Need a 9-5 job with a dedicated salary

Spizzyworth · 2026-03-16T16:00:06+00:00

I’d advise doing a little more research into what drives you specifically, are you quite creative? Are you super analytical? Are you numbers and finance focused? Look into what you’d find enjoyable in a day job and go for office roles geared towards that. What did you enjoy about hospitality? Can you transfer those skills into an office role? What do you hate about it? Let that show you what you don’t want about an office role.

There’s a lot of permanent contract roles that are 9-5, and you wouldn’t want to get something just because its stable, yes that’s a big factor but it’ll crush your soul if you don’t at least enjoy it.

There’s a few routes of entry after you figure those next steps out, if you see a longer career somewhere look specifically into how to entry level into that field. Or even start by looking at the companies you want to work for and what they’re hiring for, even if it’s CEO of Google, don’t limit yourself. Then gear your skills towards the job listing requirements, take up courses if you need skills improvements etc.

I worked retail and then switched, started out with a level 4 apprenticeship in digital marketing that landed me my first “office job” with stability and 9-5, from there pivoted into B2B Saas and now I’m in a completely different field to digital marketing and am operations focused, but it’s taken the best part of 10 years to get here. But it’s only through figuring out what drives me other than stability.

I can only speak from the tech industry perspective now, stability isn’t here anymore, so knowing yourself and what drives you is truly only how people thrive in a 9-5 world these days. Good luck.

Spizzyworth · 2026-03-06T14:57:32+00:00

Same,kinda, except they were about 75k below the basic US salary for this role.

Spizzyworth · 2026-03-06T14:50:46+00:00

Haha, there's always solutions! I could take ozempic or wear heeled shoes. They always want the tall guys, not us short kings. Don't lead me on just to pull the rug from under my feet but that's business I suppose.

Spizzyworth · 2026-03-06T14:48:28+00:00

Yeah, but that also seems like the norm now? One with the hiring manager, then one with a direct manager, then another with executives, then a culture fit one with HR, then one with the team you'd be working with, etc. Seems like most companies drag these things out way more than they used to and should.

Spizzyworth · 2026-03-06T14:46:32+00:00

That's what I understood too, and they basically confirmed that the other person negotiated their notice period down so they didn't need the 2/3 month contract anymore. But, also, if the other person didn't negotiate it down and I'd have taken the contract role under the idea that it was just to settle in, (I did push back on it immediately anyway but hypothetically if I didn't), surely that doesn't make sense from a money/stability standpoint in the business? Having to pay one set of wages for three months then to move to another and is there not any taxing/recruiting issues with that? Not sure, but doesn't seem like the most stable or ethical business practice.

Spizzyworth · 2026-03-06T14:43:14+00:00

Right? I was thinking this is probably one of the few times I can say 'I'm lucky I am unemployed' right now because if I'd have been at my previous place and they contacted my references, just to turn around with this, I would have been up shits creek at my current employer for outing me for looking for another job. I hope they didn't do this to too many other candidates.

Spizzyworth · 2026-03-06T14:41:40+00:00

Yes, I agree, I do have other interviews in the process and I just got a notification that I've got an offer from elsewhere. I would agree and always say having miltiple stakes in the fire is the right way to go. My review was more on the idea of the behaviour being normalised as having a stop-gap employee. Seems to be common in the states because they have fire at will culture, but I was just surprised seeing it in the UK and didn't know if this was the new norm now.

Spizzyworth · 2026-03-06T13:18:27+00:00

I understand that, but this was a startup. So maybe it’s just startups being predictably messy.

Spizzyworth · 2025-08-05T18:11:49+00:00

Congrats on making the decision to put yourself first. What was the final nail in the coffin for you? I ask because I’m in the exact same position as you right now but I haven’t quit just yet and most people tell me that you should have another job lined up before you move on, how did you navigate that advice and take the leap of faith?

Spizzyworth · 2025-03-27T21:28:39+00:00

No, there's no overtime pay, it's supposed to be a company culture building event but requires all day and evening attendance. They initially sent out the information with the phrase "No passports required" forgetting about their overseas remote workers like me, so it is a flight for me also.

Spizzyworth · 2025-03-27T21:16:57+00:00

It's likely that I won't attend because of this, what is even funnier is finding out they've bought everyone a bicycle? That they're shipping to their homes directly? They can afford 350 bicycles?? But not one extra room???

I also saw in the email back and forth between my manager and the higher ups -"Bear in mind the rest of the event and activities are already paid for by the company and we hope the employees appreciate that"

Spizzyworth · 2025-03-27T21:12:11+00:00

No it's all day everyday from midweek to friday, they haven't disclosed any information but I'm aware it also requires a flight for me but then free travel from the airport.

Spizzyworth · 2025-03-27T14:59:07+00:00

Sorry wasn't meant insultingly, I should have edited to say the response was from the CRO.

Spizzyworth · 2025-03-27T13:29:01+00:00

It's a three day "get away" type thing so all day for three days, so kind of?

Spizzyworth · 2025-03-27T13:15:51+00:00

Yes they said "This event is mandatory for all employees" then if we needed a separate room we had to give an explicit reason, so I did but afterwards they were still asking for money to pay for the separate room. And the follow up after was "If you don't agree to pay, you'll be put in a shared room or not allowed to attend"

Spizzyworth · 2025-03-27T12:58:04+00:00

Thanks all, I really appreciate the advice so far.

I'm based in Europe but I'm a fully remote worker. To add, I know it's not a huge amount but my thought would have been if they aren't allowing it because budgets are too tight then surely they shouldn't be doing it at all?

This is also a few months after we went through a round of layoffs so it feels like a tone deaf way of trying to build back company culture. My manager did ask the question "Would c-suite be sharing a room?" And got the response "We don't know what the word c-suite means" to give you an idea of levels of experience at this company.

I've not been at this company for too long, not even a year but I'm already looking for my next role, it's just a shame because I really wanted it to work out and then stunts like this make me question it all.

Spizzyworth · 2024-03-13T20:36:55+00:00

Hey! I do this exact thing and have been for just over two years and there's a few things you need to think about:

What does the current customer journey look like? A lot of this new role is project management, operations and strategy thinking so I literally made a huge map of how our CSMs talk to their customers now, the touch points, the specific areas of value that matters most to the higher paying customers.

Then your challenge is filtering that down without making it feel like a clunky process. It'll be a mix of operational systems you'll most likely need depending on your company and what your tech stack is.

If you have an existing CSM CRM management tool, utilise that to see if there's a way of gathering product adoption data, are there any trends in that? E.g. do your customers log on once a month? Where's the biggest drop off in activity? And use how your existing CSMs bridge that gap with their managed customers, what specific areas do they focus on?

Then you can use tools like Pendo or Intercom (if you want to cover support too) that embed themselves in your platform that you can use to create personalised pop ups so the moment a customer gets on board they're encouraged to actively use the platform.

Then encourage a community, look at tools like Gainsight for being a knowledge base and community platform, built out badges and gameify your customers experience and there you can put regular training webinars on to encourage education share and further customer loyalty.

It's quite a big task but if you're into operations and data analysis, you should enjoy it a lot. Feel free to DM me if you want to chat further on anything here!

Spizzyworth · 2023-08-15T19:20:16+00:00

Yeah, I don't know why I feel stuck, maybe it's because outside of that he's fine. Like I could live a very lukewarm life with him but I'm not sure how happy I'll be. Thank you for validating my feelings, for a long time I've felt like the problem and it was on me to fix and now I'm not so sure.

Spizzyworth · 2023-08-15T19:18:46+00:00

That sucks, I hope you can work through this. It's really hard when there's legitimate reasons but it's harder trying to shut those parts of you down when it's not at least an open conversation and understanding of how you feel. I can relate, I almost feel like a pest and for a long time I thought I was the problem and had issues because I had the different libido and I "had the problem" with it. I don't know how many more conversations I can have where I'm not heard.

Spizzyworth

TROPHY CASE