# Workplace Surgery: I hate working — is that bad?

- **Episode:** [190](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/190.md) (2025-04-22)
- **Type:** workplace-surgery
- **Tags:** career-satisfaction, motivation, work-attitude, mental-health
- **Time:** 42:03–49:26 (start 2523s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/190?t=2523](https://truthliesandwork.com/190?t=2523)

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[42:03] Leanne Elliott: How well do you know this person?
[42:05] Al Elliott: Yeah, maybe they're a little bit of a What do they, what do the kids call them now? Snakes
[42:08] Leanne Elliott: Yeah
[42:09] Al Elliott: Your friend's a snake. There you go. That's, that's the headline right there. No, I'm sure it's, I'm sure they're not. I'm sure they're lovely, but maybe they're not. Okay. Question number 2. I don't hate my job. I hate the whole job thing. So I think we've all been there. For years, I thought I just hadn't found the right company or the right role, but now I'm not so sure. What really gets to me is the idea of spending most of my time, week in, week out, doing something I just don't care about just to survive. I look ahead and think, is this it? 40, maybe 50 years of planning my life around work, squeezing in the things I actually want to do around someone else's schedule. Is this it? Is this what I need to do? I don't want to live for weekends. I don't want my best energy to go to a job I don't love. But I also don't want to throw away a stable career path. Maybe this is just me being idealistic. So tell me straight, am I being an entitled Gen Z person who— that everyone always talks about? Or is there a better way to work that doesn't mean sacrificing your whole life for a payslip? I like this question. I think this person is destined for good things because they're questioning, and that's what you want out of an employee or a business owner or possibly leader. Anyway, Lee, what are your thoughts?
[43:29] Leanne Elliott: I remember waking up in my early 20s when I was a couple of years into work and thinking, is this it? Really? Same. I couldn't imagine being that bound to a workplace for, you know, 45 hours a week. I couldn't imagine only having 20 holidays a year, which is going to sound very privileged to our American listeners who only have 10
[43:53] Al Elliott: Rub it in
[43:54] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, sorry about that
[43:55] Al Elliott: Us lazy Europeans. Yeah
[43:57] Leanne Elliott: Um, I, no, you're not, you're not unreasonable to question this. You're, you're not unreasonable to, to hope and think there's another way. And there absolutely is another way. There's a few things I think you can do to kind of transition this. And I'll kind of start from like least disruptive to most disruptive. The first one is, have you really thought about the work you want to do? And I bring up this example all the time, but the VITALS model. What are your values? What are your interests? What's your temperament? What time of day do you prefer to work? How would you like to structure your day? What are your life goals? What are your strengths? Really understanding yourself and what motivates you and interests you is going to help you identify both the role that you want to do and the organisation you want to do it in. If you have done that and it's still not clicking, then There absolutely is other options. The trouble is there's not many other options that come with a stable career path. This, this is the slight problem that we have. Unless you can find a potentially remote company that doesn't care where you work and you can travel as you work, which we did very happily for 7 years, um, then that could work. But that is a needle in a haystack in these times
[45:16] Al Elliott: Yeah
[45:17] Leanne Elliott: You can start your own business. You can go freelance. You can be self-employed. You can have absolute control over your work, your time, where you work, how you work, who you work for. And that will no doubt give you the freedom you're looking for, the flexibility you're looking for, the purpose and meaning that you're looking for. Does that provide a stable career plan? No, it does not. It's like that, you know, what was it, Al, that, is it based on kind of famous?
[45:45] Al Elliott: Yeah
[45:46] Leanne Elliott: Is it a parable, like a story? No, the dog. Oh, so one dog
[45:50] Al Elliott: Yeah, so I think it's an Aesop fable, or Aesop. I've only ever seen it written down. Don't know how you say it, but Aesop fable. There's 2 dogs and they're talking as they do in these, in Aesop's fables. And one of them was saying, isn't it amazing because you can just roam the streets and you can do whatever you want. You could, you wake up in the morning and you're like, oh, I'm gonna just do whatever I want today. And the, and the dog that was be— that was free, not behind the gate, was saying, Yes, but I don't know where my next meal's coming from. It's amazing. You've got an amazing life because you can just, you just every night, every night you get a huge big bone and you get loads of meat. Your life's better. And the whole point of the whole thing was, which by the way, sorry, Aesop, if you're listening and you're, you haven't, you didn't, you didn't die 400 years ago, um, then I've made a right hash of that. But essentially what it's saying is that both of them admired each other's life, but they both had sacrifices. Both had problems in their life. Did that help in any way at all, listener and Leanne?
[46:40] Leanne Elliott: Kind of. I think the point is like one dog's wearing a collar, one dog And one has, yeah, you get the gist of it. I think the point is, it's not a question of the grass, is the grass greener on the other side? It's just a different shade of green
[46:53] Al Elliott: Yeah
[46:54] Leanne Elliott: You know? So, I think it's at this point deciding, and if you're, it sounds like you said you're a Gen Z, go take risks, go be crazy. You've got so much runway in your career, you can afford to mess it up a bit and then go, actually, do you know what? A steady career path in an incoming salary every month is worth it. You've just got to figure out what it is. And it's, you know, people often say to us, oh, you're so lucky, or I wish I could do what you did. And it's like, I'm not, and you can. But the fact is, I'm not as far ahead in my career as a lot of my other peers
[47:30] Al Elliott: Mm-hmm
[47:31] Leanne Elliott: I don't think I'm getting paid as much as a lot of my other peers. I get a lot more autonomy over holidays and where I spend my time. Um, you know, I get to do the work that I love in a way that I want to do it. I get to work with people who inspire me and not work for an absolute knob. There's lots of great things that come with being freelance or self-employed, but there's a lot of, there's a lot of risk. There's a lot of sacrifice. There's a lot of nervousness. There's a lot of financial uncertainty. It's, it's which one is, is gonna Which is a compromise you're willing to, um, you know, to take. It's, it's up to you, but you're at a point of time in your, in your life and in your career where you've got the time to figure it out. So I would go, if you're thinking, is this it? Go out there and see if it is
[48:18] Al Elliott: Yeah, 100%. You got, you Gen Zs love a side hustle. So, uh, start something else. Just my only tip would be don't start something that's your passion. So if you love making cake, baking cakes, Don't start a business around that because then you're gonna have to bake cakes all day long, even when you don't want to, and you'll end up hating it. But I feel like this must be like, there's a triangle saying, uh, good, saying good, fast, or cheap. Choose any 2 if you like, when you're working with consultants or suppliers or whatever. And I feel like we've got the makings of one here, which is sort of like, um, certainty, freedom, and, um, meaning perhaps. And you can really only choose 2 of those because you can't have A, well, some, some people manage it, but most people have a job. If you have, if you have certainty, you also then have to accept that you've got responsibility and you've got a boss. You go and work for yourself. Oh my God, it's amazing. But as Al from 2006 will tell you, when he went bankrupt for £103,000, it ain't always that good
[49:15] Leanne Elliott: But good luck to you. Um, and yeah, I would say definitely take some time to understand exactly what it is that that you think you want or what's important to you, and then, and then go play. You've got time