Every time I've quit, it's because I felt I was repeatedly getting the short end of the stick, and management was expecting me to roll over every time I brought such things up.
I quit my first job at 15 1/2. I worked at a Wal-Mart during the summer to buy a computer. I covered 200% more departments than I was hired for. I never took a day off, despite coworkers just not showing up so they could go to the beach. My department manager LOVED me. After my 3 months, I got $0.24 of my $0.25/hour potential raise. I asked the store manager responsible as to why I didn't get the other penny. His answer was utterly asinine. He expected me to go back to work, understanding. Instead, I called my mom and went home, never to return.
The next two jobs I was vastly underpaid. I knew this because vendors, contractors, my own boss and even the office manager told me, quite literally, that I was getting screwed. I was told to man up in response to crappy raises. Instead, I found better jobs that were willing to give me 25-30% more just to walk in their door.
At one place I blew the doors off of all expectations. I qualified for well above the normal bonus. 32%. I was denied because in order to get the bonus I had to have been there since July 1st. My start date? July 3rd. It's not like it wasn't going to be pro-rated, or cut in half. I simply wasn't going to get it. 32% of my salary was a chunk of change large enough to buy a family sedan, cash. Obviously, I made an issue of it. I had vacations denied and had already dealt with that. When a partner said that there was nothing he could do I gave him my curt two-word response and walked out the door... to basically get my lost bonus half as a signing bonus, and the rest over the next year.
Employment is a two-way street, and when you also decide to make it known that my contract is "at will", be advised that I'm aware that I can just not show up anymore, just to make the point. And even though I won't do that, I know I could. At the very least I ask that you demonstrate it, and ensure that I feel appreciated. If you don't, don't be all that surprised when I jump ship at a moment's notice. It's not rocket science -- put your best foot forward, and if you can't, explain clear as day why you can't. Show some humility, and don't expect me to simply sit there and take it, especially in this market. I'm pretty good about making my happiness unknown, and giving organizations months and months to respond before I finally depart. However I've worked with folks that their mentality towards burning bridges is more akin to Aliens: they don't burn bridges -- they nuke them from orbit, just to make sure.
People do business with people they like, and your employees are not exceptions.
- Bad faith - not being talked to straight up
- Resentment and blame - creates more of the same like prions
- Disrespect - the subtle kind is more insidious
- Being second guessed/distrusted
- Political gamesmanship - have to defeat other departments, then competitors?
- Overwork
- Underwork
All of this is human nature, just not the part of human nature that's going to help your team win.
There's the emotion, and things that cause the emotion. One of those those causes is the emotion itself. (Also works with anger and amusement. Anger begets anger. Laughter causes more laughter.)
Hahaha, I love the "nuke em from orbit" comment. Aliens is quite possibly my favorite movie of all time!
But I agree 100% with you. Feeling appreciated and valued can make up for a surprising amount of small things (which can quickly become mammoth). All I ask is that you treat me like a human being and give me a fair salary, and in return I will do my absolute best for you.
There does seem to be some confusion about what is and isn't burnout. This link might help. While it's aimed at doctors rather than tech workers, it does give you some idea of the mindset involved: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/medical-education/medical-education-stu...
Oh, I've been to step 7 before. Usually when I hit step 8 is when my friends step in and bluntly point out that it's time for me to move on. "You're on all the time -- you need to be able to turn off". "Yeah, I figured I'd call because no one has heard from you in months. Just making sure you're, well, not dead." Etc.
I once had a girlfriend intervene and "take care of the problem" for me. I was being sent all over the eastern seaboard and was only home for about 12 days in the previous 5 months. I was so displeased with the current situation that for the previous month I was barely even calling her. She went in, demanded a meeting with the Chief Strategy Officer and told him that she sincerely hoped his kids died in a car fire. She probably said a few other things, but that was the one she seemed to be most "proud of".
I quit my last job last month. I've been very picky with what I'm targeting, and if they don't respond, I particularly don't care. I've told headhunters I'm not interested in their clients, and I'm not on the job boards and recruiters would get shot down if they did manage to find my number. In the meantime, I always wanted to make video games so I'm giving that a shot. I plan on documenting things in a blog once I get closer to having the first title close to release.
One job gave me a 10K relocation bonus. Then with no notice whatsoever they deducted that bonus from my year end bonus. I was so mad. They claimed it was official policy but couldn't they have told me that up front when I was evaluating job offers? It was certainly never in my offer letter.
Edit ... I guess your stories are a lot worse. I'm so sorry :-(
Classic bait-and-switch is what you got. Usually, it's a lot less brazen and more subtle (project allocation, promised managerial support that's not delivered) so it can be attributed to shifting priorities, but... yeah, it hurts.
What happened to you: don't these fuckers realize that this is bad business? I don't find it surprising that people in control of business decisions are greedy. They're supposed to be greedy (but hopefully not unethical). It's astonishing to me how stupid a lot of them are.
Let's get real about this shit. An employee who is around for less than 6 months is of very low value to the organization. You want people to stick around? Treat them decently.
In our parents' time, a 6-month job tenure was a black mark, so companies could treat employees like garbage for the first 2 years because it'd be career suicide to leave. It meant you probably got fired, because people just didn't leave stable employment. This day in age, fail-fast is the rule and there's just no such thing as stable employment-- unless you're a senior politician in a one-party district, because the voters are disinclined to fire the bad ones.
It is, but much less of one and not in the same way.
A job under 2 months should just be omitted. It's not illegal or unethical to do this; you probably didn't accomplish anything, so it'd just be noise to include it. A job between 2 and 6 months gave you enough time to accomplish something and it should usually be represented as a project-based/consulting gig. Describe the project; skip the politics. Between 6 and 12 months requires a good reason, but if you can describe a bait-and-switch (which is the most common case) in a professional and conservative way that doesn't disparage anyone, you're OK. Priorities shifted. For "Why did you leave?" advice, just go to a bar and ask 10 people why they left their most recent jobs (you're doing a survey). Learn what sounds good and what sounds bad. 12 to 48 months was a "short stint" in our parents' time, but isn't in ours, so don't even worry about that. You left for better opportunities.
That doesn't sound like burnout. It sounds like you lost faith in shitty managers and left. Trust me, this is an experience that almost everyone will have.
The movie portrayal of success is that you become someone's protege and he takes you under his wing. Bud Fox meets Gordon Gekko. The douchebag character that Shia LaBeouf played in that execrable sequel gets a $1.5M check for kissing a suicidal old man on the top of the head. The real world trajectory is rockier. No one powerful gives a shit about you, no one powerful looks out for you. You work your ass off anyway, because it's the right thing to do. You do your best to deliver on promises you make to colleagues, because it's the right thing to do. You get really, really good at a few important skills (written communication, computer programming, and social skills are all very important). If your boss takes interest in your education and career development, you reciprocate with extreme diligence and loyalty. If he doesn't, you steal an education and find ways to learn anyway. Self-mentoring. That's how most successful people will actually come up.
I don't like the term burnout. It suggests finality. It's an artifact of the Western obsession with age and entropy and transience, the idea that people who excel can only persist for so long. It's not true. There's such a thing as "motivational crisis", but it's usually transient. Like earthquakes, most are harmless, and the only ones that are remembered in 10,000 years are those that produce features of beauty. As I get older, they come on quicker but they're of much shorter duration. That tends to be a general pattern. Permanent burnout? No such thing. All fear comes from a fear of permanence (including fear of death) but Buddhism teaches there is no such thing and therefore nothing to fear.
Every time I've quit, it's because I felt I was repeatedly getting the short end of the stick, and management was expecting me to roll over every time I brought such things up.
I quit my first job at 15 1/2. I worked at a Wal-Mart during the summer to buy a computer. I covered 200% more departments than I was hired for. I never took a day off, despite coworkers just not showing up so they could go to the beach. My department manager LOVED me. After my 3 months, I got $0.24 of my $0.25/hour potential raise. I asked the store manager responsible as to why I didn't get the other penny. His answer was utterly asinine. He expected me to go back to work, understanding. Instead, I called my mom and went home, never to return.
The next two jobs I was vastly underpaid. I knew this because vendors, contractors, my own boss and even the office manager told me, quite literally, that I was getting screwed. I was told to man up in response to crappy raises. Instead, I found better jobs that were willing to give me 25-30% more just to walk in their door.
At one place I blew the doors off of all expectations. I qualified for well above the normal bonus. 32%. I was denied because in order to get the bonus I had to have been there since July 1st. My start date? July 3rd. It's not like it wasn't going to be pro-rated, or cut in half. I simply wasn't going to get it. 32% of my salary was a chunk of change large enough to buy a family sedan, cash. Obviously, I made an issue of it. I had vacations denied and had already dealt with that. When a partner said that there was nothing he could do I gave him my curt two-word response and walked out the door... to basically get my lost bonus half as a signing bonus, and the rest over the next year.
Employment is a two-way street, and when you also decide to make it known that my contract is "at will", be advised that I'm aware that I can just not show up anymore, just to make the point. And even though I won't do that, I know I could. At the very least I ask that you demonstrate it, and ensure that I feel appreciated. If you don't, don't be all that surprised when I jump ship at a moment's notice. It's not rocket science -- put your best foot forward, and if you can't, explain clear as day why you can't. Show some humility, and don't expect me to simply sit there and take it, especially in this market. I'm pretty good about making my happiness unknown, and giving organizations months and months to respond before I finally depart. However I've worked with folks that their mentality towards burning bridges is more akin to Aliens: they don't burn bridges -- they nuke them from orbit, just to make sure.
People do business with people they like, and your employees are not exceptions.