Everyone's trying to leave the corporate rat race. I can't wait to go back

It was 3 am and I was engrossed in my middle-of-the-night routine of scrolling on LinkedIn. Reading and liking people’s updates about attending seminars, launching new products, executing successful PR campaigns, the works. With every post, I felt that twinge. I wish that were me.

Three and a half years ago, completely burnt out and exhausted, I took the brave-but-bordering-on-stupid decision of going out on my own. I was tired of running the corporate rat race, of working 14-16 hours a day, doing work well beyond my scope and JD, and, most importantly, dealing with the myriad egos and agendas that come with an institutional job. I was drained and jaded. It was time for a change, it was time to let my nervous system rest.

So I quit what was at the time my dream job, and put out the word that I was available for hire as a consultant. It turned out to be the best decision I took in my 15-year career. For the next two years, I worked with multiple clients and made more money than I did in my corporate job, all while taking daily naps, going home to my parents every other month, and travelling whenever and wherever I could.

Until reality caught up, aka recession. Suddenly budgets were slashed, layoffs were becoming the norm, and systems I had created were running so efficiently that I had essentially made myself redundant. Work started to dry up and I found myself with far more time on my hands than I’d like.

This free time was no longer regulating my nervous system. After investing over 15 years in my career, I felt directionless. I hadn’t marketed myself at all during my freelance stint (the irony that I’m a PR & comms professional is not lost on me) and I felt all my years of running on fumes coming to nought. It was time to make a change yet again.

Living life to the fullest…in office

For the past few years, especially since the outbreak of Covid, we’ve been fed the narrative that the only way to truly live life to the fullest is by being your own boss and working out of a beach shack. Hordes of people, now all remote workers, flocked to Goa like it was going out of style.

And yes, it is cool. It does provide a sense of unparalleled freedom. But if everyone works from the beach, who will fill up the corporate buildings in the city? As a middle-class Bengali, I must admit I’m unable to keep up with this cool factor. I miss working for fully-functional organisations, with other smart people, towards a shared goal. I miss coffee breaks and getting dressed for work and attending events and feeling a sense of accomplishment after a successful campaign. It was time to admit the truth—I missed the corporate rat race.

Turns out, I wasn’t alone in this feeling. Goa-based marketing professional Anuya M*, 39, spent a few years freelancing before she realised that the structure of a corporate job was far more up her alley. “I missed in-person discussions, brainstorming and shared energy. And of course, regular income provided security and peace of mind that can’t be quantified,” she says.

Losing the ‘free’ in freelance

Working independently has a host of benefits, but there are multiple downsides as well, that we are loath to admit. A lack of stability and consistency, whether it comes to work, routine or income, is hands down one of the biggest challenges. There were days when I would work 12 straight hours and days when I’d sleep in till 2 pm. Days I would go to the gym and follow a healthy routine and others when I was one with my couch.

Bengaluru-based creative designer Jyoti L*, 35, resonated with this feeling. “I’m inherently a lazy person, so left to my own devices, I would spend days in bed, leaving the house once a week, if that,” she shares. “After a point, I realised that I needed to get back to a corporate routine just for my mental health.”

This is another aspect often overlooked—the mental load of working independently and being accountable to yourself. Corporate jobs can definitely burn you out, but freelance can also shove you into depressive episodes that are hard to claw out of. I realised that the wiring of my brain was changing in ways I didn’t love.

Like Anuya M* shared, while working with others, we feed off their energy, their ideas and their enthusiasm. When you’re working independently, you’re often brainstorming with the wall. Even when working regularly with certain clients on retainer, there was a disconnect. I was part of the team, but not quite. Not only was it isolating, but I also encountered a block on the corporate ladder. There’s only so much you can do or be while being a freelancer, an outsider. And this was no longer acceptable to my middle-class Bengali genes.

Time for full-time

So here I am, having made the safe (?) decision to go back to a conventional job. It’s been a lot of updating my CV, refreshing my LinkedIn, reaching out to people I’ve worked with before, and essentially crawling out of my hermit cave to network again. It hasn’t been easy, but will it be worth it? I sure hope so.

I’m not without the anxieties that come with a full-time corporate job—flashbacks of drinking cold coffee at 3am while working on documents for an event happening the next morning keep coming screaming back to me (usually at 3 am). There are moments when I’m in bed, enjoying the peace, wondering how I’m going to do it all over again. Will I burn out again? Will my introvert self lose its mind? Am I still as good as I used to be? But then I open LinkedIn and like someone’s post on a work achievement or look at a previous campaign I’ve worked on and think—I got this.