Should You Stay At Your Cushy Job? | MyWifeQuitHerJob.com

I was chatting with a close friend of mine over the weekend about complacency at the workplace. Turns out that he recently quit his job to join a company that builds completely different products than his last firm. While the nature of his work will be fairly similar, the culture and pace of his new company will be a brand new experience. Inevitably, he will have to work longer hours as well.

So I asked him why he changed jobs. After all, he has a wife and child at home whom he loves spending time with. His former job was a 9-5 type job that lent him plenty of time at night to hang out with his family. In addition, he never had to work weekends and the job itself was pretty low stress. Why did he give all of that up for a new job where he’ll have to work many more hours and re-establish himself? Why did he sacrifice the additional family time for a new job that is more demanding?

Steve’s conclusion, not surprisingly, is that staying in your job and working on your own business on the side is the right decision. In general, I would agree, subject to this: working for yourself is not necessarily about establishing a business that you own. It is about taking responsibility for your own career, your own financial future, and your own economic condition. Just as we can never depend upon the government to take care of our needs, we should never depend upon an outside employer. Therefore, your job should always be considered a contract that you are working on for your real employer, yourself.

We had this conversation at home recently. MJ left his employer because they refused to work with his college schedule. (I realize that “MJ” these days is usually used to refer to the recently-deceased Michael Jackson, but I have a MJ at home.) He is looking for a replacement job. Anyway, someone sent me an article about a guy who started his own business after employers refused to hire him, but used his ideas (set out during job interviews) in their businesses. I said that MJ needed to read it, and I was instructed that “not everyone should start their own businesses”. This is 100% true. Otherwise all businesses would be sole proprietorships. But no one should be fully-dependent upon his employer’s good will. We must always remain aware that employers’ interest in you is only about their own benefit. It is up to you to provide a way to take care of yourself when your employer decides you are no longer more useful than other alternatives would be.

There is another thing to consider. In job-scarce situations, such as many smaller communities and urban areas right now, leaving because you are bored or because you can get a better deal elsewhere is likely to affect your future prospects. I am not advising that you stay in a bad job situation if there is a better alternative, but I am saying that you have to manage your own career and consider how every move affects your own present and future. No one else can do it for you, nor should you want them to do so. Be wary of any employer, government leader, or paid advisor that wants to manage your affairs for you. No one is as motivated to take care of your needs as you are.

And for those whose ambition is to own your own business, Steve is 100% correct in saying that you need to take advantage of a stable situation to build your own enterprise and support your own future.

IceRocket tag: small business startup