Prince Harry’s right. If you hate your job, quit — I did

But this particular meeting was to approve labelling for a new range of alcopops aimed squarely at the teenage market. Surprise, surprise, the label design choices were either a garish green or a garish pink. The boggle-eyed chimp motif was non-negotiable. Among the proposed names for the product were Chimp, Nutter and Bomber. And so there we all were: a team of thrusting, well-educated young marketers earnestly debating which name would best tap into the adolescent risk-taking mindset.

That’s how I fell out of love with selling. I make no bones about it: I have sold many FMCGs (fast-moving consumer goods) in my time and I was good at it. Identifying a market segment, analysing its habits and designing messaging to suit brought great rewards. When we were out and about in London bars and clubs celebrating a success, we often drank alongside musicians and actors and I considered myself a fellow “creative”.

However, my wife Lisa and I had had our first child four years before I started working on the alcopops project. As the project started my son Max was about to start school and I began to think differently.

I don’t have much in common with Prince Harry but I note he is a young father too. Having children is a major turning point in terms of the conversation you have with yourself about the type of work you do. Before Max was born that internal dialogue was chiefly concerned only with career and lifestyle. Becoming a father did mean I belatedly began to consider deeper questions. “Would I be happy for my son to drink this stuff?” and even “Would I really be happy discussing what I do when Lisa and I are hanging out with other parents at Max’s school?”

My change of heart changed how I felt about the team I worked for too. I used to really look up to my boss. His energy and commitment were, at first, enviable. In fact he was instrumental in recognising my talents and bringing me forward as a sort of protégé. But when we worked on “Chimp” he was in his late fifties with two children at uni. I began to pity the fact he could throw himself into the challenge with such gusto. But he was also divorced with bills to pay so I guess one can reach a point where you forget any idea of “joy” your job might bring and just get on with it. I didn’t want that to be me.

My boss sensed my heart wasn’t in it. And actually the drink itself, which was launched under another name entirely, wasn’t a big success so the chance of voluntary redundancy followed within a year. I took it and retrained as a teacher, which was long and arduous, far more challenging than marketing but with very different rewards. These days I teach media studies but all those marketing skills still come in useful. I use my experience to teach children how to navigate and interpret a world that bombards them with unhealthy messaging as soon as they can read. Yes. I’m a poacher turned gamekeeper. And if any of them talk about taking a job just to make a lot of money I always say, “But where is the joy in that?”

My boss said I was disgusting

Tiffany Howe*
It was at the office Christmas party that I realised I needed to quit my job working for a public relations and hospitality agency. A group of us were out for dinner at a top London restaurant and our boss went around the table thanking people, but pointedly left me out. When I asked why, he suddenly launched into a prolonged, vitriolic attack: I was disgusting, selfish and spoilt — the most ignorant, demanding, stupid person he’d ever met.

I walked out and I’ve never looked back.

Standing outside the restaurant in the cold December air I called my sister. “I think I’ve just left my job,” I said.

“That’s the best news ever,” she replied.

She was right. I’d been at the company for about five years at that point. I was in my twenties, my boss in his forties. I knew I didn’t like him very much at the start, but I soon realised nobody else did either so at least I wasn’t alone. I made friends with some other women there and I love what I do, so that was how I got through it.

As time passed, though, some of those friends left and I became more and more anxious.

Things would be thrown at people in the office — once a colleague had a whiteboard eraser thrown at her head because she hadn’t got the press coverage our boss wanted. There was a lot of drinking and it could be toxic. During the month of December I’d never see my boss in the morning, only when he staggered in after a long lunch, when he’d shout at people or sit at his desk emailing you nasty messages, accusing you of doing nothing.

The mental health and happiness of staff was not considered. I’d had jobs before where a lot was asked of you — in a prior role I’d had to sit in nightclubs for hours on my own to save a table for my boss so she could bring clients there after dinner. On other occasions I’d had to deal with clients behaving badly, lunging at you after they’d drunk too much on nights out.

But in this job there were times I felt I just had to get out of there or I’d crack up. Nobody jumps out of bed with joy on a Monday morning, but to feel so full of dread is not normal. I used to call my mum during my lunch break and say: “I think I’ve made a terrible mistake here.”

By the time of the Christmas party I knew I had to leave. I’d started doing a bit of freelance work on the side. My boss found out, which I assume is why he launched his attack (even though I didn’t have a contract at the firm and had only been doing informal, small-scale work for friends on the side). It was so shocking that several of my colleagues left the party because they didn’t want to listen to him being so rude.

We never spoke again. He didn’t even let me back into the office to collect my stuff. But I set up my own company and I vowed that I’d always be the best boss to people I possibly could be. Now I work hard to stay in touch with what my staff want. Leaving that job was the right thing — I’m so glad I did.

The job cancelled my life too often

Vanessa Smith*
I worked at an investment bank for 15 years, ending up in a senior position. Eventually I realised that my job was cancelling my life. Everything domestic was put on the back burner, delegated to full-time nannies and housekeepers. My hours were 7am to 8pm or all night (I went home to shower). I worked every weekend. I travelled constantly.

My employers were not at all accommodating. It simply wasn’t their problem. I had three young children and was neglecting everyone: my husband, my friends, my health. Everything was falling apart. Weirdly I cracked the day my hair appointment was cancelled for the 20th time. It was the highlights that did it in the end. I couldn’t stand looking at myself in the mirror any more. It seems trivial but it really matters to your self-esteem.

Just to be clear though, I didn’t even have time for the basics like doctor’s appointments, the dentist, mammograms. Friendships didn’t get a look-in. I neglected everything and everyone.

My university friends were all in book clubs and meeting up after school drop-off for coffee (which I managed once in a blue moon). I felt permanently resentful and guilty.

When I finally did leave it was like getting a divorce. I took the decision in one day. I think there is a tipping point when you simply won’t compromise any more. I think you need to think where your life is going when you start a City career, especially if the job is all-consuming. The difference is today people think, “What makes me happy?” My generation didn’t consider that at all. Kids today weigh up how happy they are in the moment and throw all their cards up in the air when they’re not. They won’t stick to a job they don’t like and don’t understand the concept of working their way up.

Oddly, the City is the same if not worse today than it was in my day. You are still expected to start work at 7am and finish past midnight. Now they give you a day off every couple of weeks but it takes weeks to recover from a really intense bout of work even if you’re young. Looking back, I don’t know how I did it. I think it’s a hungrier generation who do these sorts of “serious” jobs now. They have a five-year and ten-year plan: “I’ll become managing director, then move to a boutique, then start something of my own.” We never thought about getting out. We just carried on.

I think Prince Harry was speaking from great privilege this week when he said that people giving up jobs that they did not enjoy during the pandemic was “something to be celebrated”. I see many young people leaving jobs without anything to go to, assuming there is a safety net in place. They believe all jobs should be life-enhancing and fulfilling and quit the moment reality strikes. We simply didn’t have that option.

That sinking feeling has gone

Lucy Cavendish
I was on holiday in the Hebrides eight years ago when I woke up and decided I needed to change my job. I just couldn’t be a journalist any more. I’d written a piece about bringing up my children. I’d hoped it was interesting and thoughtful. But the reaction to the piece shocked me. Within minutes the trolling had started. It became so horrible and vicious that I felt physically sick. It wasn’t just because online strangers were calling me all sorts of vile and vicious names, it was also because, on some level, I felt that I’d let my children down.

In that moment, as TV and radio requests for me to appear to defend myself came rolling in, I just decided to stop. I hadn’t gone into journalism to end up feeling exposed, hated and self-hating. So I phoned a friend, blurted out my woes and she suggested I become a counsellor. “They are not too different in terms of careers,” she said. “It’s about curiosity and you are full of it.”

And so my new life started. I enrolled on an entry-level counselling course at the Mary Ward Centre in London and three weeks later was sitting in a room with 19 other people.

It was a wrench leaving journalism behind. It had taken me all over the world. In the glory days I used to fly to New York or Los Angeles every other week to interview American celebrities. I met Hillary Clinton, Cher, Michael Douglas, Ivanka and Donald Trump (separately). Those interviews were great, but I also wrote personal pieces and gradually had begun to feel uncomfortable. I wrote about everything: my relationships, my life, my break-ups, the births of my children. Nothing was off-limits. And it honestly didn’t really bother me that much. Most people when they met me were really kind about my pieces, saying how much they enjoyed reading them.

But this was before publications were online. Once that started, things took a turn for the worse. In the posts about my pieces I was being called all sorts of names. I decided to come off social media, which helped. But I still felt racked by fear every time a piece came out.

So the change happened. It wasn’t easy. I realised that I liked the status of being a journalist. Also, journalists are fun people to be around.

People often ask me if I regret my career change, but I tell them I don’t. I love being a counsellor. I see so many different people — teenagers, couples, individuals. I find everyone fascinating and I genuinely care about all my clients. When someone tells me how much I have helped them (and that’s not a guarantee) it makes me insanely happy. Also the world of therapy is fascinating: there is always something new to learn and it is peopled by fascinating practitioners.

It was a brave leap to take. For a while I earned very little money, but I took a loan from a friend who kindly supported me. When clients come and tell me about how much they hate working I often suggest we think of other ways they can work. Life is too short to keep doing a job you hate. I took a leap and, although I continued writing, my main line of work is therapy. This means I don’t wake up with that terrible sinking sensation in my stomach any more, and for that I am extremely grateful.

I saw a culture driven by fear

Stephen Ridley
I lost my dad when I was 15 and he was the breadwinner. I saw what it was like without bread. I didn’t want to be in that position again.

When I got a job in mergers and acquisitions at one of the top investment banks, it was a tremendous achievement. I don’t come from a dynasty family. I’m from Yorkshire. I worked really hard because I got told all the way through school that the reward for working hard was you get a good job.

I was at the bank for two years until 2012, but it may as well have been four and a half years because of the hours I worked. The average day was about 19 hours, seven days a week. I slept on my Blackberry because it would buzz in the middle of the night and I had to give an immediate response.

When I arrived at the office for the first time I just saw desks with computers. It was an immediate shock. I never thought about what a golden future actually was going to be like, but it didn’t feel very golden. I went into a pretty dark hole quite quickly because it isn’t like school. It’s not something you do for a term. There’s no real end in sight. It’s going to keep going until you don’t.

And what I saw around me was a culture that’s competitive and driven by fear.

I’d been put on a project that was very tough. I was getting no sleep. My hair was falling out at 22 years old. My teeth were wobbly.

It’s quite a dystopian, disorientating feeling because you’re working a lot, you don’t know why and the lives of the people above you look far from desirable. So one day I rang my mum at four o’clock in the morning. I didn’t think I could do it any more. It’s not like in a marathon where you’re tolerating pain towards some end. It’s indefinite.

I had polluting friendships and a gold-digging girlfriend. I was in a five-star prison. I knew I didn’t need this luxury. I’d grown up without it.

On the day I left banking I didn’t plan to. I had a job interview at a hedge fund in the morning. It was the fifth job interview I’d been to where I realised that it was just more of the same.

So I left my desk at 11am and by 11.30am I was walking down the street in a state of shock. My life had changed so much in 30 minutes. From the second you declare that you’re leaving they take your phone and your security pass. Then you’re guided out of the building.

As I walked down the street I saw a piano in a thrift shop and it looked like therapy to me. I bought it for £100 and started playing in the middle of Brick Lane. I started feeling things. I’d been very numb without realising it. I turned around and the whole street was blocked — there were 600 or 700 people watching me.

It was a peculiar moment. I finished the song and there was silence. Then everyone erupted into clapping. I’d been playing piano my whole life. I’d never considered that it would be a career. Everybody knows you can’t make money playing music. I’d been told all these “everybody knows” statements all my life. And yet here I was. I threw my hat on the floor and it overflowed with coins and notes.

What came from that experience was opportunity. And I just said yes to everything from then on. I went to more than 60 countries in the next year.
*Authors’ names have been changed