Goodbye, Mile High City, and Hello Boston.
In late 2003, I finally quit my first office job. The decision was reached for all of the typical reasons.
In my role at SoftwareCompany, I was underpaid and underwhelmed to be doing the same stressful thing, day after day, with no hope of change.
It happens to just about everybody in the modern world. We no longer stay with the same employer for decades. My own gig had run its course and it was time to move on to the next one.
This isn’t a bad thing at all. In fact, I found that job-hopping is one of the best ways to grow both your salary and your career.
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Living a FI 
I’m really loving this series. You have become one of my favorite bloggers up there with others on your blogroll. Keep up the great writing.
I really appreciate the comment, which is about as nice as they come. I don’t know what to say other than thanks(!) and I’ll keep the posts coming.
Where can I get that Clippy? Seriously though, I think changing jobs and locations has helped me tremendously. Sometimes you just need to shake everything up and see how it falls out. Tough to do ‘on purpose’, but necessary. I look forward to seeing where this is going…
Hey EV, nice to see you stop by! I totally agree, mixing it up by going to a new employer has helped every time except once (in year 11 I picked a real dud), and many of my friends and peers have similar comments — that it’s like hitting the reset button on job stress, at least once you’ve made the initial transition. On that subject, FinancialCompany turns out to be, like most jobs, good and bad, but mostly just different.
If this series were a book, I would have read it in one sitting. Keep up the great work, and I’ll do my best to patiently wait 🙂
Good call: given the insane length, it practically is a book. Thanks for sticking with me on this.
Hah. I love the fake enthusiasm you added to your resume…and the fact that it worked! I really love this series. I can really connect with the emotional roller coaster you seem to have gone through, although I think my burn-out rate is much faster (a year and a half).
Right, cover-letters really are effective for many places to try to differentiate your application from others. Of course my actual suck-up language was a little more tactful but that doesn’t change the nature of it all, which is gushing over your new company. Like you, I’m burnt at FinancialCompany after 1.5 years but I gutted it out a little longer anyway. I must like suffering 😉
This post is sooo good. Shared it with DW, because I think your analysis of corporate life-suck really nailed what she’s going through this year.
I’d buy the e-book of this 😉
Awesome! Hope you both got a couple of laughs.
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I’m one of those rare unicorns that actually did love my job… and you’re notes are spot on:
1) It was my first job so I loved learning about all the cool technology in the field
2) It was a startup company making a new product, so I had a ton of flexibility and creative input that made it into the product
3) I was just out of school with no family while living abroad, so putting in extra hours because I was enthusiastic didn’t create personal conflicts
However, after 5 years, things change. The industry takes a downturn and budgets get slashed/projects cancelled. Your boss changes. You’re asked to do tasks you don’t like on top of the ones you do. Customers relentlessly attack like angry goblins. The list goes on.
The state of loving your job is so fragile. Luckily I found FI or else I’d be the most depressed person on earth having seen how fun it can be only to then be stuck in a more typical situation.