I’ve had a ton of jobs, some would say this is a liability, but if questioned I have perfectly good reasons why I stayed at x company 3 years, and y company 5 months. For backup my references have no problem singing my praises and sighting my work ethic and humor as positive components that I bring to the scene. My feeling about work is defined by a saying a former co-worker once shared with me, it’s simple: “What’s the worst they can do, fire you?” Think about it, it’s only a job, you owe it to yourself to do good work, but if it’s not making you happy it’s time to start looking. If you’re ever been fired or laid off like me, you may have a better perspective on this; it happens, it’s no big, people move on. This is reason why I (and you) have to keep networking with other worker (droids) and recruiters/consultants EVEN WHEN YOU’RE NOT LOOKING.
Plus, once you find what you’re looking for (please don’t queue the music…) it’s worth all the long drives, late nights, ridiculous biz-speak and endless meetings. Really. So now I’m working at a company heading the migration of Java webapps from Solaris to Linux. It seems they have plenty of work in this regard, with the effort scheduled to run for at least the next 5 years. Plua, the work is great, I get to play in Linux, setup new enviroments, and have a say in how I think things should work; none of this “This is the way we’ve always done it” BS. So here I am, at a big company, where I have to wear a tie (see title for bad pun) everyday, but loving the fact that it doesn’t feel like a big company, that I get to play all day in Linux getting apps running and there’s virtually no stress (and no on-call, and no 40+ hour work weeks…). Oh, and I clean up nice, thanks to a new load of shirts and ties my wife picked out, so the whole “I never want to have to wear a tie to work” is proving not to be as bad as I’ve always feared. Yeah, life is good.