A former corporate executive from Mumbai who left a senior product leadership role in London to relocate to Melbourne has drawn attention online after describing her transition from a high-paying technology career to managing and cleaning short-term rental apartments in Australia.

Shweta Desai said the move forced her to reassess the relationship between professional identity, financial independence and personal stability after struggling to secure equivalent employment following her relocation in late 2023.Speaking to Hindustan Times and in a video shared on social media, Desai said she had spent nearly 15 years building her career in the United Kingdom after moving there from Mumbai in 2008 for higher studies.

Before leaving London, she worked as Head of Product for a commercial business platform and was reportedly earning close to £100,000 annually, equivalent to roughly ₹1 crore at current exchange rates.Her relocation to Australia followed her husband securing employment in Melbourne. However, Desai said the Australian job market differed significantly from the one she had experienced in the United Kingdom, making it difficult to obtain a similar leadership position.

“The job market in Melbourne is very different, so I couldn’t find what I wanted,” she said.Unable to secure a corporate role immediately after arriving, Desai said she accepted the first available employment opportunity she could find, which involved managing Airbnb apartments.

The work included cleaning rooms, replacing linens and responding to customer queries on the rental platform.“I went from Head of Product in London to cleaning apartments in Melbourne,” she said in an Instagram video. “And for a long time I thought I’d lost myself completely.”The experience, according to Desai, marked a sharp shift not only in employment status but also in lifestyle and financial autonomy. Reflecting on her life in London, she described a period of economic comfort associated with senior corporate employment and long-term career growth.“The title.

The salary. The wardrobe. It was all gone,” she said.Desai said unemployment and career uncertainty had a significant emotional impact during the initial stages of relocation. She described feeling disconnected from her previous sense of identity and increasingly uncertain about how she defined herself outside professional achievement.“The person who remained was like a shell,” she told Hindustan Times.

“She was bending over backwards for everyone, making sure that any needs that she had didn’t really get done.”The adjustment period also highlighted broader issues surrounding migration, employment mobility and the challenges professionals face when moving between international labour markets. Despite years of experience in the United Kingdom, Desai said her qualifications and previous corporate role did not immediately translate into equivalent opportunities in Australia.

Economists and labour market analysts have increasingly noted that skilled migrants often face transitional barriers when relocating across countries, including local hiring preferences, accreditation differences and limited professional networks in new labour markets.

Desai said the manual and routine nature of apartment management work eventually provided a degree of psychological stability after months of uncertainty.“It’s a functional job,” she said. “It gave me a small part of myself back.”Over time, she said the experience helped separate her sense of identity from corporate designation and salary level. Questions from others about her profession during unemployment periods had initially intensified feelings of insecurity.

“Everywhere we went, people would ask me, so what do you do?” she said. “I didn’t really have an answer.”Desai said she sometimes referred to herself as “figuring it out” or as a housewife, although she felt uncomfortable with descriptions that she believed no longer reflected her personal or professional identity.The experience later became part of a broader reassessment of financial independence and self-worth.

Desai said the loss of professional status forced her to confront how heavily she had associated personal value with career success.“But here’s what nobody tells you about losing a career you worked fifteen years to build,” she said. “When the title goes, you find out who you actually are underneath it.”She added that the transition ultimately led to greater self-awareness and a revised understanding of financial freedom.“I’ve realised that money equals freedom,” she said. “It means options.”

Desai currently continues to manage apartments while also teaching English to children and developing a coaching and business practice, according to the interview.Her account has resonated widely on social media platforms, particularly among professionals discussing career instability, migration challenges and shifting definitions of success in post-pandemic labour markets.

The discussion also reflects wider changes in global employment trends as professionals increasingly relocate across borders for family, economic or lifestyle reasons while navigating uneven labour conditions and rising living costs in major international cities.

Australia, like several developed economies, has experienced fluctuations in hiring across technology and corporate sectors in recent years, affecting both local job seekers and newly arrived migrants.

Professionals relocating from established overseas careers can face extended transition periods before re-entering comparable positions.Desai said her experience ultimately changed how she viewed both work and financial security.

“Money means options, freedom and sometimes happiness too,” she said.

Australia’s long-standing do-it-yourself culture is increasingly being reshaped by concerns over waste, emissions and the rising cost of replacing household equipment, prompting greater interest in electric tools, repair cafes and community-run tool libraries.For many Australians, weekend trips to hardware stores remain a routine part of home and garden maintenance.

Survey data shows about 57% of Australians consider themselves willing to undertake repairs and improvements around the house and garden. But environmental advocates and repair networks say the traditional DIY model, particularly one reliant on petrol-powered equipment and infrequently used new tools, carries significant environmental and financial costs.

Australia imports more than one million outdoor power tools annually, including lawnmowers, leaf blowers, hedge trimmers, chainsaws, chippers and pressure washers. Many of these are powered by two-stroke or four-stroke petrol engines, which generate noise, greenhouse gas emissions and exhaust pollutants including carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds and fine particulate matter.

According to the California Air Resources Board, operating a commercial leaf blower for one hour produces a similar level of air pollutants as driving a car for about 1,700 kilometres, roughly the distance between Melbourne and Brisbane.

One hour of lawn mowing produces emissions comparable to driving about 480 kilometres.Research has also shown that on summer weekends in Australia, small non-road engines, largely from lawn mowing and recreational boating, contribute up to 20% of certain forms of air pollution, including carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds.

In California, these engines overtook passenger vehicles as the largest source of smog-forming pollution in 2020.Harry Barber, a transport consultant and volunteer with Electrify Yarra, said battery-electric alternatives are now available for nearly all common household garden tools, reducing the need for petrol-powered equipment.“Whether it’s a mower, or a blower, or a whipper-snipper, or a chainsaw. Whatever you need, it can all be electric,” Barber said.

He said transitioning to electric tools is significantly more affordable for most households than replacing a petrol vehicle with an electric car. Many manufacturers also design batteries that work across multiple tools, reducing both cost and material use.Barber said electric tools offer additional benefits beyond emissions reduction.

They are quieter, require less maintenance and eliminate the burnt oil smell associated with two-stroke engines. Although Australia banned the sale of two-stroke tools in 2020 due to pollution concerns, many households continue to use older equipment already in circulation.

In the United States, dozens of cities have banned the sale of petrol-powered leaf blowers or introduced financial incentives to encourage households and landscaping businesses to adopt electric alternatives.Alongside the shift toward electric equipment, another movement is growing across Australian cities: borrowing instead of buying.

Tool libraries, where residents pay a membership fee to borrow tools rather than purchase them, are expanding as communities seek to reduce overconsumption and make expensive equipment more accessible.