What one major sign or indicator made it known to you that it was time for a job and/or career change?

[asianfreak]

From the good reasons to the not-so-good reasons, no answer is wrong here because your personal situations and experiences just aren’t the same.

[Anonymous]

When I was maybe 22, I was running a production company with a guy who used to be a photographer. We got a small investment and the pressure was immense to pay it back, and fulfill the responsibility I felt to my business partner and his family who largely depended on me being good at something I wasn't totally sure I was good at yet.

So we go on this shoot with someone very smart, very talanted and I had so much respect for him. I wanted him to respect me just 1/3 as much as I did for him so bad, it was killing me. Only problem, he thought I was a leech. He thought I wasn't going to last and that I was a fake. He pretended to be cordial and tried to hide it but I could tell he had basically the opposite of respect for me.

So we're on this farm and it starts raining. He NEEDS to shoot something outside before it rains heavy enough to show on camera. So he says "Get as much b-roll as you can, don't fuck up the exposure"

I was like oh yea, got you 🖕🏼😂

Only the gravity of the situation started to set in as I ran across the farm as fast as I could with my camera and a little light. If I fucked this up, we were gonna loose a lot of opportunities. So I got some great shots. Enough to make a whole video out of.

Next it's raining too much to shoot more outside, I'm sitting in the farmhouse where this guy lived with his wife and we're talking about starting our own businesses. My company, her and her husband's whistle pig distillary when out of nowhere, I see a book with a picture of their mascot: The farm pigs. One of them recently died and they guy seemed heartbroken about it, I was sure it was part of the producers plan for the segment.

So I cleaned up the area by the window, the sky began to clear up in a way which made for perfect lighting. I saw the shot before I even touched the camera. Got her to turn the pages perfectly, I learned how to dress and light the scene from the photographer so it looked so good.

When it was time to leave, the producer wasn't talking to me. He barely wanted to look at me. It was like he felt like he already saw everything I shot and he was going to have to come back and reshoot everything himself.

Fast forward a few days later when I'm editing some stuff, he calls me.

"What you did that day... Was totally fucking awesome."

He wanted to know how I got so much footage, he was asking me about my mentality for shooting what I shot. And then he toom the time out of his day to sit down and over the phone critique every shot I took. I felt so fulfilled, it was a moment I had been dreaming of since I was a little kid. I had to mute the mic at some point because I was practically sobbing from how emotional of an experience it was for me. I earned his respect, we became good friends, worked on many other projects together.

And yes, everything was properly exposed

[clampfan101]

Back pain. lol
I used to stock at a grocery store. I think I should work at a library if I can’t find something I can do at home.

[Anonymous]

I worked in management. Loved my direct management team and my boss, loved the staff, loved the job, but for the absolute life of me I could not understand why upper management was always trying to sabotage the successes we had from attempting to turn staff against one another, to keeping periphery staff that were incompetent despite even numerous client complaints, to accusing my staff of doing things they did not do. After 6 years, I realized nothing was changing and the straw that broke the camels back was them attempting to fire 2 of my staff because someone in upper management wanted to throw someone under the bus to save their job because of their own incompetence.

I decided after that to start my own business and work for myself. Getting to hear my own voice, have free reign, and the ability to work at my own pace given some health issues, it's been a total refresh in my life.

[jennifer_bloom]

I base my career decision on some dreams and signs that I got from God. People thought I was wasting my time for the first 3-4 years but now I believe I’m bearing fruit.

[OlderAndWiser]

Each day, as I drove to work, I got a feeling of dread and I could feel it internally, as I got closer to my place of employment. I was burned out.

[Anonymous]

My biggest sign was when I began making more money outside my 9 to 5 job then I was making at my 9 to 5 job.😆

[andreasderjuengere]

I got terminated :)

[MissBoogus]

I wasn’t happy