paycheque and a reference
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
During a break at one of my final PMP classes, five of us were having a chat about the cycle of moving from job to job.
It's a common enough trend, one I've seen on nearly every resume that's come across my desk in nearly two decades of hiring in the IT field. Whether it's projects being canceled mid-way through, drastic changes in management structure or style, personality conflicts, ethical issues, tedium, or lack of opportunity, a lot of people in the field tend to move on to the next job after maybe a couple of years.
But I was a little surprised to hear that it's largely the same outside of IT. None of the other four were in the same industry as me or as each other, but a common story emerged: too many people are being driven from their jobs, motivated by frustration. Reasons included: contributions that go unrecognized; business opportunities squandered; staff being mis-managed by a management team with a strong sense of entitlement; decisions resting solely with complacent and uninformed parties; etc etc. In an extreme case perhaps, among the group there was one person who'd just been dismissed for raising the issue that his employer was selling goods—upon which peoples lives depended—without the needed government-mandated industry testing.
Summing up, I said, "I've come to the realization that my 'career', despite my accomplishments, has come to just working for today's paycheque and a reference for tomorrow." All four of the others, ranging in age from mid-thirties to early fifties, agreed exactly. One even repeated the statement.
We should be able to do better than this.
(And maybe it's time I founded another business.)