UNITED STATES—I hear so many people do this time and time again and it has to be the scariest thing to me when it comes to the workforce: starting over. Why? Well when you invest so much time in a company the notion of having to start at the bottom and to work your way back to the top is so daunting sometimes. I mean so many Americans, myself including started at the bottom at our current places of employment. I mean making pennies on a dime, working long crazy hours, not having paid vacations, no sick leave and not receiving the praise or bonuses that you hope to see as a sign of appreciation for your hard work.
I just gave you a laundry list of reasons to leave your current place of employment if you don’t already have those things. I think when it comes to work I look for two things: 1) Does my job provide me with a sense of purpose 2) Can I do my job without getting paid and be happy? Yeah, I know what you’re thinking what about the money? The money is a vital aspect of any job especially in today’s current climate where you can almost earn a decent wage at many places of employment, but then there are those places where that is not the case. We live in a world where you need money to live, to operate and the move about people.
I always see money as the icing on the cake, but not the definitive motive for me. I have quit jobs after periods of time because the job just didn’t fulfill me anymore. I was not being respected by people in power, they talk down to you and the stress were the biggest things for me. Having a job where you have sleepless nights and you’re constantly stressed when you should NOT be stressed is NOT FUN PEOPLE!
Right now, I’m weighing some serious options about just tossing everything I’ve learned as an adult out the window and pursuing my dream job at all costs. I’m just at that point in my life where I know I’m not getting any younger and it’s a now or never type of decision that is haunting me. I have a job where I don’t have paid vacations, I have no paid sick leave, what I do is overlooked/ignored and I’m stressed all the time to the point that it feels like I have reached my breaking point. I don’t have any more to give. People think a bonus or throwing a wad of cash someone’s direction is going to make things all better, not for this guy. At the end of the day its money, as easy as it comes as easy as it goes. Money is not going to keep me around if I’m not fulfilled.
My sister recently started a new job about a year ago after being at her former employer over a decade. She worked endlessly to the point where she was missing time with her kids for work. She was undervalued and underappreciated and just fed up. She applied for a factory job and is making more money than she has ever seen, received countless perks, a set schedule that never changes, and the company just promoted her to a management position within a year at the company. She feels valued and I think so many employers fail to realize what that means. People want to know that the work they do is appreciated or seen. A bonus doesn’t convey that, a simple acknowledgement does.
On top of that she has paid benefits, a 401k plan and a host of other bevies. She wasn’t really preaching to me, but said it is scary to start over, but sometimes looking for something else could be the best thing that every happens to you. I don’t have health insurance at either of my current places of employment, one job I do have paid vacations and paid sick time, which I earned, the other job I don’t have it at all. All this back and forth in my mind is telling me one thing: I WANT MORE WHEN IT COMES TO MY WORK!
I want to know I’m appreciated, I want to feel I’m appreciated and right now I don’t feel that at all. I’ve always heard people say sometimes a company doesn’t realize what a good worker they have until that worker is no longer with the company. Then the value of what he or she did starts to shine a light on the company. The realization from the powers above begin, “Whoa, that person did a lot more for the company than we ever considered.” By that time, it is already too late. That worker has turned a page in his life and I’m a firm believer that when you close a door it’s for a reason, you don’t go back and open that door, because quite honestly why would you?
Written By Jason Jones
