5 reasons to switch jobs every two or three years
Posted Fri 16 Mar 2007 by Brad under Slacking at work
1. After a couple of years, people start to expect more out of you. You get more responsibility and often work longer hours. These are terrible things.
2. In your performance reviews, your manager starts to ask you where you see yourself in the company. I can’t really tell them the truth, which is that I’m hoping to be doing the exact same thing I’m doing right now—or something less.
3. Since I haven’t been getting all that large of raises along the way, switching to another job can be much more lucrative. You can get a nice pay increase if you play things well.
4. Once you start a new job, the first few months are usually pretty painless and easy to glide through without doing much work.
5. You have a clean slate with coworkers who haven’t had the chance to form any opinions of you or your work habits.
Technorati Tags: switch jobs, career advice, slacking
March 17th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
Right on. I’ve been in my current job 8 months and already want to get a new one. I wonder if it would be possible keep switching and slacking for an entire career.
March 18th, 2007 at 10:56 am
I think it might be possible if you work the system right. Time will tell, I suppose…
March 23rd, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Since junior high I have not had a job for more than 2 years, and only once did I take a reduced cut in pay, due to the fact I went from manual labour to working as a petroleum transfer engineer while going to college. Since then every job has been close to double what I made before, by the time I’m 40 I think I might just own the world… what do I do then?
March 23rd, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Retire happily.
March 24th, 2007 at 10:28 am
This is advice is for people not looking to excel in their jobs, or in the amount of money they make through their life. This gives you little time to establish yourself in the company and chances to make it in a high position.
Switching jobs a lot will also keep you from getting hired from great places like IBM, Oracle, GS, and other big corporations, because they look for stability in their employees.
March 24th, 2007 at 10:57 am
I’ve switched jobs every 3-12 months since leaving college 10 years ago. I’m also making 3x what I made 10 years ago. I’ve only once dropped salary in a transition. You do the math.
March 24th, 2007 at 11:13 am
And I’m happy that I like my profession, that I like working and that - at least for me - it’s not a pain to be in the office for 8 to 10 hours.
I pity you.
March 24th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
5 reasons to not switch jobs every two or three years
1. Good paying jobs in your field within walking distance of your house are scarce.
2. After working at a company for a couple years you get to start working on projects that you actually like and have control over.
3. Staying with a company longer makes it more likely you’ll be able to negotiate higher “stealth” raises (e.g. more vacation time and perks).
4. The work actually gets easier the longer you work at a job as you come up to speed with all the things you are supposed to know.
5. Even if you don’t want to “advance”, if you play along with the system you can aquire underlings to do your less desirable tasks for you and free up more of your time to do more interesting things.
March 24th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Whatever happened to developing yourself and taking pride in your work? If you aren’t able to do that, then sure you should switch jobs…you shouldn’t upheave your life with a job change just to slack more. Seems inefficient.
March 24th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
James and Oliver and Martin -
You are exactly the people that Brad is counting on to work hard so’s he can slack. Keep up the good work!
Honestly, I’m torn somewhere between your position and Brads. Most jobs in the corporate world completely blow, and I know, because I’ve had a lot of them. What the fuck can ever get done when half of your day is spent in meetings? And have you ever, ever been in a meeting in which anything got accomplished which could not have been accomplished in a five minute conversation between the two key people involved, and then those two passing the information down the line to their people - that is how it works in ‘good’ companies, if there is such a thing; I’ve not seen it.
This guy is funny - something you three are not - and he’s got a point, and he makes it well. If you want to write a blog about how happy it makes you to grind out your guts for the other guy, hours and hours of meaningless meetings, etc and etc, and if you can make me laugh when I read it, then do it. I think Brad is contributing one hell of a lot more than you three ever will; he’s original and honest and funny. And, fact is, he DOES work - right here. This is his real calling. The rest is just to have insurance and a few bucks.
Thanks for the fun, Brad, and please keep writing and posting.
March 26th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Thanks for the pep talk Fred. All comments are welcome, but I was getting a little discouraged in what I’ve been putting out there…
April 11th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
I’ve been with my company for 15 years. I’m starting to look for another job for several of these reasons.
One problem is that, after 15 years, I’m expected to be the “wise old man”. I’m expected to know everything, be on top of everything, be the guy in charge.
I don’t WANT to be in charge! I don’t want to be the one responsible for the entire project! I don’t want to mentor or train or worry about offending underlings by assigning them too much, or the wrong task, or talking down to them. Just give me my individual tasks and let me work alone, in my cubicle, in peace.
Switching jobs is starting to look good.