Ive hit more then COAST FIRE but not FIRE yet. I love the labour/work I make, but I hate corporate. So working is a mixed bag. Lately Ive been doing interviews with companies that are considered prestigious and pay alot. But they are known to have bad WLB (eg; Amazon). I dont know if Ill join them, Im doing it for practice. More money is nice to hit FIRE earlier, but I dont know if its worth sacirficng my mental health. I've worked in stressful situations before, it was not fun.
Do you still chase lucrative but stressfull workplaces after hitting a certain milestone?
byu/badboyzpwns infinancialindependence
Posted by badboyzpwns
6 Comments
I wouldn’t give up work life balance if I didn’t have to, and don’t care one bit about “prestige”.
I would say that if your career and skills were forged in the fires of a dysfunctional workplace, it can be very jarring and feel even abnormal to work in an environment where:
1. coworkers respect timelines.
2. work-life balance is prioritized
3. no one has to be a “hero” to get a project over the finish line.
Early on in my career – I worked in a low paying environment where clients were abusive and the company put up with it. You get so used to sacrificing yourself on the altar for your team or the company or the client that an environment where people aren’t dysfunctional feels weird.
I think it’s fine to do this kind of “boot camp” for a short period of time to pick up skills in managing those kinds of personalities, but once you have a decent net worth – I don’t know why you would subject yourself to it other than to feed some sort of desire to be “needed.”
The reality is – no one is so irreplaceable that if they were to be hit by a bus, another person wouldn’t be able to swoop in, take their place, and the company move on. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that stress = productivity, value, or importance.
I’ve found my WLB to be basically the inverse of pay.
High paying being super stressful hasn’t worked like that in my experience.
But to answer your question? Yes because the savings are still ridiculously good.
No.
At some point, mental health was more important. I switched to looking for interesting work that would keep me engaged, at small companies with collaborative environments and reasonable WLB.
Lower overall compensation, more years of work, yes.
Can still be stressful because if you are the type that can work at the kind of companies you mention, you tend to be a high achiever. And that means a certain amount of that stress is internal pressure to perform, not external. Unless you can solve that… wherever you go, there you are.
Why would you do this if you didn’t have to, and didn’t like it? It sounds like you’re realizing the juice ain’t worth the squeeze.
It’s called ‘coast’ FIRE for a reason…
Although I have known folks that will simply work a high-demand, high-reward corporate role for long enough to establish a positive connotation with their name, then quiet-quit angling for a job elimination package and call that ‘coast’.