Just Get a Better Job

I hear this all the time. If your employer isn't treating you right, just get a better job. If your manager is overworking you, just find one who won't. If your company has a chaotic codebase, just move to a sane one. In fact, if a stock in your portfolio is underperforming, just pick a better one. It's that easy... Except it isn't.

With jobs, it sometimes feels like it should be that simple. When my friend and I were both looking for better opportunities years ago, I quit immediately and took the very next job I applied for. Her process was different. She spent weeks polishing her resume, ordered special paper, refined everything until it fit on a single page. She sent me job links asking what I thought. She researched benefits packages, looked up CEOs' political stances, ran background checks on companies. While she was doing her due diligence, I'd already left that new job because it felt too demanding. I found another one by just walking into a store. It took her a year to commit to a single position.

"Just get another job" was an option for me then. I was young, didn't have insurance, didn't care about a 401(k). I was just trying to pay bills. For her, it was an investment. She needed to ensure her insurance wouldn't be interrupted, that she'd be comfortable staying for years, that she'd be making a difference. Even in a booming economy, you only get to have one job at a time.

The years have passed, and I can't hop from job to job anymore. Recently, I was at a McDonald's negotiating the treaty of "15 minutes in the playplace" with my kids. At a nearby table, two women were deep in conversation. As they finished, the younger one approached the counter. "Are you hiring?" she asked. The cashier gave a simple nod. "Yes."

A few weeks later, despite my own vows to cut down on fast food, I was back. And there she was behind the register, wearing a "Trainee" badge. She got the job. Just like that. I imagine her friend told her "just get a better job," and she did.

But people in my circle struggle. I have a friend who moved back home with family after burning through his savings while job hunting for an entire year. When someone like that finally lands a job, they aren't leaving it on a whim.

Every job is a monolithic investment. You can't treat it like a shirt you try on and return. It's more like a transplant. It consumes your time when you're giving it your best energy, your most alert mind.

It requires a vesting period. Benefits, 401(k) matches, trust, meaningful projects, promotions, none of these are unlocked on day one. They're the interest earned on the capital of your time, paid out over years.

And you don't get to see how good or bad your coworkers are until after you've made the commitment. By then, you might have relocated, signed a lease, or made other major life changes.

"Getting another job" is like deciding to dismantle your current home, board by board, to build a new one on a different plot of land you've only seen in brochures. The process is exhausting and risky, and the new foundation might have cracks you couldn't see from the outside.

This isn't an argument to convince you to stay at your job. It's just a reminder that getting a job is an investment, and a good part of it requires taking a leap of faith.

A meaningful, sustaining career is not a collection of jobs you casually cycle through. It's a series of careful, consequential investments.

In this economy, you don't just "get another job." You meticulously choose, and then fully commit to, the one job that will consume your next chapter. Make that single, consuming investment not out of frustration, but with the clarity of an architect. Because your time is the one currency you can't earn back. Invest it wisely.