December 1, 2010 at 6:14 pm
I have had sympathetic managers who I have trusted enough to talk about the possibility of changes or improvements to my job. But my experience is that if your manager is reasonable and sensible and your job is not already good, then there are probably constraints on your manager that make job change unlikely. Better to ask them if they would be able to provide you with a good reference.
December 1, 2010 at 8:05 pm
"Never take the problem to the problem."
Simple yet powerful. This is a keeper. Thanks!
James Stover, McDBA
December 1, 2010 at 8:12 pm
You should open the dialog with the thought that you want to stay, but you are not happy where you are.
This does not work with selfish managers out for themselves, and one does not always know that upfront either. I have tried this tack before myself and the director's response was "What is keeping you here?" That kind of summed up his state of mind right there. Later, he was fired from what I heard and was prosecuted for fraud. Five years ago I heard his wife left him after he was sent to jail for three years. In the end, it all depends on the character of the people one works for that drives whether this kind of strategy is successful or not. 😀
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
December 2, 2010 at 7:33 am
It looks like the majority here have had the same or similar experiences to my own. The consensus seems to be that approaching your current employer is usually detrimental and in the few occasions when it's not detrimental there is very little gained.
I think this confirms that the best approach is to keep your skills sharp, keep your resume up to date, and keep moving... 😉
Always preparing and looking for a better and more enjoyable job puts you in the best position to take advantage an opportunity to move. If you receive a better offer, you're in a position to leave on your own terms. And if you get outsourced, offshored, downsized, or restructured... you're in a better position to find something else.
I've worked for very small companies, multi-billion dollar fortune 500 companies, and global technology companies. In every case, always preparing and looking for a better and more enjoyable job has proven, over the last 30 years, to be the best approach.
A fringe benefit to this approach is that I've been at a few different places where I'm fully vested in the pension. So I will have multiple retirement income streams rather than having all the eggs in one basket that could go the way of ENRON.
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