Writing my post about how my views on work have changed after my layoff two years ago naturally made me wonder a lot of things about my “career goals” in general and my current job situation in particular. I’m still equipped with a somewhat traditional (read: very likely outdated) mindset that wants to stick with the current employer for as long as possible; but I also have to acknowledge that “as long as possible” likely means different things for my employer and me respectively.

Looking back at my young self, I think I’d describe myself as cautiously optimistic, at least as far as my professional life is concerned. Most of this optimism has subsided, if it’s not entirely gone by now. Going through four rounds of layoffs – I was directly impacted once, and people around me were impacted in each of the other three – in the last three years certainly played its part. Where I used to see a path to a brighter future that I could tread with my employer, I now mostly see opportunities for my employer to let go of my co-workers and/or me soon.

Solaris is asking their Germany-based employees to go to the office in Berlin (at least) twice a week starting 2025-07-01. I’m not excited about that at all; but I thought I would be angrier. Instead, I’m seeing it as yet another step to reduce the work force by “allowing” people who can’t feasibly return to the office to leave and find something else somewhere else. If that indeed is the plan, what does it mean for everyone else if “not enough” people leave the company on their own volition? I suppose I’m not furious, because I can’t do anything about that myself, except for being amongst those who leave voluntarily, maybe.

Being able to work from home (almost) 100% was a huge benefit for me. With that gone, Solaris now is just one of many potential employers in Berlin who ask their employees to go to the office twice or thrice a week. I’ve heard quite a few times that people who only work at Solaris for the 100% remote benefit aren’t working there for “the right reasons”, so they can just leave. It feels very delusional to me: Solaris is not trying to cure cancer, solve world hunger or the climate crisis, fly to the moon, or doing something extraordinarily purposeful, in my opinion. At the end of the day, Solaris is a bank. Or “a tech company with a full banking licence”. Which term you prefer depends on your framing; I am working at a bank.

I like working with the people I’m working with. But they’re leaving – or they’re being left – one after another. I like doing good work and having that good work recognised as such. I don’t consider a pay raise every other year recognition of good work, if that good work is actually great work way above what’s been expected and that pay raise amounts to an annual 2.5%-2.6% raise year over year. I accepted that pay raise offer by dropping a white lie onto myself: “That’s the price I have to pay for the benefit of 100% remote work.” I feel really stupid now.

Solaris very likely knew I would have a hard time going somewhere else given the currently pretty cold job market at my level. My skill set and my preferences don’t make it any easier. Maybe I’ll have to accept that TypeScript is the hot skill to have right now and just git gud.

But it won’t help heat up the job market for me unless I’m also into job postings that use “AI” as a random, incoherent buzzword for whatever reason they might have. From deep within, my optimistic side is shouting that I don’t need an entire market to work out for me and just a single opening is enough. Even though I’m not 100% certain about whether I can squeeze myself into that single opening, I’ll take any amount of hopium I can get my hands on right now.

All in all, May was a pretty… disheartening month for me, which is also why this entry is relatively short. This month didn’t start well with me realising that I’ll be stuck in this hamster wheel called “work life” for quite a while to go still, and that I’ve come to hate key aspects of that hamster wheel. It didn’t improve with the final offer for a pay raise I got for my “excellent work”. It ended on a low note with my employer taking a key benefit away from me. (Side note: This is why so many things are just benefits. It’s a lot easier for companies to take away benefits than to take away something that’s part of an actual contract.)

Welp, it’s June now. Summer. Sunshine. Yay!