Re: Changing Jobs

[Nkuvu]

I've been working for the same company for a little over five years. I got this job out of college, so it's the only company I've worked for.

Three years ago, I left the company to seek a better position. The company itself isn't bad, I like the people and the structure just fine. But the work itself is less than fulfilling. We typically do contract work for other companies -- so this involves software testing, and almost no actual development or design. Over the years I've been doing a significant amount of testing, and a lot of documentation work, and my actual programming skills have suffered as a consequence. I'm not particularly motivated outside of work, unfortunately.

So when I went looking for a new company to work for, my resume was not very impressive. I spent six months totally unemployed. After six months I got a job in a video store -- minimum wage beats zero wage. I continued the search, but after a full year my savings were getting rather low. I returned to this company to do the dull but stable work. It's a bit depressing, but I am aware that it's mostly my own fault. If I could get myself actually working on projects outside of work, I could brush up my programming skills and be able to list projects on my resume, enabling me to get a much more interesting job (although part of the issue is that I am against relocation or even much travel).

So I think a change would be good, but I haven't been able to do so.