Job Hopper?

So, why do we switch jobs? Why do we take the risk of moving out of our comfort zones and move into something unknown? Why do we agree to part with what's familiar and a well-known-and-well-rehearsed-routine? What makes us believe that the new job will bring us what the current job couldn't? Is it just an itch to do something new and challenging that drives us to a job hunt? Or there is something more to it?

I am sure all of us who've switched our jobs at some point of time, know that it is stressful and not at all an easy decision. After all, haven't we spent a lot of time in our jobs building up the rapport with the office colleagues;  Haven't we spent a lot of time in understanding how things work in the current company; Haven't we done a great deal of work to prove ourself; And a job change will mean we will have to do it all over again. And to make the matters worse we need to prepare for long and technical interviews.

Yes, it indeed is very difficult and stressful, yet we all change or think of changing our jobs and sometimes even career at some point or other. There could be many reasons behind this:

• It seems more people change bosses rather than changing jobs. I've had the opportunity to work with some of the brightest, most decent and hard working, inspiring and in many ways ideal and, may I say, the best bosses around. At the same time, I was unfortunate to work under some extremely selfish, tyrannical, power hungry, downright clueless, insecure and incompetent mutts. It's all a part of life and the good and bad together make up the world.
• Another big reason could be lack of growth opportunities and it doesn't always means promotion. It can very well be growth in terms of learning and EQ.  No body wants to become stagnant in his or her role. If a person finds his or her career at a dead end then more often than not he or she will start looking out for better opportunities. I learnt that a people manager should talk often with the people reporting to him or her about their career aspirations and strive to make sure that they are given right opportunities for the same. One of my previous managers would always talk with me about how he wants to groom me so that I could replace him when the time comes and to be honest it was quite exciting to know that I had an opportunity to grow there.
• We all work with people on our day-to-day basis and I think it's utmost important to have a soaring team spirit to do the job well and get some job satisfaction at the end of the day. But it's surprising that some of the organizations and managers knowingly or unknowingly do things to destroy this. Some organizations have a culture of promoting intense competition in the hope it will produce quality results. Such places have appraisal systems such that every employee is given a forced-rank (forced-rank is one where-in no two people can have the same rank). That means in any team, however good there results are, there always are people at the bottom (who are often new joiners or may be people who are not so good at "managing their managers"). Such organizations often fire people with the bottom rankings at the end of appraisal cycles, only to re-hire their replacements sometime soon. In such a scenario, it is evident that no body would want to be there at the bottom, and it is interesting to see what all bullshit people do and go through to avoid it. These organizations try to add more and more processes on top of existing ones to ensure "things are fair" but nothing really works and the team spirit essentially gets murdered brutally every passing day. In such systems, more often than not, the sycophants get the rewards and the really deserving employees get a "Big Nothing".
• Greener pastures: Well, who doesn't want a salary hike, but at the same time there are so many things that change due to a job change and so many knowns become unknowns. So, may be a lot of you may not agree but I think that salary-hike is the last reason most people would change their jobs (specially when it's not the career start).  

Well, I changed my job recently and the above reasons may or may not have been my reasons for this change, but here are a couple of pictures from my last day:

My ex-manager giving me a parting gift (a greeting card & a Sigma 18-200 lens for my camera :))

My impromptu bakar about my experience with the company

My ex-colleagues, all happy to say me good-bye ;)

My ex-colleagues waiting patiently for the bakar to end and the treat to begin :)

To my ex-colleagues:
Thanks guys, it was great working with you all... Keep in touch!!!!

To all who have switched their jobs sometimes: What were your reasons and how was the experience. I welcome your comments.