Today we have a guest editorial as Steve is traveling out of town.

Certainly the topic of deciding to change jobs has been written about a lot. Still, I wanted to share my experience on staying at a job for too long. I always assumed it would be pretty clear when it was time for me to leave a position. Then I found myself staying about two years too long at a job that I really didn’t enjoy at all.

Looking at my past work history, I think I have done pretty well in knowing when it was time to leave a position. My first job, after I graduated from University, was working on a mainframe doing Cobol programming. I was there a little over a year and knew it was time to do something different. My second job was doing Windows programming with SQL Server backend. Eventually, that company got bought by a competitor, so I moved into contracting. I did contracting for a number of years and my last contract offered me a full time permanent position, which I took.

So what happened? I really enjoyed the job at first. It was a small company, and I was able to wear a lot of hats. I got to learn a lot of new stuff, and there wasn’t a lot of red tape preventing me from getting things done. The workplace was very flexible;  I could work from home some of the time.  The company had a casual dress code every day of the week. I was at the company eight years, and by the end, I was making quite a bit of money.

The situation changed slowly. So slowly, I didn’t totally notice at first. I found my co-workers and boss took me for granted. More and more I was only doing support and very little new development. I noticed in the past, my design suggestions used to be considered and listen to; now, they seemed to be ignored.

Still, I pressed on. The job was flexible, I could work from home, and I got paid well. I might not be able to find another job like this. There, that was the key. Fear. Fear kept me at that job two years longer than I should have stayed. I was afraid I would end up in a worse job, that paid less. It seemed better to stay with the evil I knew then to risk something else that was unknown.

Well, I did find a new job. That is a subject of another story, but it is a great position that I am a really good fit for. My wife comments on how much less stressed I am. I do feel less stressed, and I am happier. So, my advice to you is: consider carefully why you are staying at your current job if it is a bad situation. In some cases, you don’t have any good options, and you must stay. In other cases, you might just be staying out of fear. Fear that there is nothing else out there. I’ll tell you it is a big world and there are still good companies to work for, that have awesome jobs that you would be a great fit.

What is keep you at your current job?  I hope it is something more than fear of the unknown. Share a job you stayed at too long and why you stayed.