
Jumping Ship: Signs It's Time to Quit - madmork
https://www.madmork.com/single-post/2017/08/25/Jumping-Ship-7-Signs-its-time-to-quit
======
codingdave
I'd add an prerequisite to even thinking through whether it is time to leave a
job -- know what your goals are in your life. You have to have those defined
to know where your job fits, and know whether your current position is driving
you towards your goals or not. And sometimes it really isn't an obvious
conclusion -- a great job may give you a happy, satisfying work life, but
leave you stagnant in your overall life trajectory. Or a miserable job may
leave you wealthy and free to pursue your dreams at 30 years old because you
sat through some pain and misery until a good payout.

But aside from big picture questions like that, I've found that when push
comes to shove, by the time you start asking if you should leave a job, the
answer is almost always "Yes", otherwise you wouldn't be asking.

~~~
moxious
Many people need a sort of permission to leave their jobs, usually because of
the relationships they've developed and an inability to separate the work bits
from the relationship bits.

But yeah, if you need this checklist to show 7/7, then you've probably already
stayed too long, and you're looking for psychological permission to quit

------
rothbardrand
I've found a very strong correlation between high amounts of very powerful
kool-aid and terribly negative team dynamics.

Microsoft in the mid 1990s was not great, but it doesn't hold a candle to
Amazon in the mid 2000s (and to this day) which is a highly emotionally
manipulative cult with terrible backstabbing politics, stack ranking and
incompetent leadership.

One early signal of this is if the company has a book that everyone is
supposed to read. (For amazon it was required indoctrination for new
employees)... though there are exceptions-- one startup required everyone to
read "Crossing the Chasm" and while that company wasn't well run, that book
wasn't part of the problem.

OH, the book thing may not be obvious-- a company must be run in a dynamic
fashion. If everyone is mindlessly quoting cult slogans (e.g.: amazons "IT's
day one!") or citing chapter and verse in a bible then it shuts down
reasonable thinking.

The book becomes a source of thought terminating cliches.

I think this kind of cult ideology may be taking root at places like Google
and Mozilla and Facebook where they seem to be forming a rigid homogenous
ideology (though I haven't worked there, so that's just speculation from an
outsider)

------
ahallock
I've been in #7 (perpetual crisis) a few times. Eventually, it's like the boy
who cried wolf and you start tuning it out. I was a contractor, luckily, so it
was easier to ignore than a full-time employee.

Companies try to trap you in this family mentality, almost like a cult, just
to drain you like a vampire. I prefer to be a "mercenary" \-- I do great work,
get paid, the end. I don't want to be a part of the family or drink the Kool-
Aid.

~~~
tiggybear
I really, truly believe it is immoral to 'not care about money.' I really
think all of this crap that employers shovel on us, care about the mission,
changing the world, have passion for what you do every day, and take pride in
trying to up your output, etc etc etc, is well, CRAP!

In a system that 100% revolves around money, it seems inefficient to heavily
prioritize anything besides money.

Can you imagine going to a taco stand and saying to the cashier, "I really
need 10 tacos, but before I hire you to make them for me I need to know how
passionate you are about making tacos. Also, can you let me know where you see
yourself in 5 years, I don't want to hire you to make tacos if you don't think
you will be doing this in the future!

Additionally, I don't think the price you listed is fair. How about I give you
80% of what you typically charge, but you will also get the satisfaction that
you are helping me change the world! I am building an app to automate business
processes and I need to eat, the more resources you give me at a discounted
price the more resources I can dump into accomplishing my dream."

I really wish all questions in interviews were illegal other than "can you do
this job", "can you prove that you can do this job", and "will you accept this
wage to do this job?" Everything else should be illegal and the employment
laws should be changed to allow fast firing without detriment to the company.

I don't know why, but when I'm analyzing transactions within capitalism I like
to frame them around a taco shop :)

~~~
alsetmusic
> changing the world, have passion for what you do every day…

I have worked at a company that literally revolutionized modern tech. Luckily,
I was also quite well compensated, but the qualities listed above were an
essential component to the success of the project I was with. It can mean the
difference between a half-baked product and a mind-blowing product.

Everyone I worked with was excited about what we were doing because we knew we
were changing the world (it sounds hyperbolic, but history has validated our
thinking).

Money is essential. Indoctrination is soul-sucking. There does exist a realm
in between.

~~~
ChemicalWarfare
+1. When you are genuinely a part of "something big" and trust your leadership
to pull through temporary setbacks - the "changing the world" vibe can be the
difference between making it and not making it altogether especially in the
startup environment.

It does get abused/overused though and shouldn't be a substitute for an
adequate material compensation in the long run. "Vibe" don't pay the bills
after all.

~~~
thehardsphere
Yeah... the problem starts when you have owners or managers who think they can
impose "vibe" rather than harness it where it emerges.

------
Jare
\- "I don't want to hear your problems, only your solutions"

\- "If anyone doesn't like it here, the door is open"

These may sound obviously toxic, but often are taken with a grain of salt by
many employees. In my 25 yrs, I have never seen a team or company recover to a
remotely healthy state after a high level manager utters either of them [EDIT:
to the team; individually it may make sense, but see thread below] (5 times, 2
personally and 3 from the sidelines). If you are an employee and you hear
that, jump ship. If you are a manager and you say that, resign. If one of your
reports says it, fire them.

~~~
ChemicalWarfare
two situations I was personally involved with (as in on the same team with
these ppl):

1 - reasonably smart dude (probably top tech guy in the team) acting like he
was "the hot sh1t", going couple levels above his manager's to constantly
complain about things not being done the way he wanted them done;

2 - run of the mill dude with a "I'm going to slack because I can get a better
job elsewhere" attitude.

both of them were told to go look elsewhere if they didn't like it. which they
both did leave eventually. don't see anything wrong with management telling
them that the door was open.

~~~
Jare
Two notes on that:

\- I was thinking of situation where the manager is speaking to the team-at-
large, not to specific people individually. Sorry for not making that clear in
my post.

\- Sounds like they were already a problem and should have been let go instead
of hoping they would do it themselves. "Eventually" can be a long, and
painful, time. But I respect that there are circumstances where this may not
be possible or advisable.

I was once in a similar position with a report of mine, but I felt important
to draw the line at specific behaviour rather than the vague "don't like it".
So we sat down, discussed my and his expectations, established some rules and
boundaries, and managed to survive the project; not as friends, but as
professionals doing our work.

------
troels
You forgot the good old "clueless top-down micromanagement". Usually wrapped
in some flavour of "agile", although it's anything but.

~~~
Joeri
Definitely that.

The most unhappy period of my working career was a period where I was micro-
managed under the guise of "agile". We had detailed sprints planned months in
advance, with very tight deadlines, and with endless meetings where nothing of
much importance got done. I especially loved the demo's where all feedback was
ignored because the coming sprints were already fully planned and there was no
room for extra work.

Luckily the people responsible for that situation are no longer working for my
employer, or I wouldn't be. It was a genuine me-or-them situation.

------
rrggrr
>If you’re working in a startup with limited resources, it’s really up to you
to craft your own role, take ownership.

This advice applies to ALL jobs and not just startups. The most valuable
employees in almost any organization autonomously grow their value and power
by delivering results outside the four corners of the job description.

------
vonuebelgarten
This site is absolutely unusable (breaks when I block some scripts, trackers,
etc. and even fails to load in archive.is).

For anybody who wants to read the article, I just put a text-only transcript
in [https://pastebin.com/raw/k22WtvmG](https://pastebin.com/raw/k22WtvmG)

~~~
danjoc
Thanks for the effort. I had the same experience. I just closed the tab and
forgot about it. Any site so poorly designed doesn't deserve to be read IMO :)

------
reificator
I scored a 7/7!

We also score a 1 on the Joel test, and that's because I helped setup a
version control server soon after arrival. We could score around a 4-5 if the
emergency project I'm working on to switch platforms ever hit production, but
it's been nearly a year of "it's a month away, you need to scramble to get it
done in time or the company goes under".

I wonder if perhaps I should start looking for new employment or something....

~~~
throwaway170827
hmm this really hit 'close to home'. It's 6/7 for me and been going on like
this for close to 2 years. What keeps me is the fact it is a very small team
and by leaving I would put things into turmoil - both on compentency side and
timing. But really not sure how much longer I can go on...

~~~
brailsafe
Just leave. It's not your fault. If the cost is your well-being, fuck the
company.

------
CalChris
Earlier rather than later. If someone you respect decides to pack it in, you
should have a look around. That doesn't mean follow them out the door since it
is always easier to find a job if you have a job. But you should take a good
hard look at the situation.

As for the article, I have definitely fallen for _Believing your own
bullshit._

~~~
mgkimsal
do you mean you believed your own, or you stayed someplace too long because
you were believing someone who believed their own?

~~~
CalChris
I believed. This was on me.

------
mwfunk
IMO #6 (Believing Your Own BS) is very similar to "Success Hides Failure". If
a company achieves great success, it can become very hard to push against the
status quo.

Any argument that boils down to, "we've done X this way for years, but we
should do Y instead" can be shot down with, "but we've been so successful for
all those years, clearly we know what we're doing". People who are naturally
inclined to always stay the course are given a very powerful rhetorical device
with which to argue.

The real conundrum is that in many cases they might be right. It's a powerful
argument because it's often true. Correlation does not imply causation, but
causation usually results in correlation. Many of these arguments end up being
rooted in people's gut feelings about things, and get resolved through org
charts instead of rationality.

------
wtvanhest
Is anyone else having problems loading this website?

~~~
sirn
If you use uBlock or similar script-blocking extensions, temporarily
unblocking scripts and XHR on parastorage.com should allow the article to be
viewed.[1] Loading 157 scripts for a text article (actually, for any kind of
content) seems way overkill, though. It will also cause CPU usage to spike to
100% on load, on top of that.

[1]:
[https://files.grid.in.th/apCdTE.png](https://files.grid.in.th/apCdTE.png)

~~~
wtvanhest
I'm not. Just plain firefox. Looks like the site is loading an email signup
popup which freezes the browser or all the scripts. I have no idea, but it
blows my mind thay anyone thinks its a good idea.

------
trentmb
I've been trying to figure out what career change I could make. Simply finding
another software dev job wont be an improvement if I hate writing software.

~~~
thehardsphere
What about writing software do you hate?

~~~
Clubber
If I were to guess, it would be the process.

~~~
ghthor
Have you built any software you're proud of?

I'm assuming you mean the team dynamic and project management "process". I'm
still on my journey to escaping that dumb rat race, but I feel it's possible.
Some liberal applications of cryptocurrwncy might enable a large portion of
software engineers to become self employed and focus are problems they are
interested in.

~~~
Clubber
>Have you built any software you're proud of?

Yes, quite a few systems. For all of them, the process was essentially,
"here's our problem, go solve it."

------
madmork
Thanks for all the feedback guys - good or bad. It's all helpful. If you found
that post useful, I just published the followup post to that: 3 Steps to
Finding your Dream Job. Hope it helps and have a great weekend:
[https://www.madmork.com/single-post/2017/08/31/Need-a-Job-
Ch...](https://www.madmork.com/single-post/2017/08/31/Need-a-Job-Change-Heres-
how)

------
LoSboccacc
I'm gonna add not having fun, even if it is tangentially mentioned in the
different points.

------
baccheion
As a software engineer, if it's been about 2 years, then it's time to jump
ship (unless there's a clear indicator not to).

------
tjalfi
I scored a 4 out of 7 (1, 2, 3, 7).

Changing jobs will probably require a significant pay cut but the alternative
is watching my career slowly die.

------
thinbeige
OP lived in eleven countries, worked at ten companies, knows companies in and
out and the signs when it's time to jump ship.

Why do such people with that vast experience always stay employed, keep
critisizing but never start their own company and show us how to run a
business the right way?

~~~
codingdave
Not everyone has the personality to start a company, or be the CEO. I've
certainly had the experience to do so as well, but I really do like to be the
#2 guy in the background, not the #1 guy out in public. And I know that about
myself, so I seek out leaders to follow instead of starting my own thing.

~~~
ryandrake
Not to mention not everyone has the capital or viable business idea either.
Ive always found the “just start a company” thing to be simplistic and loaded
with assumptions.

~~~
thinbeige
You don't need own capital to start a company. It sounds harder without
capital but actually it is easier. The less capital you have the more creative
you get and the better you business model will be. And if you still need money
there are tons of investors out there. Getting their funds is not easy but
having no capital shouldn't be an excuse to not start a business.

~~~
eropple
_> You don't need own capital to start a company._

This is fairly privileged silliness. That capital is how you pay rent and feed
yourself and your family while you actually build a business. Those of us (and
I am one) who are able to safely and effectively live off of savings to build
a business are the _vanishing exception_ , not the rule, in America.

The next person who says "just work nights and weekends" is telegraphing how
richly they morally deserve one upside. "Burn everything else in your life to
probably still fail at building a company" is gross, nasty advice. And,
coupled with the continual throwing out of any temperament filter with regards
to whether one should create a business--at best it is a failure of compassion
and empathy.

------
synicalx
Why do people get so funny about quitting their job? You're allowed to quit,
it's ok!

You don't owe your employer anything (professionally). If they don't like the
fact you left, that is quite literally their problem.

------
tener
Interesting read, although could use some proofreading.

~~~
laxatives
Author seems to lack an understanding of what constitutes an equation or a
conditional.

------
robertlagrant
This article definitely creates and then never uses unnecessary three letter
acronyms (uTLAs).

------
re1man
#8 Money?

------
tchisholm
"In my experience, teams that are permanently in this mode are their because
of management."

There not their.

------
pauldprice
I don't disagree with these points, but you have to question the author's
ability to ever find a job that will work for him long term. Over ten
companies in 20 years is a sad resume that calls into question either his
ability to seek out meaningful employment or some other issue with the author,
like terminal "grass is greener" syndrome.

~~~
devwastaken
>Over ten companies in 20 years is a sad resume that calls into question
either his ability to seek out meaningful employment or some other issue with
the author, like terminal "grass is greener" syndrome.

Changing jobs is what does work long term for them. In any proffession, why do
you have to be at the same place for years upon years? In the tech industry,
you will rarely get paid more, learn more, or really 'move up' if you stay.

~~~
ghthor
This is because our companies are all being structure into top down
authoritarians dictatorships. The employees are weak, and management wants
them to stay weak. Until this changes the only power the employee has to make
change is to play politics or leave. Most of us are software engineers because
we don't want to play politics, we want to build the future of civilization.
We need new organizational structures that enable democracy at work.

