I spent five years in my previous role in London, starting on £26,000 and working my way up to £35,000. It was very stable, but I eventually came to dislike it. A major restructuring led to our department lead being let go, and my boss went on sick leave for a year. My workload grew until I was burning out. I was working early mornings, evenings, and weekends, and my to-do list kept growing. By the time I left, it was about forty items long. My salary also left me unable to save for the future, which made the role very hard to stay in. Before I left, I was offered a more senior position at around £43,000, but by then I had come to resent the company and the workload. London had begun to feel like a place where you work just to pay rent, with little real hope of building a future.
I then accepted a finance role with my current company, based outside London, where the cost of living is much lower. I’ve been there for six months, and I genuinely love the culture, the workload, and my manager. In many ways it is a dream job, and the team and senior leadership have been very positive toward me. I was hired with the expectation that our business line would grow and that we would eventually bring more people onto the team. The recruiter described it as “a growing and evolving portfolio.”
That’s where the problems began.
- When I joined, I found that we had very few clients and no real conversation about winning new ones.
- On my first day, I walked into the office and found the company logo on the floor, fallen from reception. No one had picked it up.
- There is no reception team, so I’ve been asked to handle deliveries for the IT team, which has largely been gutted. The office itself was almost empty apart from me and the IT colleague, since most of the staff had been let go.
- In month three, my boss told me he wasn’t sure it made sense to implement an IT solution, because he wasn’t sure the company would still be around in a year. I thought, then why did you hire me?
- When working alone in a room, I heard someone being laid off in the next room.
- Our town halls have been full of despondent, almost depressed management telling us we’re behind on every metric.
- Communication from upper management has been poor. A major change happened in IT, where work was outsourced without the IT department even being told. My favourite IT colleague went from positive to depressed and withdrawn, and he told me he wishes he’d taken a job with another company when he had the chance.
- The coffee machine hasn’t been maintained or refilled for months, and when I asked about it, a senior person joked that we’d have to sell it because of budget cuts. The vending machine gave me an out-of-date snack.
- A colleague told me the company is looking to save between £150,000 and £200,000 a month, which he considers unsustainable. He said he is just riding things out to see how they go.
- In month four, a close colleague on my team called to ask about my plans. He pointed out that we hadn’t landed any new clients and suggested I study something and plan ahead. It was quite unnerving.
When we asked whether our roles were at risk, my boss gave mixed signals.
- At different times he said that nothing lasts forever.
- That layoffs were unlikely since the team is very small and wider management is already behind on targets.
- That we could be affected if we lost our core client, which we were on track to do because they hadn’t re-signed.
Still, when I zoom out, the department believed in the growth story, the team believed in me, profit was rising on the back of cost cutting, and new clients were coming in, though not in our area.
Largely out of fear, I interviewed for a role at a financial institution in central London. The cost of living there is significantly higher, but the role had the potential to be far more stable than my current one, and it would have been a great learning opportunity.
However, the institution was going through a restructuring that already caused mass layoffs. It also had a huge potential liability looming over it which if grew could cause another round of mass layoffs. The prospective manager was supportive and offered to coach me, but his manager was less encouraging. In my second round with her, she told me there would be no hand-holding and that no process guides were written down. It felt like hazing, so I backed off.
Four weeks later, I met the hiring manager again. He said he believed in me and wanted to guide me. He came across as very supportive, said I could ask him questions at any time, and promised to onboard and support me through the whole process. At some point he also mentioned that he would probably leave the country because of the cost of childcare, but that he would set me up before he went.
I signed with the new company. When I handed in my notice, my boss told me on that same call that a core client had just re-signed for several more years. He also said he could see I was unsure about my decision, which was true. I didn’t feel I could back out of a commitment I’d already made, so I signed the contract and served my notice. Four days later, I realised I had felt like a made a serious mistake.
Over the six months I’d been out of London, I had come to dislike it even more: the high cost of living, the constant busyness, and the fact that you will never really own a home. My past experience of homelessness, and my need for stability, have been a major factor in the anxiety underlying all of this. I spoke with my boss, and he said he would be happy to take back my notice. I suggested regular catch-ups and that the company sponsor my studies, and he agreed that both would be great ideas.
I now need to go back to the recruiter, the new company, and the hiring manager to tell them I’m withdrawing, and I take full accountability for this. I should have been able to handle the uncertainty of not being in a stable position. I’ve also realised that no job is truly safe, and that you have to be prepared to be let go at any time. I should have communicated more with my manager. He kept saying we should have “at least a year left,” and I should have talked to him before acting so quickly. My communication skills need much more work. I have a habit I’m trying to break, where I don’t voice my grievances and instead walk out. Again, I take full accountability, and I know I need to improve.
In a short space of time, I feel I’ve used up a lot of goodwill. In a job market where people are struggling to find work, I feel I’ve burned two bridges, one with my current role and one with the new one. I also feel I’ve taken a role from someone else and wasted the recruiter’s time.
At the same time, I was hesitant about the new role. The hiring manager told me that most of the work was automated, and that the team was six people compared with our team of three. I had also come to realise how quickly automation is advancing, that the new company was focused on cutting costs, and that it faced a large potential expense that could trigger further mass layoffs, however the hiring manager said that he would personally support me and that I would not be short of work.
When I asked my boss about working together long term, he said he liked the idea, but we’ll probably work together for a while longer, and there are other opportunities within the group. He also said he doesn’t think in the long term. He plans in the short and medium term, because looking too many years ahead becomes overwhelming, and he told me we should focus on what we can control rather than what we can’t.
Staying at my current company
Pros:
Extremely relaxed work environment
I know the work and I’m comfortable with it
My boss is extremely friendly
Working from home is fantastic
The area I live in is one where I could afford a deposit on a freehold two-bedroom house within a year
It feels like a steady paycheck
My boss has agreed to regular catch-ups and to help me study something
Cons:
The team may trust me less now that I’ve resigned and then withdrawn my resignation
Moving to the new company
Pros:
The new hiring manager said he would support me all the way
Higher pay
A greater chance to build my skill set
Cons:
It could be less stable, or no more stable, than my current role
London is expensive, and it feels like I’d be working until I die
The department head seems slightly unstable
