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Woman who earned up to €8,500 a month says corporate life cost her things ‘no salary could pay back’
A woman revealed the hidden costs of corporate life that no salary could ever repay.
A woman’s post about the hidden cost of corporate life has struck a chord online after she shared the five things she felt she lost despite earning a high salary.
Corporate life and its unseen cost
Taking to Instagram, a woman named Rochi shared a video in which the text overlaid on the clip read, “5 things I lost in corporate that no salary could ever pay back.”
In the caption of her post, Rochi opened up about her eight years in the corporate world and said she had to learn each lesson the hard way. “I earned up to €8,500/month in corporate. Good money. Really good money. But when I left at 31 after 8 years, I realised there were things that went missing along the way that no paycheck in the world could have covered. And I didn’t even notice them leaving,” she wrote.
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Rochi said the first thing she lost was her curiosity. She recalled that she once loved learning random things that had nothing to do with her job. However, she said that changed around her third year in corporate. “Corporate filled my brain so completely that there was no room left to be curious about anything else. I got it back after I left. But those years of not wondering about anything? Gone,” she shared.
‘I used to trust myself’
The woman further said that corporate life also affected her ability to trust her own judgment. “I used to trust myself. Then 8 years of ‘run it by your manager’ and ‘let’s get approval first’ taught me to second guess every decision. I left corporate not trusting my own judgment. Rebuilding that has been one of the hardest things I’ve done,” she wrote.
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Rochi also reflected on losing her twenties to meeting rooms, group chats and quarterly reviews. She said that while others were travelling and exploring themselves, she was trying to survive another performance cycle.
She added that corporate life changed her relationship with rest as well. “I forgot how to do nothing. Sitting still makes me anxious. A Sunday with no plans feels wrong. Corporate trained me to be productive every second, and I’m still unlearning it over a year later,” she wrote.
The one loss that hurt her the most, she said, was her belief that she was enough. “8 years of being rated, ranked, reviewed and compared. I left corporate genuinely not knowing if I was good enough without a title next to my name. No salary is worth that. Some costs don’t show up on a payslip. But you pay them anyway.”
Watch the clip here:
Social media reacts
The post prompted several users to share their thoughts. One user wrote, “The caption is very relatable, and it’s true. Salary isn’t everything.” Another commented, “Choosing one thing in life will definitely cost you something else. That’s the concept of opportunity cost, which I learnt in Economics.” A third said, “I agree with you,” while another added, “I can totally relate with you.”
(Disclaimer: This report is based on user-generated content from social media. HT.com has not independently verified the claims and does not endorse them.)
