By Ben Barry
A woman quit her high-flying £64k a year corporate job due to burnout and moved more than 9,000 miles across the world to work as a waitress.
Tara Franks, 29, quit her senior corporate job in January 2023 after being so burned out she fell ill while delivering a presentation.
She lost the ability to speak and see and said it was a “turning point” and after two weeks of returning to work, Tara resigned.
She had burnout – a state of complete mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion.
Tara and her boyfriend, James Thomas, 29, both ditched their corporate life and used £18k savings to travel and move abroad.
After traveling around South East Asia for four months, the pair landed in Cairns, Australia.
After two months of traveling, they settled down in Melbourne.
But instead of going back into their previous careers, they both found jobs in hospitality, and Tara now earns $32 (AUS) an hour on a weekday, $36 (AUS) on a Saturday, and $42 (AUS) on a Sunday.
Tara and James are planning to extend their visa and carry on living in Australia and have no plans to return to the US – or get back into the corporate world.
Tara, a restaurant host, originally from Wirral, Merseyside, said: “As I hit 27/28 I was like ‘crap’.
“I was at a point in my career where things were going really well and I didn’t have a reason to leave.
“I had shares in the company and if I had stayed another year I would have made a profit – I lost money leaving.
“I even spoke to work about starting up an office in Australia but it was too complicated.
“November 2022 was when everything changed – I went off with burnout.
“I was giving a presentation and I lost my sight and ability to speak.
“They had to call an ambulance and I spent three days in the hospital.”
Tara started working for a start-up HR tech company in 2018 and progressed up the company ladder and moved to their London office.
After five years, she was in a senior position at the company earning £64k a year.
Tara said: “A lot of my friends were jumping from job to job at the time and I had been at the company for five and a half years.
“I had the most amazing friends and manager but it meant I didn’t realize the signs of burnout.”
In November 2022, Tara was delivering a presentation at work where she lost her sight and was unable to speak.
She was taken to St Thomas Hospital, where she spent 12 hours before being taken to Homerton University Hospital, London, England, where she spent three days.
Tara said: “They thought I had a stroke but it turned out to be a crazy stress episode.
“I was then off for a month. I returned to work in January 2023 but handed my notice in after two weeks.”
At first, she said her family didn’t believe her traveling plans but the pair set off in May 2023.
She said: “They were super supportive. My dad didn’t believe me until I booked the flights.
“Everyone was super supportive and we had about five leaving parties before I left.
“I am so glad we went traveling before we settled in Australia as it allowed us to get the ball rolling.
“It made me realize how I didn’t want to go back to a corporate job.”
Once they arrived in Australia, James and Tara spent two months traveling up and down the East Coast before staying with a friend in Sydney.
Tara said: “We had a great time traveling, we used money that we spent five years saving up which we thought would go on a house deposit to be able to afford the trip.
“We stayed in Sydney for six weeks. In that time we found a hospitality agency that was working random festivals.
“I worked for a Vogue catwalk event, a Tik Tok event and a few festivals here and there.
“I thought that was really cool and it gave me my first real taste of the hospitality industry.”
The couple arrived in Melbourne, in November 2023, and started renting a one-bedroom flat for $650 (AUS) a month.
Tara is now a host in a restaurant and earns around $2k (AUS) a month and said she loves how “calm” her life is now compared to the UK.
She said: “It’s not all about doing things just on the weekend now.
“My days off can be a Wednesday and then I always try and plan something fun to do.
“My time is now much more valuable when I have it off.
“I am not just racing to the weekend and getting drunk to then regret it the next day.”
James has also given up climbing the corporate ladder and has become a supervisor in a cafe.
Tara said: “My life is not about money, my career, or climbing the corporate ladder anymore.
“I am currently on a casual contract which means I get paid more per hour but I don’t have holiday or sick pay.
“The wage now is not too dissimilar to what I got paid in London, it is not frowned upon here to work in hospitality here either as you can make good money from it.
“The contracts in Australia are suited around people who are traveling or backpacking as there is such a big community here.”
Tara’s salary and rent in London –
Salary: £3,000 a month after tax
Rent and bills: £15,600
Tara’s salary and rent in Melbourne –
Salary: £2,000 on average a month
Rent and bills: $650
This is Premium Licensed Content. Would you like to publish this article? Please contact our licensing team.
