So many plan for their retirement, lets do everything then. Drives me nuts. Live for now, death doesn’t give you any leeway, when it’s your turn that’s it, no choice!!!

I’ve been in precisely the same situation as your friend this year. I was made redundant in February and it was hell. Some jobs had a thousand applicants, again because of AI and easy apply. It’s possible to script it, if you know how or some job sites do that for you, anything that remotely matches your skillset, it will apply for you whilst you sleep. I did several interviews and like you hate them. They’re all online and each job has 3 or 4 stages to the process. I ended up being in the process of several jobs at once. Many fell through.

Until in the end I found iRock school of music which has quite literally been a life saver, the drudgery would have continued.

The other guys who were made redundant are still looking but I ended up searching day and night. Ended up going to the doctor on the grounds of acute anxiety.

I’m going to name this new job work. It’s less money but will be less stressful.