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Comment by xupybd | Hacker News Reader

I know that this is true, yet I stay for long periods of time. I'm not sure why that is. I know I've stayed longer than benefited everyone involved and a new job can bring new enthusiasm for the craft. Yet my mind tells me the sensible option is to stay put.

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I used to be like that. The thing that really changed my mentality was spending a few years consulting. Doing that put my brain in CEO/Owner mode instead of "worker bee" mode. The paradigm shift is one you can never go back from. Now, regardless of whether I'm in regular job or a contract job I only work for myself and only make decisions related to my work for my own benefit. Now I can leave a job/contract with zero emotional baggage, even though I sometimes make friendships that live longer than the job/contract.

Even if I'm an "employee" in my mind I'm the owner of a one-man company that sells IAM/development services. Sometimes I have to dump one customer to service another that's going to pay me more money or let me work fewer hours. Work ethic and my personal reputation matters to me, but I don't care one whit if my employer goes belly up.

You must be an amazing asset to a business.

As they lower you into the paupers grave I'm sure your boss will deliver a moving eulogy about how you were such a asset to the business and created so much shareholder value.

Well, probably more amazing than someone who doesn't see themselves as providing a valuable service to their employer, and is just turning up to collect their paycheck.

I am similar, having been a contractor for about a third of my working life. And even when I was permanent I rarely lasted longer than 2 years with a company, due to mergers and redundancies and bad management.

I'm currently in a perm role, been here nearly 3 years and quite happy to stay for a bit longer. I've been to a couple of interviews in that time that headhunters put in front of me, but I'm not actively looking. I like my current place, but I'm not married to it.

Your job is a transaction. You're there for the money, not out of charity. If they won't pay you your market worth, they're taking advantage of you and you should leave.

If you're not on the executive team, or on the fast track to getting there, being called an asset to a business should be considered an insult.

Be an asset to your family.

Because businesses have treated staff so well over the last few years.

Businesses are not a monolith…

Switching to a new company and leaving the familiar is a big decision to make, it's understandable. You have to get to know a whole new group of people, prove yourself again, start on things that are new and unfamiliar. It's comfortable to stay where you are, that's why companies can get away with not hiking salaries for those who do stay. So once in a while, you have to make yourself uncomfortable to know what you're worth, and what you can do in a new environment!

If you're lucky, you can go somewhere new where you know a couple people. And then you can bring others with you to form a group you trust. And build it over time.

On top of that, there is the potential for the new place to not be so good. Maybe they hired you on with a part of your salary being paid in bonus (and your last job was too), but unlike the last job that paid a bonus every year for the last decade, this new one cut bonuses after 2 years due to "market conditions".

There is also the potential that if the new place is paying you more than they are others on your new team (that have been there for a while), they will expect a lot more from you than what may even be practical. I've experienced both of these in the past. At this point I make well at the upper end for my job specification (although I end up wearing quite a few more hats), and although I can get a 10 - 15% bump that isn't worth as much in my current tax bracket.

Initial 1-3 months can (and should) be trial period. It’s better to cut off early than to waste everyone’s time. Also it’s always a good idea to reach out to the current and previous employees to get some of their feedback.

There is a trade-off. Starting a new job is a roll of the dice. You might not get along with your new team, their codebase could be a mess, your manager an asshole, their business model a disaster. You might not spot red flags during the interview process because they'll be putting up their best front and Glassdoor is gamed these days. The higher salary reflects the risk that you might end up in a situation where you go from a secure job to one where you get fired because you're not a good fit.

You would think that it would be beneficial for everyone to have people stick in a job role for a long time, gain lots of experience, become very good at it, and maybe even become comfortable. But just keeping things going isn't good enough in this world.

Not necessarily. Job hoppers help spread industry knowledge, which can be beneficial to everyone. That's part of what makes new employees valuable: they bring outside knowledge.

while it's true that a new employee brings in outside knowledge, it is also true that a new-comer tend to propose solutions to problems that seem obvious at first, but is then stuck with some organizational quirk or problem that prevents nice solutions from working (and find out that years ago, someone else has already proposed something very similar and it either failed or didn't work).

Old tribal knowledge is as important as new perspective.

You are right in many situations, but some other situations change and you may be stuck in what sounds like learned helplessness.

> You would think that it would be beneficial for everyone to have people stick in a job role for a long time, gain lots of experience, become very good at it

The most standard analysis would tell you that this will cause whatever work they're doing to be done better.

But that's only beneficial if that's the most valuable thing for them to be doing. Having worthless work done well is not obviously better than having valuable work done poorly.

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