I know I regaled you guys excessively with my trials and tribulations of my last toxic job, so I’ve been trying to lay low. The new job isn’t as toxic, but it’s still annoying as heck. I think I’m just getting less tolerant of crap the older I get. I’m 55 now. I’ve saved up enough to retire early and I’m almost there. I’ve been talking to my husband about an idea to “phase myself out” of full time work. As some of you know, I launched a side business three years ago. It’s doing fine, I’m having a blast working on it, but it doesn’t yet bring me a salary nor does it yet need my full time attention. It is still my “retirement job” after I’m too old for a corporate career.
But my new idea, given that I can’t seem to go a full year at any corporate job before I’m grinding my teeth and ranting, is to quit and become a freelance business analyst consultant. At first I would work 75% on the freelance and 25% on the shop, next year I’d work 50/50, then later I’d back down further to 25% freelance gigs and 75% managing my shop. I’m running numbers, doing some research and playing around with the idea right now and so far it sounds like a good idea for me.
But I’d love to hear from any other 50+ people: did you get (or are you becoming) too freaking crotchety to deal with a full time job? Is it just me?
Somewhat, yes. But I think it’s more a willingness to face the actual problems head on instead of just laying low and putting up with it.
With me, it’s “ok, I’ve dealt with this, that, that other thing too many times, I’ve seen how this bullshit works and I’m not inclined to put up with a bully for a boss, a raging bitch for a coworker, that lazy asshole who doesn’t do his share, etc.”
With bosses, it’s more like “We’re all people here, we’re all adults, this isn’t the military, get over your authoritarian ass.”
I don’t quite get what you mean about the bosses, but I appreciate the earlier part. With me, it’s not even the glaringly bad things like you mention. It’s more that everybody just stumbles along doing mediocre work and not communicating with each other, causing problems for others and not caring to do better… ESPECIALLY at the management level. I’m also resenting more and more how if I point out the elephant in the room - no matter how politely - I get a reputation for being the jerk who can’t get along or something.
I’m thinking maybe freelancing will be good for me, even though it’s more work to find clients, because I can do work for different companies on a short term basis, moving on when they irritate the shit out of me. And if I ever stumble upon one that’s actually really awesome (I hear they’re out there even though I’ve never worked in one), then I can do work for them longer term. Basically the work durations will be on my terms, without feeling straight-jacketed with “don’t quit without something else lined up”.
Missed the edit window, but I re-read your reply and now I understand your comment on the bosses. There is that, but what I’m dealing with right now is a completely incompetent manager. Had one in my last job, too. I just don’t even know what to do with that. It would be a full time job all by itself to manage up in that situation because I’d basically be giving her management training.
No one else likes crotchety, grumpy old farts at work, either. I remember starting at my current company nearly 19 years ago, and wondering what it was that made some of the older employees crotchety and grumpy all the time, and I’ve never figured it out. Instead, I’ve become one of those crotchety, grumpy old farts.
Obviously everyone’s situation is different, but most of the stuff that’s the subject of my work rants is stuff that’s way above my boss’ boss’ pay and grade. Consequently, there’s no ‘face it head on’ alternative (other than quitting, and on the whole, I’m happy with my job), just a ‘put up with it’ non-choice.
For instance, the crappy email system we switched to nearly five years ago: that decision was made at the top levels of the government agency I work for, and it had to meet specifications handed down from OMB. I won’t derail the thread with details, but obviously there’s not a damn thing I can do about that. The sources of most of my other major work annoyances are similarly high up in the food chain.
The people I work with directly, OTOH, are great. I have some minor problems with some of them, but it’s all really white-noise stuff that I only notice when I have to deal with it, and half an hour later I’ve already forgotten about it.
I’m also 55, but I’m the opposite. Now that I’m older, I recognize that the annoyances will pass, and I don’t get all frustrated and upset by them. I just let them roll off my back and worry about the actual work that I need to get done.
It sounds like this is less about your age, and more about “senioritis” - the end is in sight, so you don’t have the patience to put up with crap because you’re thinking about what it will be like when you don’t have to deal with it any more. Good luck with your transition plans - unless something changes, I’m looking at another 12 years in the rat race.
What kind of place do you work at? Because corporate culture plays a big role in how “annoying” people are.
I’ve mostly encountered three broad “cultures” in my work, each with their own strengths and own annoyances:
Startup - Typically tech companies, usually skewed towards young people. Sort of places where they have open plan seating, make people work a hundred hours a week and serve free food to make it the “best place to work”. People are usually motivated and hard working, but only when working on stuff that interests them. Lots of new-age management 360 feedback, yet people tend to be sensitive of criticism that might make them not look like geniuses or make the company not look like it will be a multi-billion dollar “unicorn”. Management tends to be immature and flakey. Like my 50 year old boss who would bring his skateboard to work.
Big-4 / Wall Street - Kind of stuffy, pretentious, old school culture of big money. People tend to work hard, but there tends to be a lot of classism based on school, title or whatnot (so and so went to Wharton. Oh he’s ex Goldman Sachs. She’s a VP of this, etc, etc).
Dilbert - I found this at a lot of mid-level companies where people are just mediocre. They just sort of schlep into the office, do their work (which usually isn’t super thought provoking) and count the minutes until they go home. Management is largely there to keep the wheels on the bus. Maybe do token performance reviews that have no real bearing on compensation.
I seem to have a knack for finding/getting myself into Dilbert companies. Except the last few I was in (including the current one) management didn’t keep the wheels on the bus but actually was the cause of them falling off on a regular basis.
I’ve worked in large corporations, small companies, one startup, one local government agency, and lots of medium sized companies.
Are there agencies out there who provide - well, people like you, with your skill set - to companies on a contract basis? They may use you on a consultant basis without you having to be their employee, essentially acting as an booker for you. It’s the easy way to transition into full or partial “true” freelancing.
If possible, see if you can pick the brains of someone in your field who has already done this. Every extra bit of information helps.
I did partial “true” freelancing for 12 or 13 years (working some of the time through a consultant group but also finding my own clients), but I started in my mid forties. That may be a significant point because it’s hard work with long hours. Bear in mind that if you are brought in by a client as a freelancer/consultant, it’s very often to clear up a mess which is too unpleasant or too difficult for someone in-house to clear up. They’re not going to bring you in because everything is just great. And if you present yourself as an expert, people are expecting to see an expert.
Also consider: everyone who is self employed overcommits - it’s really hard to turn away work. You may end up with less time for your side business, at least at first.
All of that said, it was absolutely the best thing for me. I had sellable skills, made good money, and was able to start fading away in my mid fifties, so that when I fully retired it was without a bump.
And the best thing about freelancing is you get to step out of the company politics that eventually drive everyone crazy. That’ll go some way to sorting out the work annoyances which (of course) everyone gets more intolerant of as they get older…
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I was annoyed by just about everything by the time I was 40. Now, I’m not. I think I recognized that companies and people have reasons to do things a certain way, and that my own goals are rarely part of their plans. It’s certainly made my life easier.
Regarding consulting, it rarely works well on a percentage basis. Companies bringing on consultants usually expect 30-55 hour a week out of you or they will opt for another candidate. Just an FYI.
I went the SpoilerVirgin route my last few years. I developed a crucial system which no one else understood very well. My boss was incompetent but nice, and never bugged me with suggestions from ignorance. If he was more with it I might have gotten raises (which were rare so I wasn’t being singled out) but I was making enough that I didn’t care.
I got a bit cross at supposedly top engineers who were flummoxed at the concept of a command line, but I managed to keep it in.
I sat through lots of meetings about a screw up by some people which was delaying release months and months. If I was 30 this would have made me way nervous, at 62 it was amusing.
Representing the blue collar world here. I definitely get more annoyed at various aspects of my job as I get older. I’m almost 62. The constant din of back up alarms on forklifts and other noises associated with them gets under my skin more than it did a few years ago. Also things like whistling co-workers, particularly when they make repetitive whistling noises that aren’t really tunes, just nervous habits. I spend a big part of my day on a forklift but I also have a work station with a computer on which I am expected to make many, many transactions of inventory with no mistakes but my work station is located in the warehouse at the main intersection for forklift traffic, right at a blind corner where forklift drivers are expected to sound the horn going in each direction. So there I am trying to focus as as forklift drivers race back and forth, honking the horn which is right at my ear level. This area is also where people tend to congregate, so lots of conversation going on as well. I used to be much better at tuning all this out but it increasingly makes me twitchy.
When I start getting really annoyed, that’s my cue to take a mental health day.
I definitely see a lot of frustrated and irritated coworkers in their 50s. I guess there’s only so many software upgrades, database overhauls, email client switch-overs, reorganizations, projects stuck in limbo, jerkish coworkers, and the never-ending cycle of training newbies only to watch them disappear forever before a person just says “fuck it”.
I see a lot of young people pretty frustrated and irritated. We have lots of wonderful young teachers as well, and I don’t want to do anything as trite as typecast a generation, but it just seems like half the young people we hire have the most bizarre expectations about the job. Like, not only should it not have any unpleasant parts, but any unpleasantness at all is a sign that “they”–I don’t know who that is. I think they think there’s some shadowy smokefilled room where these things are decided–are either vindictive or stupid. They can’t seem to grasp that all jobs are shitty at times, and that sometimes things are just complicated and you don’t get what you want. They are really, really hung up on “fair” in this microscopic level that just seems designed to make them miserable–they always feel like everything is unfair and it makes them angry and sad.
Personally, the biggest change I am finding as I am getting older is that I am a LOT less concerned with having everyone like me/making sure I never piss anyone off. I still want MOST people to like me, but it’s more like as long as I have done what I consider my due diligence as a decent human, I don’t worry too much about whether every single person in the room knows it.
Yes, this. And no matter where you work, there are some of the same old stupid things that happen over and over again (ex: boss/client wants X and you work hard to get it done by deadline; boss/client changes mind and wants Y instead by same deadline, which happens to be tomorrow morning. Or maybe boss/client neglects to mention some crucial detail that affects the entire project and now you have to twist yourself into a pretzel to make the necessary changes that entails at the very last minute). There’s a point at which you just think: fuck this noise. The problem comes in whether you can afford to leave that behind or not.
