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Comment by simonswords82 | Hacker News Reader

> I do wonder whether people feel trapped.

Whether they feel trapped I'm not sure but a girl I used to date worked in the city and she was definitely trapped.

She worked for a large bank in the finance sector and felt she had to play keep up with her colleagues and more importantly her managers on the social scene. This meant that she would often go out to dinner/drinks a couple of times a week. Obviously you need to dress smartly to work in the city, so had a clothes bill too. Lunches, make up, hair dos, nails, yoga and so on. It all adds up

She was probably earning somewhere in the region of £50k, which isn't bad I guess, but used credit cards and loans to keep up appearances.

I felt that she was locked in, with no choice but to continue working in London to earn the money to pay the bills she couldn't afford.

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This is incredible representative of the London I know. 20-somethings earning huge salaries compared to other people of their age around the country, but with a much lower quality of life once you remove the 'social' (drinks/eating out) aspect.

I was holding down four jobs to "keep up" - the day job, freelance development, nightclub impresario, electronics refurbishment and resale.

It worked. I found myself rubbing shoulders with a-listers, throwing parties for royalty, launching gallery exhibitions, renting out the likes of Chinawhite, Boujis, roof gardens, raffles, blah blah.

Then I realised my head was disappearing up my own arse, that I was always exhausted, that I wasn't actually enjoying this, that I had a cocaine problem, and I hated these shallow, boring people who I was becoming one of.

Sometimes the only way to discover the true nature of something or yourself is to take it to its absolute extreme. You can muddle along in the middle forever, until you drown or just get bored of swimming.

London is perfectly fine on a 50k salary, provided you don't try to keep up with people who earn 3-4 times as much. It sounds to me that she was on an entry level or clerical/secretarial position (nothing wrong with that), but that's not what is usually associated with people who work in finance. The solution there is not necessarily to move out of London, but simply realize that in banks in London you are going to be surrounded by people earning >150k (and often much more) and there is no point in trying to keep up with them on a 50k budget.

£50k is a pretty awkward salary to live on in London.

It's enough to live quite comfortably in a house/flat share, or if you share a single bed apartment with a partner, but if you live independently (in a studio or single bed) you're still firmly in "mere existence" territory, unlikely to be able to add much to savings each month.

£50k after taxes (and student loan) is ~£2750/month.

If you're prepared to live South of the river (which contrary to popular belief isn't the end of the world) flat prices are in my area (SE4) around £800-1200/month which if you're sharing can still leave you over £1500/month disposable cash.

For a decent one bed flat anywhere in Zone 2/3 you're looking at £1500pcm. Let's be charitable and say that includes bills and council tax.

That leaves £1250pcm disposable. At least £100 will go on a Travelcard. If you're sensible, you'll be putting some money away in a pension as well. Let's say another £100 of net income.

That really doesn't leave much to lead a lifestyle commensurate with a young professional earning £50k. Yes, you can scrimp and save, but even then you're not going to be putting more than £500 away in savings each month.

At that rate, it would take you upwards of 10 years to save even a measly 10% deposit on a £600k property (which, at this rate, would get you an even worse one bed flat than the one you're renting).

Not sure what you can get for £800 a month, but I doubt it's a flat, even in Brighton it will cost you that much, plus the travel expense.

Plenty of flats in South London for that price:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/find.html?search...

Cheapest 1 bedroom I could find is 725/month.

Here's a 1 bedroom for 750/month ca. 10 minutes walk (or a choice of 3 buses) from East Croydon station, zone 5. The 50/month drop from 800 makes up for the majority of the increased cost over a zone 1 travel card:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-4164892...

That first property is an HMO. It looks like they've turned a small house into five 'studio flats', with a tiny communal kitchen.

The second, judging by the photos, is a small living room which has been converted into an 'open plan' studio. Doesn't even look like there's room for a double bed.

Both are in Croydon, so you get all the downsides of living in London, with virtually none of the upsides.

There are doubtless other catches to both properties, as decent properties never make it online.

Neither property is remotely commensurate with a young professional earning £50k.

The first one is not one property, but two pages of results with a wide range of different properties. I don't know which one you are getting first - the one I'm getting first does not match your description.

The second one is a one bedroom flat. The last picture is the bedroom, at the back of the house. I live down the road from that row of flats. They're not fantastic, but they're proper 1 bedroom flats of perfectly adequate quality.

> Both are in Croydon, so you get all the downsides of living in London, with virtually none of the upsides.

From that flat it'd take ~25 minutes to be at London Victoria. ~25-30 minutes to be at London Bridge. ~20 minutes to Clapham Junction. Having lived about as centrally as you can in London, yes, it takes you longer to get "to the centre". But if you are going somewhere specific, it's not at all given that you won't get there in the same amount of time.

> Neither property is remotely commensurate with a young professional earning £50k.

In London, they can choose between something like that, and have money to save and invest for the future, or they can spend all their money now, and screw themselves over. A "young professional" who can't deal with living like that for a few years does not have any sympathy from me - they are spoiled.

My ex works in HR in a major bank. You'll be surrounded by people earning >1.5m, who complain about how they're going to make their ends meet because their bonus this year was only 150k (my ex has had to deal with that exact complaint; said person was worried how he was going to afford the second nanny).

I absolutely agree with you, but I also regularly get to hear about the pressure people are under to keep up appearances, and I'm not surprised a lot of younger people feel they can't resist it.

It's made worse by the toothless UK working time restrictions (look forward to those being gutted even more with an EU exit) that are abuse relentlessly in law and finance and result in staff that basically don't have time to recognise how messed up their lives are and/or time to find a way out. The amount of misery my ex has dealt with both personally (she is now in HR because while it's still tough, it's a walk in the park compared to her previous job as finance lawyer at one of the magic circle firms), and in her current job (including people regularly having breakdowns in the office at rates I've personally never seen anywhere I've worked) makes me totally unsurprised at younger employees at these places having problems finding ways to cope.

> It's made worse by the toothless UK working time restrictions (look forward to those being gutted even more with an EU exit) that are abuse relentlessly in law and finance (...)

I assume you're referring to the EU Working Time Directive, which pretty much every major employer requires their staff to opt-out of when starting a new job?

It's a pointless EU law that just adds more paperwork to the recruitment process.

If the UK hadn't demanded the opt-out it wouldn't be pointless at all.

A restriction on working hours is only going to be useful if you have, or aim to create, an adversarial relationship with your employer.

People are, by and large, aware of what they are getting into when they start a new job, and working hours are a factor in most remuneration calculations.

If the working hours are simply too much for you, then you should find a different job.

I'd say that, if the employer doesn't cover a need with a full-time employee working a healthy amount of time, he/she should hire another employee, full or partial time.

Thus, unemployment is reduced, more money is put into the economy and the full automation apocalypse is delayed for a little bit. And if another employee can't be paid, then that business is not really viable and should close.

And for anyone expecting shorter working hours to lead to the apocalypse: They should consider that France, the canonical UK example of "too strict" working time restrictions, for the vast majority of the last 50 years or so have had a higher GDP per capita than the UK (their GDP per capita was lower for a few recent years, but then they overtook again).

If you actually believe this, count yourself lucky to be so privileged. Given all the shit I've heard from HR people over the years, it is a hopelessly naive viewpoint.

It is with very limited exceptions illegal to require your staff to opt out, even in the UK, and the same restrictions applies to taking punitive actions against staff that chooses to opt back in.

EDIT: For my part I've never worked for anyone asking for an opt-out, and I'd never sign an opt-out, and I would sue if I suspected an employer punished me for not signing an opt-out.

EDIT2: Here's the UK government advice on the opt-out [1]. Note: "Your employer can ask you to opt out, but you can’t be sacked or treated unfairly for refusing to do so. You can opt out for a certain period or indefinitely. It must be voluntary and in writing." Additionally there are exceptions for a very small set of types of workers [2].

[1] https://www.gov.uk/maximum-weekly-working-hours/weekly-maxim...

[2] https://www.gov.uk/maximum-weekly-working-hours/overview

Yes, that's the law, but as I mention in response to another comment, you only defer to the letter of the law if you have/want an adversarial relationship with an employer.

Most major employers include the waiver as part of their onboarding process, and if you refuse to sign, although legally they cannot do anything, in practice you're going to start off on the wrong foot with that employer.

Likewise, if you turn around to your manager and refuse to work more than 48 hours (having not signed a waiver), although legally they cannot punish you for that, it's hardly going to help your career.

If an employer is asking me to opt out, they have already started off on the wrong foot with me, in which case I'm very pleased to have legal protections.

There's a TV miniseries about that very subject called Wired.

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