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?"

Comments

If it's in the USA

[cperciva]

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.

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:

Thanks for the (invitation | offer), but I've decided not to accept employment in the US until at least January 20th, 2009.

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.

Re:Stupid

[KidSock]

Either you've never worked without Visual Studio or you care more putting the maximum number of hours on your timesheet than you do about the product (in which case you will be filling out timesheets for a loooong time).