Inflection

Twice in two weeks! Random chance? Dubious coincidence? Resumption of old habits? We shall see.

My imaginary friends on the internet could be forgiven for wondering if I didn’t have anything better to do. They may be right!

I find myself in a moment of perplexity.

Quite possibly a moment that future me will look back upon as an inflection point.

Obvious in hindsight. Less certain in the now.

Several years ago, I swallowed my pride and bent the knee, accepting a permanent job for the first time in decades. Earning a salary. Working for somebody else. The factors leading to that decision seemed compelling, at the time.

My employer was a startup, near the beginning of an exciting journey. Venture capital funded. Exponential growth. Good idea coinciding with fortuitous timing. The setup cobbled together from duct tape and bits of string. Everything on fire. Not enough staff, and those they did have were mostly smart folks in the wrong jobs. All told, a challenging opportunity to solve tricky puzzles.

Any permanent employee will tell you that where you start is the single largest contributing factor, within your control, to determining future earnings. Pay rises and performance bonuses tend to be a percentage of base salary. Job titles and/or pay grades determine relative importance in the pecking order. Senior enough to have autonomy? Not so senior that every working day resembles Game of Thrones? Deemed to have paid your dues? Or condemned to serve time in the trenches with the other peons until you are perceived as “ready”?

In short, targeting that sweet spot of a Goldilocks position.

I negotiated hard on the way in. Unreasonable salary demands. Overly generous benefits package. Inflated job title, because perception becomes reality. Internally, it made little difference. Externally, it helps immensely with suppliers, competitors, future hires, and prospective employers.

That work upfront cushions and compounds. Below-inflation annual pay rises grew from a high base, even as nominal UK market salaries fell. The firm’s meteoric success translated into generous performance bonuses, again calculated as percentages of that high base salary.

My remuneration was fair, but the demands of the job were oh so harsh.

Only experience and confidence rendered that situation sustainable. Having sufficient financial padding to know I could walk away and be ok. Recognising what meetings could be skipped. What demands could be ignored. Understanding what really mattered, and shutting out the noise.

Things change.

Today, that start-up is a scale-up. Growth curve tipping from exponential to linear. The venture capital investors want their money back, shifting focus from growth to engineering a unicorn-sized exit event. Headcount has grown, two-thirds of whom are consultants. Middle management has proliferated, yielding a cancerous corporate culture dominated by presenteeism and politicking.

My role of solving problems new and exciting has matured into finding efficiencies and economies of scale. Fishing for lower-cost locales from which to find smart yet exploitable folks willing to do the same jobs for less money, in an endless race to the bottom. But only when I have failed to get robots and artificial intelligence to automate or replace those jobs entirely.

Strategy has given way to short-termism.

In true startup fashion, the overarching goal was always to go big, then get out.

Initially, that entailed building a scalable business that would command a hefty premium from prospective new owners. Today, it is more akin to slapping lipstick on a pig before palming it off to some a greater fool.

Work is no longer satisfying. Worse than that, it is no longer keeping me entertained. The tricky puzzles have been solved or shelved, beyond the exit event timescales. Leaving me under-occupied and, dare I say it, bored.

Dashboards have replaced dreams. KPIs. OKRs. Aspirational (unlisted) share price ranges.

Peter Drucker may never have uttered the tragicomic cliché “what gets measured, gets managed”, but Charles Goodhardt was on the money when he wryly observed: “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”. Human nature seeks to game the system, if you want to elicit change in behaviours then set an incentivised measure around it.

The conundrum?

First, are the golden handcuffs.

Domestic nominal market salaries for my skillset are back down to what they had been in the early 2000s. Part cyclical, more firing than hiring has flooded the market and driven down wages. Part structural, as the UK steadily devolves into an emerging market backwater.

Average advertised base salary by locale for same skillset and experience level (2024)

My current number is 50%+ over that market price. I could stay put and bask in the smug inner glow of past glories. However, it does make the price of a domestic change in scenery a tad expensive. Or I could take my skills abroad and potentially double my take-home income. As ever, there is nuance to any comparisons. House prices. Healthcare. Quality of life. Family friction.

I long ago resigned myself to the harsh reality that work is for money, while hobbies are for fun.

A view formed during a long decade spent sweating on work and skilled migrant visas. The menu of career choices constrained by skills shortage lists and the whims of political wannabes auditioning to become prime minister by being an ever-bigger bully than their predecessors.

Therefore, if I was going to sell off my days doing something that failed to “bring me joy”, I might as well maximise the premium I placed on that unhappiness. That mercenary attitude has long afforded me and my family a comfortable standard of living where we want for little.

But it does give me pause when my teenage children seek career guidance: would I wish that existence upon them? Had I set them a good example, when measured by deeds not words?

An uncomfortable truth lurks somewhere beneath that particular rock.

Second, is flexibility.

Until this year, I contentedly ignored all the bullshit posturing about how nice it would be if everyone made an effort to attend the office a day or two per week. Camaraderie. Collaboration. Mentoring. Boozing after work. Fly the flag. Lead by example.

Things change.

The “return to work” drum is being beaten with a vengeance. Hybrid working abandoned. Flexible working became ironic. We trust you to professionally work wherever and whenever you like, so long as you’re getting your job done… but only if it is from a hot desk at the office where we can micromanage you during core business hours of 8:00 to 19:00.

Overnight, working from home became an exceptional privilege, not an inalienable right, regardless of what my employment contract may have said to the contrary.

Don’t like it? There are plenty of commodity cogs out there willing to collect your salary.

Except the office can only accommodate around a third of the domestic workforce. Not a problem while most workers were working remotely most of the time. But now, if you’re not in by 8:00 you’re destined to spend the day bouncing between random breakout area tables, phone booth standing saunas, or perched in the kitchen miles from the nearest power socket.

Security card swipes are now monitored and reported. “Did you know, if you consumed less caffeine you’d take fewer bathroom breaks?” Or “if you indulged at our subsidised on-premise salad bar, there would be no need to leave the office all day!” These personalised productivity tips are brought to you by your friendly HR department, helping staff be the best they can be.

That collaboration everyone is attending the office for? Video conferences all, as the majority of the workforce are based offshore. Efficiencies and economies of scale, remember?

All this institutional silliness reminds me of the bad old days working for American investment banks. Some people have even reverted to wearing ties to work again! The obvious answer is vote with my feet.

Alas, there must be something in the water, as this idiocy appears to be contagious.

It isn’t the occasional site beating a back-to-the-office drum, it has quickly become mainstream.

Tubes are overcrowded, TFL says commuter volumes are nearing sardine-esque pre-covid peaks.

Many of those corporate escapees who embraced the flexible working ideal to decamp from the big smoke in search of quality of life, or simply lower living costs, are regretting their choices.

Confronted with unsustainable commutes on unreliable trains and overcrowded motorways. Unfortunately, in many cases, that move was a one-way trip. Having stepped off the property ladder in expensive Southeast England, they find themselves priced out of a possible return.

Not such a problem for me, but I do resent the hell out of the time and expense consumed by my commute equating to one extra working day per week. Lost time, that adds no value. My time.

Third, is timing.

In less than a decade, my private pension will be accessible. My children will have left home. My “families are complicated” compromises will be over. Life will look markedly different.

I’m too old to be young, but with luck I have maybe 25 active years before the frailties of age catch up with me. Hopefully more. Likely less, if family history and genetics have much to do with it.

The first third of my life was invested in childhood and education. Both pursuits I would highly recommend. Much of the book learning proved to be irrelevant to my path through life, but that knowledge is only possible in hindsight. Play. Fun. Backpacking. Hedonism. Learning about life, love, limits, and living.

Too broke to be comfortable. Too naïve to know any different. Too young to care.

The second third of my life was spent in pursuit of grown-up things. Wealth. Passports. Property. Parenthood. Much harder. Less satisfying. Less fun.

Working out not at all like I expected or planned. Yet working out just the same.

Wealth compounds options and opportunities. Wealth grants the illusion of control. In my case, wealth allowed me to buy back time to spend with my children, rather than my business and my clients. Money well spent. A time in my life that was priceless.

Nothing lasts forever, and neither did my semi-retired financially independent(ish) existence.

Skip forward the last few years of permiedom, and I find myself at the present day. Not yet 50, but I can see it from here.

I’ve put the time to good use. Financially preparing for anticipated future lifestyle changes.

Squirrelling a nest egg, to be in a position to act as the Bank of Dad. I have raised my kids to be self-reliant and resilient. Hopefully they will independently succeed, on their own terms. But if “life happens”, pride allows, and circumstances require an advance on their inheritance while they are young enough for it to make a difference then so be it. We can’t take it with us.

When I first arrived in London, I used to shake my head at the sight of the occasional old grey dinosaur in a grey suit shuffling around the City. Why were they still here? What had gone wrong? Financial services is a young person’s game. The thrill of the chase. The victory in closing a deal. The hours. The pressure. The stress. Climb up or get out, C-suite or bust. No place for old men.

Today, I’m one of those old grey dinosaurs in grey suits. Joining the ranks of the damned each day, shuffling out of the underground like ants emerging from the nest. The hours, pressure, and stress all remain, but the ambition has long since been outgrown.

I didn’t much like the view from the C-suite. Surrounded by psychopaths and politicians. Wearing a target on your back. Much better to run your own show. Earning the title of boss through ownership, not shareholder whim. Creating wealth, not just transferring it.

Judging by the sheer number of former colleague retirement announcements I have witnessed recently, after age 50 falling off the hamster wheel is far easier than climbing back on to it.

The true face of Early Retirement isn’t some obnoxious twentysomething selling a secret formula to riches on TikTok. Rather, it is a late middle-aged worker from a soulless commuter village, who has been made redundant, again, and has simply run out of viable options. Poor bastards, I feel for you.

“Retirement” serving as a fig leaf for the ego. More socially acceptable than unemployed.

The final third of my life remains unwritten. This inflection point marks the starting line. It will be fascinating the see where it takes me.