Should you Stay or Should you Go?

I Bumped into someone that started working here at the same time as me the other day and they were worried about whether they were doing the right thing by staying here and not looking for work somewhere else. I remember when we started working at the office that we both discussed how this was a temporary position for us and we’d only be here for a maximum of six months, and that actually, we’d probably leave before the probationary period of three months was up. This discussion was over two years ago now and we’re both still in the same company.

Is it a good idea to job hop, or is it a good idea to stay in one place for a prolonged period of time? I don’t really know what the answer is, so instead I can only really hypothesize on the advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages

Looking on the bright side first of all, the longer you work in one place, the more experience you build up. I have learnt a lot more in my job than I would have done had I left after six months. As a fresh graduate, one of the biggest problems you will find yourself up against is that most places want you to have experience in that particular line of work, which is of course ridiculous because as a fresh graduate, chances are you’re not going to have the right experience for anything. If you can build up some sort of transferable skill then that’s a good start. Any working experience is going to be good in the long run.

Not only do you build up experience, but you can also build up a reputation of loyalty. Loyalty in business is a tricky beast as you must remember that nobody is irreplaceable, but being able to show to a prospective employer that you are capable of sticking something out for any length of time is highly beneficial. I’ve heard it said that one of the biggest benefits of going to university in the first place is so that you can show somebody that you’re capable of sticking something out for at least three years.

From a more personal side of things, staying in the same place is comfortable. I wouldn’t be able to do my part time course or my various personal projects if I was constantly being kept on my toes at work, so knowing where I am and where I stand is incredibly helpful. However, this can work against you as well, as some future employers will see this as you not wanting to push yourself, and of course, from a human resources point of view, that’s a massive faux pas.

Disadvantages

Following directly on from being comfortable, let’s break in to the negative aspects to staying in one place. First of all there is the risk of stagnation. Staying in one place for a long time probably shows a lack of innovation. Although I’ve previously discussed whether or not this is a good thing, a lot of interviewers would undoubtedly tell you it is a very bad thing. Nobody wants to employ someone who just wants to coast through the week.

There is also a high risk of boredom and depression sinking in if you stay in one place for too long. I frequently catch myself thinking to myself “why am I still here?” and I actually don’t mind my job too much. It’s not exactly making the most of my skills, but I do occasionally have to think. If I were in a job that was just fractionally worse than this, I would very quickly find myself at rock bottom.

Attached to the boredom and depression, you may start thinking that you’re not capable of working anywhere else. Some people find it very difficult to adapt to being the “new guy” again and the longer you’ve been in one place, the very thought of having to learn to do something new can be incredibly daunting, especially if it’s something that requires that much more brain power anyway.


In Closing

I’ll finish on a final time-specific advantage, which will be specific again probably in another twenty years when we face the worst recession in history…again. At the moment, having a job is a bit of a rarity. I’m not denying that some people have hit hard times as a result of the recession and that some companies have genuinely fallen into economic troubles, but I’m betting some companies are using it as an excuse to cut off excess baggage and streamline their workforce a little, so if you have a job that you can keep hold of, it might be best to do so for the time being.

I think this discussion is another one of those annoying “sitting on the fence” moments I have and it’s also clear that I have plenty of excuses as to why I’m staying where I am and have done for so much longer than I intended. The only thing I can really say for certain is that some work is better than no work for purposes of finance and mental health, but that’s about it. Maybe it’s time to move on, but maybe it’s not.


Additional Notes:
I don't know why, and maybe it's just the way my oddball brain works, but whenever someone says the phrase "job hopping" to me, I always imagine one of those penguins with the odd tufts of hair on their heads. I know that they're not actually called job-hopper penguins, but my brain has still made the connection.

Throughout my blog posts you may have noticed an odd inconsistency with spelling between English and American English. I am having a prolonged war with the spell checker bundled with Microsoft office and I think I'm probably losing. The only reason I bring this up is because I have no idea if "hypothosize" is meant to have a "z" in it or not.

I'm going to stop making misinformed remarks about the global economic crisis, or whatever it is they're calling it now. Sooner or later it's going to get me into trouble and I'll find myself talking to somebody who actually knows a few things about economics.

Control and When to Give Up

Wanting to be able to accept the things you cannot change and change the things you cannot accept is a wonderful sentiment. I’m not entirely sure where it comes from; a quick search on google for the adage reveals it is used by various religious groups, self help books and alcoholics anonymous.

I find the first bit particularly different. As a matter of course, if there is a problem, I like to do something about it so that it becomes less of a problem. Anyone that has ever had to write an essay knows that the best way to stop worrying about it is to write the damn thing. Changing the things I cannot accept is fair enough, but accepting the things I cannot change is going to take some work.

The only thing that really gets me stressed to an unbearable level is not being able to do anything about something that is effecting my life. That may make me sound like a control freak, or some kind of miniature despot, but it’s not really as bad as that. Considering I am remarkably flexible in terms of things happening to me, there’s not much that I would say actually effects me anyway, but just occasionally, something will happen and there will be absolutely nothing that I can do to stop it weighing heavily on my mind.

Just as a case in point, our internet connection is something I can do nothing about. I have been telephoning our ISP (who shall remain nameless unless they don’t get their act together pretty quickly) since I first signed up for the service over a year ago to complain about slow speeds and frequent disconnection. After being told that this was because of a broken router/a broken modem/a bad network/problems in the area/solar flares/the infinite power of Christ and offering a variety of solutions such as replacing the hardware/upgrading my network/restarting my computer/sacrificing a goat, it has transpired that the cable in our area is just completely overloaded at peak times of the day. Unbelievably, there is nothing that they can do about this until enough people complain, but I would put serious money on the notion that whenever someone does complain, they get fobbed off with one of the aforementioned stupid excuses and they probably believe them.
Bottom line of this rather uninspired and only-blood-boiling-if-you’re-me rant, our internet doesn’t work and our ISP won’t fix it. This qualifies this particular mind boggling series of events as a thing that is effecting my life and the lives of my flatmates, but it is also something that I can do absolutely nothing about other than complain.

If you think very carefully about your life and things that have been happening in it, anyone will see that these sorts of things happen all of the time. We can’t help it if we have work that needs to be done but don’t have the components required to complete it. We can’t help it if they’ve sold out of Banoffee Pie and the only reason that you picked that restaurant in the first place was because your girlfriend really wanted Banoffee Pie. We can’t help it if the train is delayed due to “passenger action” and will make you cataclysmically late again.

The thing that frustrates me the most about these things is that for the most part, they are so insignificant that getting upset about them just makes you feel stupid. I know I’m not really that dependant on the internet, and maybe it’s a good thing that I’ve been cut off from my own particular brand of digital heroine, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to holler insults down the telephone at the moron who has just told me to de-fragment my computer in order to make the internet work.

I’m not too sure where I’m actually going with this, but what I’m really trying to say is that I wish I could let things go more often. I’m sure that if I had focussed more on the things that I could do something about as opposed to the things that I couldn’t do something about when I was looking for a job back when I’d first graduated, I would have had a much better time of things and a few more opportunities to chose between. It would have been better to proactively research more options and distribute my CV to more places than to become despondent about companies not getting back to me. I can’t do anything about a company’s policy on interviews but I can do something about more companies realising that I exist.

If you find yourself trying to control the uncontrollable, give up and move on to something else.


Additional Notes:

Seeing as complaining is the only thing I can really do about our internet, I make sure I do as much of it as possible. Thanks for listening. I feel a little bit like this article is probably copy for copy’s sake, but I just wanted to vent about it somewhere and everyone I know is already bored with it.

I’ve actually developed a new way of getting my own back on technical support. I ask if I can put them on hold for a second, put the phone down on the side and walk off for ten minutes. If they’re still there when I come back, I pass the phone to someone else in the flat without telling them who’s on the phone or what the phone call is about. It’s not an original idea by any means and it is very closely modelled on the way they deal with me on a regular basis, but I still like it.

The Key to Success

According to a birthday card I received, the key to being successful is looking like you already are. My initial reaction of coughing and spluttering and my vehement disagreement has subsequently softened significantly.

I have recently emerged from beneath a mop of hair that can only really have been classified as “too long” after a much needed and much delayed hair cut, to discover that we really do send out different messages about ourselves by the way that we look. Whereas having long hair in no way makes you incapable of performing certain jobs and doesn’t affect the person that you are deep down, it can hamper a first impression, or even the way a person that you’ve known for a long time responds to you. When applied to an employment situation, in particular an interview, I can only imagine that the issue is further compounded, leaving you less of an opportunity to get where you want to. Even if you say all the right things and act in just the right way, if you don’t look the part, that’s probably all they’ll need to make their decision. I was recently struck by how un-extraordinary I was compared to other individuals in my field when talking to a fellow class mate at my law school who quite casually said that she too was an ex-UCL student with a 2:1 in History, just like everyone else. It sounds ridiculous (and I must admit a little smug) but those sort of qualifications are fairly standard for a lot of people in my situation, and so if you have four candidates interviewing for a post that are the same in academic and professional expertise, they probably are not going to employ the one that looks like a metal band reject in a bad suit.

Of course, just looking the part isn’t enough. The guy who turns up to the school reunion in the brand new Ferrari definitely loses that initial impression once the first things out of his mouth are details of his repayment plan and how he had to move back in with his parents to afford it. In fact, any good visual impression can be completely thrown out the second that someone starts talking, but regardless, it’s impossible to say the reverse is true; fighting a negative first impression by saying all the right things is still an uphill battle.

All this boils down to that one piece of advice that everyone groans and rolls their eyes at when it’s repeated and that is that you can make a good first impression by being neat, tidy, smart and clean. When it’s brought down to such a fundamental level, I can’t believe I’ve found myself writing about it, but even on a macro level, it appears to have a lot of truth behind it. If I’m being brutally honest with myself, being aware that I look more human and presentable has improved my mood tremendously as well.

I am well aware of the irony of titling an entry “the Key to Success” as the current situation of writer/lawyer/comic book artist extraordinaire David Hing is far from perfect, but I honestly feel that looking the part, even in some small way, is the “Key” to success. As for the actual door, that’s going to take a little longer to find.

Additional Notes:
The only slight quirk with having a fairly dramatic change in hair length is that it’s taken my girlfriend a while to get used to it. Just occasionally she would give me a look that I came to realise meant that she didn’t quite recognise who I was and was probably expecting me to announce that I was in fact my identical twin brother and it was all an elaborate practical joke.

It does seem to be that my tutor group at my law school is made predominantly of 2:1 students in either English Literature, Geography or History that have day jobs in an administration post. I’m hoping that’s just a coincidence, as surely if it were not, then somebody would have mentioned that trend earlier on in my academic career…