If your reaction is something along the lines of relief, then you are fundamentally unhappy at your job. You have not only concluded that it is not a good situation, but that the situation is incapable of improving. It's likely only artificial mental restraints keep you from doing anything about it ("oh man I may have to move, moving is annoying... and I guess I get paid pretty well, most of my friends are making half what I do... and my boss said some things would change, although he said that months ago...") and those restraints aren't even that strong, otherwise you wouldn't be relieved if you got laid off.

I don't think that I could conclude form this that I'm "secretly unhappy" with my job. I think it's my innate longing for wayfaring adventure, even unwise and irresponsible adventure, that I constantly have to reign in to keep myself productive. It's excitement I imagine feeling, not relief, and in reality I'm sure anxiety would accompany (even drown out) the excitement.

I mean, I have that same twinge about a lot of things, and I had identified it as something I need to evaluate instead of acting on immediately. This lead to me sticking in a position way too long (I actually only recently resigned), and becoming utterly miserable.

The line is fuzzy, but there was definitely a point at my last position where I would have been premature in leaving. I would say, however, that the appropriate point to leave would have been right around the time when relief would have been my primary reaction to being let go.

If you haven't been in that situation, it's a bit hard to relate the feeling, but it's definitely it's own class of "positive", not like the "excitement of reacting to the immediate and having to think on ones feet" feeling at all.

I personally think that the biggest problem with this approach is that you have to remember to do it. The "fundamentally unhappy" situations tend to sneak up on you as you get into that weird cycle of going to work and doing the dance being prioritized higher up on the list than your long-term mental health. It's hard to stay in the moment.

It's also a challenge to prove something.

Once you can get beyond that insecurity, though, your feelings change entirely.

At most jobs I carry a letter of resignation with me at all times, ready to be handed over at any moment. This practice really helps take the edge off of many situations, since I don't see any situation as anything I have to put up with, which seriously reduces the angst and depression that I encountered from feelings of futility and hopelessness from "situations beyond my control" before I adopted the practice. Now I know that all situations are under my control as far as my own choice to be involved at all is concerned, and likewise, others are responsible for their own decisions and happiness.

Can you explain this?

When you are hired, you can negotiate a salary $X based on your skills, the company's needs, the job market, and a whole host of factors.

At each pay review period (or however your firm does it) thereafter you may get a salary increase of Y%. The realities of corporate politics, management, social dynamics, etc. say that the frequency of the review (or if you even get one) is mostly out of your control. Further, the amount of the increase may have little to do with you; maybe there's "no room in the budget for increases this quarter", or maybe your manager is giving you poor evaluations to try and keep you from being promoted out of his department thus reducing his headcount. Finally, there is a force in almost every organization that says that salary should be based on seniority not merit. There may be pay grades, or salary caps, and there is almost always some limit on the size of the raise any person can get without a top exec signing off on it. I could go on. :)

Meanwhile, you (hopefully!) have more knowledge and skills than when you were hired; you certainly have more experience. After a few years, you are almost certainly worth a lot more than when you were hired. (If the job market has improved since you were hired, this goes triple.)

The end result is that, for most people, your salary represents a pretty good snapshot of your "worth" when you are hired, but every quarter thereafter it diverges. Changing jobs periodically lets the good employees "lock in" that extra value. (Meanwhile the poor employees will do their utmost to stay, as they know they may not deserve all of the raises they've received. This is but one of many reasons why organizational performance trends downwards over time.)

You'd think that you could just renogotiate with your current employer. "Hey, I know I was only worth $60k when you hired me, but I'm now an expert on X, Y, and Z, and the job market is really hot right now. I know you've upped my salary to $90k, but you'd have to pay over $140k to replace me. Give me a raise or I'll go next door and get $120k." Seems logical, but human nature being what it is, this never works. Instead, you quit and go to work next door for $120k, while one of their guys quits his $90k job and comes to work at your old employer for $120k. Of course, both of you are now less productive for the next 6 months as you learn new systems and a new codebase. It's silly, but there you are.

The key is that in this case, you quit. If you are actually fired for some reason, then you will have a lot of explaining to do which could dramatically reduce your market value. Even if you were fired for some stupid reason, like racial discrimination, that's a lot of explaining you have to do that other candidates do not.

You're correct that there is a huge difference between being let go with good references as part of a reorg of corporate strategy (or whatever_, and being fired for sexually assaulting the cleaning staff. The former is little impediment to finding a new job, while the latter is. (Well, unless you can successfully threaten your old HR department with a wrongful dismissal suits so that they will lie and cover for you. And oh yes, that happens[1].)

Context does matter, and that's worth pointing out.

[1]: Frequently, too. A short-sighted analysis says that you have two goals when you discover a bad employee: 1) Get them OUT of your organization before they do something that might make you liable and 2) Make sure they don't sue you. A glowing letter of recommendation is cheap, and can help achieve both goals. Often a small bribe - sorry, severance package - can be tossed in as well to sweeten the deal. Of course, that will come around to bite you when you end up hiring some other companies ambulatory menace on the strength of a glowing-but-false letter of recommendation. sigh

While the average increase in salary when you start a new job is about 20%.

I think the differences are usually even more dramatic near the beginning of most people's careers. Entry level employees tend to be extremely underpaid and undervalued.

With at least one year of experience under your belt, your worth on the job market is significantly higher than someone who's fresh out of college. But the company with which you've been working at since college rarely sees it that way, and tends to undervalue you. If you switch jobs, you are almost guaranteed a significantly higher salary -- even more so with two or three years under your belt.

In my own case, I managed to more than double my salary in about three years of job hopping about once a year at the start of my career. Of course, simple math will tell you you can't keep that sort of thing for long (unless you're one of the few to win the career lottery and make C__ at a successful company). So eventually your salary increases will start to plateau, and you might even price yourself out of the job market entirely -- making your current job (the one willing to pay top market rates) that much more valuable for you to keep. But when you're just starting out, and even in the middle of your career, this won't be much of a concern.

"When you have to make a hard decision, flip a coin.

Why?

Because when that coin is in the air, you suddenly know what you're hoping for."

    A PSYCHOLOGICAL TIP

    Whenever you're called on to make up your mind,  
      and you're hampered by not having any,  
    the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find,  
      is simply by spinning a penny.  
    No -- not so that chance shall decide the affair  
      while you're passively standing there moping;  
    but the moment the penny is up in the air,  
      you suddenly know what you're hoping.

A mentor once advised me when I was in the manager roll of deciding to lay off or not lay off someone, to write on the board two columns, "pros" and "cons". Then write the first one that came to mind (either pro or con) and that was the decision. If the first thing you thought of was what was a real benefit then keep them, if the first thing you thought of was a consequence, then lay them off. The theory is that you have already ordered and prioritized the pros and cons for this if you've been thinking about it, and you naturally order them in your thinking in magnitude. So doing the physical action pulls that ordering out of your brain and into the open.

Sounds waay too easy. The one you are hoping for depends not on what is the best decision but rather in you.

And for many I'd imagine that the one they are hoping for happen to be the decision that has the best short-term benefits.

Most hard decisions are hard because of uncertainties and those don't become clear because of a coin flip. And even if you find yourself hoping for something doesn't mean that that is the right thing to do but just as much as what else you want to escape.

Making the right decision is often hard, hoping isn't.

Whatever it is, it always warrants a serious conversation with your manager. Ideally, it is something within your or your manager's control.

My current manager convinced me, last time I asked, to stay through current project completion. He gave me a raise and promised raving reviews. He also says I should definitely stay in the company. So I have an easy career path. I just don't know that I want it. Actually, I'm pretty sure I don't want it, but I won't know that until I try the other way, I just don't have the money in the bank to afford the other way.

Sorry about personal sidetracking. Great post, and certainly made me think about my situation again. At the very least, the mindset of "Fire Me, I Beg You" can be a great bargaining tool.

In your situation, I would talk to my wife. Assure her that my professional life deserves a change and after which, follow through very carefully. First, find out what it is I need to be happy. Is it money, distance to work, workplace dynamic or maybe my own business. Itemising the collective of what works for me, will give me a sense of following up with my goals. I can attack them one at a time. I don't want to feel pressured to change based on any findings, but I don't want to shelve them away as well. It's kind of like making a pact with myself about a life-changing, 180 deg turnaround, and then getting a sandwich,- and forgetting about it.

Once I have an idea of what and where I want to be, I'd start by being honest with myself: can I pull it off. Baby step into it by setting aside minimal amount of daily time to find out how I'll get it all done. For example, if my path leads me to making my first mobile game, I'll go to the book store. Research what kids games are easy to port and estimate my time. "Tic tac toe" for instance would be a good first candidate. Do a shitty, but honest effort to get something done. Rinse and repeat, but improve a bit with every iteration. I would attempt to join online groups, find related groups on G+, FB, etc. If I find myself loosing interest, re-evaluate if I really can keep up with the expectations.

And then there's my current albeit hypothetical job. If above makes me happy enough, why quit. If you still loathe it, reapply your spent time to looking for new job and call a meeting for tomorrow at 8am with your boss.

If you feel you are on the wrong track - and it seems you have quite soundly arrived at this conclusion - start hunting around.

Chances are you'll have to make compromises. Find out the most important things to you and figure out how to get there while balancing other considerations, like the amount of risk you can actually take.

The solution to this is to get the opportunity lined up before presenting it to your wife, and without quitting your current job (which by the way, has a time bomb sitting on it - your boss had to convince you to stay so they might be lining up a replacement for you already. Really depends on the nature of that relationship and company.)

If you really want to work for a startup, find some well funded ones, go interview with them (take long lunch breaks or a few personal days) and get some job offers at %120 of your current salary. Your wife will have trouble turning down a raise from a company that you really want to work for.

Most companies want "recommendations" but this is a legally dangerous situation anyway (even a positive recommendation opens the recommender up to legal liability for not being positive enough.) Most people will understand that your current employer cannot give a recommendation and when they ask about them, don't badmouth your current employer just say they're good but they can't give you what you need.

Anyway, that's how I'd approach it. If working for a startup means you'd have to move somewhere else, then you might look into the possibility of getting another corporate job, but in a startup hub, relocating there for a few years before making the switch to a startup.

When you don't care anymore it's a sign that it's time to move on.

I work on my own start-up now. Sure I don't make as much, and I work odd hours, but it's fulfilling.

Problem is that I cared for far too long...I don't know any other way.

I also quit, about a week later, and I am so much happier. I really had to think about whether this is something I want to do or this is the company where I really want to work. Now I am free to explore many different options, and plus, I can concentrate on finding what I want, rather than trying to complete the tasks at work and look at the same time. It helps that I was able to get small severance pay.

Kudos, though. It's certainly not easy to leave without anything lined up. It wasn't an easy decision for me, either, when you have families to feed. But, I am definitely happier with my decision.

It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything ~ Tyler Durden

I gave notice at my job of ten years last week, and I'm about as unexcited about the future as you can get. I've accumulated years of skill rot, self doubt, health problems, and straight up depression. I live in a part of the country with almost nothing in the way of a tech industry, so finding a better job will probably require moving to a strange new place. Despite having two years' gross in the bank and no debt, I constantly worry about ending up broke and on the street.

Going from "miserably employed" to "somewhat less miserably unemployed" to "happily employed" takes significantly more work than just walking away from a job, but talking about that isn't the sort of material that gets the pageviews.

But you're not going to do that. You're going to take a few months holiday and rest. Breathe. Get that fire back. If you go back to work now you'll just hate your job again, and let down the nice people that hired you. Rather convalesce, and then take some time once you're thinking less like a depressed person to brush up on your skills, to see what the market is like in town now that you feel hopeful, or what the best city to move to is.

A friend of mine quit his job with two years salary in the bank, and he's been doing odd contract work. After a year he looks and behaves like a different person. He's healthy, he smiles, he is engaging. You are burnt out, but it is not the end of the road, it is the low point, and you have a great opportunity to turn it around.

The startup shouldn't be stressful. It shouldn't be about making money. It should be something that you enjoy and that lets you return to yourself.

I am in a much, much better place now, and a big reason for that was rest. I cannot emphasize it enough. It's much, much more important that you rest for a few months than worry about what's next. Give yourself permission to do so.

(Related post, it took 5 months just to write about my experience: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3704261)

I don't think there's anything wrong with saying "I was burnt out and took a six month holiday." That tells me that one has some insight into themselves and has made some effort towards self-development. But I see acknowledging weakness as a sign of strength; others might not take that approach.

I am quite risk averse, and, no matter how much I wanted to, I could not come to terms with quitting without having another job in hand. The entire process required careful planning and preparation. If it is of any help, I will be very happy to share my experience (which includes the feeling of deteriorating skill set/self rot/self doubt) and possibly give any knowledge/contacts I have of getting the job you like.

You don't put a firing meeting on the calendar. Why would you?

The bad managers make messes for people like OP's manager, who really was working at face value.