Contrary to what many believe, working for someone else is not that bad. Its simply a choice that you are limiting your growth to what others deem possible, rather than your own belief. While working for others may be limiting in growth, there are advantages like structured schedules, structured pay, and benefits. There is, however, a time in everyone’s life when you must choose what matters most, the false hope of security with your 9-5 or the potential promise of a better tomorrow with entrepreneurship. Some people have the luxury of making that choice early on and only experience the one side that appeals to them, but the majority of others end up going to work and getting used to that false security until one day they are faced with once more that same question.
The real question is “How do you know its time to quit your job and take the leap of faith and go out there on your own?”
When your boss is intimidated by you: While your boss may never admit to you in person that they don’t like you or feel intimidated by you, their behavior will say otherwise. Some simple ways to know that you boss feels differently than to act is his/her constant need to criticize your work even though your performance is stellar. You may also notice that they won’t ask much of you in terms of additional projects or leadership tasks, as they do not want to make you feel empowered. One last one is their lack of reaction to others speaking positively of you.
When you no longer buy-in to the mission statement: Everyone is always excited to start a new job and has high hopes. Often these hopes die-off as our high expectations of those around you are not met. This feeling tends to follow along with your lack of buy-in into the brand and what it’s trying to accomplish. You will often feel like just about anything people say is a big croc of shit designed to make you work harder while others reap the rewards.
When you hate going to work more than you love it: Bad days are bound to happen for all of you, but 5 out of 6 bad days might be a sign that perhaps you are starting to feel that the environment you are in is toxic to your life. This might be a great indicator that you need to a new place to call your workplace.
When you know more than your boss: While you all want to believe you are better than those you report to, a few of you actually are much more talented than the people you worked for, even at times several positions above yours. When you reach that point and have a track record to back it up, the time to leave is approaching, especially if this intimidates your boss, rather than makes him proud to have you on his team.
When you look around and everyone is retarded: While everyone around you can’t be retarded, your perspective on your work and colleagues changes when your tolerance for mediocre work goes down. This typically happens when you no longer like the work you do and only want to get the work done. This is perhaps the most important indicator that the time has come to move on and look elsewhere.
These are just some of the bigger hints we feel are indicators that the time to move on has come. The real question will remain as to if its time for a new job or time to leave the rat race and take a shot at entrepreneurship. While we believe people will have more than one shot at corporate America, we also believe that these hints are going to showcase themselves again during your next job. They will tend to manifest themselves even faster as you will already be very aware of them going forward.
