Well I've gone and done it. Finished work as of the 2nd of March. I collected all my stuff together, laptop, phone, ID etc and handed it all over. Considering it constituted 30 plus years worth of "stuff" I felt next to nothing. I thought I may have some regrets, anxiety, fear, sadness. But no. Apart from every day that goes by I'm starting to figure that I don't have minutes to cram hours worth of thinking/work into a day. I'm absolutely de shi##ing my mind as well as my life.
Anyone want a pile of work clothes? Wow that felt good, going through the wardrobe and removing anything remotely "corporate" I will NEVER wear a tie again, maybe not a suit either. You should never trust a middle-aged man in a sharp suit :-)
We've bought this, so the adventure begins. How does "The White Van Plan" sound?
2016 Europe and maybe Morocco if we have time.
2017 South Africa. Then who knows. It won't be your standard rtw trip, we'll still have family and business commitments in the UK.

I'm really pleased with it so far.

For the petrol heads it's:

Selectable 4wd by pushing a button on the dash. Not quite as basic as a mechanical lever but that's progress. This is the configuration I wanted. They do multiple variations, some constant 4wd. Only down side is that it doesn't have the low range transfer box. But the engine is very flexible and torquey so shouldn't be an issue. At the end of the day it's not an extreme off road vehicle.
OM642. 3.0 V6.190bhp, 440Nm. Goes really well, very flexible. Don't know the economy yet, I've only done 300 miles or so.
6 speed manual. They do a 7 speed auto but that's pushing my confidence in MB electronics too far

So the conversion will start the end of this week. It looks like we will have enough space for a permanent double bed, compact kitchen unit and a toilet/shower cubicle (luxury )

Only issue to date is that my wife struggles to get in and out, jeez it's high! See the photo, for perspective I'm around 6ft 1.

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Congrats RussG!! Have fun and live it up!

I hate my job. I think I am absolutely wasting my life there, it's utterly pointless and useless and meaningless and just plain inhumane. People should be exploring the world and themselves, and discovering things and people, and be free, and enjoy sunrises and fresh air and unlimited bloody horizons rather than be sat at a desk in front of a computer!!

That said, I can't really see a way out just now, so I'm going to stick it out, but it's absolutely soul destroying, and what's even more terrifying is that 99% of my colleagues think it's perfectly fine and normal way for humans to exist - in fact they think I am the freak for wanting to ride my bike around the world.

I'm sitting at a desk in front of a computer at this very moment, looking outside and dreaming of taking off as well. Although understanding your comment about it all being pointless, I try to see it as a way to provide a roof, food and some amenities for myself as well as securing my financial needs and family responsibilities. Do I like my job? It's not so bad. I'd rather be out riding for sure. My work still has the advantage of making it possible for me to take off for a few weeks at a time. As I'm doing this, I'm slowly able to shed the needless stuff in my life, the kids are starting to fly on their own and I am reaching a period in my life where I can be less dependent on a steady income. This being said, it's still a big step to take the leap of faith, chuck the job, sell everything and take off for the ultimate road trip. The endless " What if "questions are never too far away. My hat goes off to the people who have taken that leap.
As for the "normal people", I think that society has "trained" us to become caged hamsters and tricked us into thinking that the norm is to grow up, get a job, find a mate, make more hamsters, and die. All this for ensuring our way of life. Most people are willing to give up their liberties in order to feel safe and secure. The endless tragedies that are shown in the media keep the population in check and scare them just enough to remain sedentary.
The world being brought closer through technology is still a very big place to discover and it's a shame that people have lost their sense of adventure because there are so many beautiful areas and experiences to be discovered.

Only 8 years too late which, to those who know me probably seems early.

I do like my job. In fact, I've recently embarked on my third career!!

The first was an office job with some travelling and a passing association with my uni studies. Paid well, but sucked every waking minute from my day and gave me stress-based blood pressure levels by my late 20s. So plenty of cash, but no time to enjoy it.

Move country to Estonia, and take up something else completely different. I got shorter working weeks, long holidays, but naff-all pay. So lots of time but no money to enjoy it.

Career #3: start a business with a friend. Starting a business at the thin end of a global pandemic sucks but it was then or never. Enjoy it. Work on my terms. Have decent free time. Hopefully get decent money.

Noice....

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Adventure: it's an experience, not a style!
(so ride what you like, but ride it somewhere new!)

I've been at my current position (IT work with a gov't agency). I'm ready to move on... but I can start collecting a reduced pension in just over a year, so my plan is to stick out until December 2022, and then make some decisions.

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Bruce Clarke - 2020 Yamaha XV250

Seeing how the world has turned sideways, you're better off waiting it out for the next year.

I've only quit 4 jobs this year

Which is below par for me ( there has been a pandemic mind you )

But to reinforce my answer from years ago....

Management sucks
Patients are awesome

Keep on keeping on

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2025 Planning.....

I am retired and I love it !
I hope the travel restrictions will be gone next spring or summer. I just started a VLOG on youtube and would love to put some nice travel videos on YouTube.
Until recently, I just took a lot of pictures during my trips and wrote a travel BLOG (https://jkrijt.home.xs4all.nl/trips/index.shtml) but thanks to my son, I started a VLOG

Well, actually two VLOGS. My own personal VLOG under my own name, Jan Krijtenburg and the other with the name Motormobilist, together with my son who started riding motorbikes just a few months ago.

For now, I'll post all my new videos on the Motormobilist channel.
The Motormobilist channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7o...KqR3SyQiVy6ehw

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Jan Krijtenburg

My bikes are a Honda GoldWing GL1200 and a Harley-Davidson FXD Dyna Super Glide

My personal homepage with trip reports: https://www.krijtenburg.nl/
YouTube channel (that I do together with one of my sons): motormobilist.nl

Since the pandemic (and winter) stops me from travelling, I do the next best thing: applying my tech and business skills to improve people's riding experiences. The downside is that if we succeed it'll be a couple of very busy years before I can head off into the horizon. And that I don't have a salary yet... Watch this space for a description of what we do once we're going public!

I could never keep showing up at a job I hated. I need to feel enthusiastic about what I do at all times, which tends to make me better at whatever it is I do. I even tried to be enthusiastic when I had a summer job packing books into boxes. I really got to use my Tetris skills.

The couple of times I've felt bad about my job I've crashed into depressive periods. Sometimes I wish I could adopt a "work to live" attitude, but as work takes up so much of my life, I need to find a way to make it important.

Blimey, this discussion goes back so far I think I've had another complete career since it started!

I've always distinguished between career and job - in my head anyway. A career is something I've been interested in, qualified for and earn my lifestyle through. It's an activity that, at some level, is what I am. On that basis I've had two careers throughout my working life. No 1 was working in a research lab throughout my 20's / early 30's. The second was when life opened up for me in my mid 30's (post divorce!) and I started a photography business. At one level I never really saw myself as a photographer but I was good at it, it paid well (for a time anyway) and it certainly opened doors into a whole load of other stuff / places I'd never have been able to otherwise access.

Jobs though, they're activities I take on (usually but not always) for monetary reasons. I don't have to enjoy them (although some have been great fun) but they have to pay and I judge whether to take them on on the basis of stress vs reward. On that basis I've had somewhere around 20-25 jobs over the course of my life.

Some of them have been bizarre - I've been an axe and knife throwing instructor. Some of them have been slave labour - picking potatoes by hand as a child to help out with the family finances. Some of them have been 'rewarding' - I met one of the loves of my life as a stand-in Xmas postman, and some of them have been a waste of time - a 'fender bender' crash investigator for the car insurance world. They paid a flat rate and I quickly worked out if the car was more than three miles away (they almost always were) it wasn't worth the effort of going. Annoyingly one of the post retirement jobs I quite enjoyed doing has not survived Covid so, for the second time in my life, I've been made redundant. No big deal for me but some of the other people for whom it was more career than job will be far more badly affected.

I'm trying to work out now what I'll look towards doing after Covid is no longer an issue. I'm not sure I want another zero hrs / min wage level job - unless there's some other interest in it anyway but temperamentally I'm not the sort just to sit around in retirement with an endless supply of box sets and a big tv. I've been writing travel books (for my own amusement) over the last 10yrs or so - just finishing number 5 - and I might self publish them on Amazon or somewhere out of interest. One sale and that would be another tick in the jobs I've learnt money from list.

After getting up for my 3am pee thought I'd browse HU posts and found this thread and your opening sentence.. Exactly this, 2012 post India trip I decided to look at a change of job and the sole driving force I am embarrassed to admit too was 'more money' needed to fund a need to travel. Look where the world is now compared to when this thread started but particularly look at where 'we' can now travel..?? Since drastically changing my work environment and tweaking/improving my skillset I've allowed myself to realise my long-term dream of RTW travel. It seems to be a trade-off between doing something you more so endure than love for the reward so you can do something you actually love..!! I would imagine somewhere out there theirs folk who die only ever doing their job in which they love SO much there isn't a need for anything else in their lives...!! Eeeek...!!!

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Over the last 12 months I would say that I have not enjoyed my job - however it is now starting to be much more fun and I am having to juggle the jobs coming through the factory more and more and am now running two production lines all day most days whereas this time a year ago I had one running about 3 days a week for half a day at a time. So now I am a happy chap. I would still rather be travelling though but this is paying for the trip.

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You will have to do without pocket handkerchiefs, and a great many other things, before we reach our journey's end, Bilbo Baggins. You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home is now behind you. The world is ahead.