Completely stuck

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I am a 44 year old man stuck in a golden wage-cage.

During my good years I've built a decent life. My own house. A good wife. For the first time in my life I was thriving at my job! Two promotions in a short time. I got my masters degree. A daughter. And I even had room and energy for a second job on the side, where did some freelance work. Everything was going very very well! Thinking about this period in my life still gives me butterflies to my stomach. Is was exciting and fun.

But then suddenly things got really difficult. I had a direct colleague that was very jealous of my good progress at work. She could always twist and turn it and make it so that I'm was the bad guy. Her favourite route was to make it seem as if I was progressing hard and that I was intentionally not sharing my knowledge in order to get ahead. Which, in all honesty, was not the case at all. I was just trying my best to do my job well. I progressed where I could, and didn't think I was doing any harm. For the first time I was doing it right and I wasn't going to change something that works! My manager was very happy with me. Sadly, I had no defense against her many manipulative tactics. She convinced my manager to introduce job/task rotation. Which forced me to dumb down all my procedures, because my colleagues had to be able to do my job too. It also forced me to accept tasks which I had no interest in. And to accept tasks that I would do totally different, but couldn't implement changes, because "everybody needed to be able to work those tasks."

It made my life so difficult. And I couldn't comprehend why it was so difficult for me. While others were enjoyed the new way of working so much. I clearly was different and that insight eventually led to my diagnose 5 years ago. (Asperger + ADD, which both are no longer recognized.) Since my diagnose I've had various kinds of therapy to help me with my troubles. I was willing to accept any and every form of help in order to get me thriving again. I wanted to be able to thrive under the new working conditions. Mindfulness, psycho-education, a job coach, psycho-motor therapy, EMDR, CBT, nothing helped. If anything, it all completely obliterated my self-esteem. I am convinced that this whole mess actually really made me dumber. I'm serious, accepting my diagnose and accepting my shortcomings sabotaged my will to get the best out of myself. The only thing that helped was the methylphenidate that I got prescribed for my ADD. It makes doing the mundane tasks a lot more bearable.

Fast forward to the present. I'm still working the same job, in the same team. It's still the best job I ever had. My salary has gone up, up, up! But because of above mentioned way of working I do much less and much less exiting work. It's mind numbing. Strange thing is, my yearly appraisals are always very good. Covid introduced working from home as a standard to my office. We only go to the office about once a week. So it's very relaxed. But I just can't get my head around what they took from me. When I look around for other jobs though, it always quickly becomes apparent that I'm locked in a golden cage. I could solicitate for a higher function, and employers will gladly have me, but they can't or won't go over or even match my current pay. So, in order to progress my career I would need to take a pay cut. And a steep one too! I'm not going to give up a steady job for that.

I often find myself whishing I had some other affliction that would render me unable to work. Some good excuse to get off this treadmill and live out my life collecting benefits. And increasingly often I find myself wishing that I would just die of a heart attack or something.

What would you do in my case?

Wot happens if you ask to do more of the exciting work?

If you're miserable or stressed out day to day, but could be relatively happy and content working somewhere else, how much would that be worth paying for?

Personally I'd look into what I could go without and if it was feasible, take a pay cut. Having dependents adds complications however, you'd have to justify no holidays, a smaller car or whatever to your family.

Mental health is very important and money isn't everything.

I suggest finding fulfillment outside of work.

I too have a job that is... well my job's purpose isn't exactly something to be proud of. My job is to make sure the company's dividends keep flowing. We primarily are a defense against any regulatory challenges to their dividend plan for the next year.

Thats it. Oh and by the way, there hasn't been a regulatory challenge in 9 years, and I wouldn't expect one in the next 10. The entire process, I am convinced, exists so that smaller banks that want to get larger decide to sell to larger ones. Its a small fixed cost to large banks revenue, but a large fixed cost relative to a small bank's revenue. So I think what really happens is that large banks are OK with the regulations because they know it hurts smaller banks more, and their shareholders would rather sell to a large one rather than grow larger.

My point is I survive by having things outside of work that drive me. I have given up the idea of work being a source of identity or fulfillment. Truth be told, I have to drink lots of coffee to do my job. Basically I'm doing drugs to do my job.

We should feel lucky because others have it worse. It'd be awful to be stuck working at a retail job making $10/hour with little benefits.

Myself, I have a side project that keeps me going. Is there anything you could do in life if you devoted 1 hour a day to it?

This! I hear myself complain about my job and immediately feel ashamed for doing so.


Like hobbies? Yes, photography and my aquarium. Both were set to low priority during my hyperfocus on my mental health though. I had lots of appointment outside of work for therapy. I now have time enough again to breathe new life into them.