Slashdot Mirror
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?"
Am I a fool for giving up steady work and good pay
Yes.
Don't ever quite (read it twice) unless you have something else in line.
About the time you start asking Slashdot if it is time to quit:-)
Not if you can find another job.
"Am I a fool for giving up steady work and good pay?"
Yes. Yes you are.
You gave up a job when you didn't have another job. That's always foolish.
who can know. It's like asking-- "I got Rocky Road at Baskin Robins with my Yahoo coupon, did I get the wrong flavor?"
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Yes. I mean, ok, so it's your call. But does it really matter what OS/environment you work with? I always thought real programmers could care less... It's not like you're doing it for fun--you ARE getting paid, after all. Besides, you should have waited till you found a new job before you quit your old one.
My rule is if they can't beat me in a sales call, I won't even consider it.
I turned down the windoze job and took the linux job, dood.
Simple. When I get 100% vesting in the 401(k). Meanwhile, I just suck up the BS and deal.
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!
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
Are you married? Does your spouse work? How much money do you have saved up? What was your income? Where do you live? How old are you? How much experience do you have? etc, etc.
Unless you have no use for money.
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
Wow, my employer must have updated their content filtering. Pretty sophisticated!
Joking aside, you should quit your job when you have a better one waiting for you, unless you live with your parents... Then I guess it doesn't really matter.
If you really needed the paycheck and you're going to have financial problems because you're not drawing a paycheck then you're a fool. If that's not the case, then there's no reason to keep working while you devote yourself to finding a job that you will not hate.
Then, when the US is saved from disaster, you and your buddies can become professional gamers. That is, if you havent sold your computer for food.....
.. found another job before quitting.
That said, if your heart isnt in it, it doesn't make any sense to continue.
Life is very short, if you don't believe in god then this is truley the only go at things you'll have. Every day should be fun and everything you do you should enjoy, you should be interested in, it should intrigue you. Because of this you shouldn't spend time doing something you dislike, that bores you, etc. A smart person can find a good job, one that they like, one that they love, if they look hard enough.
A great indication of when you should quit your job is when you wake up every morning and dread going into work. Its okay to wish you were doing something else, but if you wake up and always hate the idea of going into the office then it is probably a good time to find a new line of work.
Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
OK the one piece of advice I can give is BE A WHORE and go wherever the money is. Money = Happyness in anything unless u are doing what u truely love (and come on, who is reallllly doing what they truley love?) . Anyone who tell u otherwise is a poor son-of-a-bitch trying to make himself feel better about his situation. GO AFTER MONEY, that is it. You will be happier, wealthier and have more fun toys to play with in long run!
My Web Site - www.ocean-liners.com
First. You should quit it first. Jobs are for losers and the overemployed. If you want to do work in the world, you can only depend upon yourself.
then you've already made your decision.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
If it's a big company, there's a chance that you can get reorganized to a different area, possibly getting away from what ales you. However, I've always believed that money talks...
Just before your boss catches you reading "When Should You Quit Your Job" on slashdot, when you're supposed to be working.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
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.
I think "steady work" in this case is a bit of a misnomer. If you hate your job, don't like the work, or desperately want to leave, then you are not going to be productive, you will have a lot of stress, you will probably be irritable most of the time, and in general you will not fit very well with the position. I don't think I would characterize that as a "steady" employment situation. It would likely be very tumultuous.
Moral of the story - burning bridges closes doors, so be careful with your napalm.
"Powers. I have them."
Dear Mr. Johnson,
Our IT department has been monitoring your web activity these past few months, and we're sorry to say your continued employment is no longer necessary.
Mr. Szleswinsczky
Management
OCO is Loco
Do you have cash income stored up to last you through downtime? Do you have job possibilities? Are you just being stubborn because you hate Microsoft? How do you like the taste of Ramen noodles?
Unless you were being forced to do something illegal it doesn't make a lot sense to quit a job before having another one lined up. It sucks to be forced into an unfun job situation but there is a reason why work is called work. Sometimes you have to do things that suck. Good luck on finding another job.
Yes you are a fool. You should say it loud and proud in a mirror 10 times a day. Having a pay check in hand gives you a lot more time to find the job you want without having to take something that comes a long. You have now put your self in a situation where you may have to take a job that may be less desireable then the one you had. You should have looked while you were employed. Paycheck vs. No Paycheck duh.
head IT guy at a non-profit, i have flexible hours, semi-decent pay, caual dress, lots of time off.
i could be making probably 10k more (easily), but i don't think i could find a job i luv like this one.
when the environment doesnt suit you anymore, its perfectly alright to quit. i know i did. no regrets either.
Stop Computers/Cars Analogies on S
In this case, you probably made a mistake. Microsoft tools are excellent for Windows development. C# is easier to use than C++. If a job makes you unhappy, you shuld probably look for a new one but I don't see that there's any reason to believe that using the latest Microsoft tools for windows development will make you unhappy. Sorry.
I want to quit my job, but don't have anything worthwhile lined up. I can't afford to leave this shithole behind, purely for financial reasons. Should I quit anyway? Probably. Will I? Probably not.
No thanks...
/me is 21 years old.
Punchcard and a hole puncher were all I needed.
Trendy keyboards... damn hippies.
Like to see how many kiddies out there can code a if/then/else in under 5 minutes.
remember, it's a job, it pays the rent, and unless you actually hated it, you should have kept it.
anyways, you can still honour your ethics and values when contributing to open source projects.
just my 2 cents.
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
microsoft tools too good for you?
Good luck finding another job writing Windows software using non-Microsoft development tools.
Anyway, care to elaborate on this lack of "control"?
You only quit after you have your next job lined up. Working at paying job you hate is better than sitting on the couch watching soap operas and not getting paid. Use vacation time to job search. Of course, I have never followed this advice but oh well...
[insert lame joke here]
Kinda late to worry about it now isn't it?
Opinion:=TMyOpinion.Create(Me);
Do yourself a favour. Keep working steadying at your current job (don't overwork) and start looking for other work. Being jobless really really sucks.
I left a job I hated with nowhere to go from there. After driving around and hearing a story on the radio about psychological experiments performed on Jews by Nazis wherein they were ordered to move piles of rocks from one side of a yard to another and back again until they lost their minds, I decided no job was worth waking up and dreading my day every morning and put in my notice. I ended up going back to a previous job (in a completely different industry) and never regretting my decision.
Why did you do it? Was it ethics, ambition, pride, or disgust?
My company stopped offering donut day, so i quit
Yes.
Next time, try doing a half-assed job while creating a poisoned atmosphere by trash-talking the company with your co-workers. You'll get the same pay for very little work. Then, once it's clear to everyone that you're not interested in the job, start fishing for a new one.
I assume you are young, free and fairly single.
:o)
One day you will not be; One day you will have no income. You need to be putting a fairly large chunk of your salary away for retirement *now*, or you will end up in the same situation I am; 40, no savings, likely to have to work till I die. Want to join me in that? No, I suspect not.
P.S. when I say you are foolish, I speak from experience
If you've left, and don't find other work that you enjoy doing soon, you're at risk of ending up stuck doing stuff that you feel is a waste of your skills - something like flipping burgers, answering phones, whatever. You also have an issue getting back into your field later - saying that you quit because you didn't like the tools your employer was using is a potential red flag to a future employer, and may make it impossible to return to a field you enjoy.
Good luck finding a new job!
I appear to have a blog. Odd.
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 kept making remarks about it not being a "real crime" especially since he hadn't been locked up for it.
He was convicted, but was sentenced to probation with monitoring
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.
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
I got a burr up my rear when my company changed hands. I'm an arogant bit of a programmer, and thus left my well paying job.
Now I'm regretting it, and want this forum to bless my rather hasty and immature decision to leave my employee.
Well, I'm not really regretting it, but Mom says it was a fool thing to do, and I'll have to move out of the basement if I dont find work soon.
Thank you.
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab
The proper way would have been to do a job search before you quit your job. If you're already employed but want to move on, secure yourself first by having a new job lined up before turning in your notice.
Yeah, I'm sure it really sucks the direction your current job is going but unless your skills are amazingly solid or your name is Linus Torvalds, chances are you're about to have a lot of free time on your hands with no solid income for a while.
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
Am I a fool for giving up steady work and good pay?
During the Dot.com boom, no.
Right now, yes.
The times, they have changed. Unless you have a REALLY good range of skills, and moreover can meet the version number test*, AND are not too old, then the job market is really tough right now.
* This is where an HR department sees that you have experience with Java 1.4.02, but they want Java 1.4.03. Obviously you are not qualified....
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
If you had another job lined up, no. If you didn't but have some money in savings, no dependants, probably not. If you have kids and no money, then it probably was a little too impulsive. Of course, if other working adults within your household are both able and willing to take up the slack, then it's probably not so bad.
I left my company recently, but only resigned after accepting another position.
A good job and good pay with nothing lined up? I would have stayed until I had something else. I guess you can afford not to have a paycheck. Also, if you're programming in windows anyway, what would the harm be of learning a new set of tools before you left? Is it safe to say you are under 25, no kids, no mortgage, no car payments...etc?
Anytime is a good time to quit your job, as long as make sure you file for unempoyment, then they pay you not to work, what isn't cool about that! Or As long as you have the money to back-up your extended not workingness
You're a moron.
You quit a job over not wanting to use Visual Studio. If some one told me they were going to quit because they didn't like text pad I'd say don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya. In fact I'd seriously look at firing them for sheer stupidity.
How friggin unflexable are you!?!
Moron.
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.
Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
Am I a fool for giving up steady work and good pay?
probably, but i'll qualify it as well. while i wouldn't blame you for leaving if you had another job lined up, given the opportunities for programmers in today's market i, personally, would certainly not burn a job bridge before being securely on another. just my $.02.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
-Oscar Wilde
I wouldn't have quit the job because of the environment but I would have seriously started looking. I turned down a job (really good money) but because of the amount of travel (80%) but only when I had a sure thing (less money, less travel) to fall back on. If I didn't have the sure thing I would never have turned it down. Having been unemployed and hating it I will do what I must.
What kind of moron programs Windows software without using Microsoft tools? Reality check, MS knows the most about Windows and produces the best programming tools for Windows. Based on your "lack of control" comment I can only surmise you have some hatred towards MS or are just inexperienced. You certainly have as much "control" over writing software as you do with any other toolset under Windows.
It depends on your situation. You are always a fool for giving up a good job. Of course If you aren't happy then it is wiser to leave.
Of course In this market I would of at least had several interviews lined up before I left. I would make it clear that I am not happy and am looking else where. Leaving with out planning is Generally not a good Idea. I would also try not to leave on a bad note(pick up things to make the tranistion easier)
If anyone can't understand that Ignore them.
Yes I have done this.
It's not easy, it can be ugly. But sometimes Logic doesn't apply
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Yes, especially if it was just because you hate M$. If you had stayed there long enough to learn C# and then decided it wasn't in your best long term interest that might have been something different. As it is you just lost a perfect opportunity to learn something new and expand your skill set.
If you support yourself, don't have any dependants, and aren't mooching off someone else (for example, your parents, a roommate, or spouse), it's your call. If you've got a household of other people you need to help support, morally you probably would have been wiser to take the unappealing job until you could find another one. FWIW, it's almost always easier to find a job if you already have one.
"It's a wonderful idea. But it doesn't work." -- Tad Danielewski
True even if (especially if) you are self-employed.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Did you quit your job because of a personal bias? Did you quit because you don't like Microsoft tools, or because you didn't like the way you thought the company was going to go?
... "Would I take a job where they said I would be using Microsoft tools for development?" If the answer is no, then you did the right thing. If the answer is yes, I'd say you did the wrong thing.
Ask yourself
Personally, I would never quit a job based on the tools they wanted me to develop with. It's like an accountant saying, "We're going to change from using Peoplesoft to Great Plains? I quit, I don't like that tool.". You'd still be doing the same thing, just in a different environment.
I think there is more to this then just "I don't think I have enough control in MS Visual Studio".
Maybe he won the power ball lotto and left such a small detail out ...
Am I a fool for giving up steady work and good pay
If you did not have something else lined up definitely "Yes."
if you did. "No."
I'm not sure about the U.S. but in other places, if they change your role a significant amount, then you have the right for a redunancy option.
I'm assuming you were some sort of *nix developer and if thats the case I think that could be basis enough for redundancy.
The next part is if you are confident your skills can land you another job easily.
I say it's good that you stick to your guns and choose the path that you want as opposed to be a sheep and following the rest of the herd.
Now the next step is the tweak that resume and come up with a good reason why you left your last job and word it in a way that doesn't make it seem like you abandoned your role.
The reason you quit your job is rediculous.
It's asinine to quit your job without another in line just because you wanted to be a l33t pr0gr4mm3r and not write with Microsoft tools. Staying on only would have given you experience with a language you probably don't have much practical experience with, furthering your resume and expanding your knowledge.
You could easily have stayed on and stuck it out while looking for something else. Attitudes like yours make me want to quit this profession.
What is your problem with using C#/VS anyway? If you're concerned about corporate "evilness", then it's just a matter of more or less no matter where we work. How do we escape? Write open source and ask for donations?
I've learned to trust my instincts when making big decisions. Even if you can't verbalize why something is a good/bad decision, go with your gut. My gut is right more often than my head.
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 my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
In deciding to leave a job or not, you are looking at the wrong data. IMHO, the important thing in a job is not the OS or programming tools. The main factor is do you like working with your co-workers. If you like your fellow workers, then you are a fool to leave over the programming tools.
At the end of the day code is code no matter where you wrote it. What gets us interested in getting up and going to work each day is do we like the working environment, not the coding environment.
(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.
To quit without having another job lined up is not very smart, but to quit in protest of using a new IDE is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. And it's made worse by the fact that the new IDE in question is the best one available for the platform you're developing for. The way I see it, yr old company is better off this way. You aren't.
I'd say courageous, more like it. People just don't have the balls to quit a job based on principles anymore. Chances are, though, you're the kind of guy who's steadfast enough in his principles, and cerebral enough, having made a plan and stuck to it, that most companies would be more than happy to hire you. If not, do contract work. As long as you can hack it, and have decent qualifications, you're much more likely to be happy.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: That averages about 660,000,000 of each kind.
You quit a good job because you didn't want to use Visual Studio? I think they're better off without you. Don't come to my shop looking for an interview.
I'm thinking about getting myself some university / college / tafe (whatever) qualifications and doing something else.
The question is, what.
What did / do smart people do before IT? (serious question)
and no I don't want to be a rocket scientist, I'm no genius but I'm also not a shovel or broom operator either...
but I don't believe it was your best decision. I'll be blunt. Are you independently wealthy? So skilled as a programmer that people line up outside you house taking numbers for the chance to interview? If you answer no to both of these questions, you may be in for a bit of a shock when you discover the job market kind of sucks these days. The old adage of it being easier to find a job when you have a job is mostly true. What kind of recommendation do you think you're going to get from your former employer if you're labelled as quitting because he didn't like our development methodology? While your peers may admire and praise your decision, a potential hiring manager may look at you as difficult and wanting to do things your own way. There is litle possibility that quitting under the circumstances you describe can be career enhancing. Good luck with your job search.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
You're an idiot.
You do realize that you're going to be remembered as "that guy who quit because he didn't want to use Visual Studio"?
They're going to laugh every time someone tells that story. Of course, they'll be laughing on company time, and getting payed for it.
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?"
Yes. Unless you have another job lined up, or the work environment is completely unbearable. Unless coding in C# with VisualStudio is about as bad as trying to develop applications using Notepad, that wouldn't qualify as an unbearable work environment.
I am so smart!
I am so smart!
S-M-R-T!
I mean S-M-A-R-T!
You have to do what makes you happy, as well as what's best for those you love. There's other jobs out there.
Besides, it means more work for those of us who could care less about working with MS tools.
It seems that the question you pose does not have any relevance to a person that has no need for money.
If you are in debt, and need to buy food, you had better start scrambling for cash. If you have few needs and no debt with a stack of cash, you did the right thing.
In a nutshell, that's the answer if you left strictly because the company decided to use a particular language or a particular compiler/IDE. Learning new tools and languages are part of reality in this industry. If you don't lean new tricks, you quickly become a dinosaur. You don't necessarily have to like the IDE/language to do your job effectively. It definately helps but it is not a _requirement_.
Did you even try the new tools? If not, you were foolish.
Did you have a new job already lined up? Are you independently wealthy? If not, you were hasty.
Conventional wisdom says that it's easier to find a new job when you already have one. This is largely because you have the ability to be very selective about the new position you take. When you leave first, you may find yourself in the position of needing to find a job to pay the bills and may not have the freedom to be selective.
At this point though, it sounds like you have already made the choice so all you can do is learn as much as you can from the way this turns out and keep it in mind when you find yourself in a similar situation.
It's nice to be idealistic, but in my book, it's even nicer to have a place to live and food on the table.
I have hobbies to have fun. I'm just lucky that I also have fun while at work.
WARNING: WE HAVE NOT CONDUCTED A FELONY-CONVICTION SEARCH OR FBI SEARCH ON THIS INDIVIDUAL.
There are things that need to be taken care of like rent, food, and a decent Internet connection. :) That's obviously a good baseline priority. This counts double, triple, or quadruple depending on whether you have a family and kids to support. They should come first, I think.
As for happiness, that's a perk. I've learned that in the long run, anything you do for a while becomes work. As far as morality and principles go, there's definitely some weight to it. I mean if a job is so stressful that your health and sanity deteriorate noticeably, it may be time to consider checking out. (if not for yourself, then for your family) Otherwise, you can drink the kool-aid and consider the new direction a learning experience. All depends on how you think about it sometimes.
That said, I've always told people "don't reformat your drive without a backup or an upgrade." I understand that sometimes you can't help it, but ideally it's nicer when you don't have to leap into the unknown.
Right after one of my best friends up and died at 38. I was sitting at my desk, hating it, and my office manager was giving me shit (normally not any kind of big deal) and I stood up and said "fuck it" and walked out the door. Because you could be dead tomorrow! Life is too short to hate what you do 40 hours a week. You may have to make sacrifices and compromises (driving old cars for a year longer than you'd like, living in a bit smaller house) but if money doesn't define who you are you'd be amazed at how liberated you can feel. If you don't spend all day on SLashdot.
Vote Quimby!
Everybody's been saying the same goddamned thing.
"Yes you were foolish for quitting your job."
What do you want from these people? Reassurance that you've done the right thing? They don't know you. They don't know what you're capable of, and they dont know what you want to do. Only YOU know that. Would you seriously read 100 replies and go "Shit... I KNEW I shouldn't have done that." ?
Listen man. You live ONCE. You've made your choice now move on. Go try and find something that makes you happy, and preferably pays you rather well. You know what you're capable - or not capable - of, so don't sell yourself short by asking for Career advice on Slashdot. ;)
I think you might have personally been hoping that you were important enough to the company that you might change their mind if they quit. I wouldn't doubt it if part of the reasoning for you quitting is moreso ego then anything else. You don't like MS Visual Studio. They are changing to it against your will, against your advice? Well screw them, see how they do without ya.
I think you should take a closer look at the reasons behind your leaving a steady job, and steady pay. Make sure that the reason you are telling us, is the real reason.
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.
:-) And you shouldn't leave over petty things like development tools....only if you are truly dissatisfed with your job.
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
The only good times to quit is...
Quitting any other time would seem just nuts.
My 2 cents.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
right now.
Recently, I started a job after being laid off and I was very excited about the opportunity. I was to be doing third level technical support for a software developer that wrote software that allocated TV and phone service in hospitals (for rentals and education).
Once I got into the job, though, I quickly learned that my role had been changed from a highly tecnical to more of a liason with the hospital technical staff as the company implemented new systems. While it was certainly more of a managerial role (project management, at least), it was in no way technical and didn't draw upon any of my previous experience in the technical field. The longer I was there, the more I began to dread going to work every day.
Finally, another opportunity arose that was back in the network admin field. . . and with a pay increase as well! I had no doubt it was what I wanted to do, but I felt awful for abandoning a job where I had only worked for a month. And most of that month was time invested by the company in training me in their software. And to make matters worse, my previous boss had pulled some strings to get me a chance at the position because he had worked for the company before, so I felt like I was letting him down!
My displeasure with the position and the fact that I felt I had been misled as to exactly what my role would be really made the decision for me. I was not happy and to me, enjoying your job makes such a big difference in overall level of happiness in life because so much of my time is spent at work each week. In the end, there wasn't any question as to what I was going to do, but that didn't make the process of turning in a two weeks notice (or informing my old boss) any easier. I am much happier in my new position, though, so I'd like to think the end justifies the means! And I've been laid off enough times working in IT that I've started to learn that companies (on average) have little loyalty to the employees anymore, so perhaps its ok for the employee to look out for themselves.
This comment was generated by a squadron of trained super elite albino ninja chickens for you.
Depends on how the market is where you live. Where I live, the market is pretty good. So I quit my last job before I got the offer for the one I currently have. I just couldn't stand the thought of waking up and going to that office again. That being said, it wasn't just because they asked me to program in a different language. I don't think that's a particularly good reason to quit - adding a new skillset is probably a good reason to stay!
...to spend much time doing things you resent or despise. When you are nearing the end of your life and you look back, do you want to say that you led a financially secure life, or do you want to say that you spent your time on earth productively and enjoyably? Now sometimes you do need to keep working while you look for something new - especially if you have big debts or kids to feed. Whether you quit then look, or look then quit, depends on your situation and the kind of personality you have. But once it's obvious that the job isn't spending your energy in a way that your soul can agree to, start moving away from it and don't look back.
If you're writing software for Windows, Microsoft has the best development tools. Especially for .NET. I know this as my company (a Windows softare shop) has tried various free, Borland, other 3rd party tools...Visual Studio is by far top notch.
Unless you're trying to develop software for alternative operating systems, you're not 'limited' by any means; MS wants developers writing software for their platform, and they offer the finest tools to get the job done.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
I think there is nothing wrong with having convictions, but it's always best to keep an open mind regarding new technologies. Unless you are a 20+ years C developper, you should at least, tried to evolve with the company technological changes.
.Net for a couple of weeks or months. If it still made you life miserable, quitting would have been the right decision for you. Now, you look as if new technological challenges scare the hell out of you.
That choice you made, you should have done it after trying C#
No! dont do that. spend every single weekday sitting in an environment you loathe doing something you hate with people that you dont like. do it for the economy.
wont somebody please think of the economy!?!
air and light and time and space
I would say no if you're in a place where there are a lot of smart programmers because smart programmers aren't limited by technology and companies that hire these programmers know that technology is a fad.
If good code is what you want to write then run out of there and go find a place that lets you program and not just type.
Two simple rules:
1)You need to pay the bills. (trust me on that one)
2)Enjoy your job or find a new one if there are unsolvable problems at work.
If money is important, you might become a prostitute (C#, XML, etc.) and go for a higher salary and a less fun job.
Evolution of Language Through The Ages: 6000 BC : ungh, grrf, booga 2000 AD : grep, awk, sed
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.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Am I a fool for giving up steady work and good pay
No. And here is the reason why:
I quit a job that I was (at the time) making good money. The reason? I had been lied to three times -- not little white lies, but "oh, after this we will have you work on xyz project". This was after I helped take a project from abortion to actually a sellable product.
I finally quit because, as I put it in my resignation letter, this job isn't doing me or my career any good.
I have strong feeling about C# (and they are not good ones). I have never felt that it was ever a good idea to base a company around a sole sourced language. There are a lot of Visual Basic shops that died a quick (and in my opinion deserved) death for this very reason.
Just for the record I am working for a place that is TRYING to go to C#. Trouble is, it isn't providing the performance -- almost as if we were lied to (!!!). There is a lot of grumbling about "open source alternatives" going on. I expect the project to die a prolonged and painful death.
Thank god I declined to sign on to that project!
IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV
Why did I do it? Complete and utter lack of any coherent management. I won't go into the details, but the place was simply hellish to work at. I'm not kidding here - management simply did not have a clue as to what anyone in my department was doing. The result was that the department (and probably many others as well) was horribly inefficient, and a haven for slackers who simply BS-ed their way through the day.
I could, of course, have become one of those ... it would have been easy enough to pretend that I was constantly busy, and that what I was assigned to do was much, much more time-consuming than it actually was. Easy, but morally abhorrent.
Or, I could have picked up some of the obvious slack and done some of what the slackers were actually supposed to be doing. Now, not only would this have been much harder work than the former option, but also, I simply didn't see this as my problem.
So, I did the only sane and moral thing and just left the place. And I have no regrets whatsoever about it.
P.S. And guess what - my old department still hasn't delivered their sole product.
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
no matter what your decision is, question on wether or not you'll loose any dignity regarding the new choices of the company..
as long as you don't have a capital ambition, and morality means more to you, than I think you made the right choice..
- Hi I'm Linus Torvalds and I pronounce Linux, Lih-nix..
Let me get this straight...
You build windows apps, your company builds windows apps. They're not changing what they're building, just the tools they use to build them.
No offense, but that's kind of like a carpenter quitting because the contractor changed from Porter-Cable tools to Dewalt.
I'd say your reason for quitting is a bad one, unless you have another job lined up. If your only complaint is that the Microsoft tools don't give you enough control, well that's a pretyt minor one. I mean it's work, not play, who cares if you don't get your ideal dev environment? You also ought to know that you can ignore their IDEs and just use their compilers, in which case there's really no way that they limit you.
Now it's different if you've got another job you could walk in to that you'd like more. Even if it pays less, if you enjoy the work more that's often worth it. Never let money get in the way of quality of life. Happiness isn't how much you have in the bank. I'd take a $40,000/yr job that I lvoe any day over a $80,000/yr one I hate.
However it sounds to me like a minor complaint, and also your tone would infer you have nothing lined up. In that case, quitting is a bad idea. You can be looking for other jobs, but just running away with nothing plannedbecause you don't like the VS IDEs is silly.
Also, this sounds like a chance to push your boundries and grow. A whole lot of people use VisualStudio, including some very well respected programmers. So, maybe there is something to it. Look at this as an oppurtunity to learn a new method of development. See how the whole RAD model works and see what oyu think. Maybe you discover it blows and you don't want to do it, maybe you discover it's a valuable new tool in additon to how you already know how to code. Who knows?
Now if you've already quit, well then I dunno what to tell you excpet find another job as soon as you can and hope you like it. I wouldn't go begging back to them, they aren't all that likely to hire you.
In the future don't leave your job unless you have a very good reason. These could be (but are not limited to):
1) A significantly better monetary offer.
2) A job that you feel you will enjoy more.
3) A severe ethicial conflict.
4) A work environment that streeses you to the point you'd rather work minimum wage if it came to that.
5) You win the lottery.
However do not quit for silly reasons like "My boss makes us go to too many staff meetings" or "I don't like the dev tools we use" and so on. IF you find the work at least tolerable and you've got nothing better lined up, keep the job.
It really depends on your situation to say whether or not you made a good or bad choice. I learned the hard way that giving up a job without having another lined up can have really bad effects. If you have bills to pay and a family to support then you need to take a good, hard look at the situation your in and ask yourself is it so terrible that I can't stay until I find something I like better.
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
I had a job, the pay was pretty bad, but I liked working there.
I interviewed and got offered a job:
1. 50% more pay
2. benifits
The problems with the job were:
1. Help desk job (been there, hated that)
2. The company didn't have the best track record (grow grow, fire fire, grow grow, fire fire)
3. The manager was way to happy to work for.
So after working another year at the lesser paying job, the company closed, and I then found a job paying double the job I turned down.
Quitting is for quitters; real men stay at their work place until they have a psychotic breakdown and come into work the next day with an M4A1 and a couple frag grenades.
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.
You are a fool. It's much easier to find a job if you are employed. Of course, you have to fit the job search into your schedule.
If you tried out C#/Studio and hated it, and had plenty money in the bank, then you made a great decision. Life is short.
If you didn't bother to try the new tools, and that's the only reason you quit, then you're a nut.
Personally, I hated VB6 with a passion, but I quite like Studio.Net. Bear in mind that C# was designed by the designer of TurboPascal and Delphi, and that the opensource crowd likes it well enough to copy. And the new Studio stole a few Delphi tricks, too...forms are defined purely by code, you can change the code it generates and have it reflected in the designer, etc. Background compilation, nice autoindent, intellisense...about time!
Some people seem to drift through their working life, unconcerned about the work they are doing, and subscribe to the idea that life begins after 5. I personally have always felt a need to be genuinely engaged by my work, and wouldn't consider doing something I found uninteresting unless out of absolute necessity. If other people rely on you of course, i.e. you have a family, then that's a different situation. I made an abrupt decision to quit my job as a .net programmer over a year ago to follow my dream of working as a 3d artist. This has paid off for me.. but it was a big risk!
How much of that pay would it take to make you happy again if you were unhappy during work hours? Would it even be possible?
"But all your emitter and collector are belong to me!"
C# and Visual Studio IDE are a powerful combination. You quit because you don't want to use the defacto standard development environment for the platform. That makes no sense.
Are you a fool? The answer depends on how bad you needed that job. Not many people like working in a coal mine. I would guess the people that do the work do it be put food on the table and pay the bills. I'd rather program for Linux, using Linux. Its what I learned on. I grabbed a book on programming .Net in 2002 because it was the best job offer I had. I've grown to love it, and feel as if I have plenty of control over my final product.
Look at the end result you desire. Do it require having the level of control that you assume or 'feel' like you can't accomplish with the toolset provided for that job?
You are a fool if you quit and didn't have another job already lined up. That is, unless you happen to just have money comming out your ass and money isn't a problem.
Otherwise:
To all the people saying things like "...it's a job/paycheck, who cares what you do...": Go on living your miserable lives I suppose. But I wouldn't take their advice there. (Again, unless you have say a family or such that relys on you, and/or you don't have something else lined up). If you don't like your current job, find something else, period. Do what makes you happy.
If my company decided to go to a C# shop, I'd say the same thing (yet again, only after I lined up another job): bye.
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.
Only after you drop LSD in the water cooler and slip roofies to every sexy chick in your office and bang them while telling your boss he's a fat fuck. :) How'd I do? Oh, it wasn't a rhetorical question?
I hate to say this, but if you want to continue to develop Windows apps, you're gonna have to bite the bullet and move into the .NET, C#, Visual Studio route.
Examine the Cons:
- You have a "problem" working with MS tools as they add code bloat & you don't feel that you're 100% "in control" of the app. (Some would argue with the structure of Windows this is true regardless of your chosen programming environment).
The Pros:
- You get a line on your resume that is fully buzzword compliant when you do decide to find another gig. My last interview for a linux development shop was *very* interested in my Windows programming experience. Any experience is good stuff. If they are gonna pay you to learn it, all the better.
Short Story: Don't do this again. You'll soon find that you can keep your pride and make the system work *for* you in the process. Trust me, you didn't prove anything to anyone by taking a technical moral high ground.
Good Luck!
I used to work at Microsoft (go ahead and laugh) and it was a stable and secure job aside from the fact my department was being globalized and sent to India (I could have probably found another job at Microsoft if it had come down to it).
I quit due to a number of reasons. First, it became clear to me that family obligations (unusually intensive for the time) were not going to be met if I continued to work there. But additionally (why I have not reapplied) I realized that I would be continuously underemployed because I didn't play the political games the way others expected me to.
So when I returned to the US after helping my wife get her visa, I went into business for myself.
My experience:
Don't kid yourself-- it is very (!) difficult to quit to start your own business unless you have a lot of external support (I was lucky in that regard, and it is still hard).
That being said, there is no price you can pay for the feeling of satisfaction you get from having a fulfilling job or business.
So it is your choice.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
C# is an awesome language, so in short, you're a moron.
It's probably a bad idea to walk out of a job unless you have another lined up already, or, you have a decent enough redundancy (And I'm guessing in a take over situation, that you'd get some) to cover the rent and things for a while.
At the end of the day though, ethics don't pay the rent, or the bills, or food, or new gadgets, so while it's nice to stand by your principles, it's also nice to be able to do the things having a regular job allow you to do. So, you have to look at your responsabilities, as well.
It's also generally easier to change jobs, then it is to get one when your not working. (Though again, been made redundant would be an acceptable reason to be out of work)
I saw the light at the end of the tunnel... But it was just someone with a flashlight bringing more work.
This is your boss. In fact, your loss is not mourned; I was planning to fire you anyways, and we always have hundreds more cattle like you lined up and ready for slaughter. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll find a job elsewhere, just like we can always find a jewbag like you without searching hard.
What is your sign? Does your belt match your shoes? vi or emacs?
Come on...the only thing funnier than someone asking a serious life question to slashdot is the earnest "need to get to know you to provide indepth analysis of your situation" post.
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.
I graduated from college with a history degree at the ass-end of the 90s, and quickly learned that history jobs are few and far between. I poked around for a few months until I realized that rent had to be paid every month, not just once, and took a job in customer service. Eight hours a day on a headset, taking nonstop calls from people too stupid to figure out how to place an order online.
I wasn't too worried about zombies at the time; who would be? The dot-com bubble was still blowing, and everyone liked the feeling.
Six months into it, I harbored a bitter hatred for my coworkers, my managers, and the executives of the company. I was convinced I could do anyone's job better than they could. I was right, too, because they were brain-dead morons and I, as a recent college graduate, knew everything there was to know. My degree said so, after all.
I lucked into a position in software quality assurance, which was at the ass-end of that company's development process. Still no zombies, except for a manager who slept at his desk for a few hours every morning, but I was able to get around that. Over the years, the department grew, I was promoted once or twice, and things were working out pretty well. There was some management turnover, which is to be expected, but the real killer was when management turnover had reached the point where my department was sharing a manager with a development team in another city.
David (note: not his real name) would work Tues-Thurs with my team, and then Friday-Monday in a city six hours away. This half-assed management was the killer for me, even though he was using his whole ass, as far as I could tell. In order to demonstrate to his managers that he was a dutiful middle management worker bee, he held daily status meetings when he was in the office, and daily status conference calls when he was out. Dilbert jokes and Office Space references abounded.
I think it was at this point when I saw the first zombie.
Gabe (note: not his real name) was a coworker in the department who moved over to the infrastructure team. He was the one who pointed out the zombie. My first thought was it was just another dev who worked all night and slept in his clothes, but Gabe carefully pointed out the severed arm that the zombie carried and the shotgun blast in his chest. It didn't bother me, though, so I shrugged it off. Our stock price was still high, and the employee stock purchase plan was a gold mine.
There were a few more zombies in the days after that. One of the sales guys tried to take a bite out of me, and I was really tempted to punch him, but I knew that it probably would result in my termination, and I still wanted my health bennies. I managed to duck away and tip a chair over, which trapped him in the cubicle. I stayed away from Sales for a while after that.
I also stopped going to HR to drop off paperwork such as vacation requests and 401k participation forms. One of the HR drones was a zombie and kept lunging at me, so I'd get around that just by sliding the form under the door. Yeah, occasionally I'd get a nastygram saying that the other HR workers had to get the paper away from the zombie, but that wasn't my problem.
But like I said, it was the half-assed management. I was put on a team of employees dedicated to a specific client to keep them from getting even more pissed at us. Me, a few devs, a project manager or two, and some outsourced testers in India who reported to me. This was pretty cool, up until the PMs in the group turned into zombies and wouldn't tell us what the hell the client wanted. I complained to my manager, but he was in Chicago at the time, and all he would say was stuff like, "Help me," and "Please help me," and "Oh god, they're eating me."
I really needed more support from my manager then. The ideal manager runs interference for you and lets you do your job, provides an environment where you can develop your skills, and rewards good performance. David (note: still not his real name) spent alm
I'm contemplating quitting my corporate job for a consulting position with a very small company.
They've assured me that they have enough work lined up at this point to keep me busy for five or six months, but after that it's anyones guess if the work will keep coming (although for the few years they've been operating it seems like it always has).
Typically how much higher should my hourly rate be?
I'm thinking if i could double my total hourly compensation then it'd probably make up for the sporadic nature of the work... any experiences here?
My father has a saying "if you arent having fun, you're doing something wrong"
He lives by those words and while he has never been wealthy, he has always been happy. He also managed to raise a family, using this philosophy, so I'd say it worked out well for him.
Now me, I'm a bit more in it for the money than he is, and so I work a job I dont much like that pays me really well. I do hope that eventually I'll have a job that I like that pays well, but since that will involve starting up my own business (which may or may not be successful), that's going to be a few years off at least.
But anyhow, if you hate your job. Quit. Find another one. Admittedly, I WOULD suggest finding another one before quitting, but if your situation permits it then go for it.
Whats the point of life if not to be happy?
Instead of seeing this as a way to expand you skills and learn to use other tools, you just quit. If you had other reasons (like way too much stress, unreasonable hours, etc... like I've had) then I might be inclined to saying you did the right thing, but not in this case.
AC comments get piped to
My boss was lieing to me about nearly everyting. I couldn't work in an environment like that anymore. So, I let it all out. Told the people I respect why I was doing it, and gave him my two weeks. Asked for a good reference, and that was that.
Now I'm shaking in my boots to find a new job.
Anyone in Portland need a PHP, Perl, ASP, .Net, MySQL, SQL Server web developer???
~n
What's the market like where you're at? If you're in DC and have a clearance, I'd say yeah, good call. If you're in Boston or SF, and have a weak resume, I'd say you just stepped in it.
I start looking at spliting when the work conditions (commute, boss, project, co-workers, whatever) start making it so I can't hold myself to my personal standards.
Spyder
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
Years ago I worked for an up and coming ISP in the Bay Area and was never able to keep up with what sales droids were promising in terms of install times for T1 lines. One meeting, the phrase 'Heads will roll if this isn't done was uttered', and much to my director's surprise I tossed him mine and quit.
Found work within about two months, better hours and more pay.
Your "control over the product" has very little to do with the programming environment; it's mostly a function of the office environment.
Unless you're a one-man shop, it's rare for a programmer to have any significant "control over the product." That's usually what the Marketing Department is for.
If you want maximum control over the product, you should become an entrepreneur and code something on your own.
For that matter, if you want full freedom to code using the tools of your choice, you should become an entrepreneur and code something on your own.
From your comments, I would be worried about your future in any team setting. You may have heard the old saying, "A poor workman quarrels with his tools." If you explain to a potential employer that you left your previous job because you just couldn't tolerate working in a Microsoft programming environment, you're likely to lose out to some other candidate who strongly prefers a non-Microsoft programming environment, but who has demonstrated the flexibility and patience to work in whatever damn fool environment the company's management has instituted at the moment.
It is always easier to get a job with a job.
The new employer will always wonder whether you quit before you were fired. There is always the psychology of the employer 'stealing' an employee from another company.
Always, always get your next job first unless you are a contractor then people accept market forces dictates a holiday sometimes.
If you become contractor don't expect taking full time job again will be easy. Employers think that you are filling in a gap between contracts so wont hire you.
Looks like a redundant question since it reads like you have already resigned. What would I do now in your position. Take any job I can that looks in the right direction. If you are as good as you think you are the rewards will come and any job good or bad is experience and will at least educate you in how not to do things in the future.
You should quit when you have your next job lined up.
...." - those words WILL come back to haunt you (like, the *next* time you go to look for a new job, and prospective employers are calling this guy!) Make sure you give them your two weeks (they may offer to let you go immediately or ask that you continue to work - be ready either way).
That is, when you have the offer of employment from your new employer, and a starting date set.
I had a friend who did the "take this job and shove it" trick with what was truely a bad situation. However, it was several months before he had another job lined up, and he very nearly had to file for bankrupcy. It *did* screw his credit up for a long time, due to the amount of debt he racked up during that time.
All jobs suck - but some more than others.
So you should ask yourself, "Realistically, does this job suck worse than any new job I might get?"
Assuming the answer is "HELL YES!", then start looking for a new job - BUT DON'T LET YOUR CURRENT EMPLOYER KNOW. Make sure you tell any headhunters you work with that you don't want your current employer contacted.
Look long and well - do everything you can do to insure that your new job will suck less than your current job.
Then, when they offer you a position, set your start date no earlier than two and a half weeks into the future, get the formal (and legally binding) letter of offer and your letter of acceptance.
THEN, and ONLY then, do you go to your current boss and tender your resignation. And no matter how strong the temptation, no matter what you feel your justification is, no matter how badly you'd like to tell them off, resign in a calm, professional manner. This world is too damn small to say "First of all, you ain't no good, never been no good, you smell like old wet cheese, you pay shit
Also, when changing jobs, you are shaking your world up - so do your best to save up some emergency money before hand, and even if your new job pays 4x what you were making - act as though you were making your old salary and save the difference - at least for a year. Remember, last in, first out.
You may want to quit today - you may go home every night grinding your teeth, but USE that anger to drive your job search - remember, while your current job may suck, imagine how much MORE it will suck if you have to go crawling back in order to keep a roof over your head!
www.eFax.com are spammers
If you left without having something else lined up first then, yes - you are an idiot. Let's assume that you did have another job waiting for you... If you left because your employer was shifting gears and moving into a direction you were not interested in going, then by all means leave. I've done it before. I worked for a small clinic group who made the decision to outsource all of their analysts and systems folks. I had a choice to either join the help desk crew or go to decision support. Since I hate the phone, and had no desire to spend my days producing TPS reports, I immediately started looking for another job. I had to because I knew that I'd be fighting over the same jobs with other people in my department (the smart ones anyway). I got an offer in 2 weeks, gave my 2 week notice, took 2 weeks off and then started the new job. Even if they offer you more money to stay, being unhappy with what you're doing is a recipe for disaster. (Although being unemployed is also not good!)
No battles to the death are recalled. Mumpsman can hit to attack and cause brainsmashing.
The firm I was doing programming for was a possible acquisition target by another firm that we had been doing subcontracting for. The CEO and I flew to the city that had their corporate headquarters, which would also be where we would be expected to move to should the buyout happen.
We were wined and dined. We got to see the work environment and noted that there were lots of perks (fridge stocked every kind of soft drink, paid/catered lunches, etc.). The pay sounded good. Too good. And then we heard what sort of hours everyone (except the CEO, of course) was putting in - 80+ hours a week. The only guy who was still married in the firm was the CEO. All of the divorced guys couldn't figure out what had happened - they were making good money, after all...
Needless to say, I didn't take that offer. I found a different job that paid a lot less, but had regular hours.
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.
It was somewhat foolish to give up your job right away. Income is good and you never really know what the current job seeking environment is like until you are in it.
I just finalized a new job today, and I am still working at my old job. I have arranged things so that there will be no interuption in pay... In two weeks time I will just show up at a different office.
Finding a good job takes time. If you are still working for your old boss, you can afford to be choosy and pick the right job, not the first job. It also allows you to pick 4-5 jobs per week to apply to and write customized resumes and cover letters, instead of carpet-bombing resumes.
Anyways, what's done is done. Good luck with your job search and don't forget to use your friends and former co-workers as much as you can. Also, when your get that letter of offer, remember it is a negotiation, you can usually get them to go a little higher on pay and / or vacation [and / or benefits, which isn't as big a deal in my country].
Yes. Sorry, but you asked.
Most Open Source loving folk use to flee Microsoft stuff like it's the plague. The day comes however (usually circa your 30th birthday) when you realize that the whole "Gates is evil" story gets tired really fast when you are confronted with bills that (the horror!!) mom and dad won't pay anymore, because they got tired of your lazy a$$ and moved to Florida.
Keep your job. Then go home, and spend your nights basking in the glow and glory which is the (fanfare please) Open Source Movement. Stick it to the man!
But on daytime, you work for him, just like the rest of us.
After all you gotta eat. Or at least pay for broadband. Or whatever it is that you need that is not Open Source and free.
Cheers.
I'm not even going to consider the loss of pay that you are taking a hit on now. What I will consider is that you left your company because they switched to a different piece of software. Granted, you should stick with what you're good at, but to be that stubborn in the IT industry is professional suicide, IMHO.
"No one is more miserable than the person who wills everything and can do nothing." -Emperor Claudius 10 BC - AD 54
I disagree. It is always easier to get a job if you are working. Employers just feel better about hiring you if you are working. If they think you will quit without having a backup job, then they think it will be easier for you to quit them. Also there is a sense of accomplishment in "stealing" a good employee from another company.
That said, I want to respond to the original question. I have turned down a lot of jobs in my life. I have always done it for the same reason, because I liked what I was doing. I have said for years, "If I did not like what I do, I would do something else."
I just recently changed jobs. I did it for job satisfaction. I switched to a job where I feel I am better respected. I get paid more. There are perks like travel and training that I did not have at the old job. I have been telling everyone, "This is the job I have worked towards for the last ten years."
Insert Generic Sig Here:
For that, no, I wouldn't give you an automatic fool rating.
On the other hand, for posing that question in Ask Slashdot, that could be an entirely different verdict...
You are never a fool if you stand up for something you belive in .
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
While generally it isn't smart to quit before having something else, every person has their own breaking point. Only you can truly say if your breaking point was reached. Morals are great, but you still have to eat.
I have only quit once without having something else. I found out the company I was working for was being brought up on RICO charges in three states! Decided I didn't want to be around when the marshalls arrived, which they did 6 months later (along with several other three letter agencies)... Fortunately I had 15+ years of experience and the market was still good, so I was only out a week, but it could have been far worse.
I wish you the best, the market does seem to be turning, slightly, at least where I'm at.
This is so true, i do the exact same thing, lol.
Unless you have something lined up, don't just quit unless some legal boundry (or moral) has been crossed. The current (modern?) economy is not setup to easily just move around in general. In my own experience, I was working for a great small company the past almost three years. I got all the benefits, good pay, awesome vacation (which allowed me to see much of the world), etc. However, I felt in the end I was starting to stagnate and didn't have anywhere to move up. So this became the impetus to look elsewhere. The reasoning being the obvious, more money, and the less obvious, networking, relearning old skills, learning new skills, learning about different companies/industries, etc. I been at my new job for two weeks now and while I was very timid initially for fear I made a big mistake, turns out each day is better then the previous and I am really liking it here. So always keep your eyes open, but don't just jump ship without some careful consideration and planning.
Life is too short to work at a job that you hate.
Look at people who you consider successful. How many of them chose to remain at a boring job for a long time?
Now, look at your current workplace. Can you see yourself being there in 3-5 years?
What do you want to do when you are 40? What are your long term goals? Will your current job help you to reach your goals?
However, staying in your current job will buy you time, if you can put up with the boredom for a short time. If you stay employyed, you can be more relaxed in your job search, and not be forced to take a new job that you will hate. Obviously, it will be harder to find time to look for a job if you stay employeed, but you can try to make time.
Plus, many potential employeers will take you more seriously when you already have a job.
If you ARE stuck at a job, then just make sure you have a good life outside of work. If you hate your job, and you hate your non-work life; it is time to reevaluate your situation.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
The worst in my experience have been contracts that do IP Theft on you.
At one place the contract explicitly stated that company owns anything I do:
1) on their computers
understandable, afterall its their hardware, electricity, office, bandwidth
2) on their time
understandable, afterall I would be payed for it
3) on my own time at home when asked to do something for work
understandable, its their idea
4) on my own time at home my own thing
a big WTF WTF LOL WTF
I asked a lawyer at the company if my interpretation was right, and yes, The problem
became with my homework assignments for university which I was also doing at the
same time. Officially I had to ask for permission from our company lawyer and my boss
if I could submit my homeworks... Atleast I could try to weasel out of late penalty marks at university by blaming the lawyer/boss for slowly responding.
At another company they would not claim rights over my code, but would claim ownage
over any domain name I owned. Thankfully I asked my boss if I am reading this right
and as boss owned some domain names himself he went to the lawyers and they changed
the contract.
The second worst I had to deal with were bad bosses. This was second worse maybe
because I always avoided bad bosses. I kid you not though, I had UML of class
organization given on used napkins. I had bosses who could not understand basest of
base ideas, it was normal to hear such quotes as:
- you can kiss my ass, and VICE VERSA!!
- you have turned this project 360 degrees around
--
/apz. Drilling for oil is boring, now War, thats entertaining
This may be a little off-topic, but:
I worked at a very large company that essentially housed marketing information (names, addresses, even hardware setups home their home machines) for high-powered clients (black&decker, ATI, panasonic).
My job was to write perl scripts that reformatted incoming files so they could be loaded into our mainframe. Needless to say it was less than chanllenging, plus the end result of my work (along with everyone elses') was that people got more junk mail. I was going to quit, but low and behold I was laid-off!
Hello, severence package. Hello unemployment. It was like a 9 month paid-vacation!
In closing, I highly recommend this if you can finagle it. Then you can drink as much PBR you want, without your manager saying its counter productive.
Not saying that it's "bad advice" - but perhaps it's just over-simplistic?
I agree that life is too short, and there's ultimately no real point to spending most of it doing work you loathe.
But there's a flip-side to this. Job searches and the uncertainty of when you'll be able to get the bills paid can be more stressful than a job you don't particularly like.
Furthermore, it's quite possible to discover something you truly enjoy doing on your own terms and conditions, which doesn't ever seem to really translate into a "job you enjoy" when working for someone else. For example, I've always had an interest and enjoyment of music - and used to be told I had a "pleasant reading voice" and the like. Therefore, I had an idea that I'd enjoy becoming a radio DJ. Know what? After going to college and taking a few courses towards this goal - I realized there was no way I'd ever like it! The problem? Practically nobody in the commercial radio business is willing to turn over control to a DJ. The DJ is basically a "robot", playing the music pre-designated in set lists, and required to only speak for X number of seconds or minutes each hour, at pre-designated time slots in the program. That's not at all what I envisioned would make being a DJ fun!
All of that being said, I think there's nothing at all to be ashamed of to say "Look, I'm not comfortable writing your software using *this* set of tools (or for *this* platform)." Only you can really make that judgement call. To me, it's rather like being a carpenter, and suddenly being told "We're taking away your entire toolbox, because our business partnered up with Black & Decker. You can only use Black & Decker saws, drills, hand tools, etc. from here on out. Here's your new set of tools, and if you need ones they don't make - you just have to do without! Enjoy!" Some people might get by fine under those conditions, but it surely wouldn't do for every carpenter out there.
No job is worth being unhappy over.
I turned down a job at Microsoft in 1997. I was working at a local Redmond computer retailer, in charge of designing and producing all their marketing materials, web page, print ads, in store flyers, hold music, radio and television commercials. A great number of our customers were Microsoft employees.
.com wave, I decided to check it out. I went through the typical gauntlet of interviews and logic puzzles. About halfway through the process I started losing interest. Not because the interview was hard to exhausting (it wasn't either), but because I didn't care enough about what I was going to be doing.
One day I was approached by one of these employees, who wanted to know if I would be interested in coming in for an interview. I was going to be working with one of their research teams, documenting, interpreting, and packaging their findings into easily understandable mediums, the web, presentations, and other marketing materials.
Being 18 at the time and riding the ever growing
When it came time to actually meet the people I would be working with that totally cemented my decision not to take the job. I have never been fond of the kind of geek/nerd who is socially maladjusted, the people that don't shower, brush their teeth, and can only talk about computers. Sure, there were plenty of those types at my current job, but I had an office with a door that locked, so it was easy to stay away from them.
I was eventually offered the job, and I promptly turned it down with no regrets. A couple years later when it became obvious to me that what I was doing wouldn't be profitable for much longer I quit working the 60 hour weeks and went to college.
I am currently applying to graduate schools. One of the schools I applied to, University of Minnesota, called me at the end of January letting me know that I has been accepted to the program, with a full tuition waiver, plus a stipend. Two weeks later I got a letter saying basically the same thing and letting me know that if I accepted their offer to respond by April 1st at the latest or my position would be offered to somebody else. Now, this struck me as strange because every other school I applied to says that they will notify you of your admission status on April 1st.
I did a little research and discovered that April 1st is the accepted standard to notify people of admission of nearly all major graduate programs. April 15th is the accepted standard to inform of nearly all major graduate programs of your choice whether to accept or not.
I emailed University of Minnesota about this, to let them know that I planned on hearing back from ALL the schools I had applied to before making my decision and asked if they would push the deadline back to match the standard deadline that all other schools use. (In fact, University of Minnesota is one of the schools in the list of programs that have decided to make the 15th the standard notification deadline). They emailed me back and said that they would "see if they could work something out."
This was about a month ago now and I still haven't gotten a response. Unless I don't get accepted to any other schools I applied to, I will not attend University of Minnesota solely based what I think is an attempt to make graduate applicants make a hasty decision.
In your case, it seems like you had a gut feeling and acted on it. This is probably in your best interest. You could probably make the switch, but since your initial reaction was negative, and so strongly negative it forced you to quit, there's no realistic way that I could imagine you ever being comfortable in that situation.
sig.
We *are* much more than what we *do*, though what we do can help us shape ourselves.
Although you did not discuss such things as whether a family looks to you for support, or whether you had been fiscally resposible during your employment and now have a cushion of savings to rest on, in the end, the only person that *must* be content with your decision and its consequences is... you.
I applaud your bravery in opening your decision for discussion, especially in *this* forum, but I must question your use of resources - would not the time spent agonizing over this decision be better spent in the now, creating the best for yourself and those around you that you can?
Either way, that decision has been made. Future decisions may be well considered against a classic quote: "Death is certain. The time of death is uncertain. Therefore, how shall I live?"
(P.S. - if you ever find a definitive answer to that question that can be stated in less than 50 words, please email me? Thanks)
Take the 90-Day Challenge! http://rwmurker.bodybyvi.com/
Great point. Chances are that if you hate your job then you're not going to do well at it and you will eventually be replaced by someone who does have a passion for the position. Let them have it and try to find the position that's right for you.
At my last big job I wanted to do nothing more than to develop software. But then there eventually came this big push from the top that resulted in the saying, "Everyone is a salesman." Well, no I'm not. I never asked the salesman to develop software so why should I have to do thier fucking jobs on top of my own? No thanks. Time to go to grad school.
Happy people make bad consumers.
I just landed a great job at a C# VisualStudio shop. :D
It's good for you, since you (hopefully) don't have to do things that you don't like, or worse hate.
It's good for the employer since he will have one dissatisfied employee less to worry about. (if too many employees leave, then the company is probably on the wrong track anyway).
Personally I'm in an employment that I'm not particulary fond of, but it is at least giving me a steady income. Consultancy is a different form of prostitution... I'm planning for other options, but it's also a question of money. (chicken and egg situation.)
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
You'll have to wait 'till this evening to read their replies.
...and writen rather than pushing the build button in VS. While you were at it you could have taken a swimg at Mono (just because your emplyer doesn't support it doesn't mean you can't build under it just for giggles.
But hey, why think about something when you can just quit over somehting so trival as a set of tools.
Now that I think about it, I think your whole story is made up to earn the adoration of the linux fanboyz.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Yes, you are dumb. .NET environment and not having "enough control" pretty much shows your knowledge of the framework. The .NET framework is arguably the most powerful programming environment ever written.
The fact that you mention
TIP: Go back to school.
If you quit just because they were changing your development tools, then yes.
- AMW
Yes, you are very stupid for quitting over this. First, you didn't have a job lined up, which is always dumb. Second, you quit over a combination of stupid pride and probably fear of a learning curve.
So, you are now unemployed, and because you quit are uneligable for unemployment. You also gave up the opportunity to learn a new language, which, even if you hated it, is a line item you can put on your resume which makes you worth more. And because you never gave the language even a chance, you don't even know if you would have liked it there. Who knows? You might have loved C#, management might have loved you, you might have been promoted and making six figures. Good work!
Am I a fool for giving up steady work and good pay?"
No, you're a fool for writing to Slashdot to seek validation for your actions.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
To me, it sounds like you quit your job because you thought you weren't going to like something you hadn't tried yet. I think you should have stayed with your job during the transition, while simultaneously looking for another job. That way you would have gotten a better idea of what your job would be like programming in C#. If it turned out you didn't like it, then you could just accept one of the job offers you got. If you didn't get any job offers, then you would need to consider sticking with your job even though you didn't like it.
Personally I'm a big fan of C#/.NET for writing business software. That's what my company mainly does.
A headhunter once sent me out to a famous luxury goods corporation for a desktop support job. I wasn't really interested, but the headhunter encouraged me to go and check it out anyway. The interview went very well, but afterwords I did some research and discovered that a large part of their business was in very expensive leather goods. I'm a vegetarian for ethical reasons, and I don't wear or use any leather products, so I felt compelled to decline when they called me in for a second round. The headhunter went BERSERK, yelling at me for making him look foolish (read: losing business), but I felt good about my decision and never regretted it. In my experience, unless you have extreme financial need, you should never take a job that you find morally repugnant.
I don't feel like I have enough control over the product when I use Microsoft programming environments
You can compile C# from the command line. There are numerous utilities for editing C# programs in. I'm sure you can even use VI or Emacs if you really want to.
Personally I _like_ the VS IDE, I've not used one that feels better to me, but if you don't, I'm sure you can accomodate yourself...
My Journal
Realize that because you're asking Slashdot, you feel deep down that you didn't make the correct choice. What you've really done is give up a paycheck because you refused to learn something new. Geeks ALWAYS want to learn something new. If you don't, pretty soon you wind up like those VMS and punchcard people who support one application, who are grumpy, and who no-one wants to deal with.
Change happens. There are a few ways of dealing with it, you chose to move on and quit. Other chose to stick it out, while some stop everything and complain about the fact change happened and why it should happen to them. Sound familiar? There is a book called "Who moved my cheese?" which is more of a social outlook on acceptance of change. People who choose to move on typically have something more favorable either in pay, benefits, or general happiness lined up.
I recently have seen people leave the company I work for on various complaints and reasons. They were unhappy with management and the way they were treated. Others were unhappy with the loss of the extra benefits that used to make my company stand out. While others were unhappy with the work load that detracted from their family and personal life. To this date, I have not seen many of these problems corrected. Leaving because the type of work you are doing changes is not what I would consider a valid reason, but that is me. Every job will have it's moments, but as a friend of mine who left his job here told me once, "You have to come up with a list of why you work where you do." Some people place time with family, friendship with co-workers, money, advancement and career goals, location, or even what language and environment they code in on that list. It's your list, order it how you would like and then decide based on what you value the most from your work. If your top points are not met, then should you leave? Will you be content with staying? That is for each individual to decide.
root 10956 5164 0 Oct 22 - 0:23 sendmail: rejecting connections: load average: 70 (isn't sendmail just too kind)
- You have no one to support but yourself,
- You have adequate savings to support yourself and your dependents for several months
If neither of these conditions apply, then you acted irresponsibly, perhaps how a 7-year old might respond. Now, had they said, "Do illegal act X," or, "Violate your morals in this way," I could see leaving without either of those above two conditions being supported... but I have trouble seeing how using a tool - i.e., VS.NET vs. Borland's offer - is a moral issue in the faintest. And if this is the greatest moral obstacle in your life then you have a very easy, easy life. Or you are just a zany zealot who views technology as a religious experience as opposed to a means to an end.I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
Seems like a bit of a contradiction. However, what is it about C# that makes you feel like you have less control over the product?
After all, you can get to all of the Win32 API, call native code, basically do whatever you want. And if it's the development environment you're worried about, just use the command lines tools with make or NAnt or whatever you prefer -- there's no reliance on Visual Studio or any of that sort of stuff. There are some pretty good C# emacs major modes, too.
Clearly it's a bit too late to be pointing stuff like that out. But I'd be interested to know what your reasons were for the "enough control over the product" statement.
Cheers.It comes down to the same reason that gives so much of Slashdot so much trouble getting laid: even prostitutes have standards. =)
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Who/What was your employer, division, position? I'm looking for work myself. I didn't accept an offer after three months of interviews because the employer "forgot" my salary requirements. It was quite frustrating, and I'm still looking for a job.
Interviewer: "Why did you leave your last job?"
Interviewee: "I quit because I didn't like the development tools."
Interviewer: "Thanks for your time. NEXT!"
I did that once. Mistake. Don't do the grand gestures until you have another job to go to. Of course if you don't like eating......
I said no. This is a free software project, and the enhancements I make must go back to the community.
This thing went on for weeks. They gave me slightly different contract terms, several times over, but they all meant, in effect, that the software I wrote would ultimately be theirs, and not the community's. I said no. I said, look: you benefit from thousands of man hours that have been put into this project before, for which you didn't have to pay. For some of this, other companies have paid. Now you want enhancements, I can do them for you, but only if you play by the same rules. You won't be able to buy the right to own that software from me, not for any money in the world. (As I said, luckily, I had other customers waiting in line.)
Finally I got a contract from them with the exact terms I had asked for. And they got, dare I say it, excellent service, far beyond what they had paid me for.
This is surely a different scenario than what you describe, but the bottom line is probably: It is certainly possible to stand firm by your principles. Sometimes it is the beginning of a lasting business relationship (as it was in this particular case).
Last year, after quite a few months of crabbing about my job I decided the company was not going in a direction I wanted to participate in. This involved a change in ownership from the founder to the VP Sales and the company culture changed from having a touchy-feely opendoor management style to having an authoritarian absentee CEO who hired management consultants and the whole Office Space rigamarole. I had saved up a chunk of money and I live in a rent-controlled apartment, so I quit. I had always thought that if a company I worked for was either sold or started hiring management consultants that I would quit immediately, but I liked my coworkers and there still remained some vestiges of the old way, so I waited a few months. I've taken the time off (since last May) to relax, do some traveling, and basically not think about having a job for awhile. I'm just now starting to get bored and am in the job market, but I feel this was just fine even though my family and some of my friends are of the "jobs are like women: don't quit one before you have another" mindset. You know your situation best and can plan for the future, though. If you're not hurting, I recommend taking at least a few weeks to figure out what was wrong with what you left so you can look for jobs that are more than "anything besides this" desperation.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
Oh, jeez. Over the last bunch of years, I have been starving -- no work to be had, few taking me seriously, and my finances went away. I couldn't even get a helpdesk position, with HR saying I wasn't technical enough. I've been passed over by construction-contractors-turned-IT-managers -- and I have one third of my life dedicated towards just UNIX administration.
So I finally got a contract, but the environment is not anything that makes sense from a UNIX perspective. A df -k produces 52 kilobytes of output, in less than 1g partitions. Nobody here has worked in any other environments, and has no experience with other systems, or other ways of doing things. Buracracy turns a simple one-command file-copying procedure into a 4-hour long Lotus Notes Attachment, FTP, and telnet nightmare of futility, and all keymappings are designed for 3270 terminals instead of vt100. I could go on for days, but you get the point. Oh, and I am not allowed to actually fix problems and misconfigurations, I have to work around them.
As a UNIX admin, working here is a grotesquely cartoonish environment, full of overweight soccer moms, and people who could not work anywhere else.
As a human with hunger, it's hard to turn down a paycheck, even if it is small.
However, I have a compromize -- I plan to work long enough to save enough money to live out the calendar year, and take the summer, and the year off. Yes, the WHOLE summer. I'll be working on my own projects, getting stoned at 9:AM, and doing things that you bound-by-chain office denizens only dream of -- enjoying myself.
I spent too many years only looking for work -- a wasted effort after the dotcom bubble. I spent too many interviews, and phone interviews kowtowing to these friar-tuck-haircut sporting, wide-load bearing blobs of useless cellulite. I have spent way too much time talking to idiot rectuiters asking me if I have DNS, SAN, or if I have TCIP, or if I have any Microsoft certifications.
So, being financially ruined actually makes my monthly expenses quite low. Barring any additional financial disasters, mid may is gonna be the perfect time to flip the bird, and enjoy zero stress.
Recruiter-Rater Find and rate technical rectuirers
Why quit when you can just stop working? Take longer lunch breaks, come in late, leave early, read more slashdot, download porn. Sure, you might get fired, but wasn't that where you were when you started?
for various reasons:
i quit one job because i hated my 1-2 hr driving commute (one way) after doing it for 18 months. public transportation unfortunately was not an option.
i quit another job because my manager found out i was gay and was a bigot. once he found out he harassed me to no end. unfortunately in the state i lived in sexual orientation is not protected. after several complaints to HR (who was neither human nor resourceful) i gave up and found another job.
i quit another job because i had 4 different managers in the 5 months i was there. the department had no clue where it was going and it certainly caused me to wonder where the company was going!
i quit another job because my PHB decided he wanted to change everyone from 5 8-hour day work week to 12 hour days, without even asking us. i was given the option to take the shift or leave.
my advice: if you're not happy where you are. move on. as crappy as the economy is (thanks gb2) there are still other jobs out there.
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.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
turned down jobs because of:
- location
- distance
- pay
- working conditions
- platform choice
quit jobs because of:
- employer treatment of employees
- finding superior opportunity
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
Unfortunately, we were aquired by a much larger public company, which eventually became "A to Z" technology partners (formerly aztec for the stock symbol). The people running this combined entity, with over $300 million in annual revenue choose to "re-engineer" the whole operation and shutdown the parts that did not meet with their new "mission" to raise additional funds. Of course they were at the time also thinking of buying the redskins stadium, ah bold what dreams they had...
This "mission" they chose, and bet the entire company on, was to become "the" e-commerce company, and they believed Microsoft iis was the way to do this! I disagreed, and left.
For those already laughing, indeed, it gets better; this was in 1999! Incidently, they IPO'd at 14, immediately to close by the end of the day at 11. It did not take them all that long to turn a company with a billion in assets and $300 million in revenue into one barely able to earn a few million with all their assets owned by banks! Eventually they went under a dollar a share and were delisted, before finally declaring bankruptcy a year or so after that.
Descartes (http://www.descartes.com/) was probably one of the worst companies that I will EVER have the misfortune of working for. I was treated poorly, expected to work 80 hour weeks, literally called "bitch" by my boss and sales personelle (those of you that worked with me in Waterloo, Ontario might remember me from the wireless group up until last May). I didn't quit until I had another job offer on the line! I don't think it's a wise decision to up and leave a company for any reason other than a legal standpoint or another (hopefully better) position that has landed in one's lap. Word gets around pretty quickly, even in a city of 500,000 people! Just quiting like that makes you seem really immature and unwilling to change (who wants to hire a developer like that?).
.NET stuff isn't bad! I love working with C# and all of the GREAT development tools that M$ brings out. I don't think there are any IDE tools out there that can even come close to them!
And
All-in-all, I don't think that changing development platforms should be your excuse for leaving a company. Learn something new, grow, excite yourself (it could be worse, COBOL!!!!!EWWWW!!!)
I guess when you start spending more time posting on slashdot than working.
I have quit my job because I did not like the corporate culture. When I worked part-time at PNC bank I didn't like how the rules were set to make the Personal Bankers and the Tellers basically against each other. The PB's were told to give the client everything and then some for nothing, while the Tellers were told to enforce the rules and gov't compliance.
I then worked for Citizen's bank for about 6 months (until I graduated college) - I told them I would only continue to work for them if I was put in a back-office position...either IT department, or management of some back office department...i refused to continue in retail.
The most important reasons for me are:
if the job becomes stagnant (not advancing, learning)
if I found a job that would pay considerably more and give me more responsibilities (management, travelling, etc.)
if I could not get along with the company to the point it became horrible to work there.
I have turned down jobs before - but only when I was currently employed...I do not think I could easily turn down a job if I was unemployed...I would continue to look for another job - but when you need a paycheck you need a paycheck.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Take it as a learning opportunity. Learn how to work with this tool and while you learn look for a new job. It is a much better bargaining position to have a job than to be unemployed when looking for a new job.
If you don't have children and have substantial savings and strong job prospects, then sure, go for it. Get a better job. Reward the next company with your demand for quality.
I would not leave my job without another job lined up, but I have kids and I live in a terrible place with a terrible economy and I want to leave. Oh F@# it, I'm leaving!
Anyone have a job for a ASP/PHP programmer who likes Mac OS X and wants to live near Seattle? Anything would be better than working for a failing car manufacturer in Michigan.
I was a tier 3/network installer at a major airline. It was exciting and included lots of free travel. After 9/11, the layoffs came down and the junior guys went first[1]. I was unempolyed for several months but was making it with small contract positions via word of mouth. I turned down a tier 1 position paying a little less then my old position at the airline. I called them back a few days later and I was hired. If you have the background and the knowledge of the higher positions, it will be noticed and you will climb back up the ladder. Two years later, I 've worked my way to the network engineer at the same facility and making about $40k/yr more then I was at the airline. Several of the existing tier 1 techs that were here before I even got here are still at tier 1/2 (they are very good though but we only need one network engineer and turn over is not high for the other positions).
If you want a job, taking a "lower" position is not the end of the world, initally you will be underpaid for the work you take on but it should pay off in the long run. Unless of course you go in there and only plan on doing what the lower position requires (bull headed) and you will probably go no where.
[1] Union jobs suck for those with initiative. No one has any say so at all in pay raises or bonuses and the only thing that means anything is seniority. I saw fuck the unions.
You quit your job when your wife told you not to. Been there, done that, not a good idea. Suprising as this might be, yes, there is a Slashdot reader with a wife.
The move towards c# for a M$ coding shop would be the logical progression. Had you been a UNIX developer and had C# thrust upon you then I'd totaly understand your move but given you are as you say already a M$ developer. Would the move to C# be the most logical/benifical move for you given how M$ pulls it weight like a lump of jeloow following obcence rules of enertia. If M$ wants to go south for the winter then they go North for the winter then you as a M$ dev pretty much have to follow them or find all your tools and API hooks totaly out of date before your compile even finish's.
The only clos comparision I can recall was being `offered` a AS/400 admin coarse (new IT director with mainframe butt kiboshing nix migration type situ), as a AIX admin I was like, there is a copy of yellow pages over there, you go play with it, we are not ammused. k thx bye.
So basicly if you wallow in the pig pen then dont feel offendeded when newer mud comes along. But if you strutt your stuff in the hen house and somebody tries to dump some mud on you, you quickly learn how to fly again to new ground.
I worked for a thoroughly loathsome boss in a thoroughly loathsome atmosphere. I was paid decently and couldn't gather the courage to quit.
Fortunately, the company collapsed.
Shortly after starting out on my own and thinking about what not to do, I wrote this manifesto as in the personna of my old boss:
The Hurry Up Manifesto
Project Management the Stressful Way
1) Remember: your customer and your developers are your enemies
2) Before doing anything else, invoice and demand immediate payment
3) Never do just one thing at a time
4) Software will write itself
5) It's important to never give your developers the big picture
6) If your project runs into trouble, argue with your customer and stop all development immediately
7) If your customer isn't unhappy, something is wrong. Reduce the size of your team immediately and make sure that someone hasn't leaked
valuable project information to your development team. If possible, fire your entire team and put in their place people unfamiliar with
the technologies being deployed. This will guarantee that any project secrets that may have reached the former team will mean nothing to the
new one.
8) Specifications and Analysis should be withheld from your developers. Remember, if your software fails to meet customer specs, you'll have an unhappy customer and a good argument for point #10.
9) Give your development team as little advance warning of a deadline as possible - preferably never. This will give you another powerful
argument for point #10 as it'll be impossible for your team to deliver the project on time.
10) Never pay your developers
I've switched jobs a few times, and have never regretted it. However, I've always viewed it as an opportunity to move towards something I wanted to do versus running from something I didn't like.
Just my $.02
Your monitor is staring at you.
and been re-hired 3 times, though each was a unique circumstance. But NEVER ask to go back...it almost never works out and you mostly never get to find out honest answers about why they don't want you back.
The happiest outcomes seem to stem from leaving a large, stale, hide-bound bureaucratic corporation [defense contractor in my case] for a raw startup with maybe 1st round funding...the new situation should be fluid and even if it is risky, it can be absolutely engaging and require all the energy and smarts you possess. Unless you are a weak performer, you will usually not wait too long between jobs and in the end, the jobs you will be fondest off will be the ones that needed you the most and let you be the best programmer you were capable of being. This is, of course, MHO: your personality and comfort level in uncertain circumstances is a huge part of the decision.
I should temper this idealism a bit. A startup either grows up and each programmer's role shrinks, or it fails and you go looking again. That optimum state of programmerly grace is fleeting yet you don't want to be a start-up junky. A good rule of thumb [I've heard it from others who have worked in the same ways at the same companies as I] is about 3 years at a start up. You are either rich by then or have settled into some role with depleted novelty and challenges...or you are suddenly cleaning the pizza boxes and coke cans out of your cube and using the pink slip to book mark where you left off in your latest programming manual. It is no shame and in some quarters a sign of your value that you went down with the ship. YMMV but JUMP anyway 'cause life is short.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Hi, My current situation: I have survived 6 redundancies, and 3 managers changes. Current situation is my Dpartmental manager (worldwide) sucks and she has no idea about my job, for example I aksed for another network card and she said why can't you use the one you have and move it form machine to machine? yes .. that bad. My line manager even worse. I only se ehim once a week if I am lucky and he only take cues from one other engineers who never consults with the rest of the team. My team sucks too and each for himself we almost never consult each other on any thing - too much egoes going around. I have no career path to look forward too. Every morning I say to myself "this is my last and I must leave". Everymorning, well ... about two minutes later ... I calculate my mortgage and my children school fees. I want them to have the best and so I stay in my job hoping there will be another round of changes. I am very good at my job and I love my job, it gives a lot of satisfaction. I am not leaving but I am looking for a new job - take it easy, stay cool and plan my next move. I can take the bullshit and I am earning a very good money. Either a job will come along or something will change AGAIN in company. Until then I go to my cubicle, do my job and then go to my family.
However, if I was single and younger and confident of my skills and can sell my skills better in my competitive environment then I would leave wihtout a thought.
Are you a fool? maybe and maybe not - it depends on your current responsibilities, how aggressive you are in selling your skills and finding a job. Sometimes, when you are young (younger) you've got to take a chance or you will be left behind and many missed opportunities.
Only you can answer this question ... and whatever the answer .. a VERY GOOD LUCK to you. :-)
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...
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Surely you jest. That may be true of junior programmers, but not anyone with real experience.
Force me to use emacs and my productivity plummets because I have to focus on how to write the code, not what to write. It's even worse with a "friendly" GUI-based editor. You don't see an impact when all editors are unfamiliar, but use the same editor for 20 years and it's as natural as walking.
As for OS, it's even worse. I'm familiar with many dozens of standard Unix (C and Java) libraries and probably thousands of functions/classes/methods. I usually know exactly what library to use (including obscure ones) and rarely need to refer to the manual pages or sample code. I know where system files are kept, what format they're in, and standard tools to access them. Even more importantly I know what NOT to do. That lets me produce quality code in little time.
Put me Windows and none of that experience applies. Even maintaining existing code is difficult because of all of the nonstandard crap the MS C compiler requires. The standard library is still there, but I don't even know what library holds the GUI -- and am sure it's nothing like X/Motif. I'm sure it has the equivalence of regex.so and bzip.so, but I have no idea what they are or how to use them. What about Unix sockets for IPC?
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
If you have a low tolerance to stress, then being stuck in a crappy job will have a negative impact on your mental as well as your physical health. If you are good with stress and nothing really fazes you, then it doesn't really matter what the job is so long as it pays well. If you cannot function in a high stress environment (such as a job as a bill collector), then you will probably be a pretty shitty bill collector. If you can function in that environment, then you may make a whole lot of money. Generally, people are more creative and do better in jobs that they like regardless of the stress level. As a software developer like many people on this forum, there are often times where my job involves a lot of stress, but the sense of accomplishment I get from finally getting something to work you have been working on for the last couple of weeks, months, or even years makes it all worth while. Plus, this profession generally pays pretty well relative to other professional jobs, so it sure beats starving and living in a gang infested neighborhood where you have to literally worry about getting mugged or even killed every time you walk out of your house. And well, if you are poor, the odds are you will live in a much less safe community than if you are well off. If you are someone who knows what it is like to be desperate for money and then know the difference between that situation and a situation where you just don't happen to like the work you are doing at the moment even though it pays well, then you will realize that the worst thing you can do is quit a job without having any good options to back you up. It is one thing to quit a job because you have realistic non-pipe dream options you could potentially exploit, and it is another thing to just quit a job because you are pissed off at your boss, company, or the kind of work you are currently working on. Always keep your skills updated and never get lazy and complacent in your existing position of employment or else you might find yourself downsized and obsolete before you know it. Finally, never let your boss or prospective boss (if you are interviewing for a job) know that you are desperate for your job. If they realize they have a lot of power over you, 9 times out of 10 you can expect them to exploit it in ways that are not beneficial to you. Just remember, there is a huge difference between someone thinking you are desperate and someone thinking you are disloyal as they really are mutually exclusive impressions and the impression you want to give out at work is that you could leave your company for greener pastures at any moment, but that you won't if the company obeys its side of the social contract in being loyal to you.
No severance or anything, but it was the kick in the arse I needed to start my consulting business. Less free time, but much better money, more interesting work, great clients, and the fulfillment of controlling my own financial destiny.
Here's something I formulated as I was contemplating
leaving Worldcom (nee UUNET) during the meltdown:
1. Is the activity/product/company/job ethical and moral ?
2. Will I get paid ?
3. Is there work related to the pay
(i.e does anybody care what I do)?
4. Is that work interesting?
5. Is the interesting work likely to continue?
When you're a barnyard masturbator. ;-)
I was about to say the same thing. Although he already quit.
:-) (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?)
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
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.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Let me get this straight. You're a Microsoft developer who quit a job because they are moving to the latest Microsoft tools and c#?
I hope you don't plan on being a Microsoft developer for much longer in your career because that's where the current is flowing...
That being said, always have a job lined up before you quit. Even if you slack off and do nothing for the last month of your employment it looks better to a new employer that you are currently employed. Makes you look more "employable".
I think leaving a position based primarily on toolset ideology is questionable. Especially given that, within the technology spectrum, every new experience, good or bad, stands to teach us something about where we are going, or where we have been. I think sticking it out would have given you additional experience to defend or desert your current opinions intelligently.
I do know miserable. I fully appreciate that once you hit a certain saturation level in an environment, no amount of "Don't Worry, Be Happy" can turn things around. Not a good place from which to change development paradigms. If the toolset thing was a "final straw" in a long list of growing grievances, gettin' while the gettin' is good is not a bad plan.
These types of decisions are highly subjective, and really come down to your tolerance for environemental change, your aversion to risk, and confidence that you will find something new within a reasonable timeframe. The answer is different for everyone.
"Am I a fool for giving up steady work and good pay" .Gnu, to name a few.
C# while started by MS is an Open Spec, there are SEVERAL implementations out there, Mono,
C# Is GOOD Stuff, you think all thu Unix developers who are jumping into C# development are doing it because they LIKE MS ?
C# is JavaRedux imho, new yes but they took the best of Java and fixed alot of things on top of it, its logical orginization is good, not perfect but better than Java, and its a very nice langauge, it flows and you can do anything you want to in it, its self hosting, and its not like its some hack of a scriptiong language,
If Novell and others have their way Gnome dev will be in C# why ? IT THAT GOOD !
Its funny you may have bounced yourself out of a FREE learning session of C# now you are no more knowledgeable than you were about it instead of getting PAID to lear it.
But on the upside the company is in a better position now that you dont work there , as your logic is flawed and on top of it if those are the reasons you quit youre either a primadona or just have a closed mind.
Quit your job today. I for one am either going to quit or go to KMart, buy a cheap deer gun and 'terminate' everyone else.
Does the job really suck or are you just being a platform snob? Eventually in your career you are going to have to go along with something you don't agree with. As much as we all dislike Microsoft, if you told me in an interview that you walked away because "microsoft sucks", you'd have better followed up that position with something mightly impressive, and quickly.
Please elaborate on your loss of control. I have a full suite of open-source projects I am able to use to test, deploy, and integrate with C# / Visual Studio. I would say in fact, that Visual Studio .NET is by far the best development environment ever created, and I'm not the only one who thinks so.
To your core question, quit when you find something better. There are plenty of jobs out there.
GetTheJob.com : Nothing but Real Jobs.
I got my first career type job right after college six years ago. I was 30 (I did the college later later than many), and I was willing to take anything. I got hired on a temp-to-hire basis at Western Resources (a big utilities company) in Topeka, Kansas.
The work environment was fine (better than most corporate jobs, but I could definitely feel the corporation), my bosses were cool, and I was respected for my work. We were an all-Windows work place, which bugged me but not terribly so. After all, they were free to waste their money and my time any way they wanted as long as they paid me.
The tools we had to use, though, were insufferable. It was an old DOS program hacked to look like a Windows program called CableCad. It was the very definition of painful to work with, but that was my sole job.
When my temp. contract expired, Western Resources wanted to hire me full time with a $20K/year raise and extensive benefits. I told them thanks, but I couldn't see myself doing that job for long.
I had decided months prior that I hated the tools and was going to quit as soon as my contract expired. On the expiration day (actually, a week early since I still had unused vacation time), I quit, moved back home, and looked for another job for eleven months before finding one I loved (my current job, by the way).
I missed the money terribly during those eleven months, but it was the right decision. I had over $5,000 saved, and frugal spending coupled with free room and board (parents) saw me through until I got another job.
The bottom line is that you have to make that decision for yourself. There is no clear cut yes or no answer to your question. For me, working at a job I hated was worse than living on a shoestring for a year. I could afford to take the risk, though, because I'm single with no dependents. If you are the sole provider for someone other than yourself, the whole context changes.
You have to weigh the pros and cons for yourself.
I've done both: quit a job cold, without a new offer, and turned one down flat. I regretted neither.
In the case of the one I quit, the company was on the skids and late on salaries twice in two months. The second time, they admitted the truth, that they couldn't cover salaries until they got their accounts receivables at the end of the month. When that happened, I gave notice and gave myself 6 weeks to find a new job or I'd leave the area and go back home. I found one, but it came down to the wire and that was before the bubble burst.
In the case of the one I turned down, it became clear to me fairly early in the interview process that it was one of those "You've gotta be kidding" companies and I terminated the interview and left.
Not long thereafter, I was hired by my present employer and in less than 18 months went from team member to team tech lead to team manager.
No regrets here.
That said, quitting a job, esp. in IT, without a new one lined up, is a big risk. In your situation - that they changed the development environment to something you strongly dislike - I would have tried really hard to find a new job before quitting. Writing Windows apps using Visual Studio instead of whatever you were using before isn't the end of the world. I think most people have held a less than enjoyable job at one time or another to put food on the table.
Now, if you have enough money in the bank and no dependents and are young and want to enjoy the time off, then hey, go for it. Something will turn up.
However, one thing to keep in mind while job hunting is this: as a hiring manager, if you told me that your reason for leaving your last job was "We were a Windows shop and switched to Visual Studio and I didn't like it so I quit" I would view that as a sign of immaturity and/or instability and probably not hire you. This is a fun place to work and I work hard to keep my team members happy and keep all administravia far from them so they can concentrate on what they enjoy doing, but everybody has to tolerate some things sometimes. I wouldn't hire somebody who I thought would bail if we changed a tool to something s?he didn't like.
You can't put a price on either your health or happiness.
If youe job is affecting your personal life, your familial life, your health, or your happiness, then the choice is simple.
It's time to move on.
So, you quit a job that involved sitting on your ass and pushing about little bits of light, just because you didn't like the colour of the light you were told you had to push around.
I can just picture your next job interview when the question comes up "...and why did you leave your previous place of employment?"
Providing an answer of "'cuz they were making me do stuff I didn't wanna do!!!!" will ensure you never get a tech job at a competent company again.
Enjoy digging ditches, chump. You're about to find out what 'real' work is.
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.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Yes you are a fool, because there are many other IDE's out there besides VisualStudio that I am sure you could have had them buy you. Like Borlands. Or you could just use Emacs or Notepad. What did you gain from your pride nothing but loosing a good paying job.
Nobody cares!!!!
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.
In wartime... truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies. (Churchill)
This is a stupid Ask Slashdot.
Obviously your moral standards are at issue here, and everyone has their own moral standards.
Would you be a prostitute? A pimp? Con man? Work at Microsoft? Work for Wal Mart? Be a lawyer? Defense attorney? Personal injury? Prosecution? Cop? Surgeon? Social worker?
Who you work for, what work you have to do, who you have to work with... these are all fundamental questions that every person in the freaking world has to ask themselves every time they look for work, and every day they go to work. The fact that you are a programmer has absolutely zero fucking relevance, except with regards to the current IT industry job market. And you know what? Special delivery from Obvious Express: IT SUCKS. Of course, with motivation, luck, (perhaps a bit of nepotism) and an excellent resume you can get a job in any big city. DUH!
Welcome to Ethics 101 and Job Finding 101, where your host is Slashdot and we can discuss sophomoric morality questions and how the current job market in IT sucks!
Later today: Does God exist? What OS would He use?
If you're asking yourself this, and have to come on here to get an answer, then my answer to you is Yes.
But honestly, only you can answer this.
- Did you have another job lined up before leaving?
- Are you living in a location where there are plenty of jobs where you'll be happy, and you are able to get?
- Are you able to get by comfortably until you find a new job, and if not, was it worth leaving before finding a new job?
- If you company was bought out, would you be switching to Visual Studio right away, or would you have been able to continue doing what you were doing before (until you found a new job)?
Sometimes, we have to do things that we don't like (for example, I'm writing help files, but it's paying the bills, and I'm getting by quite easily, but until I can find a job that pays as good or more than this, and where my experience would better be served, I'll continue to do the jobs that no one else wants)
i have been working in a Call Center for a well known insurance company. i have hated my job since the day i arrived. i just found out i got a promotion to go to the IT department. It the postion i have been wanting for a long time. The point of my rambling is... you have to be happy in your job. period. there is no regret due to it being steady work or just a job. if you cant stand your job. then its not worth torturing yourself. the only reason i didnt leave is that my company has the best benefits and funny commercials. i dare not name the company just incase.
Good Karma, Bad Karma, doesnt matter to me... I'm still going to say whats on my mind!
I've quit jobs for lesser things and I've never regretted it. Our jobs take up the majority of our time and energy while on this Earth, so if you're not doing something you enjoy, you have all the rationale you need to quit and find something better. And if you can't find something better, create something better.
I would never want to quit a job without something else, but sometimes you have to take into account your health and family life if a job is causing you too much stress.
.com bubble. While I knew I had limited time left, but I did have some time, I decided to leave.
A few years ago I was working at a company that was laying people off and dying a slow death with the pop of the
The new job had a few things I liked. A good friend was there, even if he didn't love it, and the pay was nice. However, the job turned out to be a mistake.
I went into this job with the idea that I'd be working from home most of thie time building framkeworks and products. The company, while a consulting company, was trying to work on some techonolgies my friend and I had done at our previous job. I didn't like to travel and I didn't want to do the consulting bit of spending every week away from home and only seeing my fiance at the time on weekends.
When things turned south at the company a bit (they had been going, but it really began to move a month or so after I started) they quickly just tossed people at projects as long as they got money. Not caring about us. Seeing this I decided to quit.
I quit, and gave 3 weeks notice, so I had time to find something else. However, they decided to put me at that time on a 3 month project away from home (the lack of morales and lying to the client about me being there on the project where standard pratice).
So, I said I quit again, with no notice. I'd interviewed for one position I'd been contacted for off of monster at that time.
Now, I'm still at that position a year and a half later. I thought it would be something temporary as I was feeling desperate, but turns out that while I took less money, the 9-5 no travel was what I wanted and the lack of stress from my job made me feel much better.
I'd never quit a job without seeing what is around unless it starts to impact me outside work and effects my health. If you dred, to the point of stressing yourself out, going to work, quit. Amoung other things, umployement will kick in after a bit and you'll have some source of money, if you can't immediately find something. Plus, if you really need money, there are jobs outside your area of expertise that you can take. Hell, if you have to, work retail or something. I had a friend that was let go and after a month or two went from IT to managing a warehouse for a little while. We all have skills that can go beyong programming. I was considering temp work and simple admin type stuff if I had to. At least until the next IT job came along.
On your 65th bithday or the day you win the lottery - which ever come first.
All generalizations are false, including this one. Mark Twain
Bonus credits if you can name the store I had to leave...
can we have some hints?
like could you "Buy" the "Best" stuff there?
Be yourself and forsee yourself a couple of years down the line.If that matches with your present,then you seem to be in good shape. But if not, go for your ambition.I guess money flows in the software sector and so it should not be the only deciding factor.
You also could have asked if it's OK to keep writing software for Windows, in C# if need be, with your old tools. If you keep putting out good work, I see no good reason why they'd force you to use Visual Studio.
If you think your job is bad go to
I just quit my job last week. The line in the sand was hearing malicious rumors about myself that the owner of the company had stated that had absolutely no basis in reality.
I have other work anyway!
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
I don't get it. You wrote ", if you don't believe in god then this is truley the only go at things you'll have".
Are you saying that believing in a god will get you reincarnated? Or are you saying that not believing in a god will cause some cosmic god-gang to eat your otherwise immortal soul?
I don't get it. Is there some particular god you are qualified to speak for? S/He seems very bent.
You should check in somewhere.... unless you have lots of cash, then just fuck off.... why would you give a shit what anyone thinks if you have cash enough to quit a job because it's flavor has changed. Good luck explaining this to your next prospective employer..... oh wait you have cash..... or in a market where your shit doesn't stink.... in any case seek help, unless you have cash....
Sig Hansen?
My wife makes more money than I do... so I took a chance and quit my job back in 2001. We had a baby so I ended up being mr.mom and working contract jobs part-time. We took an income hit, obviously, but it just meant doing much better budgeting and not getting all the latest cool toys. I am still doing this today... although I am thinking about going back to full-time work somewhere but I've yet to find a company I want to work for. I refuse to go back to a microsoft-centric company... I will keep looking until I get my perfect Linux/OSS dream job, and I don't care about high pay.
Meh.
I recently have been trying to get out of the IT industry, and into the recreation industry. I am militarily a IT guy, but my bachelors degree in the real world is in Outdoor Education and Recreation.
Since I love the outdoors with a passion, and I have a very healthy respect for the impact that a religeous (Yes you agnostic /.ers a Bible/Christian)camp for youth. Plain and simple, Bible Camps and the like change lives for the better much more often than they change them for the worse.
I recently applied for a Youth Program and Education Program Director level position, for which I am fully qualified, short possibly only on the experience section due to several military obligations.
I interviewed for the position. They then had me come in for a second interview. The offered me a job, but it was not the job I applied and interviewed for. Instead of offering me the job that required professional credentials and the use of my brain, they offered me a job most interested individuals take during high school or to work thru college with. Indeed I did work in such a capacity during high school. They wanted me to clean up camp, do some dishes, and assist with various programming when the need arose. Basically a peon.
They switched jobs on me. They offered me ~$8/hr for less than half time work instead of the moderate salary $35,000/year.
I would have actually lost money by taking that job.
They then had the nerve to ask whether I'd be competant enough on their computers to help with some promotional videos and other more mundane administration. Not only would I be underpaid for my skills in education and recreation management, but I would then be expected to freely prostitute my skills in computers and IT for free. All in the less than part time ~$8/hr job.
I politely declined and told them why. They asked if they had another position open up in the future if I would be interested. I said yes. I would be interested, but I would be very skeptical about the hiring proceedures and job descriptions.
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
I have recently quit my job.
It was a lucrative job that involved a high level of certification with a vendor. I got to go to different job sites every other week or so, learn the latest technologies, and get free training. In the beginning it seemed like the culmination of several years or training.
The entire time I had the job, I didn't feel like I belonged there. I found journals of mine from two years ago, and I'd said then that I didn't know if I would be there in six months. I could do the technical part ok. I just didn't have the personality to do the job. I didn't like BS'ing the customer into purchasing a solution when I couldn't prove that the solution would work because I had never done that before. When a recent project involved over $175,000 in labor and materials, and the number of things of unknowns that would have ruined the project ran over a page long, I knew I didn't have it in me to keep doing this.
I used to read 300-page books about my vendor's products while I was *on vacation*. The stuff just fascinated me. Now I don't read it at all anymore. Maybe one day I'll be back, but that day isn't today.
Plus, the job helped stress out my marriage, and when a computer guy tries to force "ones and zeroes" thinking on a liberal arts creative singer, well things go wrong.
The main logistical issue is to make sure that you will have enough money to ride out an extended time while unemployed. You may have to consider cancelling recurring services, such as digital cable, or certain long-distance plans. You might have to consider that you may have to move back in with family, or somehow signing up for state assistance.
The rule for success (I forget who say it first): Figure out what price you would pay for what you want, and then pay that price. If you've got the money, then leaving a job because the color of the carpet disagrees with your flesh tones is a possibility. If the money isn't there, then learning what goes into a Taco Bell Chalupa may be in your future.
Ultimately, the only time that you will not have any problems is when you're dead. Part of realizing that I was a "grown up" was seeing that there are always more problems, and that waiting for those to go away before you become happy will never work.
Happiness is not the absence of problems. Happiness is what you have to bring to your problems in order to improve your life.
P.S. I have a job possibility on the horizon with a 40% pay cut. But it is a great work environment, and I have money stashed away. I can reduce my lifestyle, now that I know that I am not what I own.
Am I a fool for giving up steady work and good pay?
Yes. Next!
You clearly enjoy programming... and you are willing to put morals/enjoyment above job security. So may I suggest that you try joining an open-source programming effort for awhile? I think you will find it rewarding.
Quit your job, sponge off friends and relatives, rotate credit cards, and then declare bankruptcy.
Repeat.
I recommend quitting your job when your bored for more than a month straight and your pay doesnt buy you souls. If its boring and you can buy souls just hang in there until you have "enough" money, then find some more fun/satisfying job
It's a gamble, like many other things in life.
I left a decent IT support position back in 1998 as they were moving away from VMS and standardizing on NT. I went back to school to finish my BSECE degree, and now I do chip design -- I make almost twice as much money and I've worked on two fantastically groundbreaking microprocessors in the last four years.
Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. The down side? Student Loans.
Keep the crappy job---until you deal with these: pay off your debts, analyze whether you are getting full enjoyment off the giant expenses (get rid of them might be an option), and job hunt like crazy. CRAZY! Don't be naughty at work, most career fields are like a small town, you will definitely run into people you hurt again. (I cannot believe how people can be so sweetly vicious or fire people in horrid ways and positive they'll never run into their victims again. ) I've seen friends keep crappy jobs and keep digging their debt-hole deeper and deeper, so they are nuthin-but a prison-beetch to some monster at work. One friend keeps buying more and more knick-knack crap for her house, new car, new house, clothes, working 60-70 hour weeks, getting really badly outa shape, getting screamed at by the foreign boss, with the offshore group members panting for her job. Freeze your credit cards in a block of ice. Start making your lunch, and calling headhunters to do lunch with. While you are killing time at the crappy job, see if you can schmooze over to a decent team and build up some positive references, or a better job.
Let them come to you and BEG for your favors!
I turned my back on the big bucks and I've never been happier.
But of course, I'm highly skilled and reasonably intelligent. Talentless drones are better off following your advice.
Try getting some instead of posting stupid things like this to /.
I've quit two jobs in my career. In both cases I 1) was completely discouraged about my job and finding anyway to enjoy it, and 2) I'd already lined up a new job for myself.
I've also been layed-off once, and survived financially only because I had about three months take-home in the bank.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
So they chose a tool you don't like?
OK, you will like how they struggle after you left the building. Don't ever show that you can't work with a tool the blame is ALWAYS at you. If you can't find a way to blame others or simply leave when it's about time.
And that time is when the date of release comes closer. You must have many parts of your work "almost working" (really fucked up shit) and then leave and have a good laugh.
I once interviewed with some idiot tool at Price Waterhouse who took a phone book sized questionnaire out and began reading, head down, eyes down, one absurdly arcane technical question after another. After about 30 of these I asked him if a) he could answer any of these and b) most of them you could just look up. So I got up, called him a idiot tool and walked out.
I interviewed once at a boutique consultancy long since sold out, for an entire day. 12 people, 12 half hour interviews. Each and every one of them had only one thing to say. That anyone hired would be expected to work at LEAST 100 hrs a week 6.5 days a week. The final interview was with the managing partner who had one question: do you think you can work this hard. My answer was "sure I can but I'd have to be retarded to do it for you." and walked out.
I interviewed with the 'director of applications of a retail chain owned by Trump. The fellow was an insane basket case who said flat out "I want to go to meetings and basically do nothing. You would have to be here 80-90 hrs week banging out CICS programs and screaming at the monkeys who work here to do the same. Are you interested?" I suggested that he should either get off or on drugs, right now and seek help.
I was once lectured for 15 minutes at TIAA-CREF over a misplaced comma on a resume by a guy who made me wait an hour to speak to him. WTF kind of OCD poster child did he want to be?
I interviewed at Gartner by a guy who was on his very last day at the company and told me to me face he didn't care who they hired or why.
In short you really have to retain a sense of humor for the people you interview and ultimately work for. Because nearly all of them are shitheads.
...obviously AFTER reading the slashdot answer threads. DUH!
"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?"
Yes. You quit your job based on the irrational dislike of other people for Microsoft. It's one thing to say that Microsoft products are inferior to some alternatives (which is true) or that Microsoft's business side is engaging in unfair practices. But shunning the entire, massive company and anything they make based on some irrational hate is not a smart decision at all.
You should quit your job when you have a better one available or when your current job is so bad it is no longer healthy (mentally and/or physically) for you to continue working there.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
In my view, as long as you're capable of living on little or no money, which may involve tightening your belt for a while, it's definitely worth it to leave a job that you hate.
Unfortunately the future is hard to predict.
1) As a general rule it is time to leave when you stop being happy (define happy?) with work.
2) If you have good instinctly, listen to them. Get advice from someone you trust (but not a friend). Always ask your friends if you have good instincts and are a good judge of character, must of us have blind spots at the very least.
3) It has been said before, don't quit until you have a new job! The marketplace can change rapidly, it won't be the same as when you got the job you have now.
4) Don't tip your hand before you are ready to leave, and don't burn your bridges.
5) Never regret your decision. Assuming you would never make a bad decision if you knew all the facts (at the time). In general it may be years before you can look back and say whether it was a good decision or not.
I once resigned a position, and found out afterwards I was in line for a promotion; but the company went belly up a year later (no last pay cheque, no severance, no references for its employees).
is a load of crap. The real statement should read "You do what you have to do in your chosen field, until you get to do what you want to do in your chosen field!". The only problem is that in life you can take on dependencies (family members who rely on your health care and/or constant paycheck) as well as not focusing the part about your chosen field.
I went INSANE doing tech support in a very corporate business environment in the hopes that I could move up to programming. From there I hoped to fill out my programming resume enough to switch to a company that did computer games. I never had enough time to really concentrate on programming and every time I sat in front of a computer I would hear myself asking, "ok, I need you to check and see if it is plugged in...". I have since quit that job and I am moving to another city in order to get on with a game company that is growing. I have no regrets except for the amount of time I put in doing a job that was actively devouring my soul...
So, if you aren't in the specific field you want to be, try and line up a job that IS in your chosen field first. However, don't let 'em devour too much of your soul before you split!!!
But I had a job lined up. Quit a job from disgust of the quality of the software they were developing. Trust me, it really was that bad.
As I say, though, I had another job lined up. I would always recommend that as a way to go.
Platform means less to me as time goes on. Part of my value as a technologist is that I can Make It Work on whatever platform they pick.
Don't misunderstand, I have my favorites and would weigh platform issues when considering a new job. But abandon an existing job over a platform switch? No.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
The main selling point of my resume is 8 years of MSSQL. But for the last 3 years I have been trying to do more OSS work. The problem I have is that most shops that run MSSQL tend to be MS centric. I have decided to get MYSQL or Oracle certification so that I have a chance working somewhere that is not MS centric. That would give me a chance to broaden my skill set into something that I really want to do. Ironically as I work in my MSSQL job, writing small snippets of Perl code, my updated resume is just going to boast more years of MSSQL, which in turn will just pin me into a corner I don't want to be in.
For those of you who say "Be thankful you have a job." I say this: Jobs are easy to come by, being content in what you are doing, enjoying the projects that you get and not burning yourself out is priceless. If I have to keep working with systems that I hate I eventually will go to Culinary school and open a restaurant.
If you don't like your job for any reason, please quit it. That way, there will be an opening that I can have. And when I begin to hate that job, I will keep it because I need the money.
Sometimes a job is the short-term solution. You may dislike it; but think of it as a training ground for the job you want. Pick up the skills, demonstrate your project managment capabilities, impress your boss .... then take your show on the road.
Can you name ONE major player in any company that got promoted up through the ranks to become CEO? Companies hire outsiders, because most are too stupid to realize the diamonds among the rabble in their own organizations.
So, keep your job, build your resume' (for that follows you through your entire career), and keep working with the thought that your NEXT job will be your dream job. And when you get your Dream Job, keep looking.
Nothing is permanent, you are replaceable, and loyalty from the company standpoint is as long as the next negative news release.
Only time will tell if you are a fool for leaving. Sometimes these situations arise where not everything will go your way and you had the option of sticking with it and fighting for what you see fit, or just leaving. Or, the stress was getting too much and you had to take a breather after the buyout. Quitting a job and starting a job will have either a positive or negative effect on your overall career. A company or project has to row in the same direction to succeed and, if you don't want to row, they can dump you overboard (layoff) or you can go swim on your own (resign). Learning a tool you've never used before should not be justification for leaving. In fact, learning that new tool may increase your future marketability and skillset. Another fact, your colleagues who stayed on will pick up your responsibilities, the new tools, and life at the company will just go on. Unless you were a hotshot, you will be easily replaced. Just remember to never burn a bridge with a company or Management because when they need good people in a good or bad economy, that will be one less place you can go. I speak from a bit of experience. I left after a bitter merger (poor merger management, dumb decisions, almost everyone was leaving), took a couple years off to work for a different company (my sabbatical), and came back much more refreshed when the bad management left, better decision making came back, and others came back. I didn't leave mad (publicly), and when the opportunity came up, I had the chance to return.
I recently left a job where I was a member of the founding team of the company. I had been there for four years and the company was moving in a different strategic direction. However, I knew that as soon as my resume hit the street my boss would hear about it. He had been good to me over the years and I felt I owed it to them to be up front and be the one to tell them. Not them hear it from someone else. Plus, I had tons of connections in the field I was staying in. Many at small companies and many at large, so I knew I would have good options for a place to land. Which I did, with a great company who I'm thrilled to be with. Moral of the story, sometimes its the right thing to do.
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.
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
This was either really stupid or really bold. Unfortunately there is a fine line between the two, and I think you're straddling right down the middle. Your gut instincts should always prevail.
...if you can get a front page story on /. where thousands (or is it millions) of geeks can see you loudly snubbing a Microsoft product? Priceless!
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Along the lines of disgust and insulting, I'm in the same boat.
I work for a provincial government department and, being government, have come to find it slow paced and boring and certainly never any chance to try anything new. The coworkers in my "web team" know HTML to varying degrees and I have absolutely no one to learn from. (I'm no master, but I do ColdFusion, PHP, javascript, xhtml, css, SQL, XML/XSLT)
It's amazingly hard to stay in a place where you're never challenged, you can't learn anything and, even if you do, you have no opportunity to apply it.
Now, I have a wife and a 21-month old daughter. I can't just up and quit, so I decided to start my own part-time business for two reasons: keep me in step with technology and to make a little extra cash.
Well, guess what? Because I'd be doing something related to my job (web development, etc.) it is a "potential conflict of interest." In a nutshell, they've agreed to "allow" me the use of my own fucking free time to do with as a please so long as every contract I pursue, I first submit the person/company's info, the details of the project and the expected duration of the project. And then my supervisor has to *approve* it before I can continue
Union says it holds up. Can you believe it? Here in Canada, if I don't get that client's approval to submit that info first, I'm breaking federal privacy laws. If I do receive permission, I still have a serious problem with this kind of Machiavellian treatment of employees with complete disregard of respect or professionalism. Here I am trying to do something to make myself happier in my day job.
Not to mention the aforementioned supervisor who is coming down on me about conflict of interest slept with her boss for her job, contracts all the pens, calendars, do-hickies for provincial promotions to her brother and has contract graphic artists photoshopping pictures of her house to put it on the market.
So, I'm on the hunt for something else. I wrote my fuck-you letter but it hasn't been submitted. If I didn't have a wife and kid, though, you know that bridge would be on fire (cc'd to the department).
Chances are very good you were going to get laid off soon anyway - they'd say they needed someone who was "already up to speed with the latest Microsoft tools".
Companies don't seem to retrain people, they just fire them and hire ones that are already at the required level of proficiency in whatever tool/environment/software/etc the company falls in love with next.
If a UNIX using company goes M$, the UNIX people will almost always get laid off - they won't be given the option of trying to adapt. The company will want "fresh blood" and people who don't need to be retrained, and who are already ready to perform 100% from the get go, and people who are "able to be made naturally to think in the new programming paradigm, etc".
This also gives them an excuse to fire the older workers without getting caught for age discrimination and hire younger, lower paid, less senior, easily moldable, replacements.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
I would have to say that the reason I finally put in my notice is that I was just not in control of my life any longer. So many reasons sush as:
Everyday was getting more and more difficult to handle. I don't think I could fill a flat tire if sun hadn't developed a java implementation of an air pump. I started developing stress related problems from constant heartburn, headaches, insomnia and finally chest pains. So, WTF is a 32 year old with a house and fiance suppose to do? Quit, of course!
So, the first day of my time off, I decided to put my resume on Monster.com. Within the next two days I had about 9 calls. I then realized that I wasn't ready to find anything yet. So, I had to change my resume so that it can't be searched for, called the people and told them I would be available to talk after April, 1. That's about it.
I am still trying to figure out what to do next. I am pretty sure that I ever want to go back and to the corporate thing. I wouldn't mind working with a small group of people and starting something exciting and creative. Look what the guys at Delicious Monster did. I bet they are happy! I am sure there have to be some people out there willing to take a chance.
So, to sum it up, I have given up the steady work and great pay. But, my life is worth more than spending every day not liking what I am doing or being subjected to. I'll survive, and do better in the long run. I have no doubts about that.
So, anyone else out there want to try and get something going? I am really looking to tackle some OS X software development. (Of course I had to try, I have no job, remember?)
-- Acidblue
The day in the Art Department that I saw a label we were designing that said simply "M 16 Port" I knwe my days were numbered. So I looked around [never endangered the rent $$] and found I could employ myself and I have never fired me ever since. And that was over 20 years ago.
I left a decent job where basically my only responsibility was to experiment and goof around. It was a startup that was, while I never had any proof, basically ripping off the gov't in order to get green cards for however many Indians and Chinese could get in (it was run by an Indian). I just couldn't in good conscience work for a company that was wholesale wasting gov't money and taking away jobs. When the CEO (an Indian) and the head tech guy started throwing things down the hall at each other, that was the final straw.
The most important thing to do, which I learned the hard way, is to get fired without "cause" (ie no porn at work) or get a new job first. Don't worry about talking about looking for work or 'hiding' your resume on-line -- it's actually good to do, since if the employer finds out and fires you then you still get unemployment.
Unemployment is the holy grail. You'll get $1200 a month to sit around and click "apply" to some random company once a day, during which you can do hobbies, learn new languages, etc. That with the 6-months salary you have saved and you'll be set for a least a year. Always get COBRA though no matter what your funds are like -- you'll be lucky to get even as low as twice the COBRA rate for individual insurance.
Can I have your stuff? --Awestruck "I do too have a girlfriend, but she lives in Canada."
I quit an extremely lucrative job because I'd come to hate it and was doing all sorts of stupid things to try to distract me from that.
I'd planned my life to make this possible: I'd paid off my debts as soon as I could and didn't try to live some big lifestyle or have a bunch of kids.
The same planning that let my wife transition into a job that was less money (at the time, not now) now let me do the same thing.
The more crap you buy, the more debt you incur, the more locked you are to the hamster wheel. The danger, of course, is self-medicating your loathing of your job by spending a lot of money on gadgets and vacations that "you deserve"... money that could pay off your debts and free you of the whole pain in the ass in the first place.
When I worked in an environment where my employer dictated which tools I could use, I left.... that wasn't the only reason, as they were not receptive to the fact that I am visually impaired, and threatened me on multiple occasions to take away my right to have the lights off in my office (because of light sensitivity)
In short, if YOU feel it was right, you did the right thing... one cannot be productive, or comfortable in an environment where you feel limited.
Yes, that was a foolish move. Particularly concerning is this unwillingness to learn new tools and languages. It's your perogative, but I think that's what's at play here.
and you used all your vacation already because you're not the computer field (Data entry is not working with computers). My gaming org thought I was pretty hardcore for a couple weeks.
/.'ers who had .com type IT jobs will tell you that you are an idiot for leaving 'cause they've been flat broke before and know how much it sucked. /.'ers who did not have .com type IT jobs, like me, will tell you that if the job sucks; LEAVE!
So leave already. LOL.
It takes balls to do what you did. Be proud of that.
As for the imbeciles who stay at a job they hate because it's "secure" and/or "promising": get some self-esteem and don't believe all the shit you see on tv. We all now how much huge marketing companies that disguise themselves as software houses need you in order to fuck their private sector and government clients (yes asshole, you're paying the government to hire your company to do shitty software, just because they have the mullah to to get the juicy government contracts "under the table."
HAD
I did quit, on principle, at the height of the dot-bomb. I have to admit, it was less a last straw motive and more a slow slide into disgust and repulsion. Also a liberal amount of stupidity.
I went from making the industry average for the northeast US to nothing. Nothing. Elective unemployed cannot receive any assistance. I walked out the door with my holiday pay and what i had in the bank. I faced the worst employment market in decades. It took me 2 months to line up a contract position and another 2 months before i received any pay (coincident with starting another full time job). That next position (same one i'm in now) was a significant chunk lower than my previous salary. Thankfully i did not have to dip into my 401k. I was lucky. i know a number of geeks who simply gave up looking for a decent job and went back to college or changed careers. I did switch from corporate to academic climes
Do i regret quitting? Sometimes. I have guilty thoughts akin to the Wheaton "Prove to Everyone that quitting Star Trek was a good idea" monkey. Most of the time, no, i don't. I DO miss the money. Then again, i can work 2 jobs for the same hours and for more money.
Do i feel better for quitting? Absolutely. I do not have to deal with the previous bad karma. I IM former colleagues and am shocked by their vitriol. The measures i took to tighten my finances are still worthwhile. My reasons for leaving (a lack of Downward Loyalty) have only compounded in the last 2.5 years and i can honestly state i am better for being out of that cesspit.
Did i say i missed the money? I miss the money.
- How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein
- Buy at Amazon
- Buy at Powells
Yeah, those are affiliate links. I get a small commission if you buy the book after clicking them. It's part of my effort to stop working for The Man. I'm not proud.The first thing Lakein says to do is to write down your goals. First your goals for your entire life, then your goals for the next five years, and then what your goals would be if you knew you only had six months to live.
Then he explains how to prioritize the activities and tasks you spend time on each day based on how they advance you towards these goals. Any activities that don't advance you to your own goals for your own life are to be considered low priority, and unless you have a lot of spare time, not performed at all.
Now for the reason your boss doesn't want you to read this time management book: Lakein seems pretty businesslike throughout most of the book, but in discussing how activities should advance one's goals, he comes right out and explicitly says that if your job isn't helping you to achieve your goals, then you should quit it and get a better one.
Works for me. I'm still working as a software consultant, but that's just a means to an end. A goal I'm working towards, presently by spending two hours a day practicing on my piano, is to quit working altogether and to go back to school to major in musical composition. I want to be a composer someday.
Well, I am already am, I guess. Here are some MP3s of my playing my own piano compositions:
- Geometric Visions
I write more about my career change in this rough draft of my upcoming Kuro5hin article, I Have So Many Questions About Music.I also have more to say about Lakein's book in my k5 diary: Time Management.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Unless you have something else lined up.
I myself left a job because of disgust and etical reasons. But I didn't storm out the door. It was a trigger for me to LOOK for other work, and I left very shortly thereafter.
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
First, never quit if you don't have another job lined up, assuming you're not quitting to go to school or to take a round-the-world trip.
Personally I have always quit my job because opportunities for career and personal growth at the current job have ceased to exist for reason or another.
I have never quit a job for getting better pay, although I have received a pay rise every time I did change jobs.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
You should quit your job when they escort you out.
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
Improving your skill set moves you higher up on the food chain but doesn't solve the overall problem. Even engineering could get crappy bonuses while the company sent out dividends that year in the billions range. The only solution is to organize - if you're doing white collar work, join the nascent engineering professional associations of the kind doctors and lawyers have (although some of them like the IEEE are far worse than the AMA or ABA), if it's not professional but just skilled work than talk to the CWA and their efforts. Or whatever, only organization and its accompanying education and self-education makes these things better in the face of the ITAA's of the world.
And as far as myself - I relaxed and learned some technical skills I didn't have the time to study indepth during my downtime, which was good, and all is good now. But I had the ability to do it, visa workers and people with families did not.
You are a fool for starting a career that has a dead end. If you dedicate your life to coding for a monopoly and decide to stop short before beeing completly owned by it, then you are indeed a fool, because that was predictably inevitable.
Wanting to "maintain control" in a world that is owned, controlled and dominated by the one single company is like trying to sell raincoats in the sahara.
Stay free, use free tools, write free software for a free OS, so noone can fire you for not accepting the lock-in.
For God sakes, Mono is on the way!!!
.NET has a pretty good object model and should not be confused with MSVC++. Take it from a guy who has written in Java and Perl.
too late now I guess.
Seriously though,
-2 cents
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
You should quit your job when you can afford to, when the job is killing you, or you are under investigation and about to be indicted.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Im involved with a company that recently experienced a switch in our base programming language to c# similar to what it sounds like you guys have done. I choose to stick with it and I am very glad I did. c# is a great language and Microsoft Development tools and products have come a long way from where they used to be. C# has implemented a lot of features/methodolgies that java and other languages have had for a long time. I strongly feel that it combines the power of several newer languages into one nice package. In todays economy I feel that maintaining your skills with the newest technoloy is crucial. If you can get paid, and paid well, while learning it, that is definitally a benefit.
I don't feel like I have enough control over the product when I use Microsoft programming environments.
Translation: "I have limited knowledge and experience with Microsoft programming environments, and I don't feel like learning." Is this the message you want to send to future employers?
Cheers,
IT
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
....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
I left my last company after being there for six years when my new boss told me to do it his way or take the highway. I thought about it over the weekend and turned in my three-week notice the following Monday (my project had a major milestone due during that time).
I left in part because I didn't want to work for someone who would do everything possible to fire me if I deviated from "his way" (not that "his way" was any better). But also because my mother passed away three months earlier, spending more time with the family took a higher priority than working 80 hours/7 days per week.
Last I heard from a friend on the inside, I was the third one to leave out of eight experienced people who left the company because of "his way", and the work environment has gotten progressively worse over the last year. However, I heard my old boss was building himself a new house on the coast off of the highway. Go figure.
I left a steady job that I could have continued because of a hefty change to the work environment. My small company was bought by a large multi-national. I spent a year there afterwards (for retention bonus, and to see how things were headed). When I saw that the way I had been working for the past 4 years was going to change a whole lot, and that I would be the one responsible for implementing the change to my own work, I realized that I was in my own little tower of power and could forestall those changes until either I was fired or otherwise hurting my reputation. I left before any of that. They have 3 or 4 or more people doing my work now. I went to work for another small startup. 3 years into it, I've got an unhealthy amount of debt, but am happier than I'd been for years.
I have found several reasons to leave jobs, some good, some bad, but these days the primary sign that it is time to go is the massive,persistent, cramp behind my left shoulder blade and a tendency to gain weight. I'm halfway there now, and it's only been 4 months this time.
It is definitely worth looking at jobs as a way to make enough for you spend good time looking for another one. It is not a pholosophy that leads to a good retirement, but it does keep things interesting.
I would be curious to know what the average job length is among the regular readers here. (for the moment at least, this does not include freelancers.)
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
Boooohooo, you had to use Microsoft programming environments. Quitting your job for that, what are you, a moron? Please start complaining when all you do is repetitive bullshit, same thing day out and day in for year after year (I really don't care in which environment) - then get a new job _before_ you leave the one you're at. Sheees... guess the Linux Envangelics run a bit too deep in some people - please don't confuse ideals with reality.
Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
I quit my last job due to ethical concerns. My boss was asking me to falsify clinical decisions and had falsified data in a paper submitted to a scientific journal (luckily I knew the editor of the journal and got it rejected). I stayed long enough to keep a promise to my wife to let her finish her degree, then quit even though I had no job offers at the time.
If your company sues IBM you should quit your job. :)
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
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?
;-)
For me, it was ethics. I was writing software for the airline industry. The pilots would use our numbers in an emergency to know what level to fly the plane at during an engine-failure on takeoff, and to decide how much weight was safe and legal to put on the plane. We didn't have a testing department. They told me that they had a certified performance engineer, and they were getting a testing department when I started. Two and half years later, there was no testing department, and I was going crazy from the stress of trying to make my own code perfect, because no one else was formally reviewing it.
I quit, and was instantly happier. It's great knowing that you're able to go to work, screw up, and know that, even if you get fired, no one will die!.
I didn't have any money saved up (big mistake), so I ended up working at a recycling plant for four months while I looked for work in my field. Dirty, smelly, painful work, with crushed glass dust in the air: but it paid the rent, and I did lose 40 pounds... working at physical labour for 11 hour days, four days a week will do that to you..
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 wouldn't have quit if I was going to go back. I found a new programming job, paying twice what I had been making before, (and over five times what I made in the recycling plant), and in general making more money than I have in my life. It's nice.
Am I a fool for giving up steady work and good pay?
You can always find more steady work, assuming you don't starve to death first. If you die of starvation, then yes, you were a fool for letting yourself run out of food. If you live, and get a better job that makes you happier, (and lets you stockpile food/money/necessities), then you probably weren't.
--
AC
That was December, 2004. Since then I've gotten a very nice job with a banking institution, where i am one of 3 that are the IT team. I have my own office, a nice laptop, company vehicle when I need it, bank holidays, sick time, benefits out the ass, and new challenges daily.
I still haven't heard back on the other job, which doesn't surprise me...
There are three truths: my truth, your truth, and the truth. - Chinese proverb
I haven't quit any jobs, but I've turned down lots of them in the few months -- some open source work I've done (FreeBSD Update and bsdiff, mostly) has attracted interest from a large number of companies.
My standard reply to job offers (or more commonly, invitations to interview) from the US is as follows:
I'm sure some people would say that I'm being crazy, putting politics ahead of getting a job; but I value freedom more than money, and right now (especially for non-US citizens) I don't consider the USA to be a free country.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Life is too short to put up with a bad job, boss, or company just for a steady paycheck. I have been working in IT for ten years and just started my 6th job. So far I have not been hurt by my lack of dedication to any one company. In fact, I have found that I generally have a much broader skill set then most.
My fist few hops were mostly for money. The last few have been due to boredom, bad boss, lousy company, etc.
Each time I've quit a job and didn't have one already lined up; I started working on a project that became a small starup company. None really successful; but they payed the bills and were much more sane than in the previous company.
It's all those jerks who put up with employers who impose poor working conditions on the rest of us that screwed up the whole industry. If all IT professionals had a bit of backbone and stood up to their employers and quite when things got bad, it would be a far better career for everyone.
Then turned out to be the local Enron and filed for bankruptcy about a year later. I just had come from a company that went bankrupt, and had hired their CTO through the same chicanery. Once bitten twice shy.
Instead I went with a company that has done quite a bit to re-instill my faith (after the whole tech bubble burst) that some people want to be good upright businessmen. That company (a startup) and I are doing very, very well now.
Some will always be above others. Destroy the equality today, and it will appear again tomorrow. --Ralph Waldo Emerson
I think fool is a little too light of a term to use... The word moron, mental, stupid, dumb all come to mind but I am sure there is a better word then what I can think of.
How do you explain "I had to take 2 years out of work because I had a nervous breakdown and nearly killed myself" to a prospective employer?
Especially when that means that none of your references are available any more.
"How fine you look when dressed in rage."
I quit my first job because I felt that I was not growing professionally into it, which directly meant that my chances of looking for new jobs(If and when the time for that was right) were getting slim. You need to enjoy your job over a period of time (that's how I measure it). So I ask my self every 3-4 months: what is it new that I have learnt in terms of my job. It may be something as small as learning to use the .NET Datagrid or a full fledged jump in terms of responsibilities.
:)
I think that you should have stayed put with your new employer(you said they were offering you to stay) and should have seen how things go from there. If still you were unsatisfied, only then you should have left your job.
Just my 2 cents
those are the only words i live by and i feel great every day
If you knew that your job would make you miserable then you would have been foolish to stay. Last year I quit my job to stay home with my daughter while my wife is still working. We make alot less $ but are happy that our child is not in daycare. I recently turned down a decent job with a military contractor because of personal convictions. Was I foolish? No, I just got hired by a company to do the kind of programming I enjoy and can be proud of (and I am making a good bit more than before). Keep looking and don't look back.
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.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
I finally did get a job in Phoenix 2 years later for more money and a position which was a much better match to my skills. Its a big company (20,000+) but I can put up with the politics when I need to. Did get here 1 year before my Mom past away so I had my time with her, too.
Oh, and about the first offer I received... the office closed 9 months later! Whew... that was a close one.
"Am I a fool for giving up steady work and good pay?" Over the choice of compiler? Yes, a bloody fool.
Unless you want to take some time off or have another job lined up. It's a trivial issue.
no taxation without representation!
Gee - and I swore I would never be drawn into another /. discussion :-)
/.'er as I'm fifty years old and have always played by the rule of "me first".
Better a fool than a sheep I say.
I may have a little more hindsight than your average
Sound selfish? Only at first glance. I cannot be a good husband to my wife if I am unhappy at my job; I cannot be a good employee doing what I dislike/disagree with; my "self" is retarded in an unhappy environment; my health - and thus my relationships/life - will suffer ditto etc. etc. You cannot be a good human in servitude.
On the win/lose list where do you stand? What have you gained lost by your decision? I do a review of my own goals and ambitions when I'm feeling that perhaps I did a stupid thing - it almost always turns out that it was stupid looked at through most everyone else's eyes. And it almost always turns out to be the most fun I've ever had.
But I gotta tell you - I've done things and been places that make my sib's/peers/business partners turn green with envy (okay - some things make them sick too but skydiving isn't for everybody). So many of my best experiences/relationships have happened because I DID chuck out the conventional thinking and went with "me".
I have walked away from $65,000.00 a year. I am not independantly wealthy or anything - I had some savings and a house with a mortgage. I'd been at that job for years and years and had just decided that I'd had enough and it was time for an adventure.
So we, my loving wife and I, cashed it all in - sold the house, sold the furniture etc. and moved to Costa Rica. That was a 18 months ago. We are still living on our savings but on the win/lose list we're doing just great thanks.
Now I have some new exciting projects that I'm thinking about that I never would have considered in my previous locale.
I'm learning a new language.
I'm experiencing a new culture.
Go for it! Have fun and don't worry too much about the highly over-rated North American-centric "security" thing. What you've given yourself is a gift - serendipity is a wonderful thing when you open yourself up to it.
AND dumpster diving for dinner (yep - been there too) is a step up from servitude. And I mean servitude to a system or a job or a relationship . . .
Stoptional
Uh, Hello? Tuition waiver? Stipend? Ever hear of a bird in the friggin' hand? What if all the other schools come back with weaker offers, or nothing at all? It will be too late to take the U of M up on their offer. What, do you think schools just line up to hand you cash to come earn your degree with them?
Too bad you're so picky. Maybe you won't like the winters up there either. Or being so close to the river, or something.
You can have my Craftsman tools when you pry them out of my cold, dead hands! Except for the toolbox itself. That's, uncharacteristically, a piece of crap.
Nerd Rock In Progress
Just before crunch time. Maybe a month before you are due to ship...
word.
>Am I a fool for giving up steady work and good >pay?
Definitely. I'd love a nice comfy C# job right about now.
You quit because of the development environment? That's rather stuck up. What sort of beef do you have?
It can never be "MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY!" if you work for someone else.
Grow up.
Life is short, I spent 12 years doing something
:-) ('course that was short lived ... )
that really wasn't for me because I was scared
of not being able to find another job.
I got burnt out really bad, after being late
on repeat counts, cutting up left and right, they
started to discipline me. That was when I decided
that if I stuck around I would have eventually been fired. (They were actually quite nice to me)
I went on to make big bucks in the dot-com economy.
Nowadays, I look for odd jobs and occasionally sweep floors. Yea, life sucks these days on
the financial front but I'm holding out for something that will be satisfying, swearing I'd never be scared of loosing a job again (12 years
is a long time). Have faith, life is for living.
After toying in the computer field since age 12, writing applications and working for several companies including software developers, I walked away from it at age 35 and joined the military and now only work on computers (repairs, no longer coding) for fun, my job in the military has nothing to do with computer (unless I get to blow one up). I was no longer satisfied with working on computers and technology for a living, it took all the fun it used to be out ot it for me. That being said, I had a plan though, I had the military, which I enjoy (most of the time).
:( , not so fun ). DO what your life feels is right...If there are others in your life who are important (wife, kids...) get their support also.
My wife and I took a HUGE hit int the financial areas, my pay was significantly less and she (also in the IT field) had to do the job search once we arrived at our current location. Now she's having a difficult time with job satisfaction. Quite honestly, if the company isn't "dirty" in the way it dealed with it's vendors and customers (and finances), then the company treats Tech Support like the "Devil's Spawn", with hatred and contempt.
I guess what I'm trying to tell you is that, only you can weight the pros and cons of leaving a company for any reason, don't listen to what other's have to tell you (unless you ask them). As long as you can keep your head above water financially, taking into account life style changes, then do what every you fel the need to do. I went from a nice paying software develpment company in the SF Bay area making tons of contacts "networking" in other companies (IT and other), to moving to San Diego, driving small boats real fast, shooting weapons and blowing things up ( as well as going to war
Good luck.
A similar boat here. Much as I like my job the town I live in causes my health to suffer greatly. There are a lot of wood mills etc that play hell on my allergies, to the point where I'm going to have to take antibiotics for my second nasty sinus infection.
Symptoms: Spitting bloody mucus in the mornings (due to drain), swollen head, constantly tired, etc.
I'm taking shots for the allergies and hopefully those should kick in soon. Otherwise I'm not sure I can afford the detriment to my well-being, despite the job itself being good.
When considering your current/future employment, it's not just the job that's at issue, the complete situation (job, local living conditions, etc) must also be considered
What about it just not being what you wanted to do? I quit a job back in 2000. I'd been there for a couple of years. Then one day I woke up and realized that I wanted to be doing something else. The job I had was a fine job ... for someone else.
The big problem was "What is the alternative?" I was dissatisfied with my job, but it was better than, say, no income at all. I didn't quit until I was sure I had another job lined up, but of course that kind of thing doesn't happen for many people, so it's tough to give guidance.
You'll accrue responsibility faster than your income will reflect it.
Seriously, I had an epiphany recently that I needed to leave my job in order to shed the expectations that have built up over five years. Sadly, this is the only reason I'd want to leave; the pay is good, co-workers are friendly, and the environment is relaxed...to a degree. There is always one or two folks in positions that can make life difficult, and they're pressing me too much lately.
That's the problem with employment (which I still prefer to academia or other walks of life): you can add responsibilities, but you can't relieve yourself of them. If you try, you'll come off as incompetent or irresponsible.
This'll be the last gig in IT I hold down for any time longer than two years, three max. I promise myself I won't be a sitting target again.
Fourteen months ago I quit my job as the network engineer in the core IT systems team at York St John College in York, Northern Europe. For ages I'd wanted to do a course in Birmingham that starts each January, and my friend Dan offered me a three day a week job at his company, Skycell. That would mean I could stay in York and still do my course, three hours' train ride away. I took it.
The company folded five months later. It was quite painful, financially speaking, but I had some savings so it wasn't totally disastrous. I'm now living in Birmingham, I'm doing my course, and I have a job that I like that fits round it nicely. It was quite a chaotic time, but I'm glad I did it - it's all worked out well, and if I hadn't I'd probably still be in the same old job.
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.
The concept of a "job" in most fields has been almost reserved for black people since the late 90s. It always amuses me how Slashdotters (with a few exceptions) talk about getting a job as the only way to make money.
In the mid 90s, new sets of laws called the BEE laws (Black Economic Empowerment) were passed, making it very difficult to get a job as a non-black person. What this did was isolate a fair chunk of the remaining white population, since all of the good jobs and most of the Ok jobs were now going to blacks, and whites found themselves without any prospects.In the late 90s, a lot of these whites started their own businesses, and by the early 2000s, a new phenomenon occured - a class between the middle class (well-paying jobs) and upper class (old money, established business owners, CEOs, etc) was created - a class that could be called the Business class.
The South African government responded to this situation by passing more laws - stipulating that all businesses must have at least 20% black ownership or more taxes would be imposed on those companies without the right amount of black ownership, as well as making it difficult for companies not applying these new BEE laws to get contracts with any BEE companies or indeed the government itself.Most white people in South Africa today are either working for themsleves (contracting), have their own businesses, or work for family businesses. Most of the whites that do still have "jobs" work for one of these groups. It's easy enough to talk about "getting a job", but in some places that literally isn't possible. If outsourcing continues growing at the pace it has been over the last few years, Europe and the US might find themselves in this situation soon, at least in the I.T sector.
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.
Was it wrong to quit your job? Console.WriteLine("NO");
a true professional will be adaptable enough
to overcome something as minor as this.
Don't be a drama queen - get on with the job
It's called maintaining your skillset in something that is valuable. Tell a Java guy the new tool set is Visual Basic and you see a trail of Java guys walking out the door. One posts comments that you shouldn't worry about the tools, which is complete bullshit. If people drilling w/ black & decker drills make more than people drilling w/ some other drill, then stay w/ black & decker. Same in IT. If Java guys make more, do get suckered in staying at some place switching to VB. If you're doing Oracle, don't get suckered into doing SQL Server as the dba jobs pay consistently lower for SQL Server jobs in my experience.
I wouldn't quit a job without a new one lined up, or a hefty savings account to live off of until a new job is found.
:p
I've turned down a couple offers. One was a temp contract position a couple years ago when the semiconductor industry was in a deep hole, and I didn't want to be unemployed 6 months later. The other was full-time and better pay than my current employer, but going in a different direction than I'd like my career to go. I currently do VLSI layout and verification. This position was developing verification flows for customer companies, but I'd rather move in the direction of system design.
If you have a plan, and quitting the old job was part of that plan for bigger and better things, then that's great. If you quit and are now unemployed and have nowhere to go, simply because you didn't want to be a C# guy, that's pushing the constraints of sanity. And that's coming from a guy who uses an Amiga computer to this day...
never passes up an opportunity to get paid to learn a new technology, as long as that technology is respected by some subset of other geeks.
:P
I don't particularly like Java. I think JSPs are the wrong direction for the industry and that Sun needs to come up with a RAD for web development and move into this century. Things like application server managed object persistance and an object oriented UI control heirarchy would be nice too.
However I was asked to go to a training class, get my java skills up to speed on Struts, and work on several JSP projects in a row last year. I didn't like it much but I did it, and I definitely learned some nice things. Am I glad to be back on ASP.NET now? Oh hell yeah. Would I do it again? Oh hell yeah.
Except for maybe next time, Tomcat instead of Jrun...
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
I left my last job because of the environment:
* the CEO was literally violent and had everyone on a hold around H1-B's, he was also racist.
* the VP of Engineering was an arsehole micromanager (two other people have quit just because of him).
* my nearest co-worker was a backstabbing kiss-arse, I've since heard that he's now taking credit for other people's work - I almost got fired once because I complained about him (apparently that means I'm not a team player!)
* I was getting paid $10k less than a fucking Windows Sysadmin (as a Developer!) and about $20 less than average, never got a raise in 4 years.
* the company was on it's way out, it's a sister company of a bigger company, and always seemed to live in it's shadow (although the bigger company seemed to make all its money from suing other companies for stealing their IP).
The sad thing is, I've since got a new job, making $9k more, but it's starting all over again:
* my Supervisor doesn't do any work, he surfs and IM's his girlfriend al day, he gets obsessed with software (like Snort) and everything we develop has to be based around that, even if it's totally unsuited to the task.
* the CTO is not at all technical, and when you do some really good code that does something great, he's more concerned about the pretty icons!
My co-worker is about to get fired or quit, I would if I could afford it or had another job lined up, but....
Visual Studio is a damn sight better tool than a spatula and a grill.
Would you like fries with your decision?
Informatus Technologicus
Also, C# really is a pretty good language. It is just Java with a few extra things that make life easier (using(..) for example). And there is nothing visual studio doesn't allow you to do. You can edit every single line of code if you really want to (you don't though. That boiler plate code isn't the fun part anyway).
Like anything, there's a learning curve to new tools and languages. It sounds like you didn't even bother climbing up the curve to try them out (that's why you feel like you don't have control. You didn't learn to control it.) before you jumped ship. You won't like any tools/languages you haven't learned yet. Do you plan on spending the rest of your life using the one set of tools/languages you currently know?
Of course, lining up the new job before scrapping the old job never hurts
If an American programmer quits a job these days, he's out of the business ...
"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.
It can be offensive, but still funny.
Perhaps you've heard of it?
I worked at Microsoft as a "Software Design Engineer" for six years. I quit because I was bored; because I was annoyed at the way Microsoft treated their customers (namely: selling them mediocre software and pretending it was wonderful); and because they paid me so much that I could afford to leave. I now work for a small company, at (I think) a less-than-average salary, but I love what I'm working on.
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, which is now about three and a half years old, has fantastic people, an impressive list of clients, 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
Work is work. It means taking time from your life to do something for someone else for money. That quote is not a valid indication because it describes all forms of WORKING. If you have that feeling in your gut on Sunday afternoons, you are a normal person. Humans alone strive to be enlightened by their own will, travel by their own will, and procreate by their own will. Something you simply cannot get from "work". Unless you know everything about anything, and have traveled the world over, and have 100 kids, you're always going to have that sinking feeling in your gut, because you know that the next five days are keeping you from doing what you want to do deep inside.
Americans are pretty anal about working year-in and year-out. Plus making and spending horades on huge houses, cars, computers, and families. Many other societies have more relaxed attitudes. People take a summer off, a year off now and them to refresh themselves and see something else.
You want to be doing what you want to do on your own time. Regardless how easy and relaxed or fulfilling your job may be. Humans were not put on the planet to work. They were put here to do whatever it is that they want to do. When robots evolve to the point where no one has to work anymore, then we will probably know what it is like to live once again.
You're thinking of the Wyfe line.
The most you'll get from Girlfriend 1.0 / 1.5 is an ACK flood at odd hours, or a Transport DDoS (usually by KEYing).
Yeah, right.
The one time I quit a job without any solid prospects for my next job place was the day the boss came up to me and said "I need you to hack into our competition"....
The conversation ended with my resignation and an anonymized note to the police and the competition.
(AC for obvious reasons)
...I've heard about on /.
Why on earth would you give it up just like that?
I've walked off many jobs for many reasons, and it's something I've never regretted. An attitude of success -- or really just one of earnestness and imagination -- will have its limits dealing with mediocrity or injustice. An attitude of daring won't fear any consequences of good action. And it's just such attitudes that create better and better things for the person who holds them. I am very glad for where I am in life and career right now, and I am very glad for quitting every job I've quit.
I did the same thing once... nice job, decent pay... suckful environment.
I left. I stoppped using Microsoft tools and software. I switched to exclusively open source.
My productivity went up by 5x. (I am not making that up).
Now I have a better job, better pay doing what I want to do (writing software, not fighting Bill) and no regrets.
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.
***
I turned an offer down because of ethics. They would have paid very well though. But they make money by selling addresses, cleaning address data, collecting and combining personal information, checking credit-worthiness etc.
I will probably quit my current job as it is not challenging enough and they pay crap.
In my job I want to be happy. I am happy if I like the everyday work. It must be challenging. I want to be proud of my work. The people must be nice. The office must not stink. Boss and customers must not be idiots. I want some freedom, like take a day off for going snowboarding if the weather is too nice to work. My competence must be recognized.
Conclusion: Quit what you hate. Start what you like.
One was a nice Sr. Consulting gig for a major IT services firm. They tried demanding that I give them copies of all my tax and financial records for the last five years. While I have nothing to hide... I still felt very uncomfortable. When I voiced my concerns to the hiring manager, he said it was "Standard Company Policy". Hmmm... O.K.- I don't even work for you yet and you are already giving me the corporate runaround? I politely turned them down.
The other one was for a client in NJ. I was contacted by an Indian firm and I caught them being dishonest with me. Not once, but twice! There must have been five or six phone calls to me from different levels of management asking why that was a problem... after all it's "Just Business". I told them that "I don't do business that way". I have been looking for a gig ever since.
I would rather be poor and still have my principles than be a rich liar.
Just my $0.02.
Cheers!
'Do...
I've always maintained that if you don't like your job (for whatever reason) then you should quit rather than whine about it.
If you quit first then look for a job, you are at least assured that you're quitting for the right reason, not just because some other job (payroll package) is tempting you. The question should be "Do I want to quit this job or stay in it?" not "Hmm, they're offering me more money so maybe I'll just switch jobs?".
Only once have I had a new job lined up before quitting an old job. The new job didn't last long. The longest I've been out of work was five weeks and that was mostly because I went on vacation for three weeks, then spent a week tidying up the house, then started looking for a job...
If you have no responsibilities JUMP. They wanted me to program in Cobol - yuk. It took me two months to find a job which I have now been at for 25 years. I had a blast - learned a lot - fought some battles - made some dangerous enemies - made great some friends - got a great pension. If I had taken the safe route it would never have happened. I'm sick of this stinking job I thing I'll quite.
Me thinks some counter/meta moderation is needed badly.
Ceterum censeo Microsoftem esse delendam
In the end, what do these companies actually do?
All these hundreds of man years of work and effort.
I mean all we really need is to eat, to have
medicine and a roof over our heads.
Commercial software development is so subject to the "race to the bottom" that you'll never find a good job. Any that are left now will get squeezed away as the race continues. Current offshoring trends indicate there's no future for this career in the U.S., and I don't see any factors that will push in the other direction.
If only I had the guts to quit here for an electrician's-helper job (after 4 years full-time, I'd be able to test for my electrician's license - a job that will always be local unless/until the economy completely collapses, at which point no career will do you any good).
This time off will give you time to change careers without being limited by what you can do on the side of your development job. It will also allow you to "break in" to a new field, ahead of the millions of unemployed geeks that will be hitting the job market in the next few years, trying to break in to those same fields.
And, of course, the nice thing about F/OSS is that, as long as it exists, and you can afford a computer and an internet connection, nobody can stop you from being a programmer!
I quit a dot.com because of ethics.. our employer was asking us to do unethical things to help pick up clients.. After that I went to work for military contractor and was laid off with about 50% of the company.. instead of working for another company I took a risk and started my own company (www.idreusdistribution.com) and very happy with the decision.
Sean Milheim
iDREUS Corporation
'Calvin, go do something you hate. Being miserable builds character.'
If you're financially viable, consider retiring somewhere with a low population density and some wildlife! For example, consider the resort on New Zealand's White Island:. 1100.jpg
http://www.geonet.org.nz/images/volcams/W20050303
You and the other two inhabitants can get up to a whole lotta fun, and for quite cheap too.
Couldn't stand the weather
I dealt with a place that was pretty unprofessional when it came to salary. Someone who didn't really have the right to, offered me something that was lower than what I had hoped for, but still in acceptable range. So I accepted. The CTO flipped out and she was forced to called me back, retracting the offer and giving me a much lower offer. After going back and forth they finally talked me into coming at a drastically lower salary than I was asking. I was disappointed, but I couldn't really argue, I was unemployed for 3 months before that. The last straw was when I went to sign the paperwork the salary was even lower still than what was agreed to on the phone. The company just didn't understand the problem. I gave up on them doing the right thing and just left.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
You've only got 1 life. Live it! Have fun with what you do. Find something you love to do, and do it! Whatever it is you like to do, you can probably get paid to do it. (It just may take a little searching.)
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
It's easy to get 100% vesting when your employer doesn't match. :-D
When confronted with a job that demands of you what you are not willing to do, just do what I did when I found out the extent of a previous employer's spamming and illicit/illegal business dealings: nothing!
Sure, I had to keep the boss up to date on what I was pretending to do, but I saved up and got a trip to Israel out of him before he fired me.
So in responce to your question, yes, you are a fool. You should have pretended to work until they caught on and fired you, and in the meantime, been looking for other jobs. In larger companies, you can get away with this for quite a while too.
Well, I don't like to add to an already crowded din of voices, but I can always use this as a journal entry later...
I've walked away from three jobs -- all three were intolerable -- and I have a wife and two kids.
The first one was when I worked for a company in a small southern town. There were more chiefs than indians and IT was a dirty word back then. I was the NetWare guy when 4.x was fresh off the presses. My boss's boss was twiddling with the secretaries and when I caught wind of it, I went to his boss and said exactly what I heard. End of the line? Nope. My boss caught wind of it when top-boss started to snoop around and told his boss (the twiddler). Twiddler called me into his office and tried to rip me a new one. I had a one-year old, and a car payment (we were renting at the time). I told him under no certain circumstances that he was in the wrong and that if he fired me, he'd be in hotter water with his wife than with the law. When big-boss didn't do anything about it, I asked him and he waffled. I packed my boxes and left that day.
Then next job was with a really-big employer a little further north. There were 4000 users and 45 NetWare servers. During my two years there, I bumped that up to 85, designed and built a seperate backup network for the servers, and a whole lot of other things that made my job both easier (simpler) and harder (more to do). During all of this, I also took each of the CNE tests and got certified. When I was first hired, they said, "get certified and we'll give you a 50 cent/hour raise." I said, 'cool', and went to work. Bosses changed and when I said to new boss, "I'm certified, I'd like that raise now', boss said, "I didn't promise that, you aren't getting it." I said, "it's $.50, and you inherited the promise (he knew about it because he had been there when the promise was made)." He said no, I said good bye.
The job after that was with Intel and as a contractor, I couldn't work for more than 18 months. What a sweet job, though. The division was sold off a month after my contract ended and is it's own company now.
The last job I had was with a company that has an office in almost every major city in the country. Every office was a one-man show, except in New York and the Corporate Offices in LA. Over the next three years, I completely re-built the network, re-installed every single PC, built all but two of the seven servers from scratch, and overhauled most of the other systems. Things were going well until my boss was fired. He had been a target of a personal vendetta from his Corporate boss and made a very minor mistake. Despite the fact that he had no prior mistakes, he was fired (against local managment, I might add). The same corporate decision makers then chose a person who had worked at the office before, whom I had worked with, and whom I new I couldn't get along with. I'd been thinking about moving jobs for a while, as there was no room for promotion without moving to LA, I was being under paid, and I wanted to expand my horizons a bit. So, I quit.
That was three months ago and I'm still looking. I turned down two jobs that paid less than what I was making previously. It hasn't been easy, and we've had to make some sacrifices, but the mortgage is paid, the cars drive, and we have food in the fridge. Sometimes, it is better to bend to the wind, and other times, it is better to get out of the storm all together.
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
Unless your family is starving, ethics always comes before job security.
I don't know your exact circumstances, but if you have an ethical problem with what your company is doing, and don't intend to change it from the inside, GET OUT OF IT NOW.
Too many people (Americans in particular I've noticed) are too concerned with looking out for Number One (tm). IMO, they need to take a step back and look at whether what they are doing is really beneficial to the society in which they want to live.
Any one rain drop doesn't think it caused the flood, no man is an island, etc.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
If you spend the majority of your waking hours doing things you don't believe in or really want to do because it "pays well", you are under valuing your life. You only get to live once, why waste it?
(practicing what I preach, spent 3 years in cubeland, and I'm never going back)
After reading the other comments the consensus seems to be, "it depends on your situation". I won't reiterate the others messages, but I'll state my situation.
I use to work for Sprint, but all our IT developer positions were outsourced to IBM. We were all offered IBM positions, but I accepted the severance package instead. I had three reasons, 1) I disagreed with managment with how they dealt with the outsourcing, 2) I don't have a wife/kids 3) I was ready for something else (I'm only 29).
Lifetime employment is an farce. Playing it safe will reward you with stability, but being bold can reward you with riches that stability alone cannot provide.
-Brian
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.
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
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
When the TPS Reports require a new cover sheet.
Amen to that. I would've quit months ago if I wasn't enslaved to The Man. :-)
Oops. Posting from work... hope they don't see this!
Wanted: One witty yet thought provoking
"The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one."
Don't be stupid and quit a job over a stupid operating system or programming language. That is immature. You got brainwashed into a religious cause, and the only person who got screwed is you, because now you are out of a job. No one else cares. C# will continue to be used, and no one is worse off except for yourself.
Next time, be the mature man, not the immature man.
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? Probably the result of reading slashdot for too long. The hatred for Microsoft here is amusing and pervasive. Microsoft is the primary platform that most businesses worth dealing with are using, and that's why all the companies I've worked at embrace Microsoft fully and completely. Our clients are happy and we make money. It's a win-win for everyone.
yes...
Move sig!
Never, ever quit a decent (thought maybe not perfect) job until you have something else lined up. Sometimes the employer you are leaving will make a counter-offer and that starts something of a bidding war between the two employers with you in the fortunate middle. It happened do me once; my salary increased 75% as a result and my title had to be promoted a few steps to justify it to HR. Bottom line: always leave yourself with viable options.
Yes, you are a fool. Not because you quit a job without trying to find another job first, but because you had to ask slashdot about it.
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?
The short answer is: yes, you are.
Given the crappy state of the industry as it is right now, quitting a high paying job over a (minor?) technology direction change is probably not a very bright idea. It sounds even worse if you factor in your apparent lack of experience with the new environment - you don't even stick around long enough to give it a try, right?
That being said, I can understand your choice. I don't particularly like the MS tools style, always have been more of a Borland type. But it goes deeper than this:
There are really two types of developers, namely the mercenaries and the artists. Most people are mercenaries. They just come to work, and as long as things are not absolutely terrible, they just do exactly what was specified. Then, after 8 hours, they pack up and leave their workplace to do whatever their real interests are. If you're a mercenary, it's totally stupid for you to quit over a tools issue like this.
The Artists, on the other hand, are people who shape the projects they implement. They are the ones with the vision, the ones who invest their soul into the product. If you're an artist, commands from management, like a change in technology or tools, can have a huge impact. Such a change can make your environment hostile, especially if the new direction conflicts with your ideals. Frankly, you don't sound like an artist, but if you are one, you have to quit over this and start over somewhere new where management shares your values and ideals.
Most companies really frown on the artist thing. They'd rather hire 5 mercenaries than 1 artist. Artists are difficult to manage traditionally, and they impose a constant danger of doing things that run contrary to the pointy-haired-boss school of business.
"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?
None. It was fun. When you are talented at whatever, in my case, software, then you choose to work on what you regard as fun. I've always thought comms was/is boring and even though the rise of the web etc, I couldn't get interested. I did find multimedia interesting, so I wrote a multimedia authoring tool and a talking web browser (this was back in 96-98). Earlier in my career I had written 27 games for C64, Atari ST and PC (286) between 1983 and 1988.
I changed from embedded Systems to Unix so that I could work on the cool (at the time) X11/Motif windowing systems in 1990.
I've always been interested in software debugging tools, so I formed a company to product these for C++, Java, Python, Ruby, with more to come. We added Ruby because I found it whilst browsing the web one day and I thought it looked like a language of the future. So we ported our tools for it. That is fun.
Do what *you* (not your friends or peers) feel is interesting. If you don't it won't be fun.
And how did it turn out?
Fine. I'd have been wealthier if I'd worked for others, as the most recent venture has cost me a lot. Things are changing and I'll get that investment back, so I'm happy.
Did you get to do what you wanted to do, are you still looking, or did you come back begging for another chance?
Yes - when I worked for others I chose only the jobs I liked. Never for the money. Always for the interest. No point being wealthier but bored. And now - Yes, because I choose what we work on next.
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.
You are kidding, right? The compiler and linker is the least of your worries. The platform SDK has all you need and you can use that with many compilers. I think your analysis is off-base.
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?"
Foolish - yes. If you don't like it you should have stayed long enough to add C# to your CV (C# will be available with mono soon enough, if not already) and looked around for a suitable new job whilst doing that.
I'd only change my job if either I hated where I was working (and even one the one occasion I did that, I stuck out for the job I wanted, and got it), or my interests changed and I wanted to work on some other cool, to me, technology.
I passed on a job when they showed me the HP Pavilion running Windows NT 4 as their new server with the OpenGL screen saver. It was the company that did my taxes and so I found a new tax service too. I passed on another job when the CFO was talking about the exit strategy too much during the hiring process. But I never have quit a job till I had a new one.
I'd say you made a mistake, not so much in quitting, but rather for the reason you quit. Making a statement like Microsoft's tools take away from your ability to develop is just silly and shows that you made no effort to understand what options you had within the environment.
.NET development that forces you to use it. Microsoft has gone to great lengths to make sure the SDK contains 100% of what you need to to build full fledged .NET applications with nothing but notepad.
.NET development then quitting based soley on that reason was probably a mistake.
As for Visual Studio, assuming you're company is truly forcing you to use it, the answer to total control is simple: Don't use the designers. Every single source file (for forms, components, HTML, etc.) is editable via pure text and the IDE will not do a damn thing to it in that form. There's no magic. Don't like the designer? Don't use it, just use the text editor and you're fine.
Also, unless your company is truly forcing you to use Visual Studio, there's nothing inherent to
So unless you really just don't want to do
No women, no kids. :P
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
Yes but COBOL programming doesn't count.
Especially on an IBM mainframe.
I am going to walk into my bosses office right now and quit. I work as a project manager at a start up tech company (e.i. VC, vaporware, and smoke and mirrors). Our technology is a joke and the guys who run it are selfish pigs. The Biz Dev guys are more akin to gangsters running a racket than doing sales and selling a product. My father died a couple weeks ago and left me a buttload of money in a trust. I have been staying on at this job mostly because I do not want to be "that guy" who lives off of his trust and becomes a bum. I think that I will definitely be fine if i take a couple months off from the working world and travel, reflect on life and remember my father. This was perfect timing for my first slashdot post.
As I see it, it wasn't even as big a deal as a platform decision he didn't like. He admits that he's a Windows-only developer, he just didn't particularly like the change of dev tools.
(In other words he was already a whore, he was just unhappy with the new facilities provided by the brothel...)
I wouldn't particularly like it if I had to write some C, but I wouldn't quit my job over it.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
You did the right thing!
Microsoft forces people to use their tools and environment when developing software!
Besides, I think history will show that siding with Microsoft is the worst thing you can do for your self or your business.
By the way, anyone out there looking to hire a Novell network admin?? Please?!?! I also have experience with OS/2 Warp!
Yes, it sounds like an awful lot, but I've quit from three different jobs and I don't regret it. Only one of them I regret ever starting at.
The first I quit from was a standard small scale IT consulting shop. We did it all, programming, hosting, teaching, project management. It was fun. I loved that job. I finally quit simply because it was my first job, and I wanted to try something else. Not because I got bored, simply because I wanted to try something else.
Second job I quit from was another consultancy firm. It was 100% web application development (which means MUCH more than producing web pages, of course). The reason I quit there was, just like you, it was 100% Microsoft based - and I really didn't like it. I honestly don't care what the "it doesn't matter what technology you use" people say. That's bullshit. It does matter. Until the same people claim it won't matter if they cross the atlantic in a rowing boat or a jumbo jet I won't take them seriously (and when they do I'll know for sure they're insane).
Third job I quit from was for a HUGE American (I live in Europe, btw) IT company. One of the biggest. I quite partly because the department I worked for was treated by shit by the company, but primarily because I didn't think the company acted in an ethical way. Ever. I might be overly touchy with such things - maybe what is business as usual to most is unethical to me, but I couldn't stand helping people make money they way they did. This was, by the way, the only one I regret ever starting at.
I've now held the same position with my current employer for three years, and have absolutely no plans of quitting. We're small firm, I do what I like (software development, primarily on Linux) and even the management act in a way I can approve of ethically.
My advice is that if you can afford it, and you actually believe that you can find another job, quit. It sucks being miserable in a job you hate. Eating noodles for a while is better. Hopefully you'll end up somewhere you like.
Another point that might be worth mentioning; you might believe that people would think of me as a quitter by now, and avoid hiring me. This is not true. In every single job I've had (including the one I have now), I've been recruited by people who worked with me during my first job. They know my "career" and the positions I've quit from, but if you can present a solid reason for quitting people will still take you seriously.
Long post, but you asked for it.
May we live long and die out
Speaking as someone who's not 100% satisfied with his current job, I have to say that I'd never quit without having something a lot better on hand - I had the misfortune of graduating just as the world found out that not everything ending with .com was a guaranteed goldmine and struggled for quite some time with finding someone willing to take me on. It may not be perfect, but
a) It pays (not "a lot", but "enough")
b) I have enough freedom to keep on top of current and upcoming technologies (I'm a developer)
and
c) My employers gave me a chance when noone else dared - they deserve my loyalty.
So - in answer to TFA's author, you may not be a fool, but too much professional pride may not be an exclusively good thing.
You don't like using microsofts tools to develop for microsofts OS? You prefer to be able to alter things beyond what those tools give you? Smacks of incompetance to me. If you're incapable of using the tools provided to get the results you want then you're never going to be getting windows certification and you're probably using undocumented features that are unsupported and are destined to disappear forcing you to start over. If thats the case, you're bad for business.
I've quit a number of jobs, some after time periods of less than 3 weeks. Mostly for not getting the ability to do what I was hired to do. Constraints added after we had agreed on the role. Once I quit as the money was altered by 15 an hour after I started and the contract was signed. Who wouldn't walk away from that?
Having standards is fine. But leaving as the firm decided to do things properly? They're better off without you.
I read slashdot daily. I joined so I can respond to this post.
I worked at a job which taught me a lot. However, at some point I felt that I started to outgrow it and some of the people I was working with. I wanted more. Plus, the drawback of a fulltime job (i.e. an employee) is that companies typically do not reward innovation, creativity, or risk taking; there are exceptions, but my place of work wasn't it.
I had some things on the side, one of which was looking real good and developing.
So, for the longest time... about one year, I wanted to quit. Then, this summer, my time came. I went on vacation for 3 weeks. Within one week of my vacation, I knew that I was going quit when I got back. I had figured within one or two months afterwards I would quit.
So, I get back. Within two days, 'stuff' that normally would have rolled off my shoulder happened in our group. I had enough. I went to HR to complain about my situation and next thing you know I am asking about severance or outright quitting. I left the meeting by giving my notice (very politely).
In one month I left and several moon cycles later, here I am. Leads are coming, I am retaining customers, and I am learning as I go. Best thing I ever did.
To be honest, if not for the vacation, I would not have had the gonads to quit! Never underestimate vacation or taking time off! From now on, I will take at least one or two weeks off each year... to completely disconnect... it is healthy too!
My health insurance is good for 18 months via COBRA. So I have time now, but soon will have to find my own plan.
PS Was at prev. employer for over 6 years!
You mean I can quit?
You gotta be kidding..
You have to find another job.
If you don't have a concrete offer, you do not know when you will find another job.
Unless it is completely unbearable, you cannot afford to quit (unless of course, you have a year worth of reserves and no problem spending them).
The real happy ending of this story is when you have found the other job.
So the question really is how does quitting help you find another job?. It doesn't. On the contrary, it makes it harder because employers are more likely to hire an employed developer as opposed to an unemployed one.
Baaaaaaad move dude. If you really want to do something that will make you feel good, go and aggressively try to get another job.
I've left every company I've ever worked for -- so far.
I left my last position once I realized that, with the equity in my home, I didn't need to work 70-80 hours weeks __if__ I moved to a place with a lower cost of living.
Thus, I am not employed. I sold my California house and moved my family to Texas. We own our own home out-right.
The biggest problem I face with being jobless is medical insurance. That is the biggest threat on the horizon (once COBRA runs out; but COBRA is expensive -- about $1000/mo for a good PPO plan for the whole family).
But, unless you can live for a long time without regular, dependable income DON'T QUIT until you have something else lined up.
You're value as a potential employee is greater if you're employed -- just like a married man is more alluring to women than a bachelor. So, don't divorce your wife until you have a mistress. Or something like that.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
I worked at Hill Air Force Base as a "Software Engineer," or so the title was. I actually did maintenence and bug fixes on old ATLAS code that ran on HP 1000s configured as F-16 black box test benches. The pay was decent. The stress level was next to 0. No mandatory OT and all the voluntary OT you wanted. I had a LOT of freedom -- leaving early if I wanted. Hey, this was the government. I [practically] couldn't get fired. Lots of sick and vacation time too.
Problem was: I hated the work. It was not at all fulfilling or rewarding. All the perks were there: pay, security, personal time off, and very low stress. I just didn't enjoy what I was doing. So, I applied to a company in the private sector, got an offer (albeit for more money,) and now I'm a REAL engineer will more stress, let time off, less security, and higher accountability. And, I'm loving every minute of it -- simply because I feel like I'm actually contributing. I'm actually doing something worth while. I enjoy what I do, and that, to me, is more important than all the other aspects.
sig: sauer
Yeah. I can't believe you'd quit just because you're ask to use a new IDE and language. Personally I love it when that happens.
When the structure of a company changes... new bosses, rules, culture, offices... that can scare people who were comfortable with the Old Way.
I found that when my little crowd were taken over by another company. It's scarey. You have to interact with all these people who don't know you and your quirks.
If you were looking for an excuse to move on anyway, then it's a good time to do it. But don't just blame a programming language.
How about the price of a self-inflicted asskicking when you realize that you closed the door on the biggest opportunity of your life because your boss couldn't read your mind to find out what you personally considered fulfilling?
Simply put-- I am likely more employable at Microsoft now than I was before I quit.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I went through the same thing - my company was bought by GE. We went from a profitable, fun, free-wheeling software company with a very familylike vibe to the ultimate in corporate borg. I no longer looked forward to going to work in the morning, and frankly, that bothered me. Being pushed to put out crappy software with weak QA bothered me more. The biggest factor, though, is when I started putting in something like 65 hours a week (salaried, of course, so no OT) and was told that if I did not put in more, I was destined for a poor evaluation and no pay increase. My gut reaction was to serve notice right then and there, but I calmed down, used my head, remembered my responsibilities (2 small kids and a wife) and quietly put my resume on the street. 3 weeks later I was putting in my notice. Anyway, remember, the best time to find a job is when you HAVE a job. Less pressure, and less likelyhood of jumping at the first decent offer you get, just to generate a check.
Face it, do something enough times, and it can cause problems.
work sucks, work sucks even more with microsoft owning the world
In any case, I found the xenophobic work environment hostile enough to want to leave and unlikely to change to accomodate me.
I started looking for my current job two days after starting my last one: my boss forwarded me an anti-American email (my son is American), that he received from his boss. I was reprimanded when I complained that (a) I found it offensive, (b) thought it inappropriate for a work environment, and (c) requested that I not receive such "humour" in the future. In Canada, U.S.-bashing is acceptable workplace banter, apparently, though, for some strange reason, the "Canadian goose" does not like to be treated as it treats the "American Gander". "Canada sucks!" might get one fired and arrested for a hate crime.
Of course, I didn't have to look hard, as many unsolicited enquiries for my services arrive every week. It took a little over a year to find one I decided to accept.
FWIW, I went from a Linux C/C++ shop to a managed C#, .NET Windows(tm) one -- the experience with a new technology (I never really got "into" Java), and programming language makes it fun again, even though my programming language of preference remains C++ and development environment remains Linux/BSD/Unix.
You could've hired me.
If I get up in the morning and absolutely DREAD going to work every morning for a week, you can bet I'll be gone within another week. There is NO reason not to enjoy what you do. You spend at least as much time on your day job as you do sleeping, working on hobbies, or any other activity in your life. I've always considered it imperative to enjoy reporting to work. When a decent technical career soured, guess what? I found out that I enjoyed tending bar. Granted the recompense wasn't the best but it got me by until I could find something more suitable. Bottom line is, if you haven't painted yourself into a financial/lifestyle corner you can do what you damn well please and the nay-sayers can go piss up a rope.
Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?
I were in a similar position as the one that you are in right now. If I would go back to school right now I would be able to get a degree, however I think for me personally career wise it would be a bad move. I've been programming for a long time and right now as a programmer I'm on the top of my game. Even though I used to think that I was going stay as a programmer for the rest of my career, I eventually had a change of heart.
Today I no longer feel challenged by learning the next new programming language or technology, there's always a new programming language or a new technology coming up, but to me it's just the same thing all over just in a different cloak, I want to be challenged and to learn something new, not just more of the same thing, hence programming no longer holds the attraction it once did to me. As you get older and if you stay up-to-date on technology you can be a top-notch programmer high up in age. There's definitely discrimination in the IT industry and very often 35 is seen as over the top for a programmer. In my case my manager had to convince the president of the company to let me go as a developer, because in his eyes I held a bigger values as their best programmer.
I now manage other developers and I help them to grow, I work with customers, project schedules, requirements, software architecture, analysis, and help the developers to crack technical issues. I have found the same attraction and interest that I once had about programming as a manager. The main difference is that computers are just so much more consistent than human beings, but that is a part of the challenge.
In your case you really have to make up your mind about what makes you tick. What gives you the juice in life? Life is too short and we spend too much time at work for us to go to job and do work that we don't like. You really have to make a decision on what you want to do right now and where you will be 5-10 years from now.
2. It's a poor craftsman who blames his tools. If you can't create good software with Vis.C#, you probably dont have the chops for your job anyway.
"I said no. This is a free software project, and the enhancements I make must go back to the community."
According to the GPL, which is one of the most restrictive free software licenses, You only need to release source code if you are distributing binaries. If the software was only for internal use, only the employees need to be able to access the source code to fulfill the GPL
Vote for Pedro
We geeks are in a rather uncommon lucky situation. We have the chance to find a job that doesn't suck. And in many cases the tasks you consider funny are the tasks you do best, thus improving your chances for fame and big cash. While I do not understand your rejection of C# / VS - IMO the best development environment MS ever made - I completely understand that you quit a job that in you opinion sucks.
Personally, I quite like C#, and Visual Studio isn't a bad place to work. But I can't stomach VB, even now when it's pretty much C# without braces. If the company I work for decided to use VB for all future development I would definitely bail. When you have to use a tool every day, it's important to be happy with it, otherwise the quality of your work is going to suffer.
When I was younger I would have just quit. Now I'm old I would try to get the decision changed and failing that, look for new work elsewhere before quitting.
You made a personal decision based on what you felt there ethical or moral bases.
To answer your question, the best time to leave a job is when you think you can leave a job. The problem with most people is that the believe their job won't survive without them if they go. Then there are people who believe they won't survive without their job. Most people are so afraid of uncertainty that they'll gladly surrender all their freedoms just to know that they'll be 'taken care of'.
I like to tell people (remind) that this is a new era in free market capitalism where the invidivual is empowered like never before to act not as a tool of capitalism, but as a commodity or resource. We are moving away from an economy based on labor or manufacture towards an economy based on expertise, and the good thing about that is while any jackass can dig a ditch, not everyone can program ASM or Cobol, so you'll be able to determine your market price with greater certainty. And, if every jackass learns ASM or cobol, move to C#, or Ruby, or Java. Expanding skillsets make individuals more valuable. Don't sell yourself out by working for less than your worth. If you absolutely have to, then remind - in a professional manner - your supervisor that since you're selling your services at below-market prices, you reserve the right to take advantage of better job offers at any time.
Seriously, if you consider this sticking to your character or keeping your integrity then that is great. You should be proud of yourself. But why do you need the approval of the /. community?
Don't get me wrong, I don't like microsoft programming environments either. They don't make any sense to me. If a microsoft programming environment was forced upon me, I would start looking for something new. But again, the people who are impressed by your willingness to say f-- off microsoft programming environment aren't going to pay your rent.
When you leave, can I have your job? I would love to work for a comapny that is migrating to some new technology. And since you don't like that, you can have my position maintaininy a 10 year old legacy C++ application. That's good too, because everyone is leaving to take positions using C#. You will probably get better pay here because it is tough to find someone who will maintain this old code.
Oh, and you said they changed management? Great! That will make it easier to make a good impression and show initiative.
So, why were you leaving again?
Nobody who's been modded up has mentioned this yet, but before you quit a job you don't like, you should probably look at yourself first. WHY don't you like the job? What did you do to contribute to the poor situation you're in? Are you likely to do it again at the next place? Certainly there are a vareity of factors that could contribute to you not liking your job, but if you take some or all of those factors with you from job to job due to your own baggage, you're not doing anybody a favour.
Yeah, if you hate your job, and have done what you feel is reasonable to make things work out there and have been unable, by all means look for a new job. In my opinion, during the interview process people are allowed to have one or two jobs in their resume where things didn't work out for a specific reason, and if you can show that you did your part to make things work out, that can sometimes even be turned into a positive in an interview. However, I know if I see somebody getting laid off from job after job, or quitting, or whatever, it suggests a disturbing trend in my mind.
Also, to those of you who say to never quit until you have another job: while generally I'd agree with you, there are a lot of other things to life besides working. For instance, if you've worked at a job for a couple years and lived below your means, you should have some savings. Maybe this is the perfect opportunity to quit, send out a bunch of feelers on the job front, then grab your powerbook and mobile phone and mess around in Europe for a couple weeks while you play phone tag with all those recruiters. Or go snowboarding, fix your house up, or whatever it is that you've been dreaming about doing. Now isn't THAT better than bumming around hating life in your crappy cubicle in your crappy job?
www.clarke.ca
Good job!
I have been offered many nice paying opportunities to hammer on Microsoft systems and languages and always turn them down. Fortunately, my employer is large enough to have quite a few cool big projects using open (javascript, css, html, tcl, python) and open'ish (java) languages.
The way I look at it is this:
> Any job should be about enjoyment not pay
-- There is no joy in hammering on Microsoft
> Open languages all share common syntaxes and data structures that are relatively static
-- Microsoft always tries to come up with a new (often worse) way of doing things
-- Often these `new` ways of doing things change over time so you have to re-learn new languages and techniques.
-- With open languages, my code only gets better over time as I learn from my mistakes and not have to worry about some `new` way of doing things.
> There are ton's of cool hacking jobs out there if you have a good work ethic, am self starting and have an entreprenuial spirit.
For me, If the only work available was to hack on Microsoft languages and platforms, I would stop being a programmer.
There are way to many enjoyable jobs out there to go down that road.
JsD
1. Never burn bridges.
2. Never quit without allowing your employer to suggest a remedy.
3. You can only threaten to quit once, because your employer knows that you are more likely to quit at a later date.
4. Fight the organization, not the people in the organization.
5. Be selfish. When you do good, expect something in return -- compensation, experience, a favor to be repaid later (maybe), networking opportunities, etc.
6. Realize that every job has its drawbacks, and your goal is to weigh those drawbacks and find your own personal "happy medium".
Decent pay, friendly colleagues and even fun development (a 3D engine, unfortunately using DX8 and Visual C++ but one can get used to it) and I quit. I just wasn't doing something I found interesting. When I was hired I was told that I would do some R&D but have done only development and I saw really no chance that it would change. So I told my boss that I quit, I told him my reason, and he didn't believe I was telling the thruth. Even today he may think I disliked people I was working with.
The funny thing is that, two weeks after I quit, they recontacted me because they were too lazy to find someone to replace me and asked me if I could come back three weeks to make a demo that had a hard timeline. I suddently realised that they were ready to pay me twice for this critical job.
Since then, (5 months) I make a decent living on my savings and I am just thinking about going back to work now. Of course I don't have a wife and kids and here in France you can have a health care even if you are unemployed.
Well... to answer your question, I guess that you have to find what is really important to you. Do not care about the norm, if you have projects for your life, you are in the top 20% of the population, most of the people juste sheeply follow the rules, get a job, get a wife, and end dreamless.
If you spend more time being pissed off about your job, or wishing you were doing another job, it's time to go find a new job. When an employer announces changes that will put you in such a position and you can quit on the spot without having to worry about ending up broke then do so.
Up until December I was a very well-paid and very sought-after UNIX administrator working as a contractor for various 3 letter agencies in the US. After spending most of the previous two years sitting on my ass waiting for inept managers to stop holding pointless meetings and actually give me some work to do that didn't involve something screwed up by clueless admins/DBAs I walked away from the entire career.
Now I'm in my freshman year of art school. It isn't going smoothly, the money situation scares the crap out of me, and I have no idea where it will work out. But today I stopped and reminded myself where I was a year before, smiled, and realized how glad I am that I walked away from a field only a devoted masochist could love.
The working conditions were very good. It was a large industrial warehouse. Our department had rows of long tables running down in four aisles, computers and lab equipment on these rows. I basically had my own table, with lots of additional room for equipment on carts that I rolled from place to place as I tested experimental code, as well as electronic designs. (Though a programmer by trade, I end up doing a lot of electronic design as part of my work.)
The work was relatively interesting, involving various aspects of mechanical, electric, electronic, software, and some really complex math. I got to use quite a few software packages that are quite expensive... Protel, Pro/ENGINEER, and other such programs with five-digit price tags.
To any outside observer, it was a good job. My salary was $147,200 per year, and the company bought four computers, each over $12,000 in price, for my use through the VPN at home. The benefits were quite good, as well. But I quit the job because they wouldn't give me a raise for three straight years, and the bills kept getting bigger. This made a lot of sense in my then-current state of mind. Unfortunately, the job I have now only pays about $60,000 a year... needless to say, I had to refinance and get rid of a lot of "extras" in my life. It doesn't matter... in a few months, I'm getting married, and she makes quite a bit of money.
My mom actually did this. She was dating two guys at the same time. The part I don't get is that she's actually a very nice mom.
Ethics have absolutely nothing to do with having a job.
If you want to make money, ethics can't be a consideration. If you want ethics, go out with the peace corps or something honorable like that.
Any business is in business to make money. To make that money, they take product A, mark it up by x%, and sell it as product B. x% is never equal to the cost of product A plus the cost of handling it. Businesses are ripping off consumers for whatever the consumers are willing to pay.
With that said, ethics have nothing to do with a job.
> Was it ethics, ambition, pride, or disgust
Again, these have nothing to do with anything. I knew a guy who's job was to drive the truck around to clean out portable toilets. Nice guy, perfectly happy, but I can't imagine him having any pride, ambition, or being able to have much more than disgust for his job.
You have to look at a job, and realize that it is income. You do something they want, they give you something you want. No more, no less.
Considerations should be,
1) Are you going to get a regular paycheck?
2) Is the paycheck going to be enough to satisfy you?
3) Is the job going to be stable enough, where you are confident that the money will continue to come in?
4) Can you do the job?
5) Is there risk of life or liberty in this job, which the paycheck doesn't adquately compensate you for?
I've done almost every shit job there is. Well, except for the portable toilet job.. I've never actually handled feces.
I was offered $150,000/year to do the systems administration for a spam company. They were very excited about the business (ick). Morals say I shouldn't do it. My wallet said I should do it. My head said that they wouldn't be in business in 6 months, so it would just be some fast cash, but then I'd be unemployed.
Back to the above questions
1) yes, a weekly paycheck
2) yes, the pay was enough ($150k/yr)
3) no. I didn't believe it would last.
4) yes (like, duh. running servers. I do that in my sleep)
5) yes, I may lose my freedom, if someone decides to crack down on the spam business.
3 positive, and 2 negative. Have to think on it.
I opted not to take the spammer job. I didn't believe they would be in business. I gave them a friendly "no thank you", and left it. 6 months later, the company was gone. They hadn't paid their employees for the last couple weeks, and the owners disappeared. Too bad, so sad. They should have known better.
You can't let the prospect of fast cash keep you from asking the other questions.
I had someone else ask me about hacking an online gambling site. They had no clue, they're not technical in the least. I told him it was seriously doubtful, because they probably already have someone like me working there, who wouldn't let it happen.
1) no, it was (probably) a one-off cash payment.
2) The pay could be very good. 6+ figures.
3) no, it's a one-off deal.
4) maybe. This is questionable.
5) yes, freedom and life. I can't imagine casino's being very happy finding out that someone just ripped them for millions.
So, the answer was no. Morals, again, had nothing to do with it. Too many other considerations made me decide no.
Now if the FBI/CIA/DIA/NSA/DHS had called me, offering me a steady job, paying mid 6 figures, where my entire job consisted of hacking, electronic information collection, and stealing information, and they ensured my safety, ya, I'd take it. If they said "we don't have a warrant, but we want x", as long as I know my own situation is secured, I'd take it.
Top 10 Reasons you should quit your job and find another:
10. You're asked to train a new hire to do exactly what you do.
9. Your boss's spouse/kid gets hired below you.
8. The Federal Trade Commission calls you...at home.
7. The CFO shoots "himself" in the back of the head with a shotgun.
6. Your cubicle mate starts really getting into "Guns & Ammo" magazine.
5. A truck out front is unloading 3 pallets of new shredders
4. You see your boss on "COPS"
3. Two Words: "Strategic Consultants"
2. You start wondering how much a McDonald's manager really makes
1. Your boss hands out copies of "Who Moved My Cheese?"
Seriously, though. If you're truly not happy, quit. Find something you really like doing and do it. Why be a slave to the money if you don't really have to?
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
You should accept either using C# or VB.NET because those are the futures of windows programing.
To quote Wally from Dilbert: Bingo
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
1. Always have a new job lined up before quitting one.
2. Pursue what you enjoy, not necessarily what pays the most.
3. If you DON'T have a job lined up while in a job you are miserable at, work extra hard in your off-time on what you enjoy, so that you reach the point where your "side job" can become your full-time job.
"Every career mistake I ever made was to do something sensible rather than something I enjoyed."
As you can see from other comments in this forum, not everyone shares my (borrowed) opinion. My conclusion: Depending on how it turns out, it could have turned out to be a really good idea, or a terrible mistake. Best of luck!
Ethan
Job satisfaction is a major indicator of expected lifespan. If your job is making you miserable, look elswhere.
So, if using MS products makes you miserable, move on.
But, first, take a good look and be certain it really is the job that's behind your misery. Perhaps an underlying reason exists, and the job misery is only an expression of that. For example, maybe the problem isn't being told to use MS tools' maybe the problem is simply how you react to being told to do anything.
To be honest, software distaste seems an unlikely reason to join the unemployment ranks. A lot of really worse things are going to happen to you during your career. Trust me. If you book it everytime you're ticked off, though, you won't have a career. ("I see here that you quit your last job because you didn't like the software your employer told you to use....")
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I am 40, you insensitive clod.
Not A Sig
The company he was working for was bought by another that used another programming environment. Right there a skill mismatch can be easily established. If his salary was higher than what the average folks using that programming environment are making, there's a second point against him. So if he had a sense that he could be a target for dismissal then he should have started fishing for a new job and then quit. Sometimes you have to trust your instincts.
I've quit twice and both times I made the decision only after a 2-week holiday. That gave me plenty of time to talk it over with people and think about it away from the pressure of work.
PS. Both jobs were in Europe, where a 2-week holiday is only 1/2 of the total yearly vacation time... sorry to those in the US...
My new boss said I have to work on this machine that has an AMD processor. I flipped out and said I only do Intel. I quit my job and found another one that uses genuine Intel processors in all their desktops, laptops, and servers. What a relief.
i think it depends on if you can afford it or not.
i hate using microsoft programming tools and would immediately quit if i were forced to use them.
but if my wife didn't work and i had a lot of bills to pay and was in an industry where it was difficult to find work, then i would spend my time at work looking for another job rather than quitting without one.
Yeah, nice reply, but I'm guessing you won't be there to help out financially if someone quits (without having another job) and can't find a job after that.
I haven't read most of the posts but I got the gist many of them were telling you that you did the wrong thing. I think more people need to be like you. Imagine if our (American, for me) economy started crumbling.. lawmakers and the such would have to take notice and have no choice but to conform to the new economy. Unfortunately it would take an effort on a large enough scale to catch their attention, and get more people to be like you to start quitting their jobs and enjoying their lives, not basing every decision on the money. I'm ready to quit my job and blow my half a million in savings and/or running up hundreds of thousands in debt without any intent in paying a dime back. We should stop giving a fuck about money period.
I was 20 when I was working for a programming firm here in town. I was doing software testing using WinRunner and I was not a happy camper when it came to TSL, the language we wrote this crap in. I started working on a library of functions to wrap TSL and do the blocks of code we wanted with a function call that returned something intelligible. This got me points. They decided to send me to their special training session and made me "guru" of TSL so I could help with scripting. However, a co-worker got promoted to manager in an environment that did not have management. We were just four testers doing what we did as well as we could. I was pretty much the only one that helped out with the library I was writing and the stupid "certification" program. The person who was promoted was mad with power... She was sent to a special management training where they taught her not to treat the employees like children. Her response : "I have to treat them like children" Long story short, this escalated into a lot of interesting discoveries such as the fact she was banging the CEO. After many horrible months of doing the absolute best I could with the situation, I left for the great carear of Pizza Delivery, but that was only after almost seven months of unemployment. At 22 I finally got back in college and to date I have pulled a 1.7 to a 3.4. Now I'm 25, a junior, and inline for an internship programming Java, C and C++. However, financially I have been living on loans and the various contract tech work I do around town. I think that is a successful yin and yang. I personally think that unless the management were total jerks AND you stuck it out for three months at least, then you pulled a pretty stupid move. Unless of course: Everyone hated you. If no one in the company likes you, yet they keep you around for your skills in something, treat you like crap and pay you like crap, that is the only situation where the storming out is appropriate, especially if your skill is really really rare. :P
Doku
So, you developed software for Windows for years, and had a problem when Visual Studio was your development platform?
C# isn't a terribly bad language as languages go, and while I won't comment on VC++, VC# is just fine to work with.
What was your previous platform that you were so attached to... for Windows development?
Two quantities in life are truly limited and irreplaceable: The amount of time you have (life extending knowledge aside); and your state of health during that time.
If what you are doing does not satisfy you in some aspect, and further does not have an identified, realistic payoff ahead that is sufficiently satisfying, move on.
This is, many say, not really selfish. Those who are happy and engaged in their lives tend to have the most to offer others.
In other words, it's win-win.
Note, this does not imply an absence of effort and challenge, nor that every outcome must be known, identified, and quantified at all times. Life is full of surprises, and some of these end up being truly rewarding. But breaking your skull and heart indefinitely for some "unknown" payoff that comes to "good, obedient" people is expecting too much of chance, or faith.
Especially worth considering in an age where "job security" is truly passé (not a perspective; rather the past tense of "to pass").
And as for health, chronic unhappiness is a good way to chew it up. If your rich and sick, you're still sick, and sick detracts from quality of life at a much higher ratio that dollars (rubles, whatever) add to it.
Everybody's situation is different. If you have heaps of dosh and know you could survive a potential 6+ months of unemployment then do what you feel is correct. For some just quitting for the sake of the dev tool may seem ludicrous but this seems to be where this guy draws the line in the sand and its his decision to make. I have quit many jobs over the years, some for stress reasons some for $$ reasons and some because i have recieved better offers elsewhere. I have worked in the IT industry for 10 years now, and have built my career up to where i always set my goals, to be a unix administrator. I am currently a senior unix administrator and feel immense pride in what i do as i have achieved my goal at the age of 30. The company i am at now is going through alot of changes and i am not happy with them. Although i do voice concerns when i do see that they may have a negative impact on the business. Part of some of the new tasks that i now undertake i am required to do things that i have not done for years, some desktop support, PC maintenance and the such, I find this quite galling. THere is also word of having 3rd and 4th level administrators doing regular shifted stints on our helpdesk which i also find downright insulting. I am currently looking for work elsewhere, unfortunately i dont have any family or friends in the position to be able to bail my @$$ out if i am unemployed for a long period of time so i dont have the luxury of walking out that day. You should always think about these types of decisions. The thought of not having anything to do scares me as much as not having any income for 6 months.
But fools are a force for progress.
But still, you are a fool, don't pat yourself in the back.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
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!
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.
Neither will you.
HAD
Yeah, troll. Whatever.
The fact remains that most people are compliant sychophants who care about nothing more than their own survival. They're too abject to assert themselves and let the boss what they really think. So, most jobs end up being pure bullshit.
More people need a "Fuck the man" attitude. If there was a little more push back in the world, we might have a fighting chance to survive in the era of gloablization. Instead, at the rate we're going, we're just going to work ourselves into a corporate-slave relationship.
Good luck to all you poor, sniveling bastards.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
Trying not to be self centered here, but since most of the WIndows C++ (MFC) Developers left, most of the MFC bugs have gone to yours truly!! I work for a Treasury Solutions workshop that uses every technology under the sun for its applications. Mainly MFC based applications for the presentation layer. Unfortunately, management saw that I managed to fix some c++ bugs that any noob could do and decided to hand me the rest of the development tasks. Having no MFC C++/Windows Development Experience (Just Java/Oracle), I am hating every day at work and the highlight of my day is going to the coffee shop (we call it Cibo o'Clock) to get a Grande Latte with some good workmates who fortunately enough has dodged this piece of work. Basically, at the end of the day, the bottom line is that either: a) I put up and shut up. b) Put a gun to my head and pull the trigger :)
Regards,
A Highly Caffeinated and Stressed C++ Developer.
-----
"I cant teach..... Im a Professor!"
When your manager does not care what your doing. I caught up on all my projets, made repairs to circuit boards that failed, then had nothing left to do. Asked my manager if he had any projects or things that I could do until the next shipment of circuit boards came in for me to test (maybe in six months!). He just said, "try to look busy". So played around with my test equipment, made some pretty simple audio amplifiers or pre amps for my home use out of spare parts left from prior projects out of op-amps. Then sat around for serveral days, go so bored, no vacation or sick leave time left, packed up my personal things, punched out on the time clock at lunch time and never went back. I had some savings stashed away, took me a few months to find a new job, the new job was a lot better and the working atmosphere was so much different and even the hourly pay was better than any job I had held before. For my "sanity" I am glad I made the move I did until the project ended (contract) and then took early SS as I was tired of the "battle" of pleasing supervisors and higher managment.
It's always better to wait until you have found another job before you quit. In the situation you describe a prospective employer could take your lack of cooperation in working with Microsoft tools as inflexibility. That will make it harder for you to find another job. In the current job market there will always be someone else willing to do what you are refusing to do. All you are doing is giving them a chance to hire someone else who's willing to do the job. You may prefer not to work with Microsoft tools, but in the end it's just that, a tool. There are much worse things that you could be asked to do. A few years ago I quit a job that I had only had for a short time. The primary reason being that I ended up hating the job and the people I worked with weren't much better. The employer in question was not completely up front about what was required in the position. This of course was my fault for not asking more questions before I accepted. Also on my first day at this job there was a news article talking about the possible demise of the product produced by this same department (not a good sign). Sure enough work on that product was halted about 3 months after I quit. This means that if I had just put up with it for a few months I would have had at least a year's worth of severance pay or a shot at working in another department where I might actually have been happy. Instead what I got was a year and half of being unemployed and then just landing a part time job (where I'm at now). Although, I don't regret leaving a job that I hated I do regret not finding another job first.
Especially if your boss is a spineless, brown-nosing dumbass.
I did this once within two months of getting assigned to work for such a prick. But I did the precaution of tapping my network for potential openings before letting things get out of hand.
But over C#? Probably not. I figure that the real reason you're doing this is something else, and C# is just a rationalization.
if you can afford to be out of a job for a while, you made the right decision. there is nothing worse than a job that blows. so many people are defined by their occupation and you don't want to be defined by something you hate.
i hated my last job, working as a cashier. i was the only person who put any effort into what i did, and the customers noticed it.
the day i put in my two weeks a customer gave me a new job. now i work on campus and have my own office (i'm a 19 y/o college student).
kind of a stretch of an analogy, but you know, just keep looking forward and find a job you love.
-- lol pwned
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!
i've had work i've hated and quit for all of these reasons. ethics, ambition, pride, or disgust.. they all tie in don't they?
i don't make a lot of money, but i love my life, i love what i would do and i wouldn't change a thing... you have to live with yourself and you only get one chance to live your life... clich'e due to the truth.
whatever you're doing... if you can't stand it. get out.. thats no way to live.
-grover
FUCK YOU ASSHOLE BOSS!
OK, how many other people checked his web site to see if they knew him from a previous job?
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I have to post this one anonymously... I'm not revealing much but there's potentially a lawsuit on this one so I have to be tight-lipped. I worked at a gas station. I had filed a complaint against the manager of our "big sister" retail store... because he had decided that he was no longer going to share change, supplies and merchandise with us as we were supposed to. Now, that effectivly cut us off from everything except gasolene... and we would have ran out of change frequently. So I filed complaints... got threatened by that manager. He lied. He lied to my manager. I told the truth (really), and my manager believed me but the other guy had threatened him so he caved. I was told that I might lose my job unless I called home-office and lie (by saying that I was lying about my complaints) and gave the other manager a formal public appology. I quit right there on the spot. I'm not lying for anyone, and had I have been fired that way I'd have been fired illegally. The managers are BOTH in trouble now, and I could potentially sue. Especially since my own manager falsified my T4's to make him look good and me bad. They'd written in that they fired me for "misconduct." Which was not the case, I'd quit for the reason I mention above. That was straightened out right away by my lawyers, thankfully so there's no firing on my record anywhere.
"What do you really want to do?" Answer that question and you are halfway there.
I'll bet you that if you take the Big Money job, you'll STILL do programming, though it will be for free, and you will have far less time. If you take the programming job, you may someday regret the stack of money you don't have, but if you don't, you'll regret not following your heart.
If you REALLY wanted to make money, there are ways to make more than you will. So clearly either money isn't your highest priority, or you are doing a piss-poor job. Listen to Pink Floyd's "Time" and then decide. I'm betting that you should follow your heart, take the programming job... and sell Reliv on the side.
--
Thought I'd something more to say...
kissmyfreckledassbye.com
I also hate my job and wish to leave. Its all well and good to say 'sure get a new job lined up before you quit' but actually FINDING the job you want, landing an interview (if the position isnt already filled that is) and actually being hired is all a tough process.
when to most companies conduct interviews? business hours. when you do work at your current position? business hours. this means time off work. time off work you have to lie about if you dont want your employer to know your leaving. sick days work, but after 3 or 4, theyll start asking for doctors certifcates to make sure you are genuinely sick.
getting a call back? not at your desk you arent. my boss sits directly behind me (no pun intended) and hears every phone call i make or receive, and if its on my mobile phone then she can probably hear the other end too. every time i was called back regarding the other position i had to pretend i had lost signal, and leave the room.
i then got my interview, took a sick day (with pay) and went to the interview with an assertive attitude.
i did not land the job.
I wasted a sick day, $50 in phone calls and a whole shitload of suspicion (why do you need to be looking at that job website?) and risked losing my job in an effort to get another one. to make matters worse, it was drawing near the end of my probationary 'try b4 u buy' period, at which i could of been fired at any time with only 2 hours notice.
luckily, im stuck in this shithole as they hired me full time, with holday loading, sick leave, and the possibility of further training and education.
at least i have security and a regular pay until i find another job.
on a side note, during my final probationary interview, i said that the job was not stimulating enough for my requirements, and that there was not enough work to do. the job or position is not 'bad' per se, but it is fairly mundane and monotonous. as long as the work you are doing is challenging and constantly keeping you on the ball or teaching you something new, just keep working there.
remember, you get paid to work because its WORK. very few people are lucky enough to get paid for something they actually enjoy doing.
I was working on the rail road all the live long day, and quite literally. Going to work 3 times every two days and having only 4 hours of sleep between jobs if I was lucky. The unions, politics between the workers and manangement, and the hours turned me into a fat miserable person, till I quit.
I didn't have anything lined up when I gave them my notice. I am currently living off of student loans and handouts while trying to pay for my brand new vehicle and college.
I was able to land a decent job at the local oil company (beats McD's) as a part time IT person. Making decent pay, but nothing like I did when on the railroad.
My recommendation is to find a better job. Have something lined up before hand. The economy is tight and you might not be able to find a better job and good luck!
If you hate your job, and you hate your non-work life; it is time to reevaluate your situation.
C'mon, that's a bit extreme, isn't it? Perhaps some therapy would be in order.
Am I a fool for giving up steady work and good pay?
No fool are you. Do what you believe in and what you enjoy. Life is too short for any other way.
-- $G
I've turned down jobs because:
a) I haven't been experienced enough to do them (job agencies not reading my CV/Resume properly and comparing against job description
b) The job is not something I *like* doing. For example, I have skills in Novadigm Radia, but it is such a fiddly afair I just do not like working with it.
c) the job mentioned does not have a reasonable enumeration attached to it, and I won't be able to pay off my debts doing it.
Quitting anything totally depends on if you're useful somewhere else. Chances are, the people reading your "ask slashdot" will never know your level of competence at anything. Keep in mind, that "what you know" and "what you're certified in" are completely different things.
:)
Let me give you my story. Seven years ago (when I was in University), I got a summer job as a programmer at a College. The reason that I got the job was that I kissed-ass for months at the school that I went to. Some people pushed for me to get the job as well. I had some meagre coding skills, and the job was befitting of such an inexperienced coder. It was basically Macromedia garbage. Anyone remember Lingo?
I left the job at the end of the summer to go into third year. (Different major completely - Biology). I imagine I could have stayed on if I kissed ass again. After all, there was still work to do.
Half-way though that year, I ended up dropping out of school anyway. I got involved with a woman, and foolishly put my entire focus on that. I eventually had to find work because I am partial to food and shelter. I ended up as a Security Guard, making half of what I made as a lame coder.
Then I had a kid on the way. You can bet I was kicking myself for not trying to stay on at my old job.
I worked my way into a better Security job in a remote town.
Almost six years later, I'm doing the same damn thing. Sure, I've had raises and the work has become more interesting. I even get opportunities to do things that are more "my cup of tea" such as computer stuff. Granted, it's database crap, but it's better than rattling door knobs.
Over those six years, there's been several times that I've been sure that I was going to be fired. ie) Traffic accidents, horseplay, tardiness, breaches of confidentiality, etc. Basically it amounted to me being complacent and stupid. Oh damn, did I ever sweat it.
I sweated it because I knew that I wasn't marketable. Sure, I was (and am) valuble to my current employer. But I knew that once I as out in the cold, my ass was screwed. I would have been faced with the "janitorial arts" at one third of what I was making as a Security Guard.
So please - don't bullshit us all about geek morals. Geek morals don't exist. For the right money, any of us would toss Billy's salad and pretend that it was french vanilla ice cream. Unless your Richard Stallman. But just look at the guy. Geez.
My story... I was a developer at a large company with good pay, great benefits, interesting work, good work environment, and a fantastic boss. A former employee of mine called me up with a job offer for a non-development (but development related) job in an exciting industry. I wasn't all that excited about the specific job, but the 90% pay raise and the specific industry convinced me.
Almost 4 years later, I have to say that I've given it my best shot, and the money is definitely great, but the job itself is leaching my soul away and I've started looking for something else. The work isn't actually bad, other people there love it, but it's just not a good fit for my personality / abilities. It got to where every day I had to basically talk myself into actually going to work, every work day was long and depressing, and I was always counting the days til the weekend which I never did before.
So I'm looking for something in development again, and getting used to the idea of living on about half my current salary (hopefully!) For me at least, I have to say the money was nice in and of itself, but not worth the stress and angst.
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!
Sometimes, quitting a job is a no-brainer. When your boss is an evil misanthrope who thinks you are little better than pond scum, it's time to move on (hi Scott! Neener neener, I'm well respected now!).
Other times, an opportunity will come along when you know that the potential for growth, either yours personally or the company's, far outweighs your current situation. That's a good time to jump ship.
-- What is this Earth thing you call "slow"?
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.
If I ever have to leave this job and touch another Windows box, I'm going to cooking school instead.
Moral: Make the move, but have something else to do.
I've done it twice last year; The first time it was after waiting for three months for a change (the general manager just kept putting me off, asking me to wait...) until finally I had enough. Something had to change, and if he wasn't going to make it happen, I would.
I left.
The job after that, I just didn't have what it took to do the job. After a month, I was going to be fired anyways, so I just decided to leave.
My previous job was good, but once again, it was in a position that I just couldn't manage to do well in. I was let go this time, but will be going back in, but this time as technical support... a much closer fit to me, I can assure you.
If you feel something needs to change, then change something. If you get help, accept it. If not, do it yourself. If it means you need to quit, then do so, as long as you have a contingency in place.
The Penguin Producer
That I got Rocky Road with my Yahoo coupon?
Have you considered an exciting new career in psychic analysis? You know the number to call, and how much you can make! Why not contact us? It's a new career direction that has infinite potential, and don't you already know it!
Yes.
Unless you had another job waiting for you when you quit your previous company, you are a fool.
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
Stay on, get the training into the new technology while searching for a new job. When your training is complete, then it is time to depart (assuming you have found a new position) with a new skill on your resume.
I write software for Windows
:)
That sounds like a good enough reason to quit
You mention that a big reason for you leaving your company is because they are switching to C# environment?(Im not a programmer so I aplogize if this is a over simplification)
:) but they still get the job done, just differently. is this an accurate comparison?
Lets put this in perspective. Isnt that like a carpenter quitting his job because managment has said they are switching all tools from craftsman to dewalt? The tools feel a little different, operates a little differently, are a different color, and doesnt have the lifetime warranty
What a chance for a purge, I quit my last job on a multimix of reasons like frustration, psychopathic managers (I call them KMACEOW...Kiss My Ass CEO wannabes, once I even did a internet profile on one character...high points psychopath, only lacking in the violence to be a true maniac). Quit in a manner that got me a good retrenchment package, sabbatical and am well on the way to establishing my own business.
How?? The evil smell of Six Sigma wafted into the TODO list of a KMACEOW manager, who with the authority handed down from above proceeded to rearrange groups, collect head count and made all manner weird justifications. Only problem was the actual reason, the SS project, was never mentioned to the group (groups actually) he got to play jerk farm with. It was only till I started getting put downs for asking too many questions I agitated to leave....THEN I found out about his SS project in a network file, left in the basement, down the stairs with a faulty light, with a sign on the door that said 'beware of the lepard'. We didn't know till then... unbelievable. He also used it as his MBA final year thesis. Can anyone say professional ethics issue?
Certainly the company couldn't. After being threatened and other shennanigans, 2 years of holding the ethics line I finally accumulated a big enough file to whack down any specious beurocratic nonsense and leave with an honourable discharge (and package!). Still no actual utterance of the word 'ethics' by anyone but me....quite literally I think they cannot speak this word.
Lesson to others, don't play the politics game, stay angry but keep a file....keep adding to it. Add your feelings about issues certainly, they do take it into account, but keep a clear line between your feelings and the facts, this slices through any 'disgruntled employee' response.
One line that got a manager off his nut, I asked him to look himself in the mirror in the morning, write down what he thinks off him self.....the reaction got special mention in the file... spec-tac-ular. I can manage it no problems.
Good luck to actual professionals out there in keeping sane in the coorporate world...just stay professional.
ahhhhhhhhhhhhh now I'm purged.
So many considerations. Try to evaluate your mental health first. I've quit many jobs and been so so much happier, but also wished I had started looking for other jobs before I reached the breaking point.
Catch-22 was: I was so burnt out that I could not show enthusiasm or much of anything positive in job-searching & interviews.
And that said, it's ALWAYS much easier to get a job when you have a job. Trust me on that!!
So, my advice, if you really can't improve things or affect change in your company/situation and are headed toward brick walls and burn-out, start looking, and take it very seriously.
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.
AZspot
Yeah, you didn't pick the best time to quit.
The best time to quit would be in about three months after you had imersed yourself in C# and the new environment. That was a goldern opportunity to be the guy in demand. Then, once you are in that position you have found the best time to quit.
The best time to quit is when your employer needs you the most. You ALWAYS want to tell them what a tough decision it is and that this has been a fantastic place to work. You NEVER want to wait until you are redundant or unnecessary.
New employers will find you much more attractive when they have to pull you away from someone else. Not to mention that you'd have even MORE MORE MORE modern skills to puff that resume with.
For years I've been living at my salary level, never putting anything aside for a rainy day. Two things brought about a change in this.
I have started pulling back from my recurring, weekly (I'm also payed weekly) episodes of retail therapy, and regular purchases of several hundred dollars worth of shit that I don't need. I straight away put away 1/5 of my paycheck into savings each week, pay myself once each week a few hundred dollars "pocket money" for food, entertainment and transport costs, and any money that's left over after bills each week goes into savings as well.
My goal is to have enough to survive for a month or more without work, and if I never need to use it, it goes towards the long term goal of purchasing a house.
FYI, I'm 25 years old at the moment, and envisage purchasing something in the next three years.
Man watching 6 MSCE's around a sun box, looks alot like the opening scene's of 2001:space odyssey...
I've done more consulting with them since and I wish them the best of luck since I like the people and think they have a good product with lots of potential. I just didn't see any realistic way for them to not just break even but cover the money that's already been sunk - the group I interviewed with turns out to be only about 25-35% of the whole operation and I just can't figure out what the hell most of the other 70% is doing except sucking down cash.
fencepost
just a little off
I made the decision in December 2002 to make a 180 degree turn and move from computer science to dentistry (a profession common to my family). After working as a software developer for 4.5 years I decided that I did not like 1.) the long hours, 2.) the primarily untechie customer driving software specifications, 3.) my role as a worker (not a thinker), and 4.) the never ending sense of "we have to beat our competitors therefore we're setting unrealistic goals that we know will fail but let's put lots of pressure on everyone anyway".
In any case, I had a positive experience in leaving my company. Upon making my decision, I began droping hints to my project manager that the time had come that I really hand over my project lead to a jr. programmer on my team. At first he was like, "since when did you think you could make that decision?" But as time went on and the dust settled a bit, the jr. programmer did take on more responsibilities and I tried to spend alot of time with them in review of the architecture I had developed and all the ins and outs of maintaining a large scale web application.
When the time came for me to announce my resignation, I had all kinds of documentation and notes written and had set the team up for sucess in my absense. My project manager was very happy that I had asserted my desire to get off the project and felt good about having the jr. programmer take full responsibility for it in the final weeks before I was gone.
It was a difficult decision to make, however I have not looked back. I still love computer stuff as a hobby, but when it comes time to make some good money and work reasonable hours I want nothing to do with programming.
My $0.02. Good luck!
Back in 2002 I had a relationship with one of my colleagues. It turned out bad, and I mean really bad; think pregnancy, but no baby. Sadly I am not a father...and that is only half of it.
:)
So anyway, I quit before I went really nuts and did something I might have put me in jail. If you think that is extreme, well then you also disagree with my grief counsellor. I was earning six figures in pharmaceutical manfacturing back then.
Just a little over a year ago, I left another job (same multinational as the job above). Essentially they were not delivering on the development pathways for me in the company and it didn't look like it would be happening...ever. Morale was bad there anyway, and I should have seen it coming. They didn't follow the corporate rules or philosophy, the whole team only got one break a day and that was at 10:30am; two hours after after starting work.
I had to move from Auckland, NZ to Brisbane, AU and they would not even pay relocation or put me up in a place for a couple of weeks. In hindsight, considering they knew what I was actually worth to the team in Auckland, the Brisbane team didn't respect m credentials at all. I made a big financial sacrifice to move there and I was bitterly disappointed by the job.
Brisbane, however, was fantastic and I wanted to stay there. Chicks in bikinis all year round. The summer is a little hot. Anyway, when I contemplated leaving that job, I sent my name into some recruiters. I figured I would give myself a deadline to find a job if not I would go back home.
I had a ton of responses. Most were out of Brisbane though which is not what I wanted. I must have not shown up to about five interviews.
Then I had an interview with a Brisbane hospital. The manger was really up himself, telling me how he has pharmacist begging to work for him, and he is change manager yadda yadda yadda.
I was interested and impressed in what he actually had to offer and I said to him, 'I leave in 10 days, let me know soon what you have on offer ASAP so I can plan if I need to ship anything back home.'
He didn't contact me until I left Brisbane, by which time I had shipped stuff back. I was kind of pissed but he had this position for me to build a TGA (that the Australia equivalent to the FDA) accredited cleanroom and train the staff to use it and he was willing to pay two months relocation and a very good renumeration package. I was ready to go but then one morning I just woke up and decided I didn't want to work for him or in that role. I let one of my best friends down with that decision and to this day I still feel rotten for her.
Basically I thought he was an arrogant fucktard. (clash of personalities). As for the role, I already knew I could do it and it simply was not a challenge. I was bored of that kind of work.
Ironically now I teach that stuff, among other things at university, back in Auckland. I get to see young university girls everyday, life is generally quite good.
However the uphill battle doesn't end there. With the changes in my profession, my professional body wants me to validate my cleanroom skills according to their education program. I call bullshit, any pharmaceutical manufacturing I do should be subject to the standards of the company I work for and the standards of the Minsitry of Health in NZ.
There are a raft of other issues I am not happy with in my industry so I am going so far as switching my profession to law. Work pays for half (only half because I have to go to another university to study) so I am happy
"I just can't sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it's nonsense" J Watson, Sci Am 288:(4)51
As soon as EA hires you.
Quit a job because the company attempted to take an open source project off me (that I'd worked on in my spare time) and sited clauses in the Job contract as to why they could do this (it would never stand up in court) but what really anoyed me is that my boss said 'This is the way the software world works, if you don't like it you can stack shelves for Asda', I quit after my holiday in Boston ;-) saying 'Not only would I get paid better stacking shelves, but I wouldn't have to argue why my own creations are not owned by the company'
If you're not sure the answer is probably yes. It's still a pretty tough economy out there and unless you have something better lined up, which you didn't indicate, or can get by without an income you may have been hasty. If you have obligations like a family I might even say irresponsible. My take on it is that the only reason to bail from a job, short of retirement, is for a better one. If you go out with nothing, you stand a good chance of actually winding up doing worse work for less money with nastier people which I'm sure is not what you intended. But hey, writing a resume can a growth experience. Sending out hundreds will help you learn to cope with rejection. You'll come out of this with important new self-knowledge.
Anyway, in 2003 I started looking for work in an area I was interested in moving to. I think the key for me was to find a location, then look for a job. However, my job lets me work just about anywhere. I also had some thoughts about management, and what I wanted to do. Basically I knew I needed to be hourly, specifically because I didn't really care about how much money I was making, just how many hours I was working. The important thing is that I was adopting a "look before you leap" attitude about my career, something I really hadn't done before.
In March of last year I started working here, hourly, and getting used to the new enviroment. My experience as a supervisor has really made the work easy, most people are impressed with my work, and I have happy customers. I was hoping for a little more money, but only because the area I'm in has a high cost of living (ski town in the rockies). I'm not sure how long I'll stay here, but for now, I'm very confortable. YMMV.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
I was once asked to port a Windows project to Macintosh using MFC. Of course, WMF featured large, and I was not allowed to use tools that might work, drop WMF from the spec, or the like. Another guy was brought in to replace me. TMALSS, we brainstormed a solution that found a point of connection between the Windows and Mac graphic environments, and three weeks later shipped a marvelously crippled, slow, utterly useless, graphics intense product that met management's spec and cost more to package and put on shelves than it ever earned. My cohort quit and found another job at a company that tanked a year later. I left shortly afterward, and within a few weeks, every Windows programmer forced to write Mac code in that shop was gone, gone, gone. Software geeks are idiots for not unionizing, but Open Source is the next best answer to Mr. Bill's KBE. Yeah, you're a fool, especially if you have kids. Suck butt, loser, you're playing a losers game. But you've still got your soul. That's good. That's very, very good.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
...to live? The Taj Mahal? Were you having Emeril personally cook your food every day?
Short sighted: Yes. Fool: No.
As a software developer our objective is to deliver solutions.
Granted we should be selective of the technology we use, but it should be tempered with agnosticism. Java or C#? NetBeans or VS.NET? - wrong questions -
it should be: What's the required or most expedient and viable solution?
followed by: would the technology at hand help deliver that solution?
I reject certain tools and languages (NetBEans, VB.NET), because it restricts my capacity to deliver; Maturity does that to you. Unfortunately a lot of developers (good and bad), turn strategic decisions like tool selection into religion and advocacy...
In your case what sort of control were you looking for? Thousands of companies use MSFT tools (esp VS.NET) for the reason that it makes their developers productive (and it does, with all the automations it provides) - so it didn't seem very wise to quit because your company adopted this tool... it's like saying you quit carpenty because you'd didnt like the heft of your hammer...
I would ask myself what I want to do every day; I want to be my own boss, but don't want the headache of a business. So be sure you have a valid exit strategy before quitting a paying gig. Also consider social aspects; my social circle is dramatically altered now - only one client, little interaction except nurses [cool, huh? not really...], and a resume that died on the vine. I'm doing preps for GRE to try to be productive and not waste away entirely.
One of the posts mentioned your health. Think about your healthcare options. Poor bastards who work for themselves [in the US] pay twice into FICA; more if they have employees. And then, are you going to see it?
Finally, personaly satisfaction is important, but much can be said for the tradeoff that the security of a salary brings. Good luck to you in your quest.
I worked for a while with a company that developed a slow and bug-ridden Internet Explorer-based task management system, which they secretly yearned to one day sell to Microsoft. The boss was an utter nazi, and probably barely computer literate enough to link this comment back to himself, but I'm posting anonymously just to avoid lawsuits.
I was working for $N/hr and not terribly happy. I took a month off to work on a non-profit project -- I'd mentioned this at initial interview and they had no apparent problem with it, although it WAS difficult to convince them to let me go when I wanted to, but never mind that.
When I came back, the boss-nazi told me he wanted me to do a particular project that he estimated would take a month -- say 200 hours or so -- and he would pay me a fixed price of $N x 200 for the finished product.
Now: I knew that -- optimistically -- this project would suffer from the two hells that every other project there suffered from: the documentation for the existing monolithic system was shitful, and the boss kept randomly changing the job specs every time he read a new article in one of those soft-core Project Management magazines. So the minimum time it would take would be two months, 400 hours. I told him this. I told him I'd be happy to come back for $N x 400 and give him the product in two months. He tried to argue that it was only a month's work, and $200N was his final offer.
Now... at this time, I had a fiancee and a daughter. We were renting our house, and she had RSI so she couldn't go to work. If I didn't have a job, we'd potentially be up shit creek, because I didn't have much in the way of savings. I talked to her about it, and she said: fuck 'em. You're miserable, they don't respect you, tell 'em to go jump and we'll work out a way to survive without them.
So I did. I told the boss-nazi that I could not, in conscience, take a 50% pay cut in a small town like ours. I told him I had enjoyed my time there (which was a white lie), and that I had learnt a lot (which is very true, in fact), but it was now time to part ways.
Two months later I had a much nicer job that I've still got, and I'm generally happier. And I married that gal, cos I'd've been mad not to...
Are you a fool? Only you can truly decide that. ;-)
I will say that there are, IMO, many factors that should go into any judgment call on any job, and that different people have different priorities and needs. If your priorities and needs were not being met by the job you were at, then you were absolutely right to move on.
For my part, I look for a number of things in a job that I've found the private sector can rarely provide any more. That, and my priorities for a job are what many people would consider backwards. Salary, for example, is about fourth down on my list after long-term stability, the opportunity to make a real and positive difference in people's lives, and the chance to use ALL my skills.
Civil service is the only spot I've found that I'm truly happy with, but I will add that it takes a very speficic mindset to do well in such an environment. My only regret is that I didn't do it long ago.
I wish you happy hunting in your job-search. Should you get frustrated, and be tempted to take something that you know you really won't like, just for the paycheck, keep in mind that I surived for a full year and two months on nothing but unemployment bennies, my wife's job, and my side business before I found the slot with the State Patrol.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
If you did it carelessly, without any plan for what to replace the job with, because you didn't want to learn something that would further your skills, then perhaps.
But if you quit a job that you knew would make you miserable, doing something that you don't want to do, all you've probably done is decrease the amount of time you'd be doing something you hate, and increased the amount of time you could be doing something else.
If you hate a job, and something you have to do to keep that job is going to rankle and stress you, or make you do something that goes against your principles or sense of self-respect... you're probably going to lose that job at some point anyway, because your heart won't be in it, you'll hate it, and you'll either quit or be let go. That won't do wonders for your self-respect. Or, you may end up getting into the habit of putting up with crap and letting things that bother you slide, which also isn't much good for your self-respect.
If it's not something you want to do... then don't do it. You have to be willing to face the _consequences_ of that decision, of course.
Consider though... a certain amount of ability to put up with crap _is_ a survival trait.
Am I a fool for giving up steady work and good pay? I've left two jobs for similar "noble goals," and I've never regretted it. In both cases, my next venture outlasted that of the company I left. Follow your instinct -- there's more work out there.
Hello, It does not matter if it was right or not ... have you thought about the decision or was it a spur of the moment.
I believe that every thing is life happens for one reason or another. It may not be clear to you know but one day it will.
If you have seriously thought about it and it is what then go for it.
You get out of life what you put into it.
Michael.
Linux: For those able to think out side of a window
When Enron wanted me to move to Houston from my home town so I turned them down. That was six months before the collapse. I think I made the right call.
The people I worked with who moved regretted it.
They pay you to relocate but then you are stuck there.
I'm surprised that no own has discussed the idea sometimes called 'downshifting'. You know, it's not a requirement of life to have a beige condo, a mortgaged car, and dependent wife- although you might get sucked into those things in reverse order if you fall under the wrong person's spell. :)
;), baking your own bread, and building stuff with dumpster-dived lumber.
From my perspective, there is plenty to make life sweet, purposeful, and meaningful without bringing in big money.. things like the public library, a directional wifi antenna
Looking at the last 1000 years, someone living in a relatively simply way in the modern west, and working part time still has options for living far beyond what most of humankind felt pretty happy with during most of that time. To put it another way, how would you feel towards the person of the future who essentially asked 'Should I quit my job? I'd be giving up my 5000 square foot home, I'd have to learn to use a kitchen, and start wearing clothes more than once, so I guess that's not really an option. I better have another job lined up first.'?..
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.
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.
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.
No, you've gained valuable experience - whether it's positive or negative. Remember, it's just a job. Best wishes!
I worked in a IT company doing onsite engineering, i was fired by the company one week before my birthday, then rehired 2 weeks later.
after that i started looking for work. (as even working for a company that fires in a split second is better than the dole) In the end i started up with two friends and it's never been better.
(as for leaving, i handed my noticed to the boss that had given me the most grief the first them, left two copies on the desks of the 2ic and the head boss, and walked out the door, no contract, technically on probation after working there a year and getting fired, so no notice)
I don't know enough about you or your situation to tell you reasonably well whether you're a fool or not for giving up your job.
You're definitely being picky if the choice of tool was your reason for leaving... but hey some people have that luxury especially if you're good (you're not Linus are you?) or have the financial flexibility.
All I can tell you with good certainty is that you're going to be OK. You were unhappy, made a decision, and took action. That's more than what some people do in a lifetime. Do what you believe is right, follow through, and don't let the nay-sayers deter you.
Wow, did I ever mess THAT one up. *blush* Here goes again:
I had no family to support, only a cat, and no mortgage to pay off, only monthly rent with two other guys.
I was miserable day after day for a very long time, doing Linux work for America's largest patenter (That's just a tidbit of info - I was working in Canada).
I had nothing else lined up, and had never had a real job before, so writing a resignation letter was one of the hardest things I'd ever done.
After giving notice to my boss, but before letting all of my coworkers know, one of my equals said to me "Isn't it funny in a large corporation how much you can get away with ignoring people far away" (referring to he and I waiting on a chap in another city for a SSL signing). I agreed, knowing full well that it was one of my reasons for leaving.
I worked in a restaurant for a while because I wanted something new. I had a lot of fun with it, but only worked there for two months before becoming a NetCorps Intern. Now I'm living in Bangkok, Thailand working in an office of three people, doing web work and general IT stuffs for Nonviolence International's South East Asia office. I enjoy the work much more than my previous tech job, where I didn't care at the end of the day if the company made a buck or lost one.
My biggest regret? Leaving behind all of the good people I worked with, many of whom were just as miserable as myself but had much tighter budgets (kids, a house, car payments, etc). I hope they're doing well. I know I am.
The notion that a steady job with bennies is THE GOAL or more important than your other values is a trap. Go for what you value most. I doubt very much that is only or primarily a steady paycheck at the cost of other values.
So you are only a fool if you gave up what you value more for what you value less. But a whole lot of people are fools for taking and keeping the jobs they have for the same reason.
The same can be true even if you have a good job.
I do not think you are fool for quitting.
:) But it turned out to be hell!!!! Most stupid, ignorant and mean people I had ever met! Oh my! I really thought I have made a big mistake! After few months I just told them that I am fed up and I say good-bye! Went home and started to prepare my application for getting unemployed suport. Talked to everyone I knew and could not find a new job (was ashamed to go back to the company I left, even when they offered to take me back). And suddenly I was offered a new job in management of a local branch of a major engineering company. So everything finally had turned out just perfect! And the boss of the "good company" which I had left before, recently called me and asked if I would like to join them again. Possibly I will do it in about a year, because they are really nice people, but this time with a new salary and on better conditions. :)
You shall not do what you do not like or do not consider to be "correct". It will not work anyway. You would be loosing in two ways: (1) you would be having hard time being forced to do what you do not like to do; (2) your skills in doing what you like to do would start to fade rather soon. You would end up being double loser - lost what you had and not gained anything worth replacing it.
Yes, it is a risk to quit before having something else to move to. But sometimes it is worth taking risks.
And, unless it is life or death issue, do not accept poor offers. Better borrow a money from a friend or sell something and keep looking for better opportunities.
Of course, in considering the risk it matters very much if you have or do not have a family, children, loan for house, other debts to be paid etc. - i.e. what will be cost of failure to find a new job on time.
After I look back at my own carrier (some 12 years), I see that in similar situations the losses in short term usually turn out to be gains in long term.
For example -
1) my first real job, before I even graduated university, was IT manager in a small sales company - the boss was not agreeing to rise my salary (which was reasonably good, but was not compensated for inflation), so I quit, went back to university, studied half starving, graduated. Could not find a decent job paid at least what I was paid before. Made a lot of debts. Then, less then a year from the day I quit, I had my diploma in my pocket and a new job with 2x the salary I had before.
fast forward, skiping some other interesting cases ---
2) Recently I got my MBA, and left the company which I liked and the colleagues I really valued and was sorry to leave, my wife was against it, but the company, unfortunately at that moment did not offer growth possibilities for me. Signed up for some IT project at the insurance company. Salary doubled again.
If I would not be quitting when I felt that I should, I would still be pullling cables and replacing computer mice for the salesmen computers at a filthy warehouse for a salary of maybe 15-20% of what I have now, feeling sorry for myself and mad on everybody else.
In fact, many bosses aren't even around to notice the extra effort you are putting in to your job, since they went home long ago. Some will mistake detication for free productivity - and just keep handing you enough work to make sure you keep eating lunch and dinner at your desk, and forfit a personal life.
Instead, I suggest that it is EVERY employee's responsibility to maintain an active communication stream (even PR) with his boss, and co-workers. Document what you do. Make the documentation readily available/obvious. Send an UN-solicited status report email to your boss at LEAST once per month, twice is better. The fact that the boss got something extra that was NOT asked for should make it stand out, and instantly suspect -but this is actually for YOUR benefit, not just the boss. Include some form of *question* about your work in the email, asking how to procede, or priorities, whatever... Because of that question, the boss has to at least acknowlege that you sent the message, and s/he read it. If you don't get a reply, mention it in the hall or on the phone a day later, when you are talking about something else. After a few of these, the boss figures you are involving them in the decision process - and your subsequent emails DO get read with a little more detail - in case there were other questions.
Include a simple list of current tasks, and recent accomplishments. Including priority expected hours, requirements, problems, deliverables. If the boss wants to change the priority, OK- if not, then they have implied agreement with your current plan of action, in writing, which reduces disputes later.
BE productive, but don't be taken for granted.
Bummer- but that's life, (and they werent paying for late hours anyway, were they...)
In fact, make it a firm policy to finish what you are working on 10 min before the end of your day, spend 5 min documenting things, 5 min to tidy up or pack your stuff, and then cheerfully LEAVE! (with the unspoken implication that you have already planned things after work)
Now that you have THAT working schedule in place- the boss has to specificly ASK you to work late, and perhaps even pre-schedule, since you may have other plans right after work. If the boss ASKs you to put in the extra hours, then it's no longer free volunteer labor, and you might expect to be paid too... or at least have comp-hours added for time off later. (well, you can hope)
Now- to make this work requires some personal DICIPLINE. Make the job hours PRODUCTIVE, not just THERE for nine hours.
Time management is KEY, visibility helps, deliverables rule.
-- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero
One person resigned pointing out that his chosen career path was VMS programming. UNIX has no future he told us. I'll bet he isn't programming VMS any more.
You just made the same mistake as that programmer.
C# will probably die since the world now has ruby but you should never miss the opportunity to add a new skill to your resume.
Believe me! Never quit your job!
If you don't like your work, do you know the difference between a work and a hobby?
If U don't like people you work with, some people hate some other people. That's just the way it is. You will never be able to find a place where you like all the people surrounding you.
If you really want to do something you like, do it as your hobby. After a couple of years later doing your hobby, if you still like to work on that stuff, then start looking for a job.
If you succeed in finding a job you really want to do, then change your job!
Probabilistically, this is quite a practical way of doing something you like.
Remember life is pretty simple and the truth is even simpler!
Your ego is Matrix!
There is no reason to keep working unless you are absolutely extatic about what you are doing. This is, of course, subject to two assumptions:
1) You are very intelligent and would have no problem finding a job in a week
2) You don't feel like you must constantly waste your money on better car, larger house, wife and kids
Work should be abolished, it's an abomination and people (intelligent people) should not have jobs, this is degrading and boring.
I found it much more rewarding to just do whatever I happen to enjoy right now and quit soon after I stop enjoying it. I quit a job in a small investment bank when I decided I'd rather not work overtime to finish urgent projects. Went to study for a year. After a while I found that I enjoy small short-term projects most, where I do something new, learn new things, challenge myself and then move on.
And since I don't feel obliged to engage in rampant consumerism, I always have more money than I need and can afford slacking when I want to.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
I left my last job because my girlfriend of 4 years started sleeping with one of my members of staff. I used to work for Tiny (http://www.tiny.com/ as a manager in one of their stores until she started shagging my assistant manager. Had he been a regular salesperson I could have sacked him (would have found something to use) but because he was an assistant manager I would have had to go through my boss. So I left before I redecorated the shop in a fetching shade of red. I'm too pretty for prison!
Then she fleeced me financially when she moved out. Not that I'm bitter. ;)
PS: Don't buy PCs from Tiny, they suck, and customer service is terrible.
If ignorance is bliss, knock the smile off my face.
Keep in mind that you're spending most of your waking time at your work - you'd better like it.
I can't imagine working for a company I don't like - heck, I'd be wasting my entire life doing something I hate!
If you don't like it, or something happens that changes your work massively to the worst, don't simply quit - start looking for something else fiorst. Don't simply walk out, hoping to find something better soon.
But definitively start looking. And be prepared to move large distances, even out of the country.
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
do you have enough cash to keep you and your significant other with a roof, food and any other essentials whilst you look for another job?
You should first find a new opportunity before leaving your current job. There are tons of "anonymous" services over the web (monster, and so on.) Never leave a source of money without having a new one. Olivier
1. Never quit without another job lined up or enough money saved up to take a 'sebatical'.
2. Never put your employer in a situation where they have to let you go, e.g. 'let me do this or i'll leave' - just put up with the crap while you look around for another job.
3. Never post your mobile phone number on your CV on Jobsite - unless you're really, really desperate for work.
Coding Monkey.org - Spanging the heavy spade of truth into t
Couldn't get there. It's almost like it had been slashdotted.
Tech Public Policy stuff
"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."
I have read some smart reasons to leave companies on this thread, but this isn't one of them. If you are working too much and you need to see your wife and kids I see no problem with leaving the company.
The above reason is the reason I dislike slashdot so much for. It's that anti-Microsoft hippy open source crap reason.
Rednecks are using computers now and they have joined forces with Berkley Hippies. Stupid redneck move and only anti-microsoft slashdot folks could get away with this and think of this kid as some kind of hero.
Whatever dude, enjoy living with your mom and flipping burgers the rest of your life.
BRAVO!!!!
If you get a sick feely in the pit of your stomach Sunday afternoon knowing that you have to go back tomorrow, it's time to leave.
Mon-Fri, you work and earn money.
Sat-Sun, you have time off and spend money.
Would I like for every day to be a saturday? To fiddle with whatever I damn well please, together with whoever I want (who'd have all saturdays too) every day of the week? Hell yeah. If I had an unlimited supply of cash. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my work as far as work goes... but if you don't get that feeling on Sunday that tomorrow you have to go to work, well... good for you, I guess.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Posting quite late and anonymously, so likely this will go as unread, but still my money's worth follows.
I previously worked for a major department store chain, as tech support for their advertising department (one of the largest in house in the world). For two years the pay wasn't what it should have been, the support was mundane and the room for advancement sucked, but i tolerated the job for a non-stressful environment as well as job location and the people i worked with.
The early warning signs were the constant IT churn (our small department saw 150% turnover in two years), but i stuck around until a new 'boss' brought a full regime change in stupidity. Server outages because he'd pull random cables out, horrible directives (that pci card is hot swappable right, just rip it out), poor computer knowledge, etc. In short, the higher ups got dumber. . and they brought a tyrannical attitude of 'not me' (even when it was them) with them.
I left. Gave them my walking papers and walked, without something else waiting. I made sure i had enough funds to last me long enough to find another job and started searching frantically. Within a month i had three job offers all better than the place i was in before.
Smartest move i ever made.
I'm in a situation now where I took a job where I was promised a position with some authority over what projects were done, budget, and staff that never came through. Came here, it was all a lie. As near as I can tell, the place was having big problems hiring staff, and wanted warm bodies.
The boss acts as if everyone here is a recent graduate, and never listens to anyone else's ideas... unless they're good enough to slap his name on 'em. (Which has happened).
Needless to say, I want out. The job really sucks, and I could have quit months ago, but a steady pay check while you're looking is a lot better than nothing.
I've waited far too long to get the hell out of here, and life is too short to put up with shitheads. Don't wait to look for a new job, but don't quit and end those paychecks before you need to.
Good luck.
You have already made the decision. Trust in yourself. The time for indecision has passed. If you didn't plan for a new job before quitting the old one, better stop worrying and start planning now.
I recently went through something similar a while back. My current job is as a computer technician at a college, i'm not full time because there is no full time position and i am paid hourly.
About 4 months ago now i went in for an interview with a company that offered me a job. The description of the job was it was a 7 year layout of a job doing support for software, and by the end of the conversation, he outlined exactly what i would be doing and i was a glorified page turner. I would have, for the first 4 years, been quite literally looking at a fix book reading off possible answers to problems and moving to the next. For a guy who wishs to do hardware support or move into the area of network support, this is obviously not feeling like a step in the right direction.
SO like the gentleman who started this article, sometimes when you don't see your goals, even the pay can't justify the job (in my case it was almost double what i'm making now plus benefeits, which i currently do not have). Personally, to me it all seems about your situation and your personal conviction.
I don't mind naming names here. I worked for a collections company called ACT (Advanced Callcenter Technologies) that decided that "mandatory overtime" would be the status quo to work it's employees. This led to a 95% turnover rate. I quit this job after two weeks. They lied to me twice about time off, intentionally obfuscating what my scheduele would have "normally" been.
I had an obligation I could not miss, that wold not have conflicted with my hired scheduele, and they told me I would have to reschedule it even though I legally couldn't. If people refused to work thier insane 72 hours scheduels, they threatend to fire them (as if pissing off the employee further helped matters). All said and done, I was to get 2 days off a month, and those were pay days. Since they wouldn't compromise on this overtime, and literally told me face to face that my life wasn't important, I took my leave of them without notice.
When I left, only 1 other person from my 12 person training class of two weeks prior remained there. He was looking for another job and interviewing on his lunch breaks.
Thats how many software developers they can Hire in India vs. North America.
Reason #1 to not quit
--meh--
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
I then managed to get myself in a situation where I got laid off: I told my manager I wasn't going to quit but that I would like a "non-adversarial" separation. Worked out well, and I ended up finding a really great job a lot faster than I would have otherwise. There was just too much inertia to get me to actually update the resume until I had committed to leaving.
During the period before that a couple friends and I came up with some resignation haikus: the first two are mine, the others are submissions from other people mixed in with a couple more of mine. Hopefully these will help inspire you all to update your resumes and find a better job :-)
sand in hourglass.
my time here is ending soon.
I shit on your desk.
crane swoops, sharply dives
swallows a struggling fish whole.
I lunch with your wife.
Time to talk about
Separation agreement
Your head from your neck.
no time for shooting
or sad crying or looting
everyone goes boom
Bang. Bang. Bang. Reload.
I respectfully submit.
How about you, sir?
Seven years. New skin.
You and I differ slightly.
You need a skin graft.
A hostile workplace.
Running. Screaming. Crying.
My rifle is calm.
"No, it's not a gun!"
OK, I was just kidding
you all can die now
time to go right now
to my new life without you
sorry 'bout the fire
I start to reload
I tender resignation
and then aim again
I am a bad man
and can be misconstrued
my haikus must stop
- learn to swim.
I was in a situation years ago where I tried to reform from within, and thought I was making progress. In fact, the employer paid for a two day focus group with a representative sample of employees and a paid facilitator, held offsite. We poured our hearts into identifying what was broken and came up with some good suggestions for fixing it -- suggestions that in most cases would not have cost the employer much.
All of the recommendations but 1 (which was trivial) were rejected out of hand, with no explanations. I was gone two months later, after locating a new job first.
The market is just too tough these days to just quit and explore looking for a new position. Get a new position first and then quit your old job. The only exception to this is when your company expects you to make a life altering change (like moving to a new city). The company that I used to work for shut down the division in the city that I was working in and wanted me to move to their home city. I refused because I was very well aware of what they were planning (they've offshored most of development department). In one respect it was a good move on my part as I received severance and within a year not only was my position removed but so was my boss' position. On the other hand, I've been out of work for a year now so was it a good move? Hard to say, I didn't have to move from my home and I fortunately had enough money to survive the year but I am well aware that everyday that I am not working makes it that much harder for someone to want to hire me.
I once turned down an IT job for an oil company. I don't believe in the ethics of oil companies and now work for a school district.
For a long time now I've been unhappy in my work. It's been boring, the product we once worked on (A world leader in it's class) has gone and the future is uncertain. I have been unable to motivate myself enough to find something enjoyable to work on and we are changing tools (Moving to .NET and C#). Even thinking about another job, or a career change seems to hit a dead end. I have been very close on a couple of occasions to quitting, and living off my savings for a bit until I find something else, but for the life of me I can't seem to get excited about anything!
Recently though I think I've come up with a reason - I am absolutely, utterly, exhausted - not just from work, not just computers, from everything. I work fulltime, I also do non-profit work (In another field entirely) after hours and add to that the general life stuff (housework etc etc) I have maybe a few hours a week to chill if I'm lucky. I'm always doing new things, and keeping busy. Even if I'm not doing "important" things I'm reading forums, learning new things, DIY'ing or whatever - I just do not know how to relax.
As this has started to dawn on me, I have tried to allow myself time to do nothing - drink a beer (On my new deck that I *had* to get busy on and build) and life has changed. Does it mean I get less done - yup. But it keeps me sane and it makes things so much clearer. I allow myself time to dwell, and explore other possiblities. And while this means I'm still sure I want to give up progamming, other possibilities are not so much dead ends anymore and I can now dedicate time to making the new path I take happen. And I can do this and work at my job for now, and pay my mortgage - which is kinda handy.
I guess what I'm saying is that as computer people, a lot of us are always thinking. Always programming, at work, home whatever. Always reading, learning - always trying to keep our minds busy cause we don't know how to manage when we don't - I see a lot of people like that everyday. This can lead us to eventually burn out, and making often rash decisions. We will want to find something to hate about a job so we can put our finger on something physical to quit over.
Whether the poster is like this or not, I don't know, but it might be an explanation.
We need more people who stand for the things that you do! Many people take a stand for what they believe in as long as it does not affect their security or life's comforts. You have gone outside your comfort zone and taken a stand. I can appreciate that. BTW, you may be interested that I am working on an open source Visual C++ IDE for windows that uses the G++ compiler. See http://www.calcmaster.net/visual-c++/ or email me at josephcmiller2-NOTSPAMME-@gmail.com
Most people also don't understand that the one of the main tricks to building real wealth is investing in such a way that you decrease the percentage of taxable income. When you have a mortgage for a rental property, you write off the interest, which in the early years is most of it. You have to have some disposable income at all to do investing, but when you make the jump from 60k to 180k that is a lot of disposable income, half of which would have been going to uncle scam anyway. (To say nothing about all expenses, improvements, and the general trend for most property to appreciate in value.)
But I've had co-workers, smart people too, who wouldn't even invest in a 401k, even after explaining to them that you don't really miss much money since half of it would have been taxed anyway, and not getting one is like turning down a 3% raise. (At least in the company I worked for at the time.)
This signature used to contain a cute kitty virus with ansii art. Please set the slashdot editors on fire. Thank you
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.
'I am become Shiva, destroyer of worlds'
Prioritize and make the decision.
Personally, I prefer freedom and time to money and goods so I don't do any work that's not so interesting that I'd do it even if I were not being paid. Sometimes the $ is very good and sometimes I lose many $.
No regrets other than missing a few hot little bitches who wouldn't put up with being second in consideration to work.
My company sued IBM, and won. So it can be done :)
(Not meaning to detract from your +1 Funny post)
from a purely philiosophical point of view, no you are not. you should only do what you feel is right for you.
from a more practical point of view: as long as you can afford it, go for it.
jets42 finished with:
NOW comes the HARD part... making all of this stuff actually HAPPEN -- in my OWN life, and job!!!
(you might notice that *I* am writing this little note at 3:am) so I need to cut/paste/print or get a tattoo of this on my inner forearm for reference.
I guess I'm off to bed, and setting the alarm 20 minutes early. There's a job to tame, and a boss to train tomorrow.
One of the most insightful and right on advice posts on working (especially programming) I have ever seen, jets42. After 25 years programming, I've been unemployed for the last year and a half, but if I ever get hired again, this is the way to do it.
I've been spending the last year and a half doing what I should have been doing after 5PM every evening, working on my own projects and new technologies.
rd
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."
/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.
... 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.
/.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.
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
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
Believe in yourself. You are a
Heck, I'm not a regular here, not really a geek, and an immigrant. If I can make it, so can you.
In my case, I decided not to even bother looking for a real job for seemingly more trivial reasons.
I've never quit a job before because I've only held two summer jobs. In 2002 I turned down two summer internships that would have been better for a programming career than the oncampus computer job that I took. They weren't offered to me until I had committed to the campus job, and I didn't feel like relocating.
In senior year of college I half-heartedly looked for a job. My technical skills are only mediocre despite a high GPA and a fairly impressive resume. I have no connections, and my social skills are probably below average. Needless to say, with the tech bubble burst, I didn't receive any offers. I graduated and got involved in a startup, then left and am now going solo. While working on the first startup, I went through a phone interview with Google. I turned down the opportunity for an onsite interview because I wanted to continue with the startup. After I left, Google interviewed me again over the phone, but I didn't do well.
I now make zero income and live off savings and my parents. I don't live with them, though. They pay my rent, health insurance, and broadband fee. If they continue to pay my rent at the current rate but don't give me any more money, I would have enough savings to live for a few years. I'm not looking for a real job because I don't want to relocate, commute, spend 8+ hours a day with people, answer to a boss, or do work. I like having the time and energy to pursue my own interests. But I am hoping to take advantage of the potential money-making opportunities on the Internet.
Several years ago, I moved a thousand miles to take a job at what I thought was a really cool company in San Jose. There was one small problem. The vice president of the company was the president's wife. They didn't tell people about this until after they had been hired. I should have sprinted for the exit right then, but foolishly I stayed.
As is often the case in "mom and pop" shops, the only thing "mom" is good at is smoking "pop's" pole. I had to show her how to use a mouse. I am surprised that she even knew how to type.
Her glaring incompetence didn't stop her from berating employees, second-guessing people who knew far more than she, and just generally being the most toxic person I ever encountered. She was also a legend in her own mind, convinced that she was the next Carly Fiorina, when in fact she was known throughout the industry for being an incredible bitch, and quite stupid on top of that. But she was married to the owner of the company, so we all knew that there was no hope for change.
Nobody lasted more than a few months at this place. I left amid a flurry of resignations, after which we all began recounting war stories in email. The email grew to be a very long account of highly unflattering but mostly accurate recollections of "mom". One of the people on the email list mistakenly replied to an old email address at the company. The email was bounced to "pop" who was suddenly and rudely awakened to discover what people really thought of his lovely wife. He was not very happy about this, but since we had all quit, there wasn't much he could do. The few survivors still at the company nearly wet themselves laughing as a result of the outburst that followed.
In hindsight, I stayed at this job far to long. I became clinically depressed, and was unable to work for several months after I quit. Never underestimate how a bad job can affect your physical and mental health. Life is short, and there are more important things than money.