If you're anything like me, you probably spend a good chunk of your daily life working. Whether it is staring at the computer screen, chatting with co-workers or burning the midnight oil, most of my day...my life is spent working. So, I better like the place, right?
I am one of the lucky people to LOVE what I do everyday (and I am not just saying that because my boss reads these). But I, like everyone else here has had a job that they absolutely cannot stand (please reference video 1). In today's job market, we take the 'beggars can't be choosers' mentality when it comes to salaries, but it seems we have had that mentality for a long time when it came to being choosy about WHERE we work.
Right out of the gate the most important things in people's minds is usually how much cash we make, the 401k plan, health insurance benefits and number of vacation days (this is an important one for those people who use every last sick day and vacation day in the bank to avoid their workplace at all costs). But most of the time we really need to be looking at things like the pet policy, if they have a beer Friday and how much you could learn while you are there.
Working at a job where you aren't growing, learning and evolving is wasting your precious time. If you work for a real idiot (please reference video 2) not only will you not learn anything, but you will dread that long drive to work even more. Even though it is a paycheck, being in a job where you aren't surrounded by people (boss and co-workers included) that both inspire and push who you are as an employee you are 1 step forward and 5 steps back from where you started. Use where you are (or where you're going) to become the most knowledgeable and desirable hire a company could hope for.
So don't trust the best and brightest years of your life to someone or some company who couldn't care less about you and your growth. Be as picky about where you work as you would be about a parachute. Life is too short to risk wasting 5, 10, 15 years hating every Monday morning. You spend way too much time there and you deserve better than a half price parachute.
cite: see also Seth Godin