when it's time to leave

the door is open unless you close it

After 5 years 8 months and 12 days…

The usual reaction I received when people heard that I’m leaving for a new job was ‘Wow, 6 years is a long time, what makes you wanna leave?’

Honestly, it’s not something which could be summed into one or two sentences. If I were to reply seriously, it may take a couple of hours.

The level of happiness of a typical employee in a corporate environment is dependent on various factors. Most of the time, it is impossible to have everything our way – there are always gonna be things which appear to put us to test.

Below is a list of common factors contributing to an employee’s happiness level.

- Encouragement from superior
- Room for self-improvement/development
- Training for new skills or career growth
- Advice/feedback from superior
- Guidance to perform tasks or to advance in career
- Equal opportunity
- Type of work/project
- Deadline
- Work environment
- Colleague
- Treatment (whether to you or your colleague)
- How your daily tasks fit your job scope
- Involvement
- Salary
- Staff appreciation

I wouldn’t want to elaborate on each of the points above as it’s now in the past. All I could say is, I scored negative for all of them except one.

If most of your responses to this list are negative, perhaps it’s time to move on. Don’t waste time feeling miserable every working day – that’s min 8 hours x 5 days a week of your life.

After all, people who don’t work for passion, they generally work for money – to pay for basic life necessities like food, shelter, health, security, and entertainment. If in order to achieve this, we have to spend at least 1/3 of our life in a miserable state at work, is there any point of doing so?

There ought to be ‘happier’ choices out there. You don't owe it to your boss to stay loyal and faithful to him. Would he be pitiful if your annual salary hasn't gone up by $5k over 5 years? Would he feel sorry if you haven't added new skills to your resume over 5 years? No one is responsible for your happiness (at work) and career path except yourself.

And hopefully, the next will be better than the last.