So work has been less than wonderful lately and I’m sure most of my friends are tired of hearing me whine about it. Everyone has told me that I should update my resume and start looking for a new job if I’m really that unhappy. I kept putting it off and I wasn’t really sure why.
I finally sat down today and decided to figure out why I’m determined to stick with a job that is making me depressed, cranky, and just generally miserable on a fairly regular basis. Here are my finding:
- There are still good days when I enjoy what I’m doing and feel like I’ve accomplished something worthwhile.
- In general, I work for a fairly nice company and I could pursue other opportunities within the organization.
- I’ve actually started to make friends with some of my coworkers and I would miss them.
- I’ve been trying to change things and make improvements on the departmental, company, and inter-operating company level and failing horribly (Well, very very rarely succeeding is more accurate) . These efforts, failures, and the impact they’ve had on my work relationships are a major part of the source of my current misery. If I just stop trying to fix everything and just do the stuff in my job description, I would probably be happier.
- There are still rumors of a major reorganization on the horizon and that could significantly improve things, or make it all worse. I feel like I should wait around and see what happens.
- I’ve only been at this job for about 22 mouths and I really feel like I should stay with a company for longer. I think this is the biggest reason that I’m reluctant to try to move on.
My father worked for Chrysler for more than 30 years and I admire that kind of career. In the era when most companies had pension programs, it was in your best interest to stay with a company for your whole career if possible. When I graduated college, I really expected to find a company that I would stay with for a really long time. My first job wasn’t really with a long term kind of company, but my second job is. My current company has a pension program and many of my coworkers have been with the company for 20+ years. I’m not sure if I want to work somewhere for the rest of my career, but I don’t think I should bounce from company to company either.
The length of time spent at a job impacts your future job prospects. Managers and reciters look at your job history when considering you for an interview. They look at not only what you have done, but how long you did it. I wasn’t sure what the rule of thumb was for how long you should stay at a particular company or in a position, so I did some research. It looks like 2 years is the minimum amount of time to stay with a company and 3 years looks better on a resume. Within a company 1 year is the minimum to stay in a position and 5 years is the maximum. Changing roles less than 1 year after starting your current role looks flighty, but staying in a role for more than 5 years points to someone without motivation. I can’t find any information about how long is too long to stay at with a company. If you aren’t planning to stay until retirement, where is the point of no return?