In India, a government job is treated as the end of a long struggle. Aspirants spend years preparing for it, families plan around it, and those who clear the exam are told that their future is settled. Few are asked whether they want what comes after.One woman, who now creates content on Instagram, has said she was asked that question only after she got the job, and that her answer was no.In a video posted on the platform, she said almost everyone told her she was making “the biggest mistake” of her life when she left her government bank job.She said she had prepared for government jobs for “more than two to three years”. When she finally got one, she thought her life was set. “After joining, I realized that the reality was completely different for me and this is not the life that I’ve expected,” she said.
The wedding she missed
She said the moment that changed everything was when she had to miss her best friend’s wedding. “My flights were booked, all the plans were made, my friends were coming from different cities, different countries and my leave got cancelled because of an audit,” she said.The stress, she said, was affecting her at home as well. “I was so stressed, I barely talked to my parents. I was living with my husband but I could not talk to him properly because I was under so much stress at that time.”That was when she decided something had to change. “I cannot live my life like this,” she said.
No job, a bond and a penalty
She said the decision came with risks. “The scary part, I didn’t have any other job in my hand at that time and I had to pay a good amount of money to resign because there was a bond,” she said.Everyone around her, she said, told her she was making a mistake. She did not argue with them. “Probably, I was making a mistake but still I took a chance and I put down my papers,” she said.
Applying during the notice period
She said she began applying to other jobs while serving her notice period at the bank. She also reached out to recruiters on LinkedIn. “Eventually, I landed a job in a private sector,” she said.The move came at a price, and she said so plainly. “Did I take a pay cut? Yes. Do I regret it? Absolutely no,” she said.
What her days look like now
She now works from home and says she can travel without having to think much about leave. “Today, I work from home and I can travel anywhere without thinking much about taking leaves,” she said.She is also creating content. “Now, I’m creating content and I’m finally building a life that feels right for me,” she said.She was careful to say that her story is not an argument against government jobs. “This isn’t about whether government or private sector. It’s about choosing the life that’s right for you,” she said.Her account is not that the job was bad. It is that the job did not fit her, and that the cost of staying was something she could see clearly: a missed wedding, a strained home and a life she did not recognise as her own.She paid to leave, took a lower salary and accepted that the people around her might be right. She is also the only one in the story who knew what the job was costing her.