Ironically, being exploited by greedy employers was one of the most beneficial experiences of my life. Thanks to them, I started my path to financial independence, and also this blog.
But before I realized that I was at an impasse and that I had to find a different path, I had to go through a series of situations, including a non-exhaustive list:
- Working more than 50 hours per week
- Getting up at 5am every morning
- Being constantly confronted with criticism and demands from all sides
- Having to assume responsibilities without having the means and recognition
- Playing a game that isn't mine, while pretending to be in it
- Do everything right away
- Receiving orders and counter-orders
- Working more and more for less and less, while bosses and shareholders receive more and more.
- Suffer consequences on my physical, psychological and social balance
- Participate in useless blabbering sessions
- Being bombarded with 50 to 100 emails a day, most of them sterile
- Working like a madman, getting great results without any recognition, then getting criticized for an unimportant detail.
- Having a higher education only to be saddled with thankless tasks
- Never being able to switch off from work once you leave the office
It is said that if you put a frog in boiling water, it will immediately jump out of the water. On the other hand, if you put it in cold water and gently warm it up, it will not notice the danger and will cook to death. This perfectly illustrates the inability or unwillingness of people to react to threats that arise insidiously.
Ask a 25-year-old engineer if he likes his job. Chances are he does. The water is warm and the chains are not heavy. There is no apparent incentive for him to jump out of the pot. A quest for financial independence makes no sense to him.
But ask the same engineer at age 50 if it's still the same. The answer is likely to be quite different. 25 years of rehashing the same problems, with the weight of additional responsibilities, wears you down in the long run. Not to mention the fact that he has become a prisoner of his salary, as it has increased over time. The chains have become too heavy. The frog is boiling alive.
My last jobs were "luckily" like boiling water. Each time I jumped out of the pot. Sometimes very quickly, sometimes it took me a little longer to realize that the water was too hot. But I always came out alive.
In the long run, this succession of leaps put me in search of financial independence. It led me to seek the light. It motivated me to get out of what was insidiously weighing on my life. Disgusted by what I was doing, I was forced to look at my existence from a new way.
My luck is that I was able to experience very early in my life what it was like. Rat Race. I know what it feels like to be in boiling water when a frog is in the water. And I know it's not cool... not cool at all. It feels weird to say this, but I owe a huge debt to my last employers. If they hadn't turned the thermostat up so high, I probably never would have decided to see things differently. And I'd be cooked. Dead.
When I started this blog in 2010, I had just changed jobs for the first time because I felt overwhelmed, overworked, tired and unfulfilled. I had not enjoyed my job for a while and I had already started to take many steps on the path to financial independence.
It was my first jump.
Paradoxically, instead of letting go, I increased the pace. I was working harder than ever. Many people would probably have given up. But I held on because I had a goal: make a lot of money. And it worked. My income increased, even as my expenses stagnated or even decreased. I was on the highway to financial independence... but at what cost...
I started cooking again. What's the point of making money and saving if you're going to die in the pot? So I changed jobs again.
It was my second jump.
It went well for a while. I felt like I had fallen into a fairly peaceful and well-tempered pond. But things, insidiously, changed again. And today I feel like the thermostat is approaching the red again. I will have to jump again soon.
But this time will be my last jump. And above all it will be totally different. It will be the change that will allow me to wake up at the time I want. The one where I will freely decide the schedule of my day.
Of course, I could look for another, more peaceful job. But I already know that I will only repeat the same pattern all over again. At the beginning everything is rosy, then in the long run you get eaten up. Let's be frank: most people don't like what they do... even if some will never tell you, out of pride, or worse, out of denial or lack of foresight.
Instead of looking for a more peaceful pond, I will use my job as a springboard. I will store the energy of the water that is starting to boil, I will continue to save and invest, until I have the means and the motivation necessary to make my final leap.
So if you hate your job, use it to your advantage. Charge yourself with its energy. Don't let it get you down. Be glad that it gives you the motivation to seek the light. But don't stay in the boiling water for too long. You have the power to be free, and maybe even faster than you think.
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Hello Jerome,
For my part, I will still have to change ponds once or twice at the most before I can take the plunge.
It is always pleasant to read your articles, your analyses on financial independence and the life of an employee.
Caroline
Hello Caroline.
Thank you for your comment.
Good luck in your quest 😉
Good morning,
Thank you for this article which gives an unfortunately so common view of what one can encounter during a career. I recognize myself perfectly in your words and your description…
Despite my barely 3 years of experience as an engineer in a large group, I quickly felt the temperature rise and saw colleagues boiling before it was my turn! As a result, I'm changing ponds just like you.
The very short-term vision, management without a human concept and having to always give more by cutting back on personal life (directly or indirectly) has caused me to become aware and to want to get out of the pressure cooker.
At the same time, I very early on sensed the underlying trend in the sector in which I worked, and I immediately made the decision to implement a passive investment strategy based on the "Dividend Aristocrat" with a diversified portfolio of 25 lines reinforced monthly.
Experiencing the role of the boiling frog is not pleasant of course, especially after only a few years, but the lessons learned are rich in teachings when analyzed in hindsight.
Good luck with the rest of your journey on the road to financial independence.
Clement
Hello Clément. Thank you for your comment. There are more and more of us frogs. Above all, more and more of us are becoming aware of the situation. For the moment, it is a silent revolution that is brewing, but in the long run we will see more and more frogs blooming here and there who decide to make their last big leap by leaving the rat race. If for the moment it is still a marginal phenomenon, I wonder what will happen when more and more frogs decide to leave working life and the consumer society. Multinationals will have no choice but to review the conditions they offer to their wage slaves... in short, turn down the thermostat.
I totally agree with your comments. But I wanted to add that in addition to the multinationals that squeeze like lemons, there are also SMEs that are just as ugly, if not worse. And more particularly family SMEs, which in addition to always asking for more for the same price (with volumes requested in terms of work not yet the same as multinationals (but shush they are not yet fully aware of it) are also mean economically speaking and in human relations… They think they are keeping employees. Well yes, they think they are feeding the world… Not attracting the same candidates because of a lower reputation (an observation, not a criticism), they hire more dependent and less “volatile” candidates and therefore more docile, malleable. This is deplorable… We are certainly witnessing the beginning of an economic and professional change… and changes in employer/employee relationships, more independent people. But it will take time to rebalance employer/employee relationships; time to create diversified sources of income and to really rebalance things because there is resistance from employers who have to give up a comfortable economic superiority operation and still fear among employees. employees who have only known this model.
See you soon, looking forward to hearing from you.
Caroline.
For SMEs it depends, there is everything. I have experienced both, multinationals and family businesses. And my preference clearly goes to the second choice. But it is true that you can make a bad choice, and I also think that the region or country has its influence. Caroline I think you are French? In Switzerland the social distance between employers and employees is not too pronounced, so in SMEs we do not really feel like a pawn. But anyway, no matter how good he is, a boss remains a boss. He must make profits and employees are part of the expenses…
You are talking about more independent people…. Some research estimates that our employer/employee model has had its day and that the world of work is now moving towards a rise in the power of the self-employed. Some sites like elance have long understood the phenomenon. People sign up and make their talents available across the globe for a fee. More flexibility and tax advantages for everyone, less risk for employers. This even allows it to be an ancillary activity to a normal job. Maybe one day we will all be self-employed.
Ultimately, the quest for financial independence is a very particular approach to this trend.
Good morning,
There is undoubtedly a difference between SMEs/family businesses and large groups.
The infernal machine of always more with less is, in my opinion, naturally more present in large listed groups. The sustainability of dividends and (often) the desire to increase them generally cause a cascade of pressure from the top of the group to the bottom.
The greed of the managers of an SME can also be excessive and lead to a deleterious working climate, however the very structure of the SME already protects it from "the greed of the market and of finance".
Of course, there remains management, the chance of coming across fair and correct people which considerably improves our relationships with work.
The challenge then is to navigate towards the kind of structure/atmosphere/management that provides the best or “least bad balance”.
This is where financial independence, even very partial, helps in my opinion. It brings a certain ease during transitions, masking the financial worries that are for many the first chains against change.
Clement