Is it Worth to Quit for more Family time?

Kumar Rahul Tiwary; Sep 13, 2012

If you are not getting time even to change your password, may be it is time to change your login :) (Rahul) https://twitter.com/rahulbemba

When to quit your job? I think it is a million dollar question. Some of us even make it an answer – “I will quit my job only when I get new job with a million dollar salary.” Or make your estimate. Such professionals have only money in their mind. But I think we should wake up to the fact that there are more reasons to quit a job than only money.

Here are some more reasons why people would quit their jobs:

1. I don’t like my boss.
2. My boss dislikes me.
3. I don’t get promotions.
4. I have been forced into a promotion I don’t like.
5. I feel my salary is too low for the work.
6. I am getting better salary offer next door.
7. I need to relocate to other city for family reasons.
8. My company is forcing me to relocate to other city which I don’t like.
9. I don’t like my work.
10. I have done too badly at my work and appraisal is too bad too.
11. TYP… (take your pick and continue)

I think each of these reasons also impacts a professional of a certain age group. (Or even demography and other factors but we won’t get into those). Till certain age, money looks most important. After a certain age, it is money which brings more misery and we realize that our goals need to be reset. Family compulsions become more important. Many of us do give enough importance to such aspects. I think “family” matters are one reason why people higher the organizational ladder switch their jobs most, rather than the beginners. But some people feel guilty when they have to quit a job or change employments because of family reasons. How to deal with such guilt?

I think there is a certain novelty in “trying”. If you are facing some problems in personal or family life due to your job, first you should “try” to make things alright. Can you manage it? Can you think out-of-the-box to come out with a solution which would make you work around the problem and thereby you won’t have to quit your job? Many of us forget to think too hard to find a solution and take quitting as an easy escape. We should not do that.

The problems with family life Vs your job happens most of the time when both spouses are working. Therefore the problems can be solved only if both have equal understanding of the problem and are equally dedicated to solve the problem. If only one side makes a compromise which the other side didn’t understand or appreciate, it might create more problems in the long term.

After all out-of-the-box ideas fail to solve the problem (which has very less probability if we try intelligently), we should even take help from friends and colleagues who have had seen this phase we are going through. We should even discuss this with our boss and ask for suggestions. We should read books and articles to understand aspects we may be ignoring totally so far. May be we could solve our problem this way.

If everything fails and we are bound to make a decision to quit, I am sure we shall be more confident about our decision and we shall be happier while making the change. Ultimately we all do our jobs because we want to be happier. Money, more family time, etc, are all means for our happiness.

Happy quitting!

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization associated with the author. The incidents or examples mentioned in the article, or cases based on which article is based, are for illustration purpose and need not be from author’ real personal (work) experiences.