I interact with a lot of people about their jobs, both online and at various events like SQL Saturdays. With my Modern Resume presentation, I attract a lot of people that are interested in finding a new job, or sometimes just finding any job. Apparently these are not an out of the ordinary group of people. According to a ComputerWorld survey, over one third of respondents are looking to find a new job.

The last few years have been a hard economy for many people, and for many companies. Raises have been small or non-existent, layoffs have occurred, and it seems that IT workers must do more and more with less resources all the time. Those are not necessarily conditions that make for happy workers.

But is it time for a job change for you? Only you can really answer that question for yourself, but I would urge you to open a dialog inside your company if the answer is "yes." Either with your immediate boss, or perhaps with another department, and look for some way to make your job better. Find new duties, rotate into some other area, or tackle a project of interest to you. There are some very difficult managers out there, but most of them would rather retain you if they can. Finding new employees is a pain.

More money doesn't usually help you enjoy your job more. I've rarely had any friends think that they made a good decision when they took a job primarily because it paid more. Instead the people that are most happy are those that picked the job that best fit them, without worrying about the money. I'm certainly one of those; I took a pay cut to get this job years ago.

Life is short. Don't stay in, or take, a crappy job if you can avoid it.

Steve Jones

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