Signs it's time to find a new job

Good lawyers generally spend their entire career at one firm, and Dad was a good lawyer. Mom was an architect, but quit when she gave birth to me, volunteered at my sister's and my school for 14-ish years, then worked at the Art Institute of Chicago for something like 15 or 20 years. It rarely occurred to me that changing jobs was commonplace for responsible adults. You find someplace good an you stay there and do good work and everybody is reasonably happy.

Apparently that's not the case. My wife's family knows this very well, but... they're federal government employees, so I thought they didn't count. Oh well. Here are some signs it might be a good idea to move on.

• The founder of the company gets pushed out by a CEO who understands neither the products nor the market, and has no vision or sense of direction.
• The manager whose only product is six months late and running for initial release and running gets promoted to vice president of development.
• The bulk of staff meetings consists of guessing how long the money will last.
• The company gets bought by an organization that swears they want to keep you just the way you are, but places strict controls on where, when, and how you work.
• Requirements and deadlines are passed down without conversation or additional resources.
• If a process must change, the old process is terminated before the new one has been created.
• The tools you are required to use are unusable, and you are forbidden from using anything different. Attempts to point out the flaws in the tools and suggestions for improvement are ignored.
• Executives call the organization "A big, small company", but attempts to obtain or change anything are met by beaurocratic finger-pointers.
• Attempts to improve morale have nothing to do with the causes of low morale.
• You depend on someone else doing their job to meet a deadline you will be held accountable for, but they are not.
• The people who should, don't. The people who would, can't.
• The bond between employees consists primarily of frustration, anger, apathy, and beer.
• The corporate policy banning alcohol on the premises is enforced.
• The way to tell who is going to quit next is by noticing who is not participating in the pool.
• A gig at the IRS starts looking good.