You know a change in job is needed when...

You know you need to change your career (even we are in the middle of a recession) when…

1. You fantasise about working in a tollbooth on the M50

2. The highlights of your day are tea breaks and lunchtime.

3. You know you have said all this before but you can’t remember when.

4. You keep ringing the talking clock because you know the clock in work is slow by a few hours.

5. You go to work and when you return home you have no memory of what happened in between.

6. You wonder what the new person at work is so enthusiastic about.

7. You volunteer to do the photocopying for everyone.

8. You wish your customers would leave you alone…they always seem to want something.

9. You pretend to be on the dole when people ask you what you do.

10. You create a calendar that shows how many days you have until retirement.

11. You mark off each day on your calendar with a big black marker.

12. You wonder idly what it would be like to spend time in Mountjoy…and speculate that it really couldn’t be much worse than this job.

13. You offer to swap jobs with the cleaning staff.

14. You begin to think about beginning to smoke…at least it gets you out of the office.

15. You wonder why all the stupid people of the universe congregate in your office.

16. You spend all week thinking about the weekend and spend most of Sunday dreading going to work.

17. You consider going to the zoo and hiring a monkey to do your job. You doubt if anyone would notice the difference.

18. You wonder what sort of deeds you committed in a past life to get saddled with your job, colleagues and boss; and speculate that you were probably Attila the Hun.

19. You have rung in sick with so many excuses that you are rapidly running out of dead relations and illnesses. You have already tried the Ebola virus and bird flu. Your boss has pointed out that most people only have 4 grandparents.

20. You spend time on the Internet researching excuses to stay out of work.

21. You can’t think of one thing you like about your job; and you have tried. You really have.

22. You have 5 recruitment agencies on speed dial and 10 jobs websites in your favourites (and a jobs website as your home page).

23. You ring a friend asking them what they are doing now…even though you’ve already done that 4 times this morning.

24. You check out work visas in Afghanistan.

25. You get morning sickness at the idea of going to work - and you’re a man.

26. You read lots of books and articles about changing your job/career.

Anne Walsh is a life coach based in Galway - www.annewalshcoach.com

Anne Walsh