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- dragonlink2, on 10/10/2007, -1/+45 Before leaving my last job, I gave it six months to improve. I wrote a letter to my supervisor asking for a raise, arguing that I was continually doing more work but receiving no additional compensation.
After submitting my request, I made a promise to myself: At the end of six months, if I hadn’t received the raise as requested then I would quit my job. The time came, and I quit.
Looking back on it now, I know it was the right decision. After two years with the organization, it was time to quit. Here’s why:
More Work, Same Income
The above graph represents the relationship that existed between the amount of work I was doing on the job and my income while working there. Since I earned salary, my income was constant. Since I am proactive by nature, I took on additional projects outside of my job description. The result? Being taken advantage of by my employer for two years.
Now, this wasn’t my employer’s fault — we just weren’t the best match for each other. The job was definitely more suited for someone that would take the “do the least amount of work possible without getting fired” approach. Consequently, my “go getter” approach didn’t fit in.
Having failed to realize this, I worked hard expecting a raise that would never manifest. Strangely, the other thing I failed to realize was that getting a raise wouldn’t actually help me:
Graph: Getting a Raise Only Helps Temporarily
As shown in this second graph, getting a raise would’ve only corrected my situation temporarily. A larger income would result in larger amounts of work, meaning it wouldn’t be long before the additional work exceeded the value of the raise. In other words, the raise would only satisfy me for a finite amount of time before I was in the same position of being taken advantage of.
Readers with business sense are probably thinking “What do you mean, being taken advantage of? That’s how business is designed to work — the business pays you less than they plan to earn from you.”
My point is that I don’t fit the standard business model. I don’t like being told what to do, I get bored quickly when I’m not doing something challenging, and I like earning income that is a direct result of how hard I worked for it.
In other words, I don’t like the traditional idea of working — trading time for money seems inefficient, especially when there are more things I want to do with my time besides work. After coming to terms with this, I’m grateful that my request for a raise was refused.
If I had received the raise, I wouldn’t have quit when I did. I would’ve stayed around until the temporary satisfaction expired — and further stifled the entrepreneur in me.
Once I made the decision to quit, I moved to another state with a plan to reinvent myself. Instead of looking to work for someone else, I began working for myself. I started writing original articles for LifeReboot, and I made another promise to myself: In six months, if my site wasn’t earning an average of $10 a day, then I’d give up my entrepreneurial adventure and look for more traditional work.
In the first month, LifeReboot earned $0.
The second month, it earned $42. (Average $1.40/day)
The third, $126. (Average $4.20/day)
The fourth, $171. (Average $5.70/day)
The fifth isn’t over yet, and has already earned $286. (Average $9.53/day)
If the trend continues, then I will undoubtedly reach the six month goal that I aimed for. If the trend continues for years, then I will have succeeded in discovering a way to earn income working smarter instead of harder:
Graph: The Ideal Relationship -- Same Work, Increasing Income
If you were given a choice of how you’d like the relationship between how hard you work and how much you earn from it, I’m certain you’d like something similar to the graph above. When I sought out an income that takes advantage of exponential growth, I believed I would never achieve it working a traditional job.
Creating six month deadlines for myself have helped me create positive change in my life. If I hadn’t decided to quit my previous job, LifeReboot would still be just an idea in my head. If I hadn’t given LifeReboot a time limit to earn a specific value, I may not have worked as hard as I did. Now that my original goal is on the horizon, I’m certain I shouldn’t give up.
Which brings me to my point: Look around you. Imagine where current trends will be taking you in the next few years. If you like where you’re going, then keep at it — but if you don’t, then start making some changes. - duanestorey, on 10/10/2007, -6/+39That's the most retarded article I've read in a while. First, the company isn't taking advantage of her. They hired her to do a job, and she did it. The fact that she was dumb enough to take on more responsibility even though the company wasn't paying her for it is her fault, not the companies. Second, if she is a "go-getter" like the first part of the article describes, then why would she be happy with the flat work curve on the bottom? Let's see -- you work for someone else, and you're inspired to work harder and harder, but you work for yourself and you want to sit on your ass and have a fixed level of work? That doesn't make sense at all.
- jerwong, on 10/10/2007, -3/+33I think the server decided to quit.
- Zergo, on 10/10/2007, -0/+18Know when to submit your story to Digg, and when not to - a tale of WP and MySQL.
- MatchStick, on 10/10/2007, -2/+18I'm getting sick of these stories about what I'm doing wrong with my life, and how some other guy has it all figured out.
- skoles, on 10/10/2007, -0/+16I gave my work a few months notice before quitting because it would take them some time to find a replacement for me.
I told them the reasons I was leaving because I was the least paid designer in the dept despite being the hardest working. There are only 3 of us in the dept. One is the manager and the other guy. I was the only one who came in on time or earlier @ 7:30am. I would stay late to get those last minute jobs done (sometimes till 11pm). I never took any of my vacation time in the 3 years there and I called in sick at best, 2 times a year. Oh, and I handle some of their IT work, which sucks because the servers are constantly giving them problems.
Yet, the other kid who calls in at least 3 times a month, walks in every day at 9am and leaves at 4pm every day and bitches about what he does makes $3 more than me now. When I told my boss this he didn't care, in fact he wanted to tell me to leave right there but knew the dept would be screwed with just 1 designer. So I really regret my decision to give them ample time to find a replacement. - kdoig, on 10/10/2007, -2/+15you guys actually work when you're at work? interesting twist
- Karl77, on 10/10/2007, -0/+12Someone earning < $300/month shouldn't be giving advice about when to quit a job.
- inspecality, on 10/10/2007, -0/+12Everyone is replaceable.
You should have just given your two weeks notice. Who cares about your employer, they are half as loyal to you as you are to them. - ekDanta, on 10/10/2007, -0/+11I am at the verge of leaving my current job and I completely agree with these graphs. I have realized it and am quite lucky to realize it sooner.
- demosthenes705, on 10/10/2007, -4/+15here is a working mirror
http://72.14.209.104/search?hs=sUq&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.lifereboot.com%2F2007%2Fknow-when-to-quit-and-when-not-to%2F&btnG=Search - holyskeleton, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8he actually drew graphs to visualize his point. what a go-getter.
- jerwong, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7In my experience, I've found that by demonstrating that you can handle more, bosses will generally pile more work onto you without giving you any sort of compensation.
- Hornstinger, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Down down down....row row row your boat gently down the stream merrily merrily merrily merrily life is but a dream.
- DangerCollie, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Why do you take it personally? I go into offices all the time as a contractor and am surrounded by people who hate their jobs. Not everyone, but a lot of them would rather be doing something else. Depends on the office, but most of them suck. Even the good ones can be a drudge. In my experience the majority of people are working because they're in debt. Student loans, credit cards, car payments, bought more house than they needed and then financed the furnishings. Or health insurance. That's another one that keeps people chained to day jobs they hate. I'm glad you like where you are, but when it comes to work philosophy, the author is right on. The reward for doing good work is more work. The company you work for will keep squeezing you until you quit. One DBA I work with worked 70 hours a week for a big bank. If you have your own company and can bill them 70 hours that's fine. But they won't squeeze contractors like that...I can speak from experience on that account. They'll drive the cattle until they wise up and quit.
- nipterink, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7what other job is this guy doing? he can't be relying on $10 a day. i'd say he is far from figuring it out.
- cmdrNacho, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5I agree completely .. everyone would like to believe that there that important, but in reality, the company will adjust, find someone to replace you and forget all about u. No one is that important. Just gotta get the money and run. and hopefully find someplace you like someday.
- skoles, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Cool.
Start earning your keep. - ohthehumanity, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5He's cetainly going to make some money this month , now that he just got frontpaged. Should have invested in a better server though, cause now all his income is going to /dev/null. new lesson learned.
- gernblansted, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5I did!
... My internet gets shut off tomorrow. Power is off on Tuesday.
Good Idea, though. - dwizzlestar, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6Dugg for great charts.
- HaMMeReD, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Thats not how you get a raise, the proper way is to answer this question.
"How would it benefit my boss the most by promoting me"
Unfortunately, being really good at the job you do is not a reason to promote you, it's a reason to keep you where you are for as long as possible. - Firehed, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4If he's only earning ten bucks day month income from the site, he can't afford much for hosting due to that whole food thing.
- f4nt0m4s, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5what about promotions? you don't get promoted from sitting on your ass all day bitching about how you have to work a lot and get paid the same...anyone who wants to rise above the pack needs to work harder, go above and beyond, and show that they are willing to put forth the effort.
- MasterChi, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6"Know When To Quit, and When Not To"
Well it seems your server has followed your advice.....it knew to quit before the main thrashing of Digg hit it. Mirror anyone? Duggmirror didn't catch it. - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4We're in ur comment, digging u down.
- darkstar949, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Hard to say - as you noted, some jobs do take advantage of their employees and if you are younger this tends to be more common than if you are older. Also, there is something to be said about your job making you happy to some extent - if you dislike going into work every day then it doesn't matter how much your sense of professionalism is as you are not going to be able to stay for a long time.
- allan17, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Even though it's been said a million times... page views do not equal number of diggs..
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Took ages to load though.
Here's a mirror of the text only: http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:http://www.lifereboot.com/2007/know-when-to-quit-and-when-not-to/&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&sa=G&strip=1 - skoles, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3The company never deals with problems until it blows up in their face. They didn't upgrade our storage system until we filled up a NAS box and the G5 despite me constantly reminding them months in advance we were getting dangerously low. Plus we had no backup system in place. They bought a do-it-yourself NAS box so we could continue to work, but that original NAS setup is still offline because it crashes constantly from being maxed out.
We were a month behind in work because were were understaffed. We begged them for over 4 months to hire an extra person to help but they said we'd be caught up soon. Not until after customers started canceling jobs (the same day I put my notice in) did they see it was a problem.
The place just doesn't know how to be run properly. It's not me. Trust me. - pfpurcell, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3I'd need at least 3 promotions before I make more than I do right now, and each of them would mean making less than I do right now - in sales, there's no motivation for good people to move into management
- donkeyshow, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3sorry, if you learned anything from these graphs...you have already failed.
- aldenhg, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4Google mirror: http://72.14.253.104/search?hs=sUq&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.lifereboot.com%2F2007%2Fknow-when-to-quit-and-when-not-to%2F&btnG=Search
- Nocturnal, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2That's good that you spoke your mind. From what I was told you should just quit on good terms and just say that you found something else and or are looking for different things in life/work. Is it a good idea to bluntly state that you feel that you're being overworked and not enough pay and that with a boost in pay and or some changes in the working conditions that you may stay?
- gernblansted, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3Thank you! This is how it should be done when a site with a simple article gets dugg to death.
Uh, if you are trying to enforce Copyright restrictions, please ignore this post.
Of course, it still should be done this way. - HaltingPoint, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Not only that but the author complains that a raise would only keep them happy for so long because the work load would again increase. Guess what, maybe its not just a raise you need but a promotion! Ask them for a promotion with people under you to handle the more menial, time-consuming tasks which will free you to handle additional, larger responsibilities to make them more money. If you can argue the point of how all of this is to make them more money, they'd be fools not to.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I imagine it's easier when you live in your parent's basement.
- HanSolo69, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Word Press error??!?!?!!? I never thought I'd live to see the day!
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2WTF man? Waiters work like dogs (I was one for a while when I was a kid).
Too many people missed the whole point that this is just cute blogspam. - FZero68, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I work 7-3:30 at a dead end job. I play my DS in my car for an average of 4-5 hours a day. So I guess everything is on the up and up according to that graph.
- stenhard, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I do believe that working for one's self potentially puts you in a position to reap a greater reward for your efforts. I wouldn't take that second chart to the bank, tho. If you can get income to approach your level of work on an asymptote you'll be doing well, unless whatever your output (or acceptable substitute) is simply can't be obtained from any other source. Good luck :o)
- yearrgh, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1How can he survive on less than $300 a month? Pre-tax I assume. I moved back to my parents house so I could work part time while finishing school. I get free food and a free place to live and I couldn't survive on $300 a month. I'm all for being an entrepreneur, but you need a minimum amount of money to survive.
- TheBigBad, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1You moved to a different state to write articles for a website? Hmm, I think I would hire someone a bit more intelligent.
Let's face it, the classic struggle will always be for your employer to get you to do the most amount of work for the least amount of money and for you personally to do the least amount of work for the most amount of money. - pfpurcell, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1half as loyal is way too much credit
- saleens281, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1If getting a raise means you have exponentially more work, it sounds like someone needs to find a new job. I've asked for raises at several previous jobs, and it didn't mean a direct increase in work. It meant my going above and beyond on a regular basis was being validated by my managers.
- bonedygr, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1This is almost more annoying than Beryl v. Aeros.
"I like earning income that is a direct result of how hard I worked for it." Ok, so in your second graph your "ideal situation" graph, you're earning more money for doing the same amount of work? Also, most people who seek challenges don't say things like "trading time for money seems inefficient, especially when there are more things I want to do with my time besides work." I don't see how trying to take the easiest possible route to income fits your business mantra.
Don't get me wrong, I think people should always find the most challenging and financially rewarding task they can, but this sounds more like an infomercial for a MLM scheme. - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I'm troubled by how often that solution involves:
5. Blog about it
6. ????
7. Profit!
SO many crap blogs that are just making people more and more stupid. - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1All true. I assume everyone realizes this article is just meant to be cute. I do think it was a mistake to make the work line go flat once he was working for himself. In my experience people who work for themselves wind up working pretty much around the clock 7 days a week.
- mrwhitethc, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I dunno about you but I try and Digg while at work and leave everything else secondary. =)
- inspecality, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Wow! I bet you get laid a lot!
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