When Should You Quit Your Job?

Moe Taxes asks: "I want to hear from Slashdot readers who have quit jobs or turned down offered jobs because it was not what they wanted to do. Why did you do it? Was it ethics, ambition, pride, or disgust? And how did it turn out? Did you get to do what you wanted to do, are you still looking, or did you come back begging for another chance? I have always written software for windows, but never with Microsoft tools. I don't feel like I have enough control over the product when I use Microsoft programming environments. My company was bought recently, and is in the process of becoming a C# VisualStudio shop. I said thanks, but no thanks and left. Am I a fool for giving up steady work and good pay?"

Yeah I've turned down work

[toygeek]

It was a job as a network/systems admin at a manufacturing and development plant. After doing some side work for them, and many long discussions with the owner, I realized the guy was full of himself and wanted somebody who was just as full of it as he was. I'm not that guy, so I bowed out. It turned out to be the best career decision I've made!

In the post dot-com bubble world...

[KiltedKnight]

Yes. You should've held on, but been actively looking. For whatever reason, business logic is, "We'll wait 2-3 weeks for the person who has a job instead of hiring the person who's available immediately because they're out of work."

boss was arrested for child pornography at work ..

[Spectre]

Kind of an unusual thing, but I quit a job working at a small computer consulting firm a while after the police showed up at work and arrested my boss for child pornography.

He was convicted, but was sentenced to probation with monitoring ... he kept making remarks about it not being a "real crime" especially since he hadn't been locked up for it.

The job market being pretty good for programmer-types at the time, so I left. The fact that the business was hugely in debt certainly didn't encourage me to stick around, either.

Similar Situation

[The_Real_Nire]

Right now I am the lone PHP programmer where I work, and I have total control over what operating systems and applications I want ot use on my workstation and servers. However, I recently was offered a job about 3 hours away, where I would have to code in C#, and use Visual Studio, but the pay is 2x what I make now, so I'm going to try at least.

I think its difficult enough for programmers in the US to even get jobs right now, so for me to have the option of doubling my pay in exchange for swallowing my pride, it seems like a smart move. Plus I can always go home and cleanse myself with Linux after work :)

Yay Sabatoge

[moofdaddy]

I always knew that it was a good idea to quit working when I started to sabatoge the company I was working for. Honestly, it would always be a reliable sign. I started working as a telemarketer for MBNA for a while I enjoyed annoying people it was kinda fun to see how bad I could get them to yell at me. Then it became a little less fun and i started to fool around. Eventually I got to the point where I would try and waste as much time as possible, I would sneak away to the bathroom when no one was looking and I would turn off every single toliet and urnal (there is a little valve you can twist with a flat headed screw driver). I decided it was time to quit.

I started with Walmart and my first day I started trying to sabatoge them. i decided I should probalby quit the next day. I use my destructive habbits as an indication of when I should probably look for a new place to work.

Re:Better have something inline

[Alien54]

Don't ever quite (read it twice) unless you have something else in line.

the spell checking nazis will have fun with that

That said, I actually quit one job because the boss was a roller coaster alchoholic, smooth and polite one day, mean and vindictive and nasty the next. I left for mental health reasons, not wanting to become a news item in the local news paper. It is never a good thing when you start contemplating evil things to do to your boss.

In this case, it was a wise move on my part

Leaving MS for FOSS

[Foofoobar]

I myself am leaving a Microsoft vendor and heading to FOSS as a result of our compnaies inflexible rules. Here is an example:

- Everyone at the company wears the exact same uniform (supplied by the company)

- I'm not allowed to decorate my office, bring in furniture other than their supplied furniture and can only have one picture in my office.

- I'm not allowed to have facial hair, wierd haircuts (dreads count as wierd), tattoos, peircings, etc.

- I am micromanaged to death

This is hell but now that the market has rebounded, I'm finding I can mae easily 1.5 times as much as I make here and I don't have to deal with this bullshit anymore.

This is really extrange

[Charles Dexter Ward]

(posted it somewhere else but the formatting was awful)

Two and a half years ago I was switching jobs and an Ask Slashdot on the topic gave me a few hints on how to do it well and it's been great since then. Now I have a new offer and am in the middle of a very hard decision:

I'm a programmer. I think I'll be a programmer all my life. When I do tasks in the real world I envision solutions almost as code. I was born to write code, and have done so for over 10 years now. But being a university drop-out my future has always worried me: I know people don't hire older programmers, and being 27 this is something that's hainting me.

So my current employer made me an offer to manage a new office in a town where it would be fairly easy for me to continue my university studies where I left them; but, as fate has it, I was given another offer to stay in the city I'm in with a higher pay (more than double of what I make now, almost three times) and a really high rank (Executive Manager of a really big company). When we got to the point of my lack of university degree, they downplayed it and said they could help me continue my studies, but as I see it is not a priority. Now, in the middle of this dilemma is the whole relocation problem.

My question would be this: How would you play it? I'd love to make a lot of money, but if I take the Executive Manager position I'll most probably never write code again, and may still not have a diploma; but if I take the lower, manager position with my current employer I'll be really comfortable in an environment that I like, but may never have a chance to climb up that higher in the positions ladder.

I tend to think that once I've gotten to the higher positions the university diploma will not matter much, but I'm not certain on how true this really is.

Re:Better have something inline

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me give you my own experience on this.

I quit my job as a ASP/MSSQL-developer because I found it boring, non-developing and generally fucked up (had a hourly charge-rate against customer @ ~130h & got paid ~16h - nothing exceptional for a junior consultant in sweden really).

Soo I went to university, studied a bit, worked a bit. Played around with code, ideas and concepts. This month I _almost_ pulled my old salary in adsense-ad-revenue. I guess I'm doing something right because I have alot of free time, can work with ideas I like, I can study what I find intresting.

Anyone staying at a workplace which doesn't intrest or make you happy is a stupid loser. But I dont complain, it makes it soo much easier for people like me to realize my ideas without the competition from those people.

So, you're wrong AC.

I can actually reply to this one...

[martin_b1sh0p]

I was working for a nice company, great benefits, pay was ok (not great, but good). I was doing VB work of all things. As easy going and laid back as it was it was not challenging at all and I was bored. Coming in to work, working half a day and then surfing the rest of the day can get boring day in and day out.

So I started to interview (actually only took one interview). I found a medical device company that was hiring...even though the position was for Windows Development I was assured that movement into the embedded side was possible.

So I took the job and quit my other job. It took 3 and a 1/2 years before they finally moved me into the embedded team but it was well worth the wait. Now I actually make more than I would if I had stayed at the other company (although I didn't leave because of pay) and I'm really enjoying the work.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is basically what everyone else is saying in one sentence...don't quit until you have something else lined up :-) And you shouldn't leave over petty things like development tools....only if you are truly dissatisfed with your job.

Re:In the post dot-com bubble world...

[Neff]

"We'll wait 2-3 weeks for the person who has a job instead of hiring the person who's available immediately because they're out of work." I totally agree, and the same goes for women. It always seems that women love to flirt with the guy who's hitched, but they'll never give the time of day to someone who's single. "He's single? Then there's gotta be something wrong with him!" Companies will look at you the same way.

Quit two jobs

[fishbowl]

One, because I wasn't going to get paid, ever. Actually, I think I was fired from that one, for complaining about not being paid. I was young and dumb, and at the time I really needed leisure time more than I needed money anyway.

Two, because I was asked by a manager to report hours worked on time sheets that were completely inaccurate. Turns out this is a crime. A Federal Crime. A Federal pound-me-in-the-ass-in-prison crime. The people who get upset about it are at the Social Security office, and they did not like what I was telling them. The company was Tandy corporation, the city was Dallas Texas, the year was 1986, and I'd put down the names of the people involved if I could remember them. Criminals, using me as a vehicle to commit tax fraud for Tandy's benefit. Some nerve.

A little about me

[killmenow]

I quit my full-time position in September for many reasons I won't go into...and one reason I will: I've always wanted to work for myself.

Back in August, a former employer approached me about some contract work. We negotiated a minimum six month contract. I would be out of here end of March. We just extended the work to cover additional projects and it is now open-ended. I am implementing enterprise software/systems for them in a more economical way than they could get from purchased packages that would then need customized anyway.

After quitting, my previous employer has become my second customer. I still do contract work for them on an hourly basis. I have the advantage of now being paid for exactly the hours I work (no 60-80 hour work weeks being paid for 40), having complete autonomy, only having one "boss" to answer to there, and having the right to refuse work if it does not appeal to me.

Additionally, another former employer contacted me in December and since January, they've become my third customer. I jut recently told each of these companies that I would need to raise my rates because I'm simply not charging them enough to cover my burn rate (w/ taxes, insurance, etc. figured in). Not only did they understand, they didn't blink, and they told me they were very happy with the work I've done and can't wait to implement future projects.

No guts, no glory. YMMV.

This question is right up my alley

[floydian]

A little background first: I'm (kind of) a sysadmin, with a university degree, born and living in Guatemala. How many jobs have I left? Five. That's right, five. And, even those times I've walked out on a job without having another one to latch on to, I've managed to land on my feet, and that's in an economy of a latin-american city of 3 million people.

My philosophy has always been that you only have one life to live, and you should live it the best way you can. And in my opinion, having money does not equal a good life. That's why I've been able to walk out on jobs where my dignity has been trampled, and wait out a few weeks (months, even!) until I can land another one. And I'll tell you one thing: those few weeks when I scrape by with my savings, are usually some of the best memories I end up with.

Of course, I'm not married, so I can still afford the luxury of scraping by on a handful of quetzales (plus, living in a not-too-expensive city helps). But, in my opinion, you don't need cash to have a satisfying life.

Re:Always have another paycheck lined up...

[aspx]

That sounds smart in theory, but it is actually very hard to find a job when you have one. A job search is time consuming, and you won't be able to go for interviews if you're at work. Also, many employers don't give you the time of day if it seems you are just fishing for a better job.

Let me hit you with the counter

[kwerle]

Back in about 2000 I decided I'd leave my steady, fair job and look for a doctom here in the valley. Figured what the hell - ya only live once. I ended up NOT at a dotcom, but at SUN. It was a "hot job coding Java" for small systems.

I didn't much believe in the product.
I didn't much believe in the manager.
I didn't much believe in the tech lead.
I didn't much believe in the product design.

I figured "what the hell, maybe I can make a difference!"

After 9 months of pure agony I left. I have tried to chalk it up as a learning experience, but it was a very very expensive lesson in terms of time and sanity. Not that I'm bitter, but the only thing that I can really smile about is the hope that my manager and his head lackey held onto all their stock until it was well underwater.

Don't stick with your crappy job.

I did find a dotcom, and I did make a difference, and I did have fun for a couple of years.

Re:When You get Bored

[moofdaddy]

Though this sounds nice in theory, it doesn't quite work for most people. If you have a family to support, it's not exactly practical to quit a job just because you don't enjoy working. I've been on both ends of this, in jobs I enjoy and those I don't and I would never leave a job, no matter what it was unless I had something else lined up which I am certain could support my family.

Yeah but finding another job is really not that difficult. The problem is that most people are lazy, they get stuck in a rut and they don't feel like changing because that requires work and well, change. People have a finite amount of time in their day and it is a lot easier to come home after 8 hours of work and say "meh, i am going to watch some TV or do whatever" then to decide to work on your resume and get it out there. People always procrastinate and assume it will get better when it doesn't and they leave anyway (or get layed off) .

In the end they end up leaving one crappy job and going to another one because when they finally decide to leave its because the job became unberealbe and they just want to get out, anything seems better. The result, they settle on the first decent looking job that comes along, rather then begin the search when they first get unhappy.

Or they get really screwed and get laid off and have to find any job right away so that they can support that family.

I quit over principles

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked for a UK telco (hence the posting as AC!) and I quit over an issue of principle when they tried to apply "bell curve assessment" to my team of 5 people(I was the team leader). Obviously, this is far too small a statistical sample to apply statistical assessment methodologies to, and the manager concerned didn't "get it". Since I didn't want to be forced to assess one of my team as 'underperforming' and one as dreadful, when in fact they all were performing extrememly well I felt that I had to resign over this issue. Discussion failed as it was 'corporate policy'. Whilst I don't have anything against bell curve assessment per say, it should only be used against a meaningful sample of peers in the company (if at all). Other teams had people who were widely regarded as seriously inferior to those in my team, but we weren't allowed to perform our assessment using them as peers since they were in a different team.
Previously they had cost me a team member who was highly productive, bright, keen and whom I had invested in year in training - the reason - a much deserved 2k pay raise which they wouldn't give him.
18 months later, I'm on almost double the salary, and almost my entire team has since quit the company, along with several other people who apparently cited her as the reason.
Sometimes you just have to walk.
AC

Re:When You get Bored

[Anonymous Coward]

Life is very short ...and reputations too long to erase by career ethical issues.

I live in a top 50 US market and was offered a job writing PR for a major election systems company. The pay offered was attractive and they were totally thrilled with my writing (I was referred by their PR firm who had come into contact with me at another company). I'm a half-breed tech/business type and have been fortunate enough to be able to take a technical topic and explain it for normal people to understand.

This company gave me a pile of product manuals, corporate documentation, etc. to read through as I wanted to assess what I'd be jumping into. I don't like promising anyone to solve their problems unless I really can have a realistic chance of doing so. Upon reading through the materials, I was horrified. They lacked any process maturity and relied upon a crew of hostile, overworked programmer fossils that were combative to any development. Project management was a myth. Sales would routinely ignore the obsolete programming staff and make outlandish commitments ("touch screen with custom layouts? No problem!") just to book the sale. They'd learned long ago to just toss the orders over the wall instead of dealing with the antisocial technical crew. Both groups were at war with each other.

And management wanted me to put frosting on it all as they clearly viewed their problems as public relations. "We just aren't communicating our product vision effectively" they said.

I turned it down. Every time I get on a commercial aircraft, I pray they don't make planes the way they make election systems. Best of all, I'm not associated with that company. Several of the programmers have been trying to get hired at companies I know and my horror stories have kept some of my peers from bringing on the dead weight. People have no idea how small a big city can be when it comes to hiring and networking.

Those Unsatisfied with current work, Unite!

[Anonymous Coward]

I was just complaining to a friend at how much I hate my job at Bath and Body Works when I have a friggin degree in electrical engineering and passed the FE exam. I would love to quit that job. Besides the fact that it requires zero intellectual capacity, the dearth of electronic tools one might use to make one's work easier is aggravating. And there's that bit about how it's not engineering.

So, in response to your query, sure. Get the hell out of it if you don't want to do it, but make damn sure that there's a paycheck coming from somewhere else.

Re:Better have something inline

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully this can get modded up as a bit of a warning.

I had a great job at the end of 2003, but ended up getting fired because I had an attitude that signaled I wanted a better company to work for. I didn't like the directions they were taking, etc. I had publicly talked about quitting and finding a better job, and after a heated argument with an incompetent boss, I was terminated.

I initially felt relief and freedom. It was great to be able to take the time to find that perfect company that did things the way I wanted them to be done! Until 2 weeks of unemployment turned to 2 months. Then 3. Then 4. Then a short contract out of desperation for little money. Next thing you know, I'm behind on the house and the car. Child support gets missed. A year later I ended up filing for bankruptcy in order to attempt to keep a roof over my head, and even then I'm barely able to keep up with the increased payments that come with reaffirming my loans.

Now, almost a year and a half later, I have a great job with a company less than 10 minutes from my house. They don't do things any better than the last company, but I've had to learn to be more political in the last several months.

The point is this : you won't know if it was a stupid move for 6 months. If you find some kick ass company to work for, then it was a smart move. If you're borrowing money from family and friends to pay for a bankruptcy attorney, then you were a fool.

And, not to start a flame war, what's so bad about C#? I will make the assumption that you are either a VB or Windows C++ programmer, which means that C# is just another tool in your toolkit, another skill on your resume. I still prefer C++ to C# because I feel like I haven't even scratched the surface of the full power of C++, but I use C# to pay the bills. And if you really love programming, you should love learning new languages, like I do.

Post back in 6 months and then we'll know for sure if you were a fool.

Re:When You get Bored

[emdean091876]

You can always do what I did. Rather than quiting, I just stopped doing anything. After 3 months I was laid off, w/ severance.

Make the company make you quit.

Re:Never Quit!

[thirteenVA]

Actually, I'd like to know if you've sat down in front of VS.net recently... It's quite robust and very mature. You can have as much or as little control as you want. Other than the ungodly HTML it renders for ASP.NET apps its really not that bad, hardly worth quitting your job over.

Re:This is really extrange

[donbrock]

I know people don't hire older programmers, and being 27 this is something that's hainting me.

This is news to me since I'm a programmer in my 50's and considered a youngster on my project.

Re:Never Quit!

[Anonymous Coward]

For the love of God you can't be serious about the Scions? Those are the ugliest peices of garbage since the Aztec.

One job I *should* have turned down

[mooingyak]

I accepted a job once because the money was unbelievable. The work environment sucked, I never stopped looking for a new job, and I got fired after about 3 months. The woman (red flag #1) running the joint liked to just hire people and see if they fit her needs, and then fire them a few months later. I sensed this somewhat when I met with her for the interview, but I ignored my gut instinct (Red Flag #2). They were looking for someone who knew the Sybase API, and used csh, but they advertised "C/Unix" programmer, and didn't ask about csh or Sybase in the interview. She made an offer immediately (red flag #3) after the interview and I negotiated that offer upwards about 5k to my original asking amount.

I should have turned it down, and didn't. Listen to your instincts, and if something seems wrong that you just can't pinpoint, don't take the offer.

Okay, so #1 is kind of a joke, but I could tell she was a bitchy type and that should have stopped me. Don't work for assholes unless you're unemployed and need money.

Re:Better have something inline

[networkBoy]

"If everything inside you is screaming "leave this job," then you should probably do it"

I didn't follow my gut's advice for over a year and was miserable. I finally told my boss I was leaving and if he was nice about it I would remain available for a period of time after my departure. If he was a dick about it or if I was classified as non-rehirable I was gone for good. I've never been happier or felt more liberated than my last week there when people tried adding new tasks to my stack and failed.

-nB

Re:Better have something inline

[Anonymous Coward]

Generally I would agree with "better have...". That's what I always did until last July. Where I was working was great for the first 4 years but then things went downhill. I HATED going into work. It was making me sick. So talked to the wife one night and we both agreed it was time to leave.

I ended up being unemployeed for a month and it was great! I had a consulting job lined up by the ended of the month. Was able to get a lot of projects done around the house. Recharged my mental batteries. Was a house dad/husband.

When the month was done, I was ready to go back to work.

So it can be beneficial to just leave.

I once left a Non-IT job for ethical reasons

[haplo21112]

I worked in a store, and after I had assisted a customer in chooing a product, I had an internal dialouge with myself...I said "self, you just lied to outright to that customer, to get that product sold, to bring up your totals, are you comfortable with that" myself said "NO, I'm not" I replied "Ok, then we can't work here anymore, because the culture here is that you will have to keep doing that..."
The same day I put in an application to be the asst manager of another store and had an interview 2 days later, and a week alter I no longer worked for the company I had to lie for...

Bonus credits if you can name the store I had to leave...

Hear hear!

[tod_miller]

I was about to say the same thing. Although he already quit.

I know people who stayed at a job when it went from M$ to Java, never learnt java, and spent 12 months sitting motionless in front of thier monitors, or steadily and noisily consuming painstakingly prepared (not ordered in like the rest of us actually doing work) toasts and other foods, while idly distracting us with chat.

You start off thinking ok lucky them getting paid to learn to program a new language... then you think oh poor guys, might loose thier job, then you hate htem for being leeches... until the lighter of justice burns them off the golden skin on the company.

You can then play 'stationary rush' where you steal all thier hoarded stationary, that stapler they always ask you to put back, (wtf?) and they usually have that extra side desk thing, even though they need it less.

My advice: work somewhere while it is fun to work, when it becomes less fun, start looking at what YOU WANT TO DO. see what it will take to get there.

When to leave? I handed in my notice 2 days after I signed for almost double my (already above market average) salary. I told them I was unhappy, and I was going to look for another job, they gradually offered me a 50% (50%!) rise, all the time thinking I had no other job... but I said no money could keep me there... dropped some names as to why... then left.

Ultimate damage :-) (esp since if they feel you are going because you have too, they don't pressure you to do all those annoying things like document where you have kept backups for the last 54 months. :-) :-) (and other eratta like server passwords, cvs setups, which disk is which, what is that new raid you installed? where is the key to the server room? how do I turn on the coffee machine or refill it when empty?)

Also if the only hot piece of ass is leaving, you might as well leave too. If you are male or female, single or not... if you don't work with a hot piece of unpretentious ass, life is just dull.

I quit my WTC job in NYC on Sept, 01, 2001

[crovira]

I was a victin of the following economic crash but not of the airframes that would have slammed into my floor (the 83rd) just about where my cubicle was.

Was I foolish to quit? You tell me.

I left because they didn't know what a state machine was (which had a SEVERE impact on the system's design,) my immediate boss expected to follow her around and commit everything to memory because she never wrote anything down, and I was expected to do miracles, like being prescient.

Was I foolish to quit? No way. I couldn't take working there one more day.

It may have cost me (I've recouped it all since,) but it was worth it.

I'm still here. 2 of my co-workers weren't so lucky.

Why I quit

[seminumerical]

I quit twice. The first time in disgust, the second time over ethics. I think what I did was typical of a computer guy, but would be considered unusual for a lower form of life, like for example one of our many useless MBAs.

disgust: We had purchased an IBM mainframe to replace our aging UNIVAC 1106. With an MIS Department of nearly 200 people, management nonetheless decided to convert all our Univac Fortran to IBM Fortran using translation software. I was the only guy in the department who knew both languages and I knew it was impossible. This because the Univac Fortran programmers had made all sorts of performance tweaks or extended the capabilities of the language by making use of their knowledge of the underlying hardware and of the idiosyncrasies of the compiler. Six bit byte, 36 bit words, positive and negative zero (it was a one's complement machine) and using common blocks to create de facto records (struc's). The project was obviously doomed to fail even though only about 2000 lines of code were involved! I later heard it went from $400K to $800K and took two years instead of one. And all they really needed to do was have someone who knew both languages freehand translate from one to the other: three months work at the most.

ethics: I was present (in my role as webmaster) at a meeting where it was decided not to put out a press release because it was bogus. A couple of days later our corporate overlords had released it anyway. Our share price went up about 600%, then settled back down to where it started. Our CEO and his father, on the board of directors, made a bundle. I quit. Last I heard the SEC had recommended a class action suit.

Re:When You get Bored

[Gondola]

Well, not always. There is an exception.

When I first got into the ISP field, I was a phone monkey, tech support. I got the sick to my stomach feeling at first because it was a lot of pressure to learn how to troubleshoot the stuff by the seat of your pants while you're on the phone with the customer, and I never was a "people" person.

But, after a few weeks I became more comfortable with it. Eventually I got promoted out of the NOC and I began work as a network engineer... then I started looking forward to Monday morning because I liked the people I worked with, and I enjoyed my job.

Since then I've changed jobs a few times because the damn companies keep going out of business. Now my job is on the slightly negative side. I don't enjoy it; doing my work doesn't give me a thrill. It's a dream job by most people's standards (telecommuting) but it's *boring*.

I'm getting the itch to go back to work for a startup...

Treasonous business users

[easter1916]

I quit a very high-paying job with a car rental company (the biggest one around, for those in the biz) a few years back on a point of principle. This is an extremely conservative company where smoothness and the cut of your suit (white shirts only! We dress like bankers! dickheads...) seem to matter more than your abilities. A very stifling company.

My direct manager, and the head of the business liaison team (business analysts), had both contributed to the firing of my boss' boss, and his boss' boss, in order to position himself for a promotion.

The BA had signed off on a prototype, assured us we were on the right track all along, then disowned the results when we delivered exactly what we had said we'd deliver. Months of effort by about fifty people, down the drain.

My boss had spread misinformation, lies, etc., claimed his bosses were asleep at the wheel. They were ousted, and shortly thereafter my boss quit too -- too little too late. I simply couldn't continue to work in an environment where politics is taken quite so seriously, and good people get the shaft.

Never looked back. That nightmare project is still on-going, nothing's in production really (couple of pilot locations). And the kicker? After multiple changes in architecture and direction, they are now implementing using the very same approach we used for the pilot that was rejected out of hand.

Once, Twice, Three times a Loser !

[chedrick]

What a bone headed move. I've been in this business since you were a toddler and you NEVER quit until you have a new gig lined up unless you've been harassed or otherwise abused.

1. You quit a (good ?) paying job for a seemingly trivial reason. Bad move.
2. You missed the opportunity to learn a new development language and tool. Bad move.
3. As a good developer, one must embrace change or it will devour you.

In the 20+ years I've been a developer, only once have I quit without having a new gig lined up. In that case I filed a suit against the CEO and prevailed.

Get used to change. It's part of the job. If you hate the new owners, learn C# and Visual Studio and THEN look for another position. You passed up FREE training

Re:I just turned one down last week...

[Anonymous Coward]

I just turned one down last week... My rule is if they can't beat me in a sales call, I won't even consider it.

Please explain what this means. Apparently it is very important, as it has been moderated to +5 Insightful. I don't get it.

Re:Never Quit!

[feloneous cat]

wont somebody please think of the economy!?!

Thought about it. Wasn't all that interesting.

A lot of weak people will criticize you

[314m678]

....Because you have the courage to do what they cant; take control of your life. Timid people, (like myself) sit in dead-end jobs doing things we hate cause we are scared of loosing what we have to get something better. Those who deride you with the work is not supposed to be fun mantra probably are stuck in jobs that arent fun. It is only natural that they would resent who wants more for themselves. As for me, Im happy for you.

Good luck

The Engineer PHB

[xixax]

My boss is a good example of how a management position need not be a souless paper shuffling job. He sees the management position as a way of tapping into organisation funds more directly, and because he pulls in his weight of work (his customers love having a clueful provider) we've got a pretty open R&D policy provided we deliver. He likes it because us minions mean that he can investigate a bunch more things than could could on his own.

Xix.

Re:Better have something inline

[C10H14N2]

I had a nightmare manager who drove me into the ground so hard with that sort of Jekyl and Hyde crap that I ended up in a psychologist's office. It was everything from the trivial to the insane--grinding me for $15 on a $8500 expense report one minute then, literally the next minute, expensing my _personal_ $500 cellphone, and thrashing into my office on my 15th hour on one day to find me winding down doing something unproductive and screaming that I should be "doing my job" (hello, I just finished two-days' worth of my job TODAY!) or on the most asinine level writing me up for taking a morning off because the previous fire someone else started that I had to put out had me working from 9am Tuesday until 6:30am Wednesday and I wasn't pert and perky at my desk by 9am again. AAAAGH!

So, under those circumstances, I had a chat with the Human Resources Director (and the company ombudsman) and basically said, look, I'm ready to quit and have my letter of resignation written--is there anything I should know? She gave a few coded hints, so I backed off and ended up with a severance package and a no-fault dismissal as opposed to storming out the door with bupkes or worse, being fired for some cooked-up theatrical bullshit. Bottom line, I was either going to leave or be asked to leave and couldn't care less about being gone. Better to be gone with a briefcase of cash than with merely the satisfaction of making a scene or "being right." Even if you're going to absolutely explode, it's still better to take a step back and strategize your exit. In my case it meant that what was going on was documented and, more importantly, understood so I wasn't just that back-stabbing jerk who left us high and dry.

Now, leaving because you don't like the programming language--and one that you don't really know? Well, that's just silly. You can't know too many languages, computer or otherwise. Pick up the knowledge first, then find another job, then leave. Storming out is, frankly, pretty childish and I'd start coming up with a better story than that for your next interview. No matter how trivial or horrific the situation, your next employer is primarily interested in how you handled it. Were you a professional adult or a spoiled child? Needless to say, they aren't hiring the latter...

Keeping a job may be bad

[GreatBallsOfFire]

I used to work for a very large computer company until about a week ago. I was transferred from a really great group to one that was headed up by a real a**hole. He took an immediate dislike towards me and turned a job I loved into hell. I've spent that last three years trying to make a go of it, and finally gave up.

Last week I had enough of him and the petty politics in the group, lab and between labs, so I left with only a promise from another employer. I was unemployed for about five minutes until I got the verbal offer after I quit.

Leaving without another job was something I've never done before, but it really didn't make a difference. I figured out that I could live on a smaller salary, and that by changing my mindset I could not only survive but thrive.

Why am I bucking conventional wisdom? Simple. I watched many peers and friends get marched out the door after getting fired (laid off, downsized, rightsized, participate in work force reduction program, etc.). There are no guarantees in working for any company. In fact, it's just a false sense of security because you can loose your job quite easily because some bozo didn't make a sale or miscalculated margins.

Here's what you need to keep in mind. You're not necessarily looking for a new job as much as planning your financial future. If it means two part time jobs instead of a full time one, great. If you have enough degrees to teach, do that and consult as well. Think of yourself as a business, devise a business plan and do a proforma analysis of your financial future, including cash flow. Once you have a plan, follow it. There may be less risk here than staying at your current job.

I got lucky. Everything fell into place. I'm now working full time with a consulting company, and I got a pay increase to boot. I don't think I would have done it if I hadn't stopped thinking as an employee. I don't know what the future holds, but I'm excited and happier.

My advice to you is look at all options, plan your next step and act on that plan. It could be either a new job, or a new business. Don't let emotions get in the way, and don't limit your thinking to simply being an employee. The bottom line is how much money can you make and will it be something agreeable.

My quitting resume.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've quit probably half a dozen jobs in the last 10 years...... Life is too short not to be happy, but I also may have job ADD, I don't know.

* I quit one of the first online casinos which is now a multi-billon dollar company (I was employee #3 or so) . I was ordered to rig it up so it would cheat the customers. I would be a multi-millionaire now but I couldn't live in the US. I don't believe in cheating and I couldn't live with myself, plus they were criminals, so I quit. I was still there over 2 years.

* I quit a job in late 1999 because it was a startup and it was clear it was going out of business shortly. A few months after I quit it was toast and there was no severance. I was there a year.

* I quit a major hardware/software maker because my manager called me an asshole in front of the whole team, we had to work 100 hours a week (add that up, it's a lot) and half the staff was on coke (not the drinking kind). That was a 3 month stint.

* I quit a major network company because it was so boring that I had to stick myself with pins to stay awak during the day. It would take 6 to 9 months to roll out one single project. I managed to stay awake there for 4 years.

* I went to a non IT company for a while, but quit that too because my manager was threatened by me and would only give me crap projects, again I was bored to tears. Couldn't last more than six months.

---I've been at my current job at another IT company for about a year now. So far so good. No one has called me an a-hole, I haven't been asked to commit fraud, I'm not bored, I'm not working 100 hours a week. But I'm not a millionaire either. So did I make the right decisions? Who knows.

Moral of the story?? I agree with the people responding that say don't take any crap you don't like, if you don't like it, find another job. Don't have any regrets. IT is not a long term career as best as I can tell unless you work for yourself, or you're willing to be bored or screw people over.

Re:This is really extrange

[PalmKiller]

I find the same to be true. Most younger programmers are brought up on web scripting and visual basic being taught in schools now, and they take years to develop real programming skills on real world development platforms. Old programmers not only are good at their current platforms and languages but quickly and readily learn new ones mostly due to the number of languages and platforms they have already mastered. Older programmers generally have better project throughput and are less apt to get the itch to move when they are treated well by a company. Due to this older experienced programmers are very sought after in the software industry, especially when follow through on the project is really needed.

Re:This is really extrange

[kin_korn_karn]

I'm in the same boat (although I'm not quite the youngest person here now) and I love it.

I mean, I still have days where I come home and bitch nonstop and want to strangle people, but those are exceptions. When things are working here, it's a good place to work.

Pleasant Side Effect

[MooseByte]

"I finally told my boss I was leaving and if he was nice about it I would remain available for a period of time after my departure."

A pleasant side effect of "going big" is actually changing the situation you're in vs. switching employers.

I was utterly miserable at a particular job. Absolutely destroying-my-soul miserable. A friend of mine heard my stories and was equally horrified, but then made a point of asking me what I had done to change the environment. I muttered the usual, all ineffective.

He pointed out that I had nothing to lose and everything to gain by charging the proverbial windmills with all my might, right to the top. If it was truly as bad as I described it, it certainly couldn't get any worse.

Turns out the Grand Poobahs had been equally frustrated but in a different direction. They too wanted change. They were miserable. It's just that nobody was really stepping forward with what needed to be said and how maybe to fix things. I ended up being the person who broke the ice, then many others finally felt able to talk as well.

One year later and I'm happy, doing the same job and getting better pay in the bargain. Pleasant working atmosphere, everyone feeling more like we're all in the same boat vs. "who's liver is next on the dinner plate?" It's still hard work, but after 20 years I know the difference between tough deadlines vs. death march. I feel good.

But I was fully prepared to be fired for my windmill charge. That was a definite possibility. When the situation is intolerable however, what's left to lose? And you've everything to gain.

Switching jobs, or starting a business?

[pjf]

Are you looking to start switch to another job, or start a business? If you're looking to switch, it's always good to have another offer on the table when you do. This not only gives you security when leaving your old job, but actually gives you bargaining power when negotiating your new one. You can demand much more from your new company if you're secure in your old job, compared to starving on the streets and wearing a Will code for food t-shirt.

Of course, another option is not to change jobs at all, but to instead make your own. I've started four businesses in my time, with varying degrees of success. My most successful and satisfying endeavour to date has been Perl Training Australia [perltraining.com.au], which is now about three and a half years old, has fantastic people [perltraining.com.au], an impressive list of clients [perltraining.com.au], and is continuing to grow strongly. I love it, and would never go back.

Starting your own business is not for everyone, and certainly not something that should be done lightly. You shouldn't even think of starting a business unless you already have the three key ingredients: money, friends, and social skills.

Without enough money you'll get scared or go hungry during the start-up phase, and even if your business could have succeeded you'll find yourself endlessly worrying and looking for full-time work.

Without friends and contacts you'll have a hard time finding the work for your business to succeed. Word of mouth is the gold of advertising in small business, and when you're first starting up you'll need as much as you can get.

Social skills are key for any small business. More than getting the job done, customers and suppliers alike want to feel appreciated and understood and important. There's a reason why everyone in the sales department gets paid so much, it's because the customer-facing roles are so important.

If you've got all the above, then stay in your job and begin talking to other small business owners in the area. Find out what they do, what they want, what their experiences have been, and how you may be able to help. If truly think there's enough work there to keep you alive, then you may wish to consider starting your own business. If you do so, then keep in mind that most small businesses fail within the first year. So hope for the best, but plan for the worst.

Oh, one final word of advice. The "be your own boss, set your own hours" dream isn't all what it's cracked up to be. When starting up you can expect to be working twice as hard for half as much. There's a lot more to business than just the hours you can log against a client's account.

Good luck!

-- Paul

a good sign is you start feeling physically ill

[eexlebots]

My old job was equal parts awesome and awful, at first; as the screws turned and some really odd and bad events (politics) started to play themselves out at my old job, the equation tipped more towards awful. I started feeling...let's say say anxious (like, blood in places where blood should not be anxious), all of the damn time, I decided to leave.

I was a good boy, though, and stayed to try and help make the transition for new guy as smooth as possible (a couple of other people decided to leave, and they showed me the way NOT to leave an organization-especially one of them, who left innacurate information, missing password lists, and, well, "imaginitive" router configs that vanished with the first power outage).

So leave if you feel awful, but try to stay on good terms-no sense in making things worse, and you can look back on things with a minimum of regret and awkwardness.

I'm young though, single, no kids-so I was much more free to make that decision. I moved halfway across the country with no real plan and got lucky finding work, but if I had a kid, I don't think I could have been so reckless.

Re:This is really extrange

[Doomdark]

I know people don't hire older programmers, and being 27 this is something that's hainting me.

27 is nothing... seriously, when you are 50+ it may (unfortunately) become a problem, but you are not even close. And even at 50+ category, my ex-co-worker was actually hired from another country to work as a specialist by a US company: he's a hard-core programmer, and has been happy ever since (> 5 years). Getting the job wasn't quite as easy as it was for me (with half his age back then), but he got it (which, btw, was and is his dream job).

Being couple of years older than you are, and about starting my first 6-figure programming job (with ~10 years of experience), I'm not very concerned about my age. Right now it's good balance: enough experience and "wisdom", but still plenty of energy and ambitions left; and I hope that's the impression I make.

Re:Have you ever walked out of an interview

[HikeFanatic]

I walked out of one interview with a company a while back where my first hour was with two of their Senior QA engineers. They interviewed me together.

They didn't do any warm up questions ("Tell me about yourself", etc.), they just started hammering me with technical question after question non-stop for 20 minutes. I was being beat like a drum.

It was clear they they just wanted to gang up on me and beat me up. I asked questions about the company, their work, etc. and all I got were the textbook-style replies from them. They were obviously not interested in talking with me at all, and gave me a very cold reception throughout the entire interview. We were all done in 30 minutes, even after all of my questions. I couldn't get anything out of them.

I got to talk to the manager and I told him "I don't want the job". The look on his face was worthy of a "Kodak moment". I explained to him what had happened and he wasn't pleased. Apparently another candidate the prior day also got pissed and left.

Then these companies wonder why they're having trouble hiring....

Re:Better have something inline

[mrjb]

I had a job where I was always being pushed into the same direction - Lotus Notes all the way baby. Database apps? Notes. WAP? Notes. Embedded stuff? Maybe we can use Pylon - a poor-mans Notes. Other architectures? What about AS/400, Notes runs on that too. In my case it was about wanting to broaden my horizon beyond Notes. I wanted to stop, stayed a year, management got changed and half the employees changed jobs, including myself.

Since then, I've professionally programmed in Delphi, C#, Perl, PHP, ASP, Java, JavaScript and PL/SQL; worked with Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL and SQLserver; developed websites on both Apache and IIS, both on Linux and Windows. In general things have gotten more varied and much more interesting.

I can imagine someone being pushed into "we use visual studio and that's that" from this broader horizon would experience the opposite.

Re:This is really extrange

[Usquebaugh]

Had a similar experience a number of years ago. I've been coding since I was 12, ZX81, then went to work straight from high school, coding all sorts of stuff.

After about five years got the chance to be a manager, took it with the agreement I'd try it for six months. End of six months I wanted back to programming. A senior manager couldn't understand why I'd want to go back and told me I was more valuable to the company as a manager. I ended up quitting as I was never allowed to go back to being just a coder.

I'm now in my late thirties and have been a coder ever since, I've got my BSc.(HONS) Computer Sci., whenever I see a management postion opening that I would be expected to take I make sure my managers know I'm not interested and why. It's not a lack of ambition just I do not see management as any sort of career progression. It's fun to watch other managers try and grasp that :-)

I fully expect to be coding until I drop. My only secret is that I can live on a lot less than I make, nobody and I mean nobody can hold me over a pay cheque.

The next stage for me is a Phd and a circumnavigation.

Quittying can be very, very right

[bw5353]

Only a coward would suggest that one has to stay in a job that isn't fulfilling. You have only one life, and wasting it with a so-so job would be completely idiotic and probably the one thing you regret in 50 years' time.

If you quit your job, some things in your life will inevitably change, some for the better and some for the worse. If you don't quit, you will know for 100% sure that it won't get any better.

That said, it is of course up to each one to judge when a job is bad enough to quit, and how good or bad the prospects are for something different.

I know a geek who got tired of a well paid job at IBM and became a carpenter. Never regretted it for a minute. Personally, I would not like that at all, but as said, we are all different.

Re:Better have something inline

[Octorian]

I just handed in my notice today. I've known my job was the wrong place for me since not long after I started, and I've been there a year and a half. However, not feeling comfortable leaving without somewhere else to go, I stuck with it for quite while longer than I probably should have.

Essentially, my job for the past year and a half was my first job out of college, and it didn't contribute towards technical experience useful for the career I want to have. Thankfully this new job will set me back on the right track.

Why I turned down a job...

[NerveGas]

I applied for two jobs, one called me back very quickly, gave me an interview, and offered me a job. I told them that I was waiting to hear on another job, and that I'd like to hold off on my acceptance until I heard back.

The person started getting pushy and belligerant. I pointed out to him that if I accepted the job, and two weeks later found out that the other offer was better, it would not be fair TO ME to pass up the other job - and that it would not be fair TO HIM if I left his company after two weeks.

At that point, he started getting REALLY pushy. Almost angry. He started going into metaphors about high school dances to get me to take the job right then because he had a lot of work to do. I even offered to work for him for a few weeks FOR FREE until I heard back on the other job. He just got more and more pushy, belligerant, and bully-ish.

At that point, I came to my senses and realized that I should turn him down cold. Even if I never heard back from the other job, I did not ever, ever, EVER want to work for someone like that. I politely but firmly told him that I no longer wanted the job, and left. I've never looked back, nor have I ever regretted it.

steve

Re:Pleasant Side Effect

[networkBoy]

"When the situation is intolerable however, what's left to lose?"

In my case, my life.
I was working in the same department as a manager who was an ex cop for apartheid South Aferica. He was a complete sadist and had gone so far as to pull a knife on me once. When I complained things only got worse, so I left. I can only hope that he burns in hell for the things he has bragged about doing.
-nB

Re:Better have something inline

[Grishnakh]

Quitting a good job because of a dislike of the software platform choices that are made above your level isn't good management of your CAREER. Management of your career is a big portion of what separates the long-term successes from the long-term failures, IMHO.

But what's the point of a "successful" career if you hate the work you do every day? Personally, I really hate using windows. It's like I'm constantly fighting with it to do the simplest things, and it's always breaking. I do use it some for my work, but it's just for email and Office; the rest is on Linux. It's Red Hat, and it's really old (like KDE 2 era), but it works, and it doesn't drive me nuts like Windows does with all its bizarre behavior.

Ask an auto mechanic how he'd like doing his job with cheap made-in-China wrenches that constantly break. Or ask a furniture builder how he'd like doing his job with an underpowered saw with a warped, dull blade and miter slots that aren't parallel to the blade.

Of course, when you have a mortgage to pay, quitting a job just because they changed tools is foolhardy, but I'd certainly be looking for a new job too. Don't leave a stable paycheck until you have something better set up, because you don't know how long it'll take to find that next job. But when you do find one, why not take it?

I don't see how doing this is bad "career management". Obviously, with any career change you need to consider all the aspects, not just what tools you'll be using: benefits, location, commute, work environment/atmosphere, salary, etc. But if you don't like the work you're doing, what's the problem with looking for something better?

Re:Stupid

[grcumb]

"You do realize that you're going to be remembered as "that guy who quit because he didn't want to use Visual Studio"?"

I hear about this guy who quit using a whole bunch of different Unix programs just because he didn't like the license conditions. He was such a stubborn fool that he ended up writing his own development tools and applications. Now, years later, he and his friends are still not done writing their own OS. Talk about taking the hard road.

On the other hand, this guy is really happy doing what he's doing. And some people seem to think his ideas aren't entirely cracked. In fact, the MacArthur Foundation gave him a few million bucks some years back so he could continue doing his own thing.

His name, of course, is Richard Stallman.

Re:This is really extrange

[drew]

i have friends in all three income brackets: $20k, $60k, and $180k. from what i have seen of their lifestyles, i'd say the difference from $20k to $60k is far more substantial than the difference between $60k and $180k. the jump from $20k to $60k usually equates to a substantial improvement in the avaialability of basic necessities and financial security. the jump from $60k to $180k usually only allows people to spend money on a lot of stupid sh*t that they don't really need anyway.

Re:Pleasant Side Effect

[Trillan]

I had something similiar happen here. I finally cut loose and told everyone who would listen (including my manager) how badly off-course our product plan was.

After a while, they agreed, but said there wasn't much to be done about it because of our contract. But after that, they started looking for chances to steer a bit.

I just finished writing a feature list for the next version. I feel that every one of those features will improve customers' lives, at least to some degree, and the features represent the stuff that is actually being asked for, rather than half-baked suggestions from the poorly worded SARs. I'm still not thrilled (they're insisting on a series of very small releases, which leaves us with a lot of overhead) but life has become tolerable at least.

Here is what I did in 2003

[Audacious]

The company I was working for (subcontracted to NASA) needed to lay someone off. I volunteered to be laid off. I'd worked at the job for almost twenty years and wanted to go do something (anything!) else. I was laid off January 31st, 2003.

The next day the Space Shuttle blew up. There were no jobs available after that. So my wife and I lived on unemployment while I looked around for a new job. I worked on some projects for friends but those only worked out kind-of ok. There were problems. As there are always problems with being a contractor on a job where the people you are working for think that 200 web pages is a simple task to be done in a month's time. At any rate, this got us through 2003 and into 2004.

Surprisingly, in 2004 I was asked to come back (via a different company) to work on the same stuff I'd been working on before. I agreed to do it part time and haven't regretted it since. Now I only work half the time I used to work and yet I still make enough to pay for everything and have some money left over.

So the morale of the story is: Be sure to have something else ready to go to. But if, as I felt, you feel strongly that you need to just leave - then do so. It may be tough. You may have to go back to where you were working. But some times there are just too many pressures to deal with and you just can't take it anymore and need to get away. By leaving my job and then coming back with a different company - I am being treated entirely differently than I was before. Further, there are only four people in my new company (including the owner and his partner). So there is a much nicer feel to the entire place. I only wish this was how things were for the past almost twenty years.

For the others with whom I work - they found out rather quickly just how much work I had been doing for them before I left. I think this is one of the reasons they wanted me back so badly. When you are one of the two people who understand all of a million line program and you can quickly and easily make changes to the entire program when it takes other months to just understand what is going on - it does make you rather indispensable. :-)

L8r!

Re:Better have something inline

[Indras]

I have a similar story. I won't even post it Anonymously, though my move was probably far more stupid.

I had a fantastic full-time job at a computer warehouse. I started as a temp for $8.50, and was hired when I proved to be a very fast learner. In less than a year, I was making $11 an hour. I was dating at the time, and had a great roommate (a high school buddy), so my bills were cut in half. Trust me, $11 an hour was a king's salary as far as I was concerned. I got to know and like everyone I worked with, even the CEO. We were only about 50 people, and I knew them all by name, their spouse, how many kids, etc. We had hotdog and hamburger grill-outs every friday (paid by the company) during the summer, and grinders and/or pizza for every mandatory meeting. Bagels and donuts were always free every day in the break room. This is just the kind of company it was.

Then, I got stupid. I started staying up all nights on Saturday night hanging out with friends, or cramming for finals. Sunday night I would crash so hard that I'd sleep through my alarm clock Monday morning. This happened three times, once I was even two and a half hours late to work. I was confronted and got real defensive. People didn't forget it.

About a month later, profits came crashing down after the boom from all of our customers replacing their computer systems from Y2K. There were three rounds of layoffs to try to keep the company afloat, 5-10 people each time. I was shocked and angered when I was part of the third group.

In retrospect, had I been my boss, I would've made sure that I was in the first group, not the last. I was undependable, a slackoff (making sure to use every sick day available to me each year, even if I had to fake it), and generally not a very hard worker.

In my pigheaded pride, I was determined to find a better, higher-paying job in the same field with my Associate's Degree in hand. This was about the time that everything was starting to be outsourced to India, too. After two months, my savings ran dry, and unemployment checks could barely cover rent. I moved in with a college friend in another city, who said he could get me a job where he worked, programming cash registers. It never happened.

After nine months of unemployment, I had to move back home. My parents wouldn't take me, so I stayed on my grandparents' couch (literally) while I waited for a call from a local factory. I'd been hired, but they didn't have a place for me yet. It took them a month. By then, my unemployment extension had run out. They gave me a second-shift job running a paint line, hanging plastic parts on racks, for $8.00 an hour. I was making more on unemployment.

You know what? After ten months on my ass, I was so grateful for $8.00 an hour I nearly cried. I came really close to giving up my car, or worse, losing my girlfriend (fiance now, we're getting married next month). I worked harder than I thought I could. It took two weeks before I didn't come home in agony with muscles tied in knots. After two months, I took an internal job posting as die setter, then six months later (after fantastic reviews), took a job as preventative maintenance technician. I can't disclose my current wage, but it's definitely much higher than I've ever made before, anywhere.

Am I happy? Definitely. Learning makes me happy, and my company is gladly sending me to college to get my Journeyman's Certificate. Do I enjoy my job? Sometimes. Frankly, I don't think that matters, because every day I come home, to a house with a garage, both of which I own, to a wonderful woman, whom I will marry.

A job is a job is a job. And career is spelled: "W-O-R-K." Don't let your job be everything, but definitely don't neglect it. People don't become CEO's by complaining about their workload, or trying to find loopholes in the company handbook for extra sick days.

Make sure you bank some cash....

[Proudrooster]

I left a 6 figure job after 7 years to go into teaching. The trick is that you must have cash banked away to survive the transition. If you are just quitting on a wing and a prayer, forget it. Have an understanding of what you want to do, a plan for doing it, the resources to do it (cash, education etc...) and then go do it!

Even though I am taking a 75% pay cut, I am looking forward to having fun with the kids, not carrying a pager, not driving into work at 2 A.M. because a backhoe operator caused a massive power outage (which caused database servers to go onto UPS power), and of course summers off.

Everything in life is a tradeoff. Figure out what you want and what you are willing to give in trade. Also, don't forget to think about retirement. Do you have enough put away in your 401K? Also, don't forget about Cobra (HealthCare) costs. Cobra is about $1000/mo. to maintain health benefits. I can't stress the importance of health insurance enough.

Good Luck...
My advice in a nutshell: research, plan, gather resources, and execute!

Re:I just turned one down last week...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure what your post means, but you must have a point to make here. So +1, interesting

Re:Better have something inline

[badasscat]

Buf if you have car payments, credit car payments, a wife, then you put that yoke on yourself and its your responsibility to do that ...

You know, people keep saying this, and I think it's completely, completely wrong.

A year ago at this time I was working at a game publisher, making decent money. But I was stuck there 12 or more hours a day, almost every day. I just got married 2 years ago and I could never even see my wife - even on weekends, I was so tired that I'd sleep until around 4 PM on Saturdays, then I'd have basically one evening to relax and it was all I could do to just maintain my life on Sundays (you know, regular stuff like cleaning the house, balancing the checkbook, paying bills, etc.). We had practically no time together whatsoever, and I was killing myself with stress - literally. I was in and out of the doctors' office pretty regularly with chest pains and heart palpitations from the stress.

So I quit. I didn't have anything lined up - I really couldn't, because I didn't have time to look before. I tried to, and I did apply to as many jobs as I could find, but I didn't really have time to go on interviews and I obviously didn't have time to make looking for a job my full time job, which is what you really need to do to find something. So I knew I had to quit - I saved up a bit of money (not a lot, but some), and I gave my notice.

It took me eight months to find a job. The first few months were great - we had enough money to live on, and we finally had time to be together. The last few months were pretty stressful, as the money got really tight.

But in the end I found something, and I'm now making more money than I did, I'm working 10-6 and in a much more professional and relaxed environment (funny how efficiency lowers stress and reduces the work load, isn't it?). I now have both time and money.

But the point I'm trying to make is that there are more important things to life than work. I mean there are different types of work, and some work is more important than other work, and maybe some types of work are more important than almost anything (doctors, firefighters, etc.). But if you're a worker drone sitting in a cube writing code until 2 AM, and you've got a family at home waiting for you, jesus christ, go home. If your boss tells you to stay, tell him to fuck himself (nicely). Get another job; one that isn't so unreasonable, however long it takes. Take a pay cut if you have to - I was prepared to, if it meant more time with my wife.

And if you need to quit before finding another job, then do it. Be smart about it - save a little money first, and plan how you're going to survive for a while - but if you need to do it, do it. It is just not worth being a slave when you've got people you love sitting at home alone waiting for you.

A little tip: some states will give you unemployment even if you quit, if your situation was such that any other "reasonable" person would have done the same. (This is called quitting with "good cause" - the technical requirement for receiving unemployment.) I got unemployment after sending a letter of explanation to my state's unemployment office (a requirement; I didn't do anything special), and that helped my wife and I a lot. I live in New York. Look up your own state's laws if you're contemplating such a move to see if you might be eligible to receive unemployment after quitting.

A recent development

[SkyCracker]

I am writing a rare reply to this thread as I was about to quit my job at a fortune 500 company. After 3 years of finding other jobs internally, but not being allowed to transfer, I was coming to a condition were all my work was over. I did get a job offer from a nice spot ( it was something I liked to do but also allowed time for grad school. ) and was given my first and last permit to go. 2 days before transfer, I was fired. Specifically, to make it impossible to go to the new job. In the time of this incident, I had correctly percieved that a signature is not a promise, and did my level best to search for a job outside the company as well as a job inside. Economy up here is tight, so I ended up streetside. I am in gradschool full time now, and its been a blessing. I had put away cash and maitain a secondary income channel. In 4 years, I should have the MSCS and PhD in Imaging I wanted. Running from Bad people and conditions make sense. Running from a condition of shop change? Fear not the future! Fear the trolls who act as the past!

Toolchain Preference Insufficient Reason

[Anonymous Coward]

If you even have to validate with others the economic wisdom of leaving, then a toolchain preference is an insufficient reason. If you had a healthy Fuck You fund in your back pocket, you could comfortably leave without question for any reason. And it might even help your fellow employees.

Last time I left a job, I was a consultant for a consulting firm. Long story short, I was caught in an ugly forced bell curve performance evaluation situation, and back then didn't have the political acumen to properly avoid it. The company was raking in the big bucks with my billing rate, and the client was very pleased with my work, so I knew the evaluation was bogus. So between my 18-month Fuck You fund and a standing offer from another consulting company, I dropped a two week notice and jetted. Instantly doubled my pay, gained seniority in the new company, and learned sales skills along the way. Being tapped as the only consultant at my new firm to receive a raise one year during the a particularly poor revenue period further bolstered my conclusion that I was getting shafted at the old firm, even though empirically I was a top performer.

Before that however, the client told me to my face that he was willing to tell my old company to go pound sand and hire me direct, he was so pleased with my work. And no, he wasn't thinking of having me on until he could find a suitable replacement; I offered to help coach someone new but he wouldn't hear of it, he just wanted me to keep doing what I was doing, just through a different firm if that suited me (it didn't; too many ways the old firm could make the professional relationship too hellish, since the manager had already proven to be unreliable with his handling of the bogus evaluation). The CEO of the old company even called and asked me to come back, and said that they had made a mistake with the evaluation (I found out later that behind the scenes, the client was raising bloody hell at the time, fuming that the old firm had pissed me off for no justifiable reason---never did find out how the client found out the real reasons, because I only gave a "career development" explanation).

Having either the Fuck You fund or the standing offer in hand was key to the decision, however. If I didn't have at least one of them, I probably would not have left because I judged that I didn't have sufficient skills at the time to exercise my other option: starting my own business. Having both in my back pocket simply let me lay out my evidence for why I was leaving without concern for "burning bridges". At that point I just treated it as a dispassionate discussion among peers of why a certain business process did not work, at least in my case. I found out later that when the executive managers of my old company found out my situation (by asking some friends I kept up with who worked at the old firm) they gave a lot of weight and credibility to my discussions with them. They changed the evaluation system that same year into a more sane system.

Re:Better have something inline

[arkane1234]

Keep livin' the dream, cubicle drone.

You sound like my dad. Who, incidentally, despite all his sage and practical advice on life, is now dying alone in a house full of the useless junk he spent his life acquiring.

Only in todays society can a person dedicate their life to providing for their family, and have the remnants pushed into their face as they are dieing.. left alone and disposed as if they are garbage of society.

Re:Better have something inline

[EvilJoker]

When I read it, I saw this part as more telling:
"and is in the process of becoming a C# VisualStudio shop"

As in, the style of management has changed, and the maxims are no longer the ones that were enjoyable.
Then again, there's no "Before" picture, so there's no way to tell exactly what changed (or if it really is the developer tools and he's a bit anal about that stuff- many people absolutely refuse to drive a car with an automatic transmission, no matter how much they love everything else)

A timely topic...

[Naum]

...considering I turned in my two weeks notice resignation letter to my boss on Monday. Yes, I'm leaving a software engineer position without anything lined up, but I do freelance web programming and have income for at least the next month or two. I am actively seeking positions but I'm bumping up against that age discrimination deal plus I really want to work on Unix based systems, though mainframe work would be OK too, but most of that work is now done in India or by imported NIV (non-immigrant visa) workers.

Despite the fact that I like the folks on my team and my immediate management have treated me OK, I just dread the act of going into work and really don't like the role I was assigned. While it's no sweatshop, we're dreadfully undermanned (due to mergers and consolidation, and general cluelessness on the part of management).

Why am I departing? Well, there are a bunch of reasons and they weigh heavier than the impetus to stay, including the big fat paycheck that I could just go through the motions and keep ringing the bell every 2 weeks.

1. Work environment is atrocious - Yes, it's the age of the factory IT worker now, and cubicles are a thing of the past and we're crammed into office space where the noise is unbearable, the incessant ringing of cellphones, lack of conference rooms, people holding conferences behind your back, many desks seating 3-4 people instead of the cramped confines that even one occupant endures. Before I converted to full time employee status, I served a stint as a contractor and one day when I arrived at work, I had no chair and no chair could be found anywhere on the entire floor. I went home and worked from home for a couple of months until our group was relocated. Other amenity busters include 4 total bathrooms over thousands of staff, making the lavratory trip a most unpleasant experience. Parking is in short supply also and if you don't come in early or leave for offsite meeting during core hours, you will have to ride a shuttle. Even walking between the buildings on campus may take 15 minutes as construction forces a giant perimeter walk around (which isn't so bad, it's just the totality of all the suckage).
2. Inferior work tools - My title is "software engineer" and I administer MVS & UNIX boxes including installing Apache & Tomcat & other vendor software but I am not worthy of adminstrative rights to my own issued laptop. And that wouldn't be that big of a deal if I had the proper software. Instead I had to DL stuff that didn't require admin rights to do my job (i.e., Vim for Win, PuTTy, QWS3270, etc....) -- even more irksome was that we went through a lengthy checklist compilation process that preceded a "tech refresh" where all the officially sanctioned software was spreadsheeted and were told that the boxes would be set back to the way they were. Instead, they were stripped, and entire days were lost to reconstructing your software configuration and network settings. And Gates forbid if you needed Oracle and/or Informix or other third party software that required admin rights to install. The trouble ticket system is HP service desk, and I find it very painful to use, and it makes the old IBM InfoMan deal look like precision engineering. Maybe it's because we have to run it via Citrix, and the response time can exceed >10 seconds. And searches on text you can verify are actually are in a ticket will return no matches. I've spent entirely too much time just trying to find something I was looking at earlier in the day or week, and have had to resort to a paper index of ticket numbers.
3. Dearth of hands on coding - I don't mind support work, I enjoy the challenge of figuring out what went wrong and undertaking tasks that prevent trouble tickets or problem conditions from ever occuring. However, our group cannot touch the code at all and must turn changes over to another engineering group. It's become plainly obvious that my manager has a strict "help desk" view that measures success on h

It's just a job

[ChuckOp]

I want to hear from Slashdot readers who have quit jobs or turned down offered jobs because it was not what they wanted to do. Why did you do it?

I recently left a good paying job for several reasons. Mostly because I decided that I likely wasn't going to be successful in the position. I can point fingers at management, but also at myself.

In 2000 I formally retired for about 3 years at the age of 35. I knew I'd have to work again, but I had the finaical means to not work and I enjoyed it immensely. Maybe I'm spoiled now, but I'm not afraid to leave a job - or turn down a potential job if I feel it won't work out.

And how did it turn out? Did you get to do what you wanted to do, are you still looking, or did you come back begging for another chance?

For the most part still looking - but the journey is the reward. Once a long time ago in my early 20's did I go begging for another chance and got it - only to be laid off 3 months latter and the company was gone within a year.

I don't feel like I have enough control over the product when I use Microsoft programming environments. My company was bought recently, and is in the process of becoming a C# VisualStudio shop. I said thanks, but no thanks and left.

C# has a lot of advantages and I use it regularly as my language of choice. I was a hardcore ANSI C bit-twiddler for years, writing in-line assembly code as needed, but the code would often have subtle problems with pointer math, buffer overruns, etc. C# gives me the syntax I'm familar with, with a clean object orientation. If I truly need the performance of C/C++, I can code modules in that language.

In fact, I much prefer C# and the .NET Framework over ATL and MFC which, by comparsion, were clunky hacks.

Am I a fool for giving up steady work and good pay?

No, you've gained valuable experience - whether it's positive or negative. Remember, it's just a job. Best wishes!

Re:You are normal.

[CAIMLAS]

Many people work to find fulfillment. For some, work does the trick. For others, its relationships, spending time outdoors, hanging with friends, creating new things, reading or self-improvement - you name it.

I seriously doubt that games offer many people fulfillment for any significant period of time, though. :P

That said, most of the things I find in the least bit fulfilling are directly related to social significance: having a good job, being respected, having a good debate, and things of that order. None of that would be possible in this "utopian" society you speak of, because without work most of the structure of society becomes not only less significant but useless and outmoded (social security, taxes, etc.). If it ever were to happen, I suspect we'd have a large number of people reverting to agrarian communes or something to that respect: hard work has a significant degree of satisfaction associated iwth it.

Re:Better have something inline

[Anonymous Coward]

I ran into a situation about 8 years ago where I left a good job with a networking company to go work for a hi-tech VAR with the promise of card blanche to build out the tech-support team. After arriving, the Director I reported to and I could not determine why we were always having to fight for funding, etc. despite the initial promises made to us by the company President. We had to justify $2500 with proposals and presentations for lab equipment, tools, etc. whereas marketing needed to spend $50K or more, it was no problem for them. No fuss, no muss, they received a check with no effort required other than asking the president to sign a check.

It wasn't until the company picnic on cinco de mayo that I realized what was going on. The president, vice president, and CFO of the company were engaged in drugs. Unfortunately, I think the VAR was just a front for that activity, but I sure as hell didn't stick around to find out!!!

When I confronted my boss, the Director, about the company picnic, he explained to me his reservations with the company and why we were continually ostracized. We were regarded as outsiders and they did not know if we were trustworthy to their "secret" nefarious behaviors. The Director used to be a member of one Bay Area SWAT team, that happened to also have an MBA with interests in Hi-tech (yes, a very strange combo indeed). He was never able to pin down the activities of the suspect parties within the company. I just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time and witnessed what he always suspected.

When I confirmed his suspicions we confronted the President of the company about it in the days following the company picnic, where much to our dismay we found out even more hardcore drugs were present than what I witnessed which the president of the company had no problem with!!! He literally confessed to 2 additional felony activities before my boss and I. We were both speechless, if not dumbstruck. One would have thought this level of stupidity exited with the '80s and here we were in the '90s with this knothead behaving like a child!
In a place of business no less!!!

He started to say to me, "Well if you don't like it..." Before he could finish the sentence I slammed my resignation letter on the table. No job lined up, nothing. This was absolutely the type of worse case scenario where you run, not walk, to the nearest door. My boss followed me a day or two later. (He couldn't quit on the spot he had a wife to support.)

Now, granted, this is probably an extreme case. I would certainly hope no other slashdotters would ever have to experience this level of idiocy. About the only good thing that did come out of it, it inspired my boss and I to go out and form our own consulting company whose sole intent was to take away this VAR idiots' legitimate customer base. It took us about 8 months to drive his business under. Some of it was explaining to the customer base the circumstances behind our sudden departure. Once they realized what was going on they couldn't leave quickly enough to seek assistance elsewhere. Of course, the upper management of the company was probably snorting away any profits and not helping matters any.

After 8 months or so, we eased up when we heard the bank was repossessing the business and the president was wanted by the FBI for something or another...

Last I heard, the company President still has an outstanding warrant for his arrest and is hiding somewhere in the Vancouver, Canada area.

While I can appreciate your circumstances, I would not recommend quitting your job until you have something else lined up. In my situation, the circumstances were EXTREME and quitting on the spot was the appropriate response, legally, ethically, morally, etc. no job to replace it or otherwise.

So unless you're physically abused, in danger, or in a legal entanglement, I'd say hold on, grin and bear it and make the jump cleanly. I was fortunate enough (and vindictive enough) to channel my efforts into something positive for me and my collegue. We bucked the odds, but that probably wouldn't work out to anyone else's advantage. We were just lucky...

Good luck!

Re:Pleasant Side Effect

[Grab]

Absolutely right, man. You're *part* of the environment - if you just carry on like a good German then you're complicit in it.

And laying it on the line like that is about the best test of whether a company's worth sticking with. If it doesn't work out, it will give you a massive incentive to get the hell out. And if it does work out, you've just made massive kudos from being the person who turned it around. If the place is really that bad then chances are you're preparing to go anyway, so it doesn't make a big difference.

Grab.

Two trains of thought

[webhat]

I've been reading through these posts at -1 and have noticed that there are 2 trains of thought. The first is to keep the job and look for something better, the second is to go for it and step into the deep end.

The first is the wise practical sollution, the well thought out reliable you. Keep the house, the car, make sure the children are fed and in clothes. Personally I think that if you have dependents this is the way to go. The choice between feeding your children, doing a job you don't like, and starving, looking for a job you like, is difficult. and many people seem to treat this lightly. (At least in the comments.)
They forget however that thing you always said as a child, I don't want to end up like my parents in a dead end job, doing something I don't like just for my children. I want them to see that life is fun. Luckly the example I got was my father quiting his well paid job to go and do what he wanted; to get out of life what he needed and although I know he sometimes doubted himself for oursake, we never wanted for anything.

The second is the set into the deep end, the unknown, space the final front ear. And it's scary, it's scary as hell. This is the way I go, probably because of the example I got, and it doesn't always work out. Although somehow it always does for me in the end.

I quit a job I had in May last year, not because I didn't like the people or because of the fact that the owner had shafted my friends a couple of years back. (They all work for him now.) I quit because I wasn't getting what I should from my boss; a thank you; a please. I had just saved the company 500.000 euros in yearly license fees - I don't need a bonus, but thanks would be nice. I had just had a break up too and thought that it was just wat I needed, a fresh start. So I told them that I was going to go, and told them the reasons why.

I left and was unemployed for 6 months, literally surviving hand to mouth on the odd jobs I could get. Ok, so there was a little consulting work here and there. Then I got a call from a friend saying he had been offered a job, but couldn't take it as he was working for my former employer. It was in another country and might lead to more work, but paid well and looked like it would be heavenly.

And the rest as they say is history. I now work in Zurich as a consultant and will soon be moving to Leeds for more consulting work. In between I'll have 6 months of holiday, to make up for the 6 months of unemployment hell.

Anyway, my basic message is value yourself and others will value you.

Don't worry!

[Anonymous Coward]

Things will be better. I left my FT job as a web designer around 2001 (the start of recession) w/o a job lined up. Reason? I was 28, single, outgrown my job, hated my boss, hated my title (they give me damn graphic artist title when I'm actually helping their damn admin with Exchange, IIS and proxy server), and I don't plan to be a salary slave till I'm 65, etc, etc. The reason I gave them, also the truth, was I wanted to start my own biz. Half the company laughed at me. Some said, I'll be back in 6 months (with a smirk). I just told them, "just watch."

After 1 year of struggle, I found a gig. A bank with tons of branches. In the first year I work there, I work 3-4 days a month for about 3K a month (my previous slave salary for the whole month covered in 3-4 days). I was treated like a king there. I do sys/network admin work till last year. Then they offer me a CTO position, sounds good but actually will be 1 man managing 200 pcs, which I turned down. They got ticked off and promptly hired a FT guy. Their loss. I know once I work there FT, my value will only go down.

With my major client gone, I've started 2, 1-man company servicing business & residential customer. Took me about a year to get to 50 customers (now). Business clients are still at 1. But, for business clients, I just need to catch 1 or 2 big fish. I don't need a lot. Never regretted turning down the bank.

All in all, my point is, for whatever reason you left your company, your confidence (attitude) is the ONLY factor that will determine how you will do in the near future. Be ready psychologically. Your friends working FT will curse your stupidity, everybody will gossip about your jobless situation, etc. Just tune them out. Everybody will turn jealous suddenly where you get your first major client.

Another good thing besides more time? You will never need a resume or go to a frigging meeting asking you to list what you plan to do in 5 or 10 years again, or your strength or weeknesses. My first meeting with the client, we talked about our mutual friend, his problem, then how I can help, how much I charge and when to start. Bad thing is insurance, benefits, etc. But, if your spouse got it or if you are young, you should be ok.

Also remember human tendency. Companies want to hire people who aren't available, rather than all the resumes piling on their desk. We want what we can't have. I've got 3 places, one is bank, one is the city, one is the college I graduated, wanting me to work for them which I denied once again.

If you belive there's always something better, there will be. Don't listen to news about how bad IT market /economy/ layoff situations are, just focus on what needs to be done. When I left my last FT job in 2001, I got 4 certs. Now, I got 9 on top of opensource (mainly BSDs, security) skills. Are they useful? Who knows. But, whenver I go client hunting, my name looks prettier with 9 certifications complimenting my name. First I use my certifications to impress them. Then, I use opensource (free) solutions to impress them further. Worked for me.

4 years out and still kicking!

PS:
Whatever you do, don't go back. Don't keep in touch more than once a year. Always tell them you're doing good. Just nuke the damn bridge. In my case, my ex-employer is the one that came back begging ... twice. When I left them, I have made a vow that if I have nothing to eat, I'll eat the grass off my lawn before I go back. Trust me. God (or whatever you believe) wouldn't let you get to that point.

Believe in yourself. You are a /.ter. A true wiz of technology. The world anywhere need people like you. Open your eyes more, look around. Opportunities can come from your wife, friend, church, school, etc. I got my first small client from a waitress at a Thai restaurant.

Heck, I'm not a regular here, not really a geek, and an immigrant. If I can make it, so can you.