I live in a big central European country in a niche part of IT/consulting, for years we have been programmed to hustle, grind and work the hardest… and I did, for a bit. I moved to London and grinded for 5 years, to reach a burnout an moved back to my country to work in a bigger company for a london wage. This is what i learned over last 5 years back:
- Grind, hustle and working too much is absolutely useless. Since I came back I never do more than 8 hours (and most of the time doing 6, since i can get everything done in that time).
- The burnout was not worth it on my health and I have had to focus on it for a while (both physical and mental).
- In my new work i travel to US a lot as one of our main offices is there in California. I am terrified on how much people like to brag about how many hours they work there. They wear their burnout as badge of honour. And while i love travelling to California for business, I could never see myself working there due to the pressure, lack of proper benefits and the incredible disparity of wealth.
- This is when my”american dream” crumbled, when i was younger i dreamt of moving there, currently couldn't imagine to do that, unless its a short term assignment that will allow me to travel the US. (US nature and certain places are just aunbelievable)
- I manage a team of 6. If you treat people with respect they will reward you with performance and loyalty. I've never made anyone do overtime (unless they asked me for it to get some extra money), never rejected a holiday day off, and always gave a raise on yearly basis that exceeds inflation (since i manage juniors most raises are actually 10-20% a year until they get promoted). Not to mention we start our juniors at 15 USD/hour (in a central european country nonetheless). I have also always written good recommendation letters for every person that left us.
- Never feel bad about not working hard enough or worrying you are “stealing time”, not giving your all to the company. Trust me, company will fuck you 10 times over if you are no longer needed. Therefore do what you are contracted to do, do it in a smart way and don't overstretch yourself.
- When applying for a job, don't feel obliged to disclose your real salary / benefits – tell them what you want and if they ask you what you are on now, tell the that what you asked for is matcihng your current terms of employment.
- Don't feel you need to be loyal to a company. In smaller ones loyalty might be a real thing and worth it, but in corporate world, you are as small as an ant, therefore do things that matter to you.
- Don't compromise on pay -if you have a certain threshold you need to live, continue interviewing. if you need an interim solution, go there and keep looking.
Lastly, take as much time as you can to do things that matter: Family, friends, hobbies. At the end of it, no one dreams of labour…