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Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

And Rands mentions this in the article. There's a weighted list of criteria you keep in the back of your head

No, he doesn't. The full list from him includes:

  Am I happy with my job?
  Do I like my manager? My team?
  Is this project I’m working on fulfilling?
  Am I learning?
  Am I respected?
  Am I growing?
  Do I feel fairly compensated?
  Is this company/team going anywhere?
  Do I believe in the vision?
  Do I trust the leaders?

People can answer "YES!" to all of those questions and still leave the job. I've left jobs I was happy at. All sorts of happy people do it all the time. The foundation of the author's essay is flawed.

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I totally agree. I answered yes to all of the above at my last company and left about 9 months ago to start my own company with some former colleagues from way back when in an unrelated market. I had risen quickly, felt very listened to, loved my team, and believed in my superiors. At the end of the day, as much as my last company was the happiest I've ever been at any job, the chance to have my own company outweighed all of the above.

In fairness, your answer to: Is this project I’m working on fulfilling? should have been no it is not fulfilling enough. It does not fulfill your desire to own your own company.

I agree entrepreneurial drive is something Rands didn't account for. For some of us, it's just an innate, inevitable part of our being.

Accounting for it doesn't really add anything. If you have that drive your shields were never really up so trying to prevent the "shields down" moment is simply not possible.

So, elaborate for us. What was your personal criteria or event that wasn't in the list above but made you decide to prepare to leave?

Just the fact that you've been at a given company for a while might be enough of a reason. Even if everything is going well you might want to find out how life looks somewhere else; you can usually come back if it turns out worse, so why not?

I think the thing about life is that its complexity can't be reduced to a list of criteria.

Sure it can. That list will just be different for different people.

And that's the author's point. He's not trying to declare the official list of criteria, but just point out that, subconsciously, you do have one. And one small change to one value in the decision matrix might be the tipping point to entertain job offers.

The sooner you become consciously aware of it, the better.

Different for different people, different for different points in time for the same people (e.g. when parenting arrives)... Modeling life is hard. :)

Nah, you'd expect Life to be at least Turing-complete.

Parent obviously meant a list of specific criteria applied to everybody.

Not to mention that your answer implies that people only do things because of some list of personal criteria -- e.g. that they always take conscious and/or rational decisions.

Having a voice and starting something new in the world, instead of being a replaceable tiny nail in a mansion built by someone else.

Yeah, the list is fundamentally flawed. Too many outside-of-work things [e.g. Spouse job moves] can cause you to leave as well.

The thing is, those are only most of the reasons that are directly related to the job itself. Perfectly understandable, considering the goal is to tell managers how to retain employees. But anyone in that position should also be aware that any employee's real list includes a bunch of things that have nothing to do with anything that happens at the company they work at. The "Shields Down" moments may include things like:

Wanting to move to a different area for any number of life reasons

Wanting to change to a different career entirely

Need to take time off to deal with a new child, a sick relative, etc.

Finding an opportunity for something you can't offer them, like a chance to start their own company

And about a hundred other things that I couldn't imagine.

But I think reasons that are directly related to the job are the only things that belong in this list. If your "shields down" moment is caused by some factor that is external to the job it's really outside of your manager's control.

His job as a manager doesn't really include making sure your children don't get sick, or convincing you that California weather isn't that nice, or that you don't really want to have the life goal of starting your own company. I'd saying restricting the list to questions that a manager could have an impact on is more valuable than a more generic list that encapsulates everything.

"I want to live in a different city" is a management challenge that belonga on the list. Managers have some measure of control over where they allow employees to work.

What about "Does my compensation cover my basic needs?", followed shortly by "Does my compensation provide me any meaningful life planning?"

Being fairly compensated and being adequately compensated are two different things. Sometimes you have to pay more than what is "fair" to keep people. Fair is tied to market forces, forces that assume people can/will move between jobs. To stop people from falling prey to market forces and leaving you need to pay them above the going rate, beyond fair.

An extreme example of this is where the fair/market rate is zero, or even below zero. People like interns on film/tv productions are paid nothing, sometimes for years. There are even examples of people paying for the opportunity to work without pay. If you want such people to remain loyal you have to pay them something, which would be more than the fair/market rate of nothing.

For an example of negative market rates in the medical field, see http://thetab.com/uk/uclan/2015/10/04/is-uclan-elitist-1193

"There has also recently been criticism of work experience placements in a private hospital being sold for £500 per week, which would help students improve their applications to study medicine at university."

If you're willing to pay someone more money to retain their marketable skils then that price is 'fair', by the definition of 'free market' anyway.

A market/fair rate requires a market, something bigger than a single employer. If a market rate exists, it must be possible to pay someone above/below that rate. If the fair rate is always whatever someone is paid, the concepts of fair or market rates looses all meaning.

My understanding is that in a perfectly efficient free market, yes, everyone would be paid 'fair market rate' for their particular skills.

But such markets are only approximated in practice, and the interesting part of Economics is studying the effects of how actual markets differ from being perfectly free and efficient.

I disagree because this list is meant to be intrinsic to evaluating your current job vs. some other semi-comparable job.

Conditions leading to a shields down moment for someone switching to job that might be preventable by management is pretty well contained by this list. It doesn't account for life goals or circumstances that drive you in a truly different career path.

Humans are quite irrational creatures, aren't they?

There are many rational reasons to leave a loved job too. For most people, their job is not their life, and nor it should be.

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