femalenetwork.com

Your work life is pretty good. Your office is nice, the work is challenging, and you have one of those cool electric pencil sharpeners. Maybe things are just fine as they are. But maybe, just maybe, things might get better if you move on.

“Sometimes you just don’t have the right job for that particular point in your life,” points out Michelle Tullier, Ph.D., author of Networking for Everyone: Connecting With People for Career and Job Success (JIST Works, 1998). And sometimes, leaving a job—even one that you like—is the best career move you can make. Here, five surefire signs that it may be time to bail out:

1. You waste time managing your boss.
Just because your boss is a manager does not necessarily mean she manages well. And a boss who can’t manage people can put a major crimp in your career. “My boss liked to claim my ideas as her own,” says Stephanie, 31, an ad executive in Pasig. “That was on top of her daily tirades and marathon personal calls. But I stuck it out because, aside from her, the work was great—a real learning environment. After I took everything I could from the job, I quit to find something better.”

If your superior’s style is holding you back, the first step is to schedule a talk and try to work things out, says Arlene Hirsch, career counselor and author of Love Your Work and Success Will Follow (Wiley and Sons, 1996). “Don’t go in there accusing your boss of x, y, and z,” says Hirsch. “Instead, tell her you want to do the best job possible so you think it’s important to discuss…then tell her your concerns. A boss worth sticking around for is one who understands how important it is to work together.” Listen to see whether your boss uses the word me throughout the conversation. “If instead she launches into a lot of ‘you did that’, this is likely a person who isn’t much interested in doing her part,” says Hirsch. In that case, make tracks—and make sure you avoid the same situation in the future.

2. She puts off your promised promotions.
Your boss may have promised all kinds of perks to join the team, but that doesn’t always mean she’ll deliver. Valerie, 27, found herself in a tough spot when she tried to cash in one of her employer’s enticements. “I worked as a departmental assistant, and my supervisors promised I’d be made office manager within a years,” says Valerie, now a project coordinator in Mandaluyong. “After a year, they’d ‘promoted’ me to office manager but with the exact same pay and with no new responsibilities. The supervisors kept insisting that they had followed through. It was a total insult.”

“If your employer isn’t following through on her promises, it’s best to use what I call the assumptive-close approach,” advises Hirsch. “Go back to the person who hired you and say, ‘When I was hired, we agreed on a 15 percent raise after six months. I’d like to find a way we can reach an agreement and make this happen.’” You go in assuming it’s a done deal, and now it’s time for the boss to cough up her end of the bargain. If you’ve fulfilled your part of the job performance-wise, and you’ve discussed the situation and your employer is still dragging her heels, it might be time to walk. It took Valerie about six months of putting off promises before she stopped chasing her company’s carrot on a stick. “I took my new title and found a company that was willing to put its promises in writing!”

3. You’re a victim of a toxic-people environment.
“The last office I worked at had a grapevine that would make Robert Mondavi jealous,” reveals Marga, 29, a tax attorney in Makati. “The office charter was always so negative, I felt like I had to look over my shoulder all the time.”

“A toxic environment is usually the result of a boss who tolerates such behavior and in some cases, perpetuates it,” says Ann Marie Sabath, founder of At Ease, Inc., a business etiquette-training firm based in Cincinatti. If the way to get ahead is by being a ruthless backstabber, you can bet that’s exactly what some people are going to do. And this kind of office is not one where your career can flourish, says Hirsch. “You make enemies—which you don’t need—and nasty interoffice conflicts take priority over productivity.”

When Diana took a job as a designer at a textile company, she was taken aback by the fiercely competitive environment. “There was no set hierarchy within the office, so it was every man for himself,” says Diana. “Some people fed off the competition, but it just wasn’t for me and I ended up asking for a transfer.”

To gauge your office’s toxicity, ask yourself how many days of the week you feel positive about the people around you and how many days you feel negative about them. If you’re working in the office equivalent of Cutthroat Island, it may be time to set sail for other options.

4. You’re bored and dead-ended.
“A healthy career is one that is full of change and a variety of experience,” insists Hirsch. The key is knowing when to move on. Maybe you’ve gone as high as you can go within the company’s ranks, or maybe you’re ready for more of a challenge. In any case, “when you feel satisfied with what you’ve accomplished and you can go no further, that’s the time to think about leaving,” says Hirsch, “because six months from that point, you’re going to be bored.”

5. Your big dream is beckoning.
“After college, a lot of people take the first thing that comes along,” says Tullier. The next thing you know, you’re knee-deep in a career that may not be ideal. “Most people don’t consider the risk that in years to come, they’ll regret not fulfilling their potential,” says Hirsch. Reaching for your dream is noble pursuit as long as you remain grounded in reality. Take the first steps to achieving your dream by looking into volunteering part-time, enrolling in a training course, or setting up informal interviews to expand your network in the field. Dinch Mohajer, the president and creator of Hard Candy cosmetics, started on the road to her dream job by turning her side interest into a multi-million dollar company. “I was studying premed and it just didn’t feel right,” says the 25-year-old entrepreneur. “So as a creative outlet, I started mixing nail polish and selling it to boutiques. “To keep from getting in over my head financially, Mohajer employed the help of friends and family. “Before we knew it, we were a full-time business. Now when I wake up, I feel happy and challenged because I’m doing what I love.”