If on a Sunday afternoon you get a sinking feeling of despair about having to go to work tomorrow, it's time to leave.
Ask HN: How do you decide on when to leave/switch job?
41–50 of 72 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you decide on when to leave/switch job?
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its the signal of a dying creature. Once office politics are waged and won, hierarchy's are established- suddenly, communicating ideas openly for people only interested in the product and the customer - and by doing that jumping over hierarchy's is a criminal offense - the last terminal stage is reached. The duration of the process may vary- the outcome does not.
The vast majority of corporate america is a dying creature then. The problem is that the vast majority of the upstarts who will eat them will also die, -and- even the winners may not usurp anything for 20+ years. At which point they, too, will likely start 'dying'. I think you exaggerate the diagnosis. As with a patient with a disease, you have to modify treatment. The reality is that learning to deal with office pol…
Im sure if you are higher up in this Ponzi Scheme you have all the time for a sophisticated justification.
But where i am, we need our attention on problem solving, attention on important (often cross-department) details - we do not have the time and resources for procedure-obsessed bureaucrats, leeching initiative and resources into there little Japanese gardens of power, while the project as a whole suffers- and all that ever returns from your proposed silod departments is excuses, blame-shifting and informal orders to not reveal information to other departments working on the same project.
I understand that this is human nature and it must run its course, because those who could actually fight it - are actually fighting for it. Still, if you are in a company to innovate and push the boundaries of tech (which usually needs short com-paths, teamwork and the ability to bounce ideas informal), this is the end of your path in this company.
Oh, and before you try to wriggle out by pointing at the "innovation" initiatives started by CEOs noticing the absence of exactly this- which becomes just another shiny hot powerpoint potato being pin balled from department to department. No, that is not it.
Finally something positive- sometimes.. power aggregates, and some control freak snatches too much of it, merging departments, and this one guy, running hierarchical amok, breaks the spell for a time. He basically destroys the attempts of the hierarchy to sabotage communication, by directly sampling data and pushing worthwhile endeavors against the resistance of the apparatus.
You should hear middle-management hiss at the employees, after the manager-type (lets call him the boar), just casually talks to the people involved and gets Information and Ideas, that where "NOT-SUPPOSED-TO-BE-COMMUNICATED", enabling work to be done and problems to be solved. Subversion saves the day and nobody admits it.
So here is, though i detest the personality type when in personal contact, a toast to the likes of Steve - who at least get things done after the calcification sets in.
Re: Ask HN: How do you decide on when to leave/switch job?
#43What I call the Dilbert-o-meter. When you start noticing too many Dilbert comics acted out in real life, it's time to leave.
That's a pretty good rule. I worked at a telco and a co-worker pointed out that the seemed very likely that Scott Adams had hidden cameras and microphones in our offices. When Dilbert-like rules and decisions start showing up to frequently, it's time to leave. Generally speaking I don't think you should go work for companies with more that 50 - 100 employees. After that stupidity start showing up way too frequently.
I am at a company of 70 and we seem to still be not-stupid. But I think the general rule is correct; we don't have stupid here because nobody has time for it, and anyone who isn't pulling their weight is conspicuous and gets cut loose eventually.
My guess is that once headcount is over 100, the organizational details start to become too large to fit in any one person's head, and that creates blind spots in which stupid people can go unnoticed.
And if you get even larger than that, at some point stupid people just become part of the cost of doing business that shareholders are happy enough to put up with as long as the stupidity is contained and doesn't obviously diminish their returns.
Re: Ask HN: How do you decide on when to leave/switch job?
#44If you're having bourbon for breakfast to cope with the current death march, you should have left months ago.
Re: Ask HN: How do you decide on when to leave/switch job?
#45Just switch often until you are sufficiently paid and found one that doesn't suffer from dysfunctions like employee/manager churn. Then use the capital you built up to work less, focusing on other things in life than work. Every time you switch you have to prove yourself again, you'll have to prove you are worthy the perks (working from home etc).
My recipe was switching around and then back to my first employer later in my career. A place I knew had good climate where I could stay 5-10 years with ease.
Re: Ask HN: How do you decide on when to leave/switch job?
#46Best thing I have on this is a quote from Steve Jobs : "When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And…
On a related note, I hate how that Aurelius quote is always cut off. The full quotation is, "Live every day as if it were your last: without frenzy, without apathy, without pretense." The point isn't that you should go party and have fun and not plan for the future, which the additional "without" clauses clarify. Aurelius meant that you should adopt an emotional state of peace and firm dedication. Because most people…
These are some great comments; thanks for these!
Re: Ask HN: How do you decide on when to leave/switch job?
#47Not learning anymore. The previous job I was at was a rather boring one after a few months. The company had already encountered most of the customizations clients requested and most of the new projects ended up being solely copy-paste work from older projects. This meant writing no new code but just applying older patch files and tweaking some config like the header and footer of the website. Since I was not learning…
+1 to this. The most important part of any job for me is "do I feel like I'm smarter at the end of the day because of this job?"
I had a job at an advertising agency, which, by most objective measures was a pretty decent job. However, I felt like about 95% of my work was "copy-paste, tweak-slightly". Eventually it got to a point where I wrote a script that could generate most of my work, and I realized that it was time to move on.
Re: Ask HN: How do you decide on when to leave/switch job?
#48I just encountered this 2 days ago. When the company decides to adopt a new (to them) technology stack that is not part of where I see my future self.
New tech stacks can be learned. If it fits the development and product, why not? Even if you have a personal dislike for it, you could still learn from it. I find in-fighting, interpersonal quibbles and ridiculing of co-workers far more insufferable.
What about moving to old stacks like... PHP?
Re: Ask HN: How do you decide on when to leave/switch job?
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
New tech stacks can be learned. If it fits the development and product, why not? Even if you have a personal dislike for it, you could still learn from it. I find in-fighting, interpersonal quibbles and ridiculing of co-workers far more insufferable.
What about moving to old stacks like... PHP?
Then start calling recruiters like your life depends on it.
Re: Ask HN: How do you decide on when to leave/switch job?
#50If we collect all the reasons in this thread together it rules out a significant majority of companies. Just saying.