There would be times when you would find yourself in the middle of a cross road in your career cycle. For whatever reason you may be in midst of dilemma, to stay or to leave.
The never ending questions that may haunt you to decide whether to stay or should you leave; is it money issue or job satisfaction issue or simply in need of a new challenge? Is the environment or it’s just yourself feeling unhappy? Should you talk to someone about it? Would a raise or a promotion solve the issue? etc
There are many reason that may cause the ultimatum of looking for a new place. Based on my experience and personal research, these are my top 5 list of why looking out may not be a bad idea:
1) Your current job lack of career growth and personal development. This is the hamster wheel situation. You can be running fast or walking slow but you are still on that wheel. The routine is crawling up in your skin causing your mood swing and you don’t even realize it because it has trained you to be tunneled vision about everything making looking in the big picture impossible. The issue here is that you don’t learn anything new, limiting your mind and skill set. A boss once told me that, a great leader would ensure that you are equip with necessary knowledge and skill set making you highly marketable.
2) Lack of monetary incentive. At the end of the day, medals and praises don’t pay the bill. Let’s get real on that. But in order to get that paycheck of your dream you have to be worthy of it. I have fresh graduate who has only been working for 2 months complaining about her pay and the long hours. You can move elsewhere as planned but honey what are you bringing to the table? Irreplaceable experience? Be ready to learn and to hustle first then demand your price. Having said that, in my opinion, if you have more than 3 years of work experience and you are working long hours (not because you are incompetent) and your pay could barely cover your basic and a little extra to treat your parents (very important, that is where your rezeki come pouring down, not that expensive holiday), you may need to consider your option.
3) Toxic work environment. I am not talking about toxic fume or highly dangerous situation. More of social interaction perspective here. We all know that person in the office who speaks their unfiltered mind out loud. There is always that clique or gang in the office. There is always problem or rumours going around in the air. Not to mention butt kissing individuals, favoring individual type of bosses etc. That’s what you call society at large. But in any situation, you find yourself not wanting to deal with people at work and constantly dragging yourself out of bed to face certain people, you need a breather and you need to assess the situation. Before pulling the break, do try solving the issues. Because going to a new place does not mean you can get away from people issues, it may be even worst at the new place.
4) Unprofessional management. Having a strict boss or a very hierarchical system is not considered as unprofessional. A hassle may be. When you have a colleague or a boss who do not show up at a meeting cause of a hangover. That’s a striking mistake. Sexual uncomfortable comments in public or in person (because body contact deserve a police report in my opinion), degrading or embarrassing comment or email with everyone in the cc are among the obvious. Less obvious but highly important is when management failed to convey the objective and to follow through with the objective. A flip flopping management is doomed for failure.
5) Better offer. Last but not least, if a good offer comes along, do your due diligence well. Accepting a new offer may not always be the answer instead renegotiating your current term might. If a great offer comes along, be weary cause nothing is as good as it always look. Be resourceful to ask around and with experience you would know what sort of questions you may want to ask your future management instead of just what’s the pay and the benefits.
Good luck people….
IdeaLisTale 