards, but because we're renting we can never really make it a home.
3. London is a horrible place to live. I have no affinity for it whatsoever. Even if I could afford a house I would not want to live here.
4. My home town is an hour flight away but if I were to move home I would most likely take at least a 2/3 pay cut. I would prefer to live back home. But doing that would ruin any chances I ever had of being able to retire early.
5. My parents, like most boomers, had a much better standard of living when they were my age. My father had a pretty average salary, bought a massive house for a reasonable price, and saw his wealth multiply many times over. It's not like that for my generation.
My partner is in a similar job to me and he is making multiples of what I'm making (although it's more stressful than mine). Luckily for him, he hates his job less than I do, so he could probably stick it out a few years longer.
I have just come back from 2 weeks holidays at home with my parents and was pretty much in tears this morning starting another day at work. It's so hard to muster up any motivation for the job, especially now that the company is in a dry period pnl-wise. I much prefer my home town to London, but I can't expect my partner to move back with me, as he is doing extremely well in his career and it would be career suicide for him.
I have racked my brain trying to figure out what field I would prefer to work in, but I can't think of anything. I just go round in circles thinking about it. Given that anything else would involve a massive pay cut, I think I would regret leaving the job I'm in. I could probably grind leetcode for a couple of months to try to get into Google, but I would find working at Google utterly meaningless as well. I have the ability to work hard to pass an interview, but I've been working for long enough now that I find it difficult to muster up any enthusiasm during job interviews, which is probably a red flag for potential employers. I'm no longer young and excited about this stuff!
I'm interested in computers and programming in general, but doing it for a living ruins the joy. I would love to be able to retire and get into meditation / travelling the world / learning about things for fun.
- rebelos 5y agoA lot of people have a weird emotional fixation with "owning" a home when it really shouldn't matter at all. You're in finance, so you should understand opportunity cost and you should very easily be able to model out the full financial burden and projected ROI of home ownership. Once you get honest about the work, hidden costs, loss of flexibility, and opportunity cost involved in being a homeowner, it'll start to seem like a not great and potentially even stupid idea, particularly in this environment with rapidly inflating housing prices.
- thebrowncat 5y agoI agree mostly. But staying at my parents’ grand house really brings home the difference in quality of life.. I like baking but barely have any worktop space in my tiny kitchen in London; they have a massive kitchen with a table in it etc etc
- rossdavidh 5y agoI won't try to tell you how to live your life, but I did want to chime in on one thing you said: "I find it difficult to muster up any enthusiasm during job interviews, which is probably a red flag for potential employers..." This is the opposite of my experience, and having worked as a consultant/contractor for the past decade I've done quite a few. It's a lot like a first date, in that an excess of enthusiasm is off-putting (why are they so desperate?), and appearing not yet convinced you're interested is a bonus. Of course you want to be professional and courteous, but going into a job interview not sure if you want the job, is often the best way to get it. No job is always fun, that's why they pay you instead of the other way around. But you shouldn't be in tears when you start the week. Start "fishing" for a job, and see what's out there, and because you are already employed, you can be patient and choosy. Good luck.
- deeblering4 5y agoPersonally I'd chunk these feelings down into bite-sized goals, and work to completing them one by one. For example, 1) Find a remote job 2) leave the city 3) own a home 4) travel 5) retire early Each will have it's own complex requirements and take time to achieve, but I think taking some time to lay out your goals clearly, and staring to feel progress towards them will help make the trapped feeling go away. Also, in my personal experience it's become important to separate my job from my hobbies. I used to spend all my free time on the computer, but these days it's my full time job and then some, and I've found it very refreshing to find other hobbies to pursue in my free time.