Thinking about quitting your job? I've got the cure. Read “10 Reasons to Quit Your Job in 2015” by llya Pozin — an “Influencer” on LinkedIn.com.
When he's not out influencing, Pozin is a “serial entrepreneur, writer and investor.” And he does a bang-up job of pointing out why you may want to make 2015 the year you finally do quit. “You live only once,” he says,” so you may want to reconsider spending the rest of your life working for someone who gets rich using your ideas, forgets to thank you, and then swaps you for someone who can do it for less.”
While that description sounds more like raising teenagers than working at a job, I'm not sure any of his 10 reasons make 2015 the year you must “go independent.” Sure, Pozin is right when he says it is depressing “working countless hours every day in a dead-end job that doesn't make you happy, suppresses your creative nature, and barely allows you to make ends meet.” On the other hand, these admittedly negative aspects of any job do come with a big positive — every two weeks, you get a paycheck. And getting a regular paycheck makes up for a lot of suppression, especially when you can demonstrate your creative nature with your ability to look like you're really working hard, when you're really hardly working.
Still, if 2015 is looming as a year of change, let's see if there are at least a few of Pozin's reasons that can make a quitter out of you.
The ability to “work from anywhere” is reason No. 1, and it is true that in this Internet age, you can indeed “work from anywhere — from a cafe, your bed, the train, your summer home, you name it.” But even on a train, even if the engineer allows you to blow the whistle, which he would definitely do if you invite him to your summer home, it would still be work. Personally, I think you would happier chained to your desk, getting paid for enjoying the antics of the clowns who pass for management in your company.
This author is big on “doing what you love,” and I'm all for love. Unfortunately, I think we've learned that very few people can get paid for drinking beer, eating pizza and watching “The Bachelor” [my money is on Ashley S, by the way, though she doesn't have any tattoos. Brittany has two!] Pozin also believes that doing what you love will allow you to “Make More Money.” This is because you will no longer “need to be in a specific place, at a specific time, dressed in a certain way.”
Perhaps you could indeed earn more if you didn't come to work in your jam-jams, but think how uncomfortable you would be.
Another reason to quit in 2015 is that your new, independent job will give you the chance to “express yourself.” You will “allow yourself to move around freely — exploring, experimenting, testing the waters and having fun.” Possibly, but I doubt anyone is going to pay you for all this exploring and experimenting. Besides, you are already expressing yourself by the spending your workdays shopping online and playing “StarCraft II.”
I do agree that quitting could allow you to “gain confidence,” as you “manage to stand on your own two feet, make important decisions on your own, and discover new territories.” For example, you will discover the new territory of dumpster diving. Just look out for those surplus McNuggets. They're risky to eat, though they do make an excellent packaging material.
Pozin believes it is “definitely time to quit your job” if “you're not happy to get up in the morning and go to work.” I agree. And if you ever find yourself happy about going to work, quit your job and immediately check yourself into a mental health facility. You're seriously delusional.
If all 10 reasons to quit your job are bogus, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't share them with our friends and co-workers. Think about it — more people quitting their jobs means more desperate employers willing to suffer unimaginative slugs like us. Which means we are more likely to be able to keep our awful jobs where we can't express ourselves, or explore the outer boundaries of our creative personalities.
But we will continue to get a paycheck every two weeks, and, for me, that sounds like a most excellent way to go through 2015.
Bob Goldman was an advertising executive at a Fortune 500 company, but he finally wised up and opened Bob Goldman Financial Planning in Sausalito, California. He offers a virtual shoulder to cry on at bob@bgplanning.com.
