How to know when it's time to go

From Code For Your Life

RICHARD: So you’re going to quit, just like that? How can you do that?
GILFOYLE: By saying the words “I” and “quit” in conjunction together, i.e. “I quit”.
JARED: Um… there’s actually some paperwork involved.
—“Silicon Valley”

I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. When you hate your job, no matter how much you try to put up with it, there comes a point where you’re mad as hell and you’re just not going to take it anymore. So, maybe this is the right moment to reflect: is it time to go?

Making the decision to leave a job is never easy. And it’s a pretty drastic step, especially if you don’t yet have another job to go to. But sometimes it has to be done. Let’s look at some signs that might indicate it’s time to say the words “I” and “quit” in conjunction together.

The comfort trap

If you’re feeling miserable and finding your work unrewarding, you may find it relatively easy to flip the mental switch that says “time to leave”. But sometimes you can run into the opposite problem: getting too comfortable where you are.

You may have had the misfortune to become an expert on your subject area. Being an expert sounds great, and it does bring you high status. But you’re the king of a very small hill, and one that will eventually be washed away by rising sea levels. If this is the case, you need to migrate to higher ground before it’s too late. But many people will hesitate, fatally, because they don’t like the idea of getting their feet wet.

Alternatively, you may find yourself in a job that’s so easy you can basically do it on autopilot. This situation is much harder to leave, because it’s so pleasant to be in.

And maybe it is okay for you to stay here for the rest of your career—if that’s really what you want. Is it?

PETER: I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late, and after that I sorta space out for about an hour. I just stare at my desk, but it looks like I’m working.
I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I’d say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.
—“Office Space”

Ultimately, work that’s too easy is no fun, and it’s not the basis of a rewarding career. All you’re doing is selling time, and as you get a little older you’ll come to realise that time is a non-renewable resource.

It’s no good just selling your life; you won’t be able to buy it back. My book Code For Your Life is a guide to the alternatives: building a meaningful career, becoming a master of your craft, and maybe even starting a successful independent business. In this excerpt, let’s talk about signs that your career might be starting to stagnate, and whether it’s time to quit so you can get ahead.

Why is everyone around me getting dumber?

Even if you enjoy your work and find it stimulating at first, especially if you’re surrounded by lots of smart and skilled people, you may find that the higher you rise in the organisation, the less this is the case. If it seems like everyone around you is getting dumber, what’s going on?

One might expect that people at the higher levels of a company would be more competent than those below, but this usually turns out not to be true, because of the Peter Principle:

Although some people function competently, I observed others who had risen above their level of competence and were habitually bungling their jobs, frustrating their co-workers and eroding the efficiency of the organization.
My analysis of hundreds of cases of occupational incompetence led me on to formulate The Peter Principle: In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.
—Laurence J. Peter, “The Peter Principle”

In other words, if you’re good enough at your job, you’ll be promoted to another job, and another, until you eventually reach a job that you can’t do well, at which point you’ll stay in it (possibly for the rest of your career).

Which explains a lot about some organisations, doesn’t it?

The good engineers are evaporating

Another reason you can find yourself adrift on a ship of fools is the “Dead Sea” effect:

The more talented and effective engineers are the ones most likely to leave—to evaporate, if you will. They are the ones least likely to put up with the frequent stupidities and workplace problems that plague large organisations; they are also the ones most likely to have other opportunities that they can readily move to.
What tends to remain behind is the ‘residue’—the least talented and effective engineers. They tend to be grateful they have a job and make fewer demands on management. They tend to entrench themselves, becoming maintenance experts on critical systems, so that the organization can’t afford to let them go.
—Bruce F. Webster, “The Wetware Crisis: the Dead Sea effect”

If you’re in a company like this, it’s not hard to stand out from the “residue”, and as a result you may be showered with promotions, fancy titles, and maybe even money. That sounds great, but there’s a hidden danger to watch out for.

Stranded by the tide

If you’re promoted too far, too soon, you may find that when you look for other jobs at the same level, you don’t really have the necessary skills for them.

For example, if you’ve already become a so-called “senior” developer at Company A, and then you apply for the same job at Company B, you may find that their definition of “senior” is rather different, and that you don’t meet it. You’re a victim of title inflation: the currency of “senior” has become devalued.

Hence there’s a tendency for you to stay at Company A, because who wants to take a step down in job grade and salary? If you find yourself surrounded by Principal and Distinguished Engineers and Architects who don’t seem to actually know anything useful, then they may be suffering from this kind of title inflation. Make sure you don’t become one of them.

The company won’t love you back

Companies like to tell themselves pleasant little stories about how they’re like a “family”, everyone is a valued team member, the company will look after them, and so on.

The truth is that, however benevolent its messaging, a company exists to make profits and increase its own value. If this happens to benefit the people who work there, too, that’s nice, but it’s not what the company is fundamentally about.

Indeed, when the interests of the staff and the company’s profits come into conflict, the profits will always win. Welcome to capitalism.

In particular, the HR department is not your friend. They’re not your enemy, necessarily, but they exist to protect the company from you, and not vice versa.

HR exist to represent the interests of the company and those interests always have a degree of divergence with employees. It pays to get informed about your rights, because your HR and Legal teams are not going to do that for you.
This isn’t to say your HR team are bad people. They’re almost certainly not. They’re just doing their job. But don’t forget what their job is, and it’s not to protect your interests, so make sure you have someone at the table who is.
—Colm Doyle, “Having Friends in HR Is Fine, but HR Is Not Your Friend”

When the company says wonderful things about how much it values you, don’t take them quite at face value: after all, they would say that, wouldn’t they? And when you’re laid off, don’t take that personally either.

The company simply doesn’t have any feelings about you one way or the other, and once you know that, everything else about the way it treats you starts to make perfect sense.

When it’s time to quit

When you finally make the decision to leave, whatever the reason, there’s a right and a wrong way to go about it.

The first thing to say is that your departure should not come as a surprise, at least to your team leader or line manager. This would embarrass them professionally—they’re supposed to know what’s going on with their reports—and there’s no need to do that. Indeed, you want their goodwill, ideally in the form of a glowing reference, so you should do everything you can to smooth this potentially difficult transition.

In particular, you should give your boss a chance to change your mind—or, at least, you should let them feel that they’ve had that chance. It’s no good nursing your private resentments for years, while telling your boss once a week that everything’s fine, and then suddenly walking out on them.

Instead, you should make sure that if you’re unhappy about something, your boss knows it pretty much as soon as you do.

Say no to exit interviews

Companies will sometimes ask you to take part in an “exit interview”, usually presented as an information-gathering exercise where you can give honest feedback about your employment, and why you’re leaving. Sometimes they’ll ask for suggestions that could help improve things for the employees who are staying. Sounds innocent enough, right?

It’s a trap. Don’t agree to an exit interview: it can’t benefit you, since you’re leaving anyway. In fact, it could even hurt you. Once you start talking, there’s a danger that you might say too much, venting your deepest frustrations and criticisms. That could harm your relationship with both the company and the people involved.

There are all sorts of ways that your former employers might retaliate. They might decide not to give a reference. They might say bad things about you at industry events. They could refuse to confirm your employment to a background investigator. They could call your new company and tell them you were fired for fraud.
These are all real stories: every single one of those hypotheticals is actually something I’ve seen happen.
—Jacob Kaplan-Moss, “Exit Interviews Are a Trap”

Instead, just politely decline the exit interview, or any other solicitation for feedback. They can’t make you answer any questions. If you feel you can’t refuse, then just give bland answers, like “nothing comes to mind”.

So, the doors close behind you, and a new world of possibility opens up ahead. After perhaps many years or even decades of doing what you’re told, you’ve reached the threshold of a new relationship with your work: independence. What now?

And we’ll talk about that in the next post. See you in a minute.