Life in the slow lane: Disillusioned with stressful jobs, a whole generation of women are opting out of the rat race



Last summer, my friend Vanessa handed in her notice at work. She did not have another job to go to, and unlike thousands of people around the country, she wasn't made redundant.

In fact, the online marketing company she worked for was thriving. And that was the problem. She was too busy and, at the grand old age of 34, she decided she could no longer be bothered to be busy.

It wasn't that she had children to think about or a long- suppressed dream of working in the rainforests; she just woke up one day and found her drive had stalled. She had got to the place she'd always wanted to be and realised that. . . well, she didn't want to be there. She was over it.

Opting out: Women's high-flying ambitions are changing as they realise job success doesn't necessarily lead to happiness



'It was the middle of a recession, and I was being offered a pay rise and promotion,' says Vanessa. 'I should have been happy, but I just felt dread. All I could see was more of the same - 12-hour days, lost weekends - and the thought literally made me sick.

'A year or two before it would have been unimaginable to feel this way. Work was everything - and always had been. It was my identity. I thrived on the stress, the challenges and, yes, the status.

'But then, suddenly, it meant nothing. I started wondering if I could make ends meet by dog walking. And I don't even like dogs. For the first time ever, I wanted an easy life more than a successful one.'

Vanessa is not alone. I can think of five close friends who have either quit their jobs or gone part-time in the past two years - and only one of them has children.

For years, the only reason women would take a step back from their career was to raise a family, but my friends are getting off the treadmill before then.

A new book called 30-Something And Over It - What Happens When You Wake Up One Morning And Don't Want To Go To Work. . . Ever Again sums up the mood.

Its author, Kasey Edwards, was a high-flying management consultant earning a huge salary and living in a penthouse apartment with her successful boyfriend - until one day she realised her life had lost its 'zing'.

Cutting back: For many women, it's time to find a new path, a way of putting work back in its rightful place - just one part of a multi-faceted life

'Have you ever woken up and realised that you didn't want to go to work?' she asks.

'I don't mean you had a big night and you'd prefer to sleep in, or it's a nice day and you'd rather take your dog to the park instead. I'm talking about being over it.



'Completely and utterly over it. Sure, you might have a gold card, but you've maxed it out buying things you can't afford and that you don't even need, trying to fill a void that just can't be filled. You numb your discontentment every night with gin and tonics.'

When I read this out to friends, the answer to each question was a resounding: 'Yes!' And it seems that Edwards's friends were the same. The more she talked to them, the more she realised that a huge proportion of women in their 30s were going through the same thing. So she set about talking to experts and peers about what was going on.



In the book she quotes some interesting statistics. Apparently, 26 per cent of women at the cusp of the most senior levels of management don't want the promotion. One in 15 under-35s have already dropped out of paid work to pursue ' self-improvement', while half plan to do so in the future.

She speaks to several psychotherapists who are seeing as many people in the midst of thirtysomething burnout as they do those with mid-life crises.

Sick day In the UK, more than 13m working days are lost a year because of stress, according the the UK Health and Safety Executive

She explains: 'All through your teens and 20s you're working towards something, and there's this sense of delayed gratification: "I'll work hard now and I'll get into university and I'll work at uni and I'll get a job and I'll work at this job and get a better job." And you get to your 30s and you go: "Where's the pay-off?" The gratification that you've been expecting for years doesn't come, or when the reward comes, it's not satisfying. I really did think: "Is this all there is?"

'I was living the dream. The word "senior" was emblazoned on my business card, my passport was full of stamps and I had a designer wardrobe and matching appliances. All this was supposed to make me happy, but I'd lost my passion, purpose and sense of meaning.'

My friend Vanessa says she felt the same. 'I kept thinking things would get better if I just got to the next level, but they never did,' she says. 'I looked at my boss and didn't want his job. I sat in meetings and thought: "I don't care any more." I was stressed, single and not sleeping. And even though I was earning good money, I was broke because I was blowing it all on things to cheer myself up. It got to the stage where none of it made sense.'

And far from fuelling our ambition, it seems that the current economic crisis is only compounding our sense that status, success and money are a fool's gold.



Every week we hear stories of former high-fliers who find the happiness working in their local coffee shop - or volunteering with the RSPCA - that they never found in their private banks or property jobs. Who needs to work 15-hour days for a job that could be gone in a second? And did success even make us happy?

Vanessa now spends her days painting and doing some freelance marketing work. Despite having a masters degree and ten years of corporate experience, she reckons she's bringing in a £15,000 salary - about the size of her expense account at her old job.

Rat race: 26 per cent of women at the cusp of the most senior levels don't want a promotion



In the run-up to Christmas she even helped out in a friend's restaurant to get some cash. She admits it's quite a step down for a girl who was one of the youngest directors in her last company.

'Some nights I worried that someone from my old job would come in and see me waiting tables,' she says, 'But then I had to remind myself that I'm happier now than I ever was.

'In the past few months, I've spent time with my grandmother, who isn't going to be around for ever, I'm there for friends who need me and I'm just so relaxed. Some days, the biggest thing I do is go for a walk - and I love it.'

You only have to look at the movies to realise that women's ambitions have changed. As young girls in the Eighties, we watched Working Girl, where Melanie Griffith climbs the corporate ladder using her brains and breathy voice to get - oh, joy of all joys - the corner office. And Harrison Ford.

Now we have The Devil Wears Prada and The September Issue - both morality tales against success. The heroine of The Devil Wears Prada is aspiring writer Andrea, who realises that success on the staff of a hugely successful but stunningly shallow and backstabbing fashion magazine isn't making her a nice person, so she ditches glossy mags for a worthy life wearing corduroy on a local paper.

In the September Issue - the brilliant documentary about American Vogue - we all wanted to be Grace Coddington, the rebellious, couldn't careless character rather than the ice queen that was editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. The message is clear: being a boss means being a bitch.

Another friend, Sara, who left her advertising job in which she managed a team of six people last October, makes a brave admission. 'Looking back, I don't think I was ever really ambitious; I just got carried along with the social pressure of being seen to do well,' she says. 'I never really wanted to be anyone's boss or be a director, but everyone else seemed so into their careers that I faked it.'

Unable to find another job she particularly wanted to do, Sara decided to become a PA in the City, for a stress-free, nine-to-five life. She now spends her days booking meetings and collecting clothes from the dry-cleaners.

'It's not challenging,' she admits. 'But who cares? I got fed up of being stressed and rushed. Now my time is my own. I can make plans and not have to cancel them. I have hobbies - I cook, I mess around in the garden - they're just little things that I would have scoffed at before, but I have a life.'

So has female ambition died? Has all the work of our mother's generation, who fought for a woman's right to have keys to the boardroom, gone to waste? Are we traitors to the sisterhood?

Well, yes and no. Of course, there will always be women who thrive on responsibility and success, who want to use their intelligence and education to become CEOs, politicians, barristers. But for many of us, it's time to find a new path, a way of putting work back in its rightful place - just one part of a multi-faceted life.

As Kasey Edwards, who now works a three-day week, says: 'I had a dysfunctional relationship with work. It was like I had a bad boyfriend, because I kept giving so much of myself to it and I was expecting things back that it could never give me.

'But despite the hours and days I wasted fantasising about winning the lottery and my freedom, I am now convinced that work is essential for our wellbeing and happiness. It's how you view it that matters.

'I learned to lower my expectations of what work will provide and found other things to give me meaning and fulfilment. I discovered that a job will never meet your relationship needs, and no matter how much you love it, it will never love you back.'

30-Something And Over It, by Kasey Edwards (Mainstream, £6.99).



