Rohan Banerjee

If Hercules had faced a 13th Labour, it would have been househunting while holding down a full-time job. After arranging to view a property the other day, the estate agent sent me an email to confirm the appointment. It started, I kid you not, with 'congratulations' – almost as if in acknowledgement of how difficult the process had been.  I suppose, at least to some degree, you should expect buying a home to be stressful. It’s likely to be one of the biggest financial commitments you’ll ever make in your life. There are deposits to save, solicitors’ fees and stamp duty to resent, and mortgage brokers to convince your coffee habit does not represent cause for concern.

A few years ago, asking a junior colleague to make a phone call would not have registered as a particularly daunting task. Now, it seems, many younger staff would be more willing to donate a kidney than call a restaurant to push a booking back an hour. In media, I have been astounded by twentysomethings’ reluctance to pick up the phone. Instead, they’ll embark on a long campaign of avoidance: an initial email, a 'gentle nudge', and then a 'just moving this to the top of your inbox', all while hours drift between the lack of responses.   It’s inefficient and, frankly, a bit sad.

‘Congratulations! We’re delighted to inform you that you’ve made it through to the fifth stage.’ At this point, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. I’d done the HR screening call; completed the written task; got through the first-stage interview and then repeated myself in the second. So what, exactly, was left? A PowerPoint presentation? A half-marathon? Solving a Rubik’s cube underwater?   Experiences like this became a common feature of my life after I was made redundant from my job at a technology magazine in 2024. While I was fortunate enough to secure regular freelance and contract work, the lack of a fixed salary quickly created friction elsewhere.