Knowing When To Get Out

Questions for my esteemed colleagues:

Did you know when it was time to get out of one situation and move on and if so, how did you know?

 

The part where I was told that my job was being eliminated.

 

You'll know when it's the right time.

That instinct that tells you something isn't right about a situation? Trust it.

 

... When you default on your mortgage.
... Before your wife leaves you.
... When they stop serving pizza on election night.
... When your electronic deposit bounces.
... When someone from corporate poops on your desk.
... When your keycard doesn't work anymore.
... When your editor stops returning your calls.
... When you get an offer to do something else.
... When your teenage son is making more than you.

 

When you know what you can/would do instead.

It's often not a matter of knowing when to get out. It's about knowing what to do otherwise. That's usually what allows people to make the leap, or stops them.

 

When management, in the midst of a year-long hiring freeze, spends $50K-plus to hire someone who wasn't even competent enough to hold down a shoe-polishing job at the state press association, and all he does is babysit/tattletale on the nighttime universal copy desk. That's literally his job description.

They might as well have hung the name "S.S. Titanic" on the front of the building.

 

Method,

I think you're pulling the plug too quickly. Don't be hasty.

 

This is why I criticize management so much, even though I get no support from others on here on my justified rants.
Our shop has in the past year hired two such people who do NOTHING except stand around. I mean WTF? We get pay cuts. Company hires some buttkissers to attend the meetings. Somebody explain it to me. You can't except the higher ups do not care about the product, they care about only protecting the fellow higher ups.

 

Shut up. Sit down. Get to work. I'm telling.

 

Because, Fred, their first job is protecting their jobs. Not making the product better. It's like the old saw about management taking the responsibility for something that goes wrong, but not the blame.

 

As the title of this thread suggests, that's when I knew it was time to move on.

It wasn't even the waste of money on the babysitter guy that bothered me so much. It was more the fact that, rather than communicate directly with us or TRUST US to do our jobs, the three managing editors (who all, of course, work daytime hours) had to hire someone to spy on us at night.

That company spent so much time, money and brainpower on keeping tabs on everyone. The owner, publisher and three-headed managing editor monster cared only about punishing people for problems and C.Y.A.

As you say, Frederick, whatever happened to caring about "the product" and working to make it better? At least there's more of that at my current shop. I'm very grateful to be here.

 

I'm there now.