My workplace fed my loneliness, so I quit.

What if your career and the security it provides was a source of your sense of disconnection? Here’s my story of how I quit a career I once loved because it fed my loneliness.

Let's talk about how workplaces can feed loneliness

Hello, you wonderful human.    

Making changes in midlife is terrifying. It feels like every change you want to make – no matter how small – has consequences for others.

I hear you. I’m familiar with the anguish that comes from knowing that things need to change for your own wellbeing but not wanting the changes to affect those around you who depend on you.

I want to share some of my story with you. It’s the story of how I quit my job and the career I once loved, because I realised that it fed my loneliness.

The article gives you an outline for some context that may resonate with you and support you now. I don’t want to write an article that takes 20 minutes of your time and bores you with ALL the details.

I’m omitting many details to protect those who still work in my former workplace. The details don’t really matter anyway. What matters is that my experience lets you know that you’re not alone in the anguish of knowing you need to make changes in midlife, but being afraid of the consequences of those changes.

But as you figure out how to make the changes with as few negative consequences as possible, your thoughts and feelings of loneliness and social disconnection deepen.   

I loved my career

I worked with the one employer within the Australian Public Service for 23 years.

I started as a fresh university graduate, barely two weeks after my 22nd birthday. I was thrilled that I was in a place where my skills and academic knowledge would be put to good use.

The work was diverse, interesting and critically for me, I felt that I was making a positive contribution to Australia and what it meant to be Australian.

I worked with some amazing people. They set high expectations of me but were also kind, compassionate, and human.

While always based in Canberra, the work gave me and my family opportunities to live and work overseas for years at a time. Over my career, we lived in Caracas, Darwin, Ho Chi Minh City, Seoul and Wellington. We’ve travelled and explored parts of the world we’d never have been able to experience had we remained in Canberra.

Of course, not every day was a day at Disneyland. There were many, many tough days.

There were long hours trying to deliver work within impossible deadlines. There were weeks – months – where the demands upon my time and amount of work was relentless to the point of obscenity. But those days were tempered by the understanding that I was supported by friends, my team and my bosses.

I was prepared to stay with that employer for my career. I was being told that I was future senior leadership material. They were investing in me, and I had invested in it.

It all changed

The Australian Government decided to change the focus of our portfolio and brought in a new leadership team.

All-staff emails from the new regime said that everyone’s role was important, but the behaviours screamed ‘your work is not important at all’. I quickly learned to not pay attention to what was being written but to what was being done.

My workplace felt like it had been moved into a washing machine. There was constant churn. Previous senior leaders were forced out of their roles: some moved on voluntarily, others were bullied and harassed until they broke. New people would start in the vacant roles, bring in some new ideas but were gone within a year. Their ideas for change were added to the growing pile of other half-implemented management and leadership ideas.

Budgets were being cut to the point of insanity. Quick anecdote: In July 2016, somewhere in Canberra cut my operating budget to run my offices by 90 per cent. I’d already blown the annual budget by the time the news was relayed to me. It was farcical. [If you’re an Australian reader of these words, I’ll simply say Utopia is a documentary, not a comedy.]  

It was a mess. Everything felt like a battle. It was being made clear that the work I was doing was not important.

What’s my purpose without work?

Phil during his career

I was in my late 30s by this stage and my job had us living in Seoul. I was entering midlife. I’d been with my employer for over 15 years. It was around this time that I realised that I was experiencing loneliness.

The sense of purpose that my work had previously given me had gone. An emptiness remained.

Part of my internal dialogue were questions about if what I do is not important, am I not important?

I started a coaching program and through it, became more connected to my authentic self and my life gained a balanced perspective, where I could focus on who and what was important to me. 

I learned to observe this insanity without having too much of myself invested in it. Besides, I was getting out: my wife learned that she would be posted to Wellington, so I wouldn’t need to return to Canberra until things had returned to normal.

Welcome to the Hunger Games 

Things did not return to normal over the next four years. Normal had devolved into something darker.

I returned to my employer in February 2021 after finally being able to return to Australia (thanks COVID). I’ll admit that I was not in the best headspace. I was navigating setting up our house in Canberra, my divorce, not being able to see our kids because of closed borders, processing the trauma of having been homeless AND I was disappointed that the loneliness work I’d started in Wellington in 2018 was not generating any income. I wanted to work on what I was passionate about (human connection), but I found myself in the Hunger Games arena.

I felt like I was the frog who’d been placed into a pot of boiling water and the pot was full of other frogs who’d been there as the temperature increased.

Scarcity reigned

I was placed in charge of a team in an area with high profile – and vocal – stakeholders frequently commenting on our work in the media.

We did not have the resources we needed to do our job well. We were perpetually short staffed and short of funding. This meant that we could not keep up with the demands upon us and we were always in crisis mode.

I was not so much a leader, but a harried fire chief putting out fires with old, leaky hoses and a crowd of onlookers telling me how ineffective I was.

I would spend most of my days in meetings. Almost all the meetings seemed to end with more work for us.

Senior leadership continued to come and go. It didn’t matter, because the senior leadership team was largely invisible. We’d learn of changes in our work through the media and weird all-staff messages. Directions were unclear and took on the qualities of urban myths with competing areas all saying that they’d been given responsibility to manage a project.

We worked in an open plan office, which had all the ambiance and warmth of an aircraft hangar in Siberia lit by buzzing fluorescent lights. Desks stretched in all directions.

No plants were allowed (they’d damage the carpet) and there were no acoustic measures to quieten sound. Conversations held at a normal volume four bays away could be heard clearly. The contents of private, sensitive meetings and phone calls could be heard. Indeed, other people’s typing could be heard clearly. Noise-cancelling headphones were the must-have accessory.

Image: canva.com

Are your eyes twitching as you relate?

There was always a fight for resources. Powerplays happened across the agency to get attention, resources and credit. Blame and bullying were the only abundant commodities.

People did their best to support others and do the work. Indeed, heroic measures were evident everywhere, with people starting early and working late to get it done.

Efficiency – at what cost?  

This environment of scarcity was the consequence of decisions taken deliberately. Getting the same amount of work from fewer people at lower cost looked efficient. It fit into a management (and political) ideology.

But the price for this efficiency was high. My employer consistently ranked as the worst place to work in the Australian Public Service (after being awarded the third best place to work in Australia in 2014).

When staff survey results were shared, hands were wrung, meetings held, and more surveys were conducted. Posters were put up. More all-staff emails were sent. More encouragement to take care of ourselves. New teams created (but not fully resourced…).And yet, nothing changed.   

Old patterns emerged within me

I lived in constant fear that I’d forgotten something important, so I responded by trying to focus on everything.

I saw – and admired – the heroic efforts my friends and colleagues were doing around me to get the work done. I tried to do the same.

I got in early for the 8am meetings. I worked through lunch. I stayed late to attend the 6pm meetings and then did the work that had piled up through the day.

It was still not enough. There was always more.

I’d started the vicious cycle that would lead to burnout. I’d sleep for 5 hours so I’d wake up at 5am, go to the gym, come back home to get the kids ready for school, get ready for work, go to work, work, have meetings all morning, maybe get a few moments to walk/sprint around the block at lunchtime, meetings all afternoon, try to lead and support my team, catch up on all the emails that piled up through the day and then get home for dinner around 8pm. I’d then stare at a screen in a Zombie-like trance for a few hours before going to bed. Oh, then I’d dream about being at work.

I was like a person who’s close to drowning: silently climbing a non-existent ladder desperately trying to keep my head above water.

Work cared. My boss, team and friends would rally around me, and I around them when they needed it. Advice and support sounded like: focus on what you can control; take time for yourself; and the one full of false hope: things will improve when… 

But work didn’t care at all. It just needed the work to get done quickly and a minimal amount of fuss. Efficiently.

I hung on, because me not doing my job would affect others. My team would suffer. My family would suffer because our finances would suffer.

I hung on, because I was afraid to let go.

The realisation

One night – after a particularly tough day – I texted Jeff and our then 13-year-olds to say that I was leaving soon, but that they should eat dinner without me.

The kids explained to Jeff that the text really meant that I was not ‘leaving soon’ but I’d be working for another hour. They explained that when they were younger, I would send the same messages home when I was married to their mum and then get home after they’d gone to bed.

They hadn’t said that to me before.

I had the awful realisation that my work had been affecting them all their lives. Missed birthdays because of some crisis. The weekends when I was physically present but mentally distracted or mentally trying to recover and prepare for the week ahead. They’d paid a price.

I realised that all the work I had done to reconnect with myself over the previous years was coming apart within a few months.

I was paying a price. I was stressed, quickly burning out and in a cycle that fed my loneliness.

I felt like I was unravelling.  

Once more, with feeling

I tried to wrestle back some kind of control and find a more sensible balance. I changed roles. I communicated my boundaries.

I started walking to and from work. I loved this time. It was a great transition time in my day.  

But as the months progressed, maintaining my carefully communicated boundaries was exhausting. They were constantly under assault. There were always urgent meetings scheduled over lunchtime, which I’d been using to recentre myself during the day. Everything became a crisis, even when it didn’t need to be. Because of the scarcity of time and resources, nothing was done until the deadline loomed (or passed).

The end

As I was walking into the office one morning, I noticed that my mood had changed in the 30-minute walk.

My mood went from positive and sunny leaving home to having those cartoonish dark clouds looming over my head as I walked into the foyer. I was steeling myself for another day of back-to-back meetings. I was preparing for battle and more heroic efforts.

I noticed how cynical I’d become. I noticed how frequently I was shivering and tense. I noticed how I was afraid I’d done something wrong whenever my phone rang and received an email. Everything was a threat.  On the walk home that evening, I noticed that my mood brightened with each step away from the office. Those dark storm clouds that had clouded my thoughts dissolved.  

I needed to be honest with myself. Seeing everyone as a threat and preparing to do battle are some of my symptoms of loneliness and social disconnection. I was deep in a loneliness experience. I needed to get out. 

But I was conflicted.

I’d loved the work and the purpose it served, but that work and the purpose it served was not valued as it once had been.

I was terrified that not working there would leave us destitute, unable to pay our bills.

I realised that I’d been operating in hope. I hoped that something would save the day and make it a great place to work. Hope that the often-needless manic nature of the work would change.

While I worked with a lot of great people – some of whom I’d known for over 20 years – work was not going to change. The environment was not going to change.

Those heroic efforts that plugged the gaps in time and resources in the name of efficiency were always going to be needed. Heroic efforts are great when done sparingly, not daily.

I couldn’t do them anymore. I wouldn’t do them anymore.

We did the sums and saw that, while it could be a stretch, we could make it work. I reminded myself that I was worthy of giving myself and those most important to me something better.

Working there was a choice. I chose to not work there anymore. I chose me and my family.

After 23 years, I quit.

The consequences

It would be unfair of me to leave it there and not share with you how things are now, almost three years later.

In short, I’m me. I’m calmer and there’s an ease to life. The people most important to me get me, not the shell of me that was left over from a day at the office. The community – including you, dear reader – get me as I now have capacity to show up in service through what we’re creating here at HUMANS:CONNECTING.  

I don’t regret quitting and leaving the insanity behind. I do miss the social connection being in a workplace gave me. I miss the financial security that the job brought.  

I’m grateful for the life my career gave me and my family, but I needed to let both the work and me change and evolve. I’m now so very grateful that I can do this work and be here.

This feels right.

Let’s end your loneliness

Image: canva.com

I have a question for you to ponder: does your work – and your workplace – feed your loneliness or social disconnection?

Let’s flip the question: does your work – and your workplace – feed your sense of connection and feeding your purpose?

These are different questions, aren’t they?

On balance, does your work challenge and uplift you? Does it deplete and drain you?

If your workplace is NOT feeding your sense of connection and purpose, it’s feeding your loneliness and social disconnection. Sit with that for a moment.

Your commitments in life may mean that you’re unable to quit like I could. But you have options. You can review the role your job, where you do it and your career more broadly has in your life. You can decide if where you spend your time is in alignment with who you are and who you want to be.

Let’s not kid ourselves. If you’re in midlife, it can feel like any changes you make in life affect everyone and everything around you. Following your bliss isn’t an option when people rely on you. But what’s it all for if the people around you – those you love – are getting the shell of you?

You’re worthy of living – and making a living – in ways that align with who you are. What small changes could you make to help bring you more into alignment and purpose? Who do you need in your life to help you make these changes?   

That’s it for this article

Thank you for taking some time to read these words. We provide them to serve, support, challenge and inspire you as you become a more connected human.

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Until next time, be awesomely you.

~ Phil  

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Important:

All views expressed above are the author’s and are intended to inform, support, challenge and inspire you to consider the issue of loneliness and increase awareness of the need for authentic connection with your self, with those most important to you and your communities as an antidote to loneliness. Unless otherwise declared, the author is not a licensed mental health professional and these words are not intended to be crisis support. If you’re in crisis, this page has some links for immediate support for where you may be in the world.

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