Reflecting Back - 3 Years After Leaving the Finance Industry

Note to reader: This blog was originally published as an article on LinkedIn hence the references to that social media platform.

Next month, it’ll be three years since I left the finance industry.  Those of you who have followed my LinkedIn posts over the course of the last year will recall (and for those of you who haven’t/don’t) I left after my mental health declined, with me suffering from depression, anxiety, ADHD, and suicide ideation to such a point that I could no longer function in the work environment.  That was after 30 years in various roles in the financial industry.  

This is the point in my brief Linkedin memoir where I’m supposed to be like everyone else on Linkedin and say "OMG! How I miss the industry!" And I’m also supposed to say “What a wonderful choice it was to go into finance, it was so fulfilling, I made so many great friends and associates, I regret so much having to leave”.  

But, well, I’m not going to say that.  Reflecting back, I wish maybe I’d never gone into the industry, and I definitely wish I would have left the industry earlier and tried to apply my skills elsewhere.

Now, that’s definitely not what we’re supposed to write on this “ra-ra go-team-go” thing that is LinkedIn.  Which is, in itself, symptomatic of the problem with the finance industry for sure, and to an extent, business in general. And that is…the human side of the equation - things like concern for others, moderated greed, sharing, true teamwork, genuine kindness, genuine treating employees well, good work life balance encouragement - all those human sides of the equation…certainly weren’t there the final few years of my career, and as I look back, I’m not even sure if they were ever there.

I was fortunate enough to have a career that saw monumental change. I’m just old enough to have been fascinated by a fax machine and to remember when it was all the rage amongst lawyers and others to say “a signature by fax will never ever be lawfully accepted”. And I managed to last long enough in my career to see the days when the same arguments were made about electronic signatures, by the same people, with the same arguments.  Really, it was quite amusing, especially since many who were arguing were there, like me, to see the argument’s first go around with the old fax technology.

Perhaps most monumental was seeing first the widespread adoption of the cell phone, and how that, and the eventual growth of the smartphone and all its features, changed how we behaved, and more interestingly, the expectations we put on others.  Man, I sound like an old man here, but I remember the day when you could go to the washroom, and just do your business (pardon the pun!) there. And I also remember having bosses that made me feel guilty for not taking phone calls in the washroom, and being like they were - happy to stand at the urinal, cell phone in hand, chatting away.  Don’t tell me guys you haven’t seen this - we all have.  It looks goofy as hell - but hey, if you’re gonna be the big cheese in the finance industry, or have others think you are, I guess you gotta do it.  Or not.

The reason I bring up that story is it illustrates how our expectations changed throughout the timing of my career.  We went from a world that was very 9-5, to a world that was really 24/7 - we all know the silent expectations on cell phones now are that unless you’re an incredibly junior employee (and want to stay that way), you’re going to be answering that phone 24/7/365.  Its just the way it is.  And even organizations who say they don’t expect it - well - I think they do. I’ve heard that line before. And maybe the organization may not “ie as in maybe HR has made a policy limiting expectations of after hour calls”, but that doesn’t stop your individual boss from having those demands and expectations.  And so what’s the result? What’s so bad about it?

I think people need down time. I think they need family time, friend time, nature time, alone time, exercise time, and do nothing time.  That’s a lot of “times” that people need to fit in in those few hours in the evening after work and after dinner, or to squeeze in on the weekends.  But despite research showing the critical importance of all of those facets of time expenditure and giving back some self-care to ourselves, the pressure is there to ignore those things, put them last, and focus on work.  You’re supposed to focus on work when you’re at work, and focus on work when you’re not at work, and you’re supposed to be willing to drop any of the above at the drop of a “ping” as you hear a work email pop onto your phone.  And if you don’t - well maybe you just aren’t dedicated or career focused. Or…maybe you understand we only have one life to live, so the best idea is to live it well.  Work to live, not live to work.

One organization I was part of took it as a matter of pride that its senior management was all people that, oh, I would say at one point in time, was all in their late 70’s to mid-80’s.  I found it was bizarre they were proud of this.  I guess they either admired the commitment these fellows had to the company and wanted to encourage similar commitment amongst employees (if they’re working…so should you be…implicitly).  Or they just wanted employees to believe that the company, and the work they did, was simply that important.  Regardless, I look at that and think, man, that is frigging sad.  Sad that these guys have nothing else to do.  Sad that there’s 8 billion people, and tens of thousands of cities and sights to see around the world, and all these guys can figure to do is hang at the office.  They have spouses that could die, they have grandkids growing up fast, all these sorts of things.  But wow - let’s admire them and emulate them as much as they can because, dammit, look how dedicated they are to the company.  Or, maybe let’s not, and let’s take their example and do our best not to follow it.  Yolo.

And I guess that’s the part that surprised me the most.

I thought I’d miss it.

Thirty years is a long time to do anything. You’d think there’d be some kind of pull back. Some nostalgia. Some sense that you left something important behind.

But there wasn’t.

Not really.

What I found instead was…quiet.

And not the uncomfortable kind of quiet where you feel like you should be doing something. The kind of quiet where you realize you don’t have to.

No phone buzzing. No low-grade anxiety about what email might be waiting. No feeling like you’re always just slightly behind, slightly not doing enough, slightly needing to prove something to someone.

Just…space.

Space to think. Space to breathe. Space to actually notice things again.

Turns out, when you remove the constant pressure, the constant noise, and the constant expectation to be “on” all the time, something interesting happens.

You start to feel human again.

Now don’t get me wrong—there were good people. There were good moments. I learned a lot, and I don’t regret the skills or the experience.

But the lifestyle? The culture? The expectations?

No, I don’t miss that.

And maybe the biggest realization for me over the last three years is this:

Just because something is normal…

Doesn’t mean it’s healthy.And just because everyone else is doing it…

Doesn’t mean you have to.

For me, stepping away didn’t feel like losing something.

It felt like getting something back.

And I’m not in any rush to give that back again.

I hope if you're struggling, and your work environment contributes to those struggles, that reading this and knowing it's ok to take a break or walk away is ok, helps you in some way.

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