Bad Managers, Mortgage Mistakes & The Four-Day Week

0:00A Rayo original podcast.

0:05Before we get started, if you're enjoying reworking, make sure you're following or subscribing wherever you're listening. It helps us reach more people and means you'll never miss an episode. So this is Ask Tim Anything. Every week I hear from people facing all sorts of challenges. Questions about work, business, money, confidence, relationships and those moments where you're not quite sure what your next move should be. What we're actually looking for is a bit more perspective, a different way of looking at a problem, a bit more clarity and sometimes just the reassurance that we're not the only person trying to figure things out.

0:39So in these episodes, I'll be answering your questions and sharing lessons from my own experiences, the mistakes I've made, the successes I've had and some of the wisdom that I've picked up from some incredible people throughout my career. now i should say i'm not here to tell you what to do i'm not a therapist a financial advisor or a career coach but if i can help you think about something differently and leave you feeling a little bit more confident about your next step then hopefully we're doing something useful all right let's get today's questions

1:16and this is an anonymous one from someone in manchester and i understand so we'll protect your identity but they say my manager is awful they're always giving me mixed messages and taking credit for my work while passing on blame for things that aren't actually my fault or responsibility what's the best way to handle the situation i don't want them to be the reason that i give up what is otherwise a good job listen i really feel for you in this situation and given that most of us spend most of our time at work this is a really terrible situation if you find yourself in having to wake up every single morning knowing that you're going into a bad environment is terrible.

1:54Most people don't quit jobs, they actually quit managers. But before you do anything dramatic, what I want you to do is try and do this. Can you separate the person from the pattern that you're seeing? And I try and be honest with myself first, because every single difficult manager isn't necessarily a bad one. Some are under enormous pressure that you can't see, and some just communicate in a style that grates against yours. That's the clash, but it's not necessarily a crime and importantly, it's fixable. So the real question is, are they just difficult or are they genuinely stopping you from succeeding and taking your credit while handing you the crap?

2:32If it's the first, the mismatch, then a lot of it is the things that you can manage and I'll come to how. But if it's the second, the credit stealing one, the blame shifting one, that's different. That's one that you have to protect yourself from and my natural instinct is to really defend people who are being overlooked and people taking the credit from them either way i change how you operate put expectations that you are willing to accept in writing confirm decisions by email just to confirm that we've agreed this for example not because you're building a case against them although quietly that's exactly what you should be doing but because it removes the ambiguity a bad manager sometimes thrives on learn to manage upwards it's a skill that no one ever teaches us right they teach you how to be a good employee but they don't teach you how to manage your boss because the annoying thing is that it's part of your job that even when managers are positive sometimes they need to be managed understand what pressure they're under understand what makes them look good to their boss because half of what feels like a personal vendetta is actually someone drowning or lashing out that's no excuse it doesn't take away from how painful it is but understanding is sometimes the better bit of clarities that you need in order to how to deal with a situation once you have that raise it properly with them once and clearly give them a chance to fix it and to present their side of what's happening because sometimes people surprise you right sometimes they generally don't realize the effect that they were having and if that's the conversation which is going nowhere then you have to look at your options beyond them it's a skip level conversation somebody above them somebody who's not in their direct line of of management sometimes it's hr or it's sometimes somebody off to the side but I'll be straight with you none of these conversations are consequence free and anyone who tells you otherwise there's lying to you but suffering quietly isn't an option either you have to go into this knowing what your red line is know in advance what you will accept and what you won't and what you would rather walk away from if it doesn't move don't let one person decide what your future is going to be and don't talk yourself into suffering in silence because of fear fear of looking weak in front of them fear of starting again or fear of calling them out on what is bad behavior that fear is what keep people trapped in their jobs for years a good job with a bad manager left long enough is like a rotten piece of fruit in a bowl soon it affects everything and everyone your confidence your health the way that you are at home all of these things can be impacted if you don't have a good positive productive work environment so give it a real go call it out professionally but watch the reaction because you don't want to be the rotten fruit in a bowl our next question is from Rochelle in Birmingham she says what's your view on mortgages should I stretch myself as much as possible love these questions right I honestly believe this a house should help you sleep peacefully at night not keep you awake worrying I know a lot of people who've succumbed to this extra room complex where they've got a home with more rooms than they actually need simply because the mortgage application said that they could do it now let me give you the other side that's worth listening to because plenty of people will tell you to borrow the maximum amount that you can and stretch it as far as you can go they get on the ladder they get the biggest property that you can because the property only goes up it's an appreciate it's an asset but that doesn't really take into consideration some of the problems or challenges that come across if things go the other way Sometimes the stretch does pay off, don't get me wrong.

6:03I know a lot of our parents have massively benefited from the increase in the asset of their property. But just because the bank will lend you money to buy a big property, it doesn't mean that you should take it. You've got to remember, the bank's motivation is to lend you the most amount possible because that's their business model. It isn't about your well-being in 15 years. It's not about what's going to happen around the corner. They get measured on how much money they lend. It's the cold-hast truth. no matter what the marketing material says but it's a snapshot that you've given them at that time of your very best months and the lending against that is what you'll get not about the bad year that might be around the corner for you though you have to live in that bad situation and still pay the mortgage sometimes people don't tell you this fact because they want to tell you the upside of owning your own castle so the number that matters for me isn't the maximum that you can borrow.

6:56It's actually the one that you can still afford when life decides to go in the other direction, when it doesn't go to plan. And sometimes those things happen. Your jobs change, a child arrives, the car breaks down, the boiler goes, rates move, particularly recently as they have for all of us, right? And sometimes that's not always a favourable movement. Here's the test that I'd actually use. Don't ask what you can afford on a good day. Ask what you can afford on a bad one if the rates jumped up 10 % or the income vanished over the next six months one of you can't afford the bills now can you both survive in that situation does the payment you're given still work if any of these scenarios break the deal you've got to make the decision and say the house is too much and that's painful but not as painful as sitting wondering if you're going to pay the bills for the next six weeks I remember specifically back in the early 80s when I was still a young man when my mum got the information that the interest rates were going to go into double figures.

7:54Now for her that was a massive thing as a single parent with three children having to contemplate how she was going to keep us in a house and a roof above our heads when she hadn't planned for the rates to jump up like that completely out of her control. Thankfully she did it and we got through but she still remembers to this day how stressful that was and how close we came to the line. Here's a cost that people never see on the valuation. A big mortgage quietly sets the floor on the salary that you're allowed to walk away from. It locks you into earning at today's rate for years. So the career risk that you might have taken, the lower paid thing that you'd love to try, that becomes impossible.

8:35That's a career decision that you have to think about. And sometimes you just put to the side because you're just fascinated by having a house and a garden with an extra dressing room that you never ever use. People always tell themselves the bigger house is for saving. It's equity, it's wealth. It's going to be cyclical growth over time. It's money that's invested safely that will come better for you in the future. But the reality is equity you can't reach today isn't safety when you need the money immediately. You can't spend a kitchen extension in a crisis. You can't get the money from your dressing room that you never use when you need to pay the bill for something that's broken.

9:12A cash buffer beats paper equity every single time when you actually need it. So ask yourself one honest question. If something landed on you tomorrow, could you still cope? Financial breathing room is worth much more than an extra bedroom that you'll spend a decade or more paying for. People don't understand the impact that interest has when they only think about having the extra bedroom so they can show off to the neighbours and the quiet thing that nobody mentions money stress is household stress a home that keeps you arguing about the bills isn't luxury anymore it's an expensive way to just be unhappy the biggest house that you can afford is really the best one the real luxury is having the flexibility to do the things you want when you need to do it and obviously this is my view it's not advice what I'd advise anybody to do is sit down with a broker a trusted one or a regulated advisor who can see your full picture before you sign up for anything another thing that people often don't think about is that once they get the mortgage signed what about overpaying everyone tells you the minimum amount of payment but that's for a reason they want you to drag out for 25 35 sometimes 50 years but what you can do is if you can budget for the ability to pay just a little bit more than the actual minimum payment you could shave decades off of a mortgage and actually be in a better financial period for longer so if you really do buy into the ability to want to buy a bigger place make sure you're doing it with the right financial structure to get you out of that commitment for as quickly as possible that house isn't yours until the mortgage is paid off it belongs to the banks the interesting fact is that when i think about starting on a property ladder you needed 3.5 3.6 times your average salary in order to be able to buy a decent property the reality is that now most people need 10 times their income to buy the property they want and that's not reasonable for most people and lots of people are still having this long-term aspiration of doing it but the numbers don't lie and sometimes the numbers are telling you the fact that you shouldn't go down that particular route when you think about what our european cousins are doing many of them are renting for life they have long-term arrangements but this is where we need our governments to actually step in and do its job the main job for a government is to provide the basic things for its people a safe place to live that should be priority and if we haven't got a renting market that allows people to have an option outside of buying their house i'm not surprised that lots of people are still trying to overstretch to own their castle because ultimately the biggest thing all people want and our government should want too is to make sure people feel safe and the only place you really feel safe is sometimes at home

11:58so our next question is from naomi in brixton she works in marketing and she asked the question should i ask for a four-day week oh this is interesting i'd have to drop my salary by 20 but would love the extra day off i'm in my mid-30s and want more time to enjoy life not just spend all my time earning or recovering but i worry that it would stunt my career development what should i do well this is a great question for me the question isn't about whether you can afford a four-day week it's whether the fifth day that you're asking off is giving you actually what you want four days sounds great in theory but what is that extra day actually really going to cost you now this has become a real generational fault line for people right and i find it genuinely interesting to see where people sit on this debate on one side you've got the view that the hustle culture is broken.

12:52You only get one life, YOLO, that this time is important and this is what truly matters. And we've all been conned into selling too much. And honestly, there's a lot in that. I agree with it. I can see where people are coming from. But on the other side, you've got the warning that you're early in a long career, that your earning power and your progression compound over time and that trading your peak years cheaply is something that you'll regret for a long time to come. And there's truth in that too. You've got to be really careful about that pension point, especially because a 20 % cut in your salary can quietly become a bigger cut at retirement when you want to retire and then chill out forever.

13:30Do the things that you want to do now, later on in life. But once you've reduced your contributions, they stop compounding over decades. And that can be a big issue for people. Make sure you run that number using some free guides that are available before you make any big decisions, because it's usually larger than people understand. but here's the first thing i'd untangle with you though first naomi most people who want a four day week don't actually work less what i find from hearing stories of people who have part-time hours is that you end up doing all of the work of a full week in a compressed time scale and that's not actually beneficial it creates more stress more headache more pressure yes you get the day off but you use it to just decompress after being stressed for four days so if it's not genuinely giving you 20 % less work then you've got to really think is it worth it the problem for me is this taking less of a job that's actually draining you is not treating the problem is treating the symptom it's important you know exactly what you're asking for because people muddle between two different things a compressed week four days at full pay but four longer days is completely different deal from four days at 80%.

14:41A lot of people request that the pay cut they actually really wanted was the compressed version. Sort that out before you walk into your manager's office asking for a day off. But if the day genuinely makes your life bigger and better for your health, for your family, something you're building on the side, it can be the best money that you've ever spent. Just be deliberate about it. Decide what the day is before you actually take the cut because a day that fills up with admin errands or just sitting around picking your toenails isn't actually alive it's just a cheaper version of the same week that you were doing before because you're not progressing you're not moving forward make sure you negotiate a back door a way back to get to the situation if it doesn't work because once again things can change right if you art for the reduction art for it on a trial basis with review after six months for example don't make it a permanent change on day one because it might be something that you regret because it doesn't actually work for your life.

15:38Talk to your employer about how it lands for your particular future, not just for the Friday you want off. Listen, for me, time is one thing that I know that you can't earn back and it's the most precious thing for me and my family. So make sure if you do try to buy it, buy it with a purpose, not just because it sounds good. And as with anything that touches your money, that's my view, right? But not advice. Check the full picture with somebody who actually knows your numbers and is recommended to give you the advice that you might need. So that's where we'll leave it for this episode of Reworking.

16:13Thank you to everybody who continues to send in the questions. Honestly, one of the biggest things these episodes have shown me is that how many of us are wrestling with exactly the same challenges. We worry about work, we worry about money, we question our decisions and we compare ourselves to other people. And then we wonder whether we're behind or whether we're doing enough or whether we're heading in the right direction. The reality is that most people are carrying far more uncertainty than they actually let on. And that is why I wanted reworking to exist. A place for honest conversations about work, success, relationships, confidence and life.

16:49Not just because any of us have it all figured out, but because sometimes hearing a different perspective can make all the difference. If something from today's episode resonated with you, please share it with someone. a friend, a colleague, your partner, a family member, because the chances are that they're navigating something very similar. And please keep the questions coming. The more honest and specific they are, the more valuable these conversations become. You can get in touch on social media or via email at reworking at bowermedia.co.uk. And if you haven't already, make sure you're following the show so you never miss an episode.

17:27Thanks for listening. Take care and I'll see you next time on Reworking. Thank you.