Living in London means professionally thriving and personally deteriorating.

20 comments

1. Artificial struggle is a good way to describe it. Fortunately we live in times where you can have London weighted salary but live elsewhere thanks to WFH. 

   Personally, I worked for a London based company but live elsewhere. I have to visit the office once every 6 weeks and can usually incorporate that into seeing friends in London or just enjoying the city. It’s a good balance. 

   London is amazing but to live alone comfortably I need a larger salary haha

2. Never felt anything like that. Maybe I am an outliner, or maybe people just need to learn to not have a stereotypical outlook?

3. Just leave London and go somewhere with a better work life balance smh

4. this was really well written and resonated deeply, especially the bit in the end about drifting aimlessly..

5. That was nice sarcastic take on Finance. But sadly, it is the truth. If you take the money aspect away – not many would go into high powered finance. There is more to life than moving money around and think you are the best thing thats ever happened.
   Anyway – once you are part of the system, it is hard to let go too.

6. I live in London but am fully remote so I guess I’m choosing to live in London even tho I don’t have to.

7. After living up north, lots of my friends would say similar things

   “You’re barely surviving down South with a great salary, or thriving up North with an average salary”

   I think my distaste for London is that up North you can get 3 cocktails for £9 😭😭

8. I agree with the personality gentrifying that happens in the city, but its also deterioration in the sense of never really making any progress towards typical life goals. I know it’s now not ‘in vogue’ to have kids, or to own your own home, or to get married, but if these are things you still care about (because your personality hasn’t yet been gentrified) then you probably need to choose one and massively delay the others.

   I have friends across northern cities (Manchester/Leeds mostly) who still work in interesting industries, if in a couple their combined incomes are between 70k – 100k, they’ve bought 3/4 bed semis in fairly trendy or rising areas, had cash to do renovations, live 10-15mins cycle from most of their friends or 20-30m to work, have had awesome weddings and are just starting to have kids. They are around 29-33ish, so normal ages for all these activities. They have interesting hobbies like rock climbing in the peaks or go swimming in waterfalls less than an hour from their homes at the weekend. The intensity of pret-ification is much less and Leeds thankfully doesn’t have a Gails, it has cool local equivalents.

   They make monthly or bi-monthly trips to see the occasional play, or get some fancy food and catch up with their friends in house shares. It’s 2hrs and quite a pleasant journey. The cost is offset by the lower cost of their everyday life.

   Life is just so much richer, more diverse and less FOMO elsewhere. I think it’s because those cities aren’t as driven by work, large corporates, and the endless struggle to make your millions needed to buy a home, so you can think life first and find contentment a bit easier?

   I’ll probably get downvotes for this though, just wanted to get it off my chest.

9. Bold of you to assume I’m professionally thriving

10. Enjoyed reading that thanks OP. I can relate although I moved to role that was toxic in a different way some time ago🤣

11. I agree. It’s why I left this year. Couldn’t handle it anymore. Granted I have less money being in my home city but I am much happier.

12. That’s why I moved out of London. After 6 years, life wasn’t improving.
    Trying to rethink on what life can be outside of the grind in the capital

13. Not for me. I rejected that life to be a full-time escort, which has given me the time, space, and money to truly find myself, my hobbies, and passions, make meaningful connections, and generally make London my playground/bitch.

14. When did a slideshow or powerpoint presentation become a ‘slide deck’? It’s the phrasing used in my work too but I didn’t get a memo notifying me of this change.

15. Been living and working in London for 10 years, and I’ve got to say, the culture, especially the work culture, feels very different here. Work often feels like a lot of talk, process, and corporate theatre, with less actual doing. I’m a creative, but even the so-called creative industries feel strangely corporate and boxed in.

    The whole city has this sense of restriction. From its urban design and early closing hours to the lack of neighborhood cafés, bars, and restaurants, everythings designed for logistics and efficiency, ends up feeling surprisingly conservative. There’s a real lack of social life within residential areas, everything is pushed to busy, chaotic high streets with no sense of calm. No chill cafés, no cozy neighborhood bars, just traffic, noise, and chains. It strips away any sense of local community or spontaneous connection.

    As someone from the Mediterranean, I’ve come to realize how much the absence of real bar and café culture drains the social fabric of a place. You feel it more than you’d expect.

    I’m hoping to leave this year. After a decade, my honest assessment is this: London charges you like a world-class city but treats you like you’re living in a small town.

16. I’m so tired and burned out I’ve thought about kms

17. Extremely cringe. If you’re bored of being a consultant, do something else. Get some perspective.

18. Working in D&I in corporate London, did I write this in a fugue state?

19. And if you are south asian, your parents expect you to get married in your mid 20s and have kids a year later

20. What gets me is the email group aliases.

    > Email 1: Hi Can you resend invoice xyz

    > Email 2: Here you go

    > Email 3: Thanks

    …number of people in the group aliases CC’d in….300+. Number of people that actually need to be on the mail…1

    People…please engage brain before clicking send

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