Right then, let me tell you something that might surprise a few of the bright young things who share my floor at the bank. Extra hours do creep in now and then, proper sneaky little buggers that they are, sliding onto the end of a Tuesday or a Thursday when some report decides it needs another once-over or a client email lands at ten to five with that special brand of urgency only banking folk seem to manufacture. I stay, of course I do, because the numbers have to add up and the team still needs steering, but I have drawn a quiet line in the sand about my evenings and I guard it like it is the last packet of crisps at a family do. Work performance actually gets better once you remember there is a whole life waiting on the other side of those glass doors, and anyone who pretends otherwise is either kidding themselves or has forgotten what bare feet on a living-room carpet feels like after a long day.
I clocked this properly a few months back when a particularly mental week stretched into three late finishes on the bounce. By the Thursday I was sat there feeling like my brain had been put through the office shredder and stuck back together with cheap sticky tape. The under-twenty-fives were still buzzing about some weekend plan or a new app or whatever the latest distraction was, and I could feel that familiar stern face settling in, the one they all reckon makes me a bit harsh. Fair enough, I suppose. Someone has to keep the ship pointed in the right direction when half the crew are still learning which way the wind blows. Yet the second I packed up and stepped out onto the Hackney pavement the whole weight of it lifted, like someone had finally opened a window in a stuffy room. The air smelled of rain and takeaway spice, buses rumbled past with their usual East London attitude, and I realised I had been holding my shoulders up around my ears for hours without noticing. That walk home, even if it is only twenty minutes, does more for my head than any motivational poster stuck up in the breakout area ever could.
People at work sometimes look at me like I have two heads when I say I am clocking off on time if the urgent stuff is done. They seem to think dedication means chaining yourself to the desk until the cleaners start giving you funny looks. I get it, the pressure is real and targets do not hit themselves, but I have watched enough colleagues burn out chasing that endless approval from upstairs. Me, I would rather keep a steady pace and still have something left in the tank for the bits of life that actually make the graft worthwhile. There is a difference between being reliable and being a martyr, and I know which one I prefer. The team might moan about my strict streak during the day, the girls especially when I pull them up on a sloppy spreadsheet or a missed deadline, but they also know I will not ask them to stay late for the sake of appearances. If the work is solid I send them home, and I take the same medicine myself. Funny how that little bit of fairness seems to get more out of them in the long run than any amount of performative overtime.
Home is where the real reset happens. I will kick off the work shoes the second the door shuts, swap the tailored trousers for the baggiest tracksuit bottoms I own, and let my hair out of that practical ponytail. Sometimes I put the kettle on and just stand there for a minute listening to the quiet, other times I throw on a trash reality show and give it the full running commentary because someone has to point out the obvious nonsense those people get up to. My small circle of mates understand the drill. They know if I am quiet for a bit it is not personal, it is just me reclaiming the soft edges that the bank requires me to keep tucked away between nine and five. We might end up ordering too much food and laughing until my sides hurt about the latest office drama, or we might sit in comfortable silence while the telly drones on. Either way it tops up whatever the day has drained, and I walk back into work the next morning sharper for it.
I will not pretend the balance is perfect every single week. There are stretches where a big project lands or the markets decide to have a wobble and suddenly everyone is firefighting. Those are the times I dig into that quiet competitive streak I rarely advertise. I stay later, I double-check the figures until my eyes water, and I make sure the team knows exactly what is expected without any soft-soaping. Yet even then I am counting down to the moment I can step outside and leave it all behind the glass. Because here is the thing nobody tells you when you first start climbing the ladder in a place like this: the better you get at switching off, the better you get at switching back on. My numbers stay clean, the team hits its marks more often than not, and I still have enough energy left to care about the people around me instead of just managing them.
Sunday roast back in Basildon helps more than any wellness webinar ever could. Every other week I make the trip home and sit round that table with the same faces I have known forever, passing the gravy and listening to the same old stories that somehow still make me laugh. No one there needs me to be the stern supervisor. I can be the version of myself that dreams about a tall dark-haired man who might one day give proper foot massages after a long week, the version that still gets soft over romantic films and believes kindness is not a weakness. That contrast keeps me steady. It reminds me the bank is a job, a good one that pays the bills and lets me look after myself, but it is not the whole story. The glass doors open both ways, and walking back through them on a Monday morning feels a lot less heavy when I know I have protected the evenings that belong to me.
Some of the younger lot still think I am a bit mad for not living at my desk. They will stay late just to be seen staying late, firing off emails at silly o’clock so everyone knows how committed they are. I used to find it irritating, now I mostly find it faintly amusing. Bless them, they have not yet worked out that the people who actually progress are the ones who deliver results without the drama. I would rather be known as the one who is strict but fair, the one who leaves on time when the work is done, than the one who is always available and slowly disappearing under the weight of it. There is a quiet discipline in protecting your own time, the same discipline I try to bring to the numbers and the team targets. It is not flashy, it does not win any popularity contests in the office, but it works.
I have lost count of the evenings I have spent in my onesie, feet up, vape in hand on the rare nights I fancy one, just watching the world outside the window slow down. Sometimes I think about the day just gone and pick out the bits that made me quietly proud, the spreadsheet that finally balanced or the quiet word of encouragement that landed well with someone who needed it. Other times I let the whole lot drift away and focus on whatever ridiculous plotline is unfolding on the screen. Both are useful. Both keep me from turning into one of those people who only know how to talk about work. And when the next busy stretch rolls around, as it always does, I am ready for it because I have not let the previous one eat into the parts of life that keep me human.
There is a particular satisfaction in shutting the laptop at a sensible hour and knowing the world outside is still there waiting. The walk to the shop for a pint of milk, the text to a mate about meeting up at the weekend, the decision to go for a gentle run or just stay in and be soft for a bit. These are not grand gestures. They are the small steady things that stop the bank from swallowing everything. I have seen what happens when people forget that. They get brittle, they start snapping at the team over nothing, they lose the ability to laugh at the daily nonsense. I refuse to let that be me. The stern face stays at work where it belongs. Once the glass doors close behind me I get to be the version who still believes in quiet evenings and proper rest and the odd bit of harmless sarcasm about how seriously some people take a spreadsheet.
So yes, extra hours happen. They are part of the deal when you are responsible for a team and a set of numbers that matter. But they do not get to own the whole week. I have learned the hard way that protecting the evenings is not selfish, it is practical. The work is better for it, the team is better for it, and I am better for it. Life is waiting outside those glass doors with all its messy, ordinary, brilliant bits, and I intend to keep showing up for both sides of the equation. Steady does it, even through the busy weeks. Especially through the busy weeks.
