Hello good sir.

What you first need, is mental breakthrough.

I can tell you must have been through a lot stress. The obstacles has worn you down greatly. The way you present yourself may not be the best representation of your story telling. The victimization mental state you carry in your story does not necessarily position you under a good spotlight right now. However, this is just a quick judgement from your post and not intended from personal attack.

Perhaps I can suggest you dissect your problem and tackle it differently. I think a perfect solution maybe difficult to catch.

Lemme try a preliminary noob summarize version using ur post.

1. 8 years in a position you are unhappy with and unable to leave. Wasted precious years and gain little valuable skillset.

Hhmmm your role is actually not a bad role.
Many companies out there require this skillset IMHO.
Speaking from personal experience too.

Perhaps seek opportunity in company to expand your scope?
As the budget expert. Develop a framework that allows dept to present their yearly plan in a forum for all to comment and feedback, good or bad. This promotes standardization of work and good benchmark between dept. Healthy competition. Helps other und who underspend and overspend. You could drive this. Revisit and lead assessment. Develop process and framework for this. Chatgpt can easily help you with the skeleton plan and you fill in the meat.

2. You are unable to find a good job with ur skillset and age factor.

I would agree age maybe a disadvantage. However, I feel age can be a weapon too bcos it spells maturity as first impression. Do you know today application for jobs goes up to hundreds? Hence you need to be equipped with knowledge on how job seeking works today. AI and BOTS actually do first level vet through of resume before human even touch it.
If you unable to have a good key words, ur resume eliminated before any real life eyes set on it. There are even website that does scoring for your resume based on job description you are applying to tell u if ur resume is good or bad. Gone are the days where 1 resume can be used for all job applications.

I would suggest you paint your job abit more sexy. It's not fake, don't worry. Just the popular terms such as financial and budget controller, p&l controller, budget and spend analysis, cost synergy driver, synergy and cost management. Pair this with numbers of many rm achieved. This is super crucial. Do you know your role actually require superb communication skills to make it happen?

3. Skills outdated, cannot beat system knowledge.

Long shot but achievable eventually.

If you can't beat them, join them. Join courses of system that helps you level up ur job. If too lazy to learn how to execute it, learn the knowledge so you can lead the executors. SAP all these are the future. You can't escape it. Get the knowledge, marry it to function and see through smooth operation and add value to business to drive revenue.

To do the above, you need mental breakthrough.
Get a coach? Go gym to improve looks to regain confidence?
Upskill and present yourself better?

Those are the things I would do. Age can be a weapon.

Don't be too selective when job offer to you. Sometimes jumping in a small pond makes you the big fish. Sometimes a struggling company means a lot opportunity for you to fix problems and gain new achievement.

Good luck, sir. You are only human hence your feelings are valid but don't let it get you down. It's not showstopper in my opinion. With some motivation and right mindset, breakthrough is entirely possible. Jia youuuu

This post has been edited by Pugface: Jun 7 2025, 11:15 AM