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The job market is brutal, interviews are getting longer and cheekier, and too many of us are trying to hold everything together while quietly running on empty. We’re back, and we start with the real reasons people disappear: burnout, change, family life, and the pressure of masking when you’re neurodivergent and “high functioning”. I talk about what it looks like to prioritise the urgent, protect your privacy, and rebuild momentum without pretending it’s easy.

Then we get into career strategy for the UK job market in crisis. I share why this doesn’t feel like a generalist market anymore, how to specialise without trapping yourself, and why learning and development has to sit with you, not your employer. We also talk internal mobility, gatekeeping, pay compression, and the rise of ridiculous multi-stage interviews. There’s a story in here that proves a point: when you set boundaries and you’re willing to walk away, employers suddenly remember how to make an offer, and you can negotiate from strength.

We zoom out to power and culture too: Ed Sheeran, Macklemore, Palestine, and why “I don’t do politics” can land as hypocrisy when you’ve used your platform before. We challenge the return of Ali G, the recycling of racist caricatures as “nostalgia”, and how that mess shows up later as workplace “banter”. We cover Target’s tone-deaf costume scandal, the Cambridge review into Professor Jason Arday’s death and the UK press, and we end on a big ownership question with the Dangote Refinery IPO and what it could mean for African wealth and retail investors.

If you got something from this, subscribe, share it with your group chats, and leave a review so more people can find the podcast. What boundary are you setting this week?

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Music (Intro and Outro) Written and created by Nomadic Star

Stationary Company: Sistah Scribble

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