12 Visible Signs That You Should Look for a New Job

You started with your company fresh out of college. With a degree in Business Administration, a head for challenges and a willing attitude, you literally "hit the ground running" on your first day of work.

The boss and your coworkers almost instantly "took a shine" to you. It was as if you were made for this job. You secretly believed that this company had been waiting on you to graduate just so you could make this company better and more productive.

Things were better then, you say to yourself these days when you are finding yourself more and more depressed. But the reason for your depression is not due to you making too many mistakes with clients or causing friction among coworkers. In fact, you are an exemplary employee. You even won "Employee of The Week" one time in the past six years.

Your depression is warranted. But you have experienced severe paranoia a lot lately and you have noticed that things between you and the boss have slowly-but-definitely changed, and not for your good. You cannot put your finger on it, but you know that your boss does not look at you in the same exciting way he once did when you first went to work for him.

You try to talk to the boss, but his excuses for not being available for you are seemingly endless. But not for "Petermon," "Langston," and "Barb," the newest employees. But you talk yourself into believing that the reason the boss sees them almost everyday is due to them being the "new kids on the block," and he is grooming them to be the best employees they can be.

Besides your boss having an "open door policy" with these three new coworkers and never letting you see him, you cannot explain the many lunches the new employees and the boss have enjoyed. And the way they share how the boss and his wife has paid them all a visit over the past consecutive weekends. Something is wrong. You are now worried more than you were during the finals in college.

On every project that the boss has given you for the last six months, he has found something wrong with your work and you have to redo the entire project. The other staff members' work is great. They, plus the new staffers are always getting high marks from the boss. This is not growing old, but has become old. Then one morning on the way to work it hits you . . .

12 Visible Signs That You Need to Be Looking For a New Job

1. You find classified ad sections with "Now hiring" ads circled in red ink on your desk every morning with no way to know who is placing them there. But you suspect that the boss is giving you this sign to resign and find a new position.
2. One time in your six-year career, you were always the one that the boss singled-out in office meetings to answer the tough questions or give important presentations, but not anymore. Oh, you are still singled-out, but lately only for the boss to make light of you for the errors you have made.
3. When the boss takes all of his staff out for lunch, YOU are always left out. But in the same way, the boss brings you back the bill for you to pay.
4. It's getting to be a sad habit when you turn in projects you have completed ahead of time, the boss growls, "this was due yesterday."
5. When office meetings are scheduled, the company policy is for the boss to provide employees with memo's telling when and where the meeting is, but for a month, he purposely does not leave a memo on your desk then chews you out for not attending the office meetings.
6. The boss gives out hefty raises to those in your office who are not as productive as you. You ask nicely, "Sir, I haven't had a raise in three years." "Do you still work here?" the boss snaps and then threatens to either lay you off in a down sizing or decrease the amount of your check.
7. For the past three years when it is time for you to have your annual vacation, the boss brings the written request for vacation to your desk with "DENIED!" stamped in red at the top. Then walks away without explanation.
8. A month ago you thought things were getting better when the boss invited you to lunch with him. No other staff members were invited. But having lunch with you and the boss were three personnel managers from various companies talking about how they were hiring all who applied at their offices.
9. Another time your morale was boosted when the boss invited you and your wife to have dinner at his house with him and the wife, but upon your arrival, you found no one at home and all of the lights off. Then your wife complained, "five times in a row is enough!"
10. Speaking of your loyal wife. You and her seldom argued, but last week you had a rough discussion with her when she said, "why don't you just quit and find another job?" to which you replied, "well, dear, the boss has not come right out and told me to leave, so I can't leave just like that."
11. Each time your wife and kids watch the hilarious film, "Office Space," with Ron Livingston, they all look at you when the boss, Gary Cole, "Bill Lumbergh," keeps telling the poor employee, "Milton Waddams," Stephen Root, to move his desk further out of sight in the workplace. "You are like that 'Mr. Waddams," your teen daughter quips.
12. If there were a "straw that broke the camel's back," it would be last Monday morning when you reported to work only to find a fresh face, a young man who graduated Brown University last month, sitting at your desk and the boss shaking his hand, patting him on the back and then scowling at you when you walked toward them.

My only question to you is: "You have always had trouble grasping the obvious, right?"