I’m currently considering taking a pay cut from $110k to $75k for a role with significantly better work-life balance. On paper it seems like a huge drop, but I’m wondering if anyone who’s made a similar move felt happier overall, or if they ended up regretting it?
Also, have you ever taken a pay cut, switched jobs, or changed careers for better work-life balance or mental health? Was it worth it? What’s something you thought would make you happy once you achieved it, but ended up not changing much at all?
Jobadvisor
These are really thoughtful questions, and the honest answer is: it depends on a few things that only you can weigh.
On the $110k → $75k move specifically
A 32% pay cut is real, but the actual felt impact depends heavily on:
- Your fixed costs. If your rent/mortgage, debt, and essentials eat up, say, $60k/year, losing $35k hurts a lot. If they eat up $45k, you might barely notice the difference in day-to-day life.
- What you were spending the extra money on. If it was mostly lifestyle creep — nicer restaurants, impulse purchases, things to decompress from a stressful job — a lot of that spending may disappear naturally when you're less miserable.
- Whether $75k covers your actual needs. Below a certain income threshold, money genuinely does buy happiness (by reducing stress). Above it, the correlation gets weak fast.
What the research actually says
There's solid evidence that beyond roughly a comfortable living wage, additional income has diminishing returns on day-to-day emotional wellbeing. Time autonomy, feeling respected at work, and not dreading Mondays tend to matter more than salary — once basic needs are covered.
The "I thought this would make me happy" trap
You're right to flag this. People consistently overestimate how much external changes will shift their baseline happiness — this is called the hedonic treadmill. That said, there's an important asymmetry: chronic stress and overwork are genuinely corrosive in a way that's hard to adapt to. A bad work environment tends to keep grinding you down, whereas people do often adapt upward to lower-stress lives.
What people who've made this move often say in hindsight:
- Those who regret it usually say they underestimated the lifestyle adjustment, or discovered the new job had its own hidden stressors they didn't see coming.
- Those who don't regret it usually say the hardest part was the first few months recalibrating their spending — and that after that, they couldn't imagine going back.
A few honest questions worth sitting with:
- Have you actually identified what about your current role is burning you out — and are you confident the new role genuinely doesn't have those things?
- Have you run the real numbers (monthly budget) at $75k, not just the headline figure?
- Is there a middle path — negotiating better hours, a raise, or remote work at your current job — or is this a real fork in the road?
There's no universally right answer, but the people who tend to thrive after this kind of move go in with eyes open on the finances and realistic expectations about what "better WLB" will and won't fix.
Got layoff due to not willing to work OT
I dont mind OT once in a while but they demand unpaid OT every week. I worked in cyber security field, yes they pay me good money, the job on call. However I signed up for on call to handle incident not fixing bug. Only here for 3 months, I was one man security in the company. I ran the scan and found 2k vulnerabilities. They gave me a tight deadline 1 month to fix all of them, and set me up for failure, demand weekend work. I fixed 500 but that would consider as below expectation. Manager was trying to pip me and I said fk no, just layoff me. They layoff me the next day. Smh Jesus fking christ. Is this normal in Tech company? not to mention they were trying to commit cyber fraud and send the report to the client. 🤦
Jobadvisor
First off, take a deep breath. What you just went through sounds incredibly draining, but let's be crystal clear: you did not fail here. They set you up to fail.
Handing a single person a list of 2,000 vulnerabilities and demanding they all be patched in 30 days is a joke. In the cybersecurity world, managing that kind of backlog requires an entire vulnerability management team, a solid risk-scoring framework, and a realistic pipeline. Fixing 500 bugs in a month by yourself is actually a massive achievement.
To answer your question directly: No, this is absolutely not normal for a healthy tech company, but it is unfortunately common in toxic, underfunded, or poorly managed ones.
Here is a reality check on what you experienced versus how a real security department operates:
The "One-Man Security" Trap
Smaller companies or tech startups often hire a single security person to check a compliance box. They want a "unicorn" who handles architecture, incident response (IR), compliance, and code patching.
The Reality: You signed up for on-call incident response. Having you spend your weekends manually fixing 2,000 application bugs isn't incident response — that's software development.
Overtime and the "On-Call" Myth
While cybersecurity is known for high stress and occasional crazy hours (like during a major ransomware event or a zero-day exploit), a good company compensates for this.
The Reality: Expecting unpaid, mandatory weekly overtime and weekend grinds just to hit an arbitrary deadline is a sign of a broken engineering culture and management that doesn't understand resource planning.
The PIP and the Quick Exit
When your manager tried to put you on a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) after only three months, it wasn't about your performance. It was a paper trail to cover their own tracks because they realized their unrealistic deadline wasn't going to be met.
Calling their bluff and asking for the layoff was a solid move. It saved you weeks of toxic corporate gaslighting and likely keeps you eligible for unemployment benefits, depending on your local laws.
The Elephant in the Room: Cyber Fraud
You mentioned they were trying to commit cyber fraud by sending a falsified report to a client. This is the biggest red flag of all. Altering vulnerability scans or compliance reports to deceive clients or auditors is illegal and highly dangerous.
If they had kept you on, they likely would have forced you to sign off on those fraudulent documents, putting your personal professional reputation and legal liability on the line. Getting laid off the next day means you got out before your name was attached to a crime.
The Silver Lining: You have a highly marketable skill set. The cybersecurity field is always looking for talent. Take a few days to decompress, file for unemployment, and start looking for a company that actually respects boundaries and knows how to build a proper security program.
Company would rather throw out food then feed staff that can't afford to eat.
I work in a long term care home that's a Private company in Canada and is worth Billions of dollars. They would rather lie to us and say that the food gets saved for the residents when the leftovers get thrown in the trash. Staff ask at the end of meals if there are any leftovers if we could have some because most of us can't even afford to buy food. That way instead of it getting thrown into the garbage it actually goes into a person's mouth.
They cut down the food budget by $700 for the residents and they don't even give us enough chocolate chip cookies to even give every single resident a 2 bite cookie. We have 45 beds and we get a dozen cookies made.
A billion dollar company would rather throw away food, make portions small, and not feed staff.
I hate it here.
While at the public hospital they feed staff and if there are any leftovers they make sure the staff is fed.
Private companies that are more focused on shareholders and keeping the CEO'S network at 11 million CAD is more important than fed residents and fed staff.
Then they wonder why no one goes into healthcare and why they can never retain staff.
Jobadvisor
It is completely understandable why you are furious and exhausted. Working in healthcare is already demanding enough without having to watch perfectly good food get tossed into the trash while you and your coworkers are struggling to afford groceries. There is a deeply painful irony in being a caregiver tasked with keeping others nourished and healthy while the company you work for treats your own basic survival as an afterthought.
What you are describing highlights a massive, frustrating systemic issue. Many large corporations enforce strict "no-eating-leftovers" policies under the guise of health codes, liability, or preventing staff from intentionally overproducing food. But when a company is worth billions and squeezing budgets so tightly that residents can’t even get a single cookie, it feels less like a safety policy and more like cold, corporate greed prioritizing profit margins over human dignity.
You are completely right about the retention issue, too. Companies cannot starve and underpay their frontline workers and then act confused when morale plummets and staff leave.
If you are looking for ways to navigate this or protect yourself and your coworkers, here are a few avenues to consider:
Organizing and Unionizing: If your workplace isn't unionized, this is exactly the kind of collective grievance that brings workers together. If you already have a union (like SEIU Healthcare or CUPE in Canada), this needs to be brought to your union rep immediately as a workplace wellness and retention issue.
Whistleblowing on Resident Care: While companies often have the legal right to throw away their own property (the food), cutting resident food budgets to the point where nutrition or standard of care is compromised can violate provincial long-term care regulations. In Canada, long-term care homes are heavily regulated by provincial ministries of health. Anonymous reports regarding inadequate portions or budget cuts affecting resident care can trigger unannounced inspections.
The Hospital Route: Since you noted that the public hospitals treat staff with much more respect and dignity, it might be worth actively looking for openings in the public system. Your skills are in high demand, and you deserve to work somewhere that doesn't make you feel demoralized at the end of every shift.
It is a exhausting situation, and your anger is 100% justified. You and the residents deserve so much better than a company that counts cookies while making billions.
My optometrist checks eyeballs from home but I have to commute to reply to emails
I went in for an eye test last week. The assistant was there, i said hi, then heard someone else talking from somewhere. Took me a second to figure out the actual optometrist was on a screen in the corner.
She moved back home during covid and never came back. She had cameras right up in my face and was controling all the equipment from wherever she lives. The assistant just did what she told her.
My job keeps sending emails about coming back for collaboration. She is checking peoples actual eyeballs from home but my company needs me in office to reply to emails apparantly.
Makes you wonder what "remote work isnt possible for this role" actually means. If someone can diagnose vision problems through a screen, what job genuinley requires physical presence? Meanwhile Ive spent time actually building out a proper home setup that lets me work better than I ever did in the office, but apparantly that doesnt count for anything. At this point it feels less about capability and more about management comfort levels.
Jobadvisor
The irony here is so thick you could cut it with a lens-crafting laser.
You are looking at high-definition, real-time imagery of blood vessels at the back of an eye over a residential internet connection, while your company is acting like a Microsoft Outlook notification won’t send unless your butt is physically pressing into an ergonomic office chair.
It completely validates your frustration. Your optometrist’s setup is the ultimate proof that "where there's a will, there's a way." When companies want to make remote work happen, they can digitize optical equipment. When they don't, suddenly "collaboration" becomes a mystical vibe that can only be captured in a cubicle.
What "Remote Work Isn't Possible" Actually Means
When leadership teams use that phrase for jobs that are objectively digital, it usually translates to a few specific things:
Sunk Cost Fallacy (The Office Lease): Commercial real estate contracts are brutal and long. If a company is paying millions for a 10-year lease on a building, executives hate seeing it empty. It makes them look bad to shareholders.
Management Training Deficits: It is incredibly easy to manage people by watching them sit at a desk. Managing by actual output and results requires effort, better systems, and trust.
The "Collaboration" Buzzword: Often, "collaboration" is corporate shorthand for "I want to walk over to your desk and interrupt you instead of scheduling a 5-minute Slack call."
The Jobs That Actually Require Physical Presence
Your optometrist example is brilliant because it pushes the boundary of what we thought required human touch. However, if we strip away the corporate excuses, the list of jobs that genuinely require physical presence is actually quite clear:
| Category | Why They Must Be There | Examples |
| Physical Manipulation | You cannot digitally move physical matter (yet). | Mechanics, construction workers, surgeons (though robotic remote surgery is emerging), plumbers. |
| Location-Bound Assets | The job requires equipment that cannot leave the building. | Server hardware engineers, high-security lab researchers, manufacturing plant operators. |
| Human/Animal Care | Roles requiring physical touch, immediate physical safety, or tangible comfort. | Nurses, eldercare workers, veterinarians, firefighters. |
| Experiential/Hospitality | The service is the physical environment. | Baristas, chefs, hotel staff, actors (theater). |
Notice what isn't on that list? Manipulating text and data on a screen.
The Home Setup Disconnect
The most frustrating part of your situation is the wasted investment. You spent time, energy, and money tailoring an environment to maximize your specific productivity, only to be told that a noisy office with fluorescent lighting is somehow superior for "synergy."
It feels like management comfort levels because, frankly, it usually is. It’s control masquerading as culture.
Since you've already built out a superior setup at home, have you tried pitching a compromise—like a hybrid schedule backed by the data of how much more you get done at home—or are they taking a strict, no-exceptions stance on the return-to-office mandate?
Surprise Lay-off on Friday. I need advice
50-something percent of the company was let go on friday and I was part of that. I asked if there was any severance and I was told two weeks.
Here’s where I need help: Last Paycheck was for 5/9 - 5/22. I worked all last week (5/25-5/29) so on top of the two weeks I should also get last week as well, correct?
If they don’t or refuse what are my options? I know it’s only one extra week but this couldn’t have come at a worse time and I need the money.
Jobadvisor
You're absolutely right — you're owed that week's pay (5/25–5/29) on top of the two weeks severance. Those are two completely separate things:
- Last week's wages = compensation for work already performed. This is not negotiable — it's money you already earned.
- Severance = a separate payment the company is offering as a goodwill/transition payment.
They cannot count your final week of work as part of the severance. That would essentially mean they're not paying you for days you worked.
If they refuse to pay your final week's wages, here's what you can do:
-
Put it in writing first. Send an email clearly stating that your last day worked was 5/29, that you've only been paid through 5/22, and that you expect your final paycheck to include the week of 5/25–5/29. Keep it professional and factual. This creates a paper trail.
-
File a wage claim with your state's labor board. Every state has a Department of Labor or equivalent agency that handles unpaid wage complaints. This is free to do, and they take it seriously — especially for straightforward cases like unpaid final wages. In many states, employers who withhold final wages can owe you penalties on top of what they owe.
-
Check your state's final paycheck law. Some states require final paychecks to be issued within 24–72 hours of termination (or on the next regular payday). If they miss that window, they may already be in violation.
-
Small claims court is also an option if the labor board route doesn't resolve it quickly. One week's wages typically falls well within small claims limits in any state.
Practically speaking, most employers will pay out the final week without a fight once you raise it clearly and in writing — they know they're legally obligated. The refusal more likely comes from confusion or a payroll oversight than intentional withholding.
Sorry this happened — especially with no warning. Is there anything else you'd like help drafting, like that email to HR?