If I go there could be trouble; If I stay, there will be double."
You may remember the lyrics to that old song, but in today's economic situation many are having the exact same thoughts about their jobs - including people working in the animation industry. Depending on your company, its financial situation, your financial situation (especially if you're a freelancer), and the fluctuating conditions of the market, you may be asking yourself if you'd be better off seeking a job at another company...or even in another industry. Ask yourself the following questions:
Has work slowed down?
Do you find yourself idling, sorting pencils, and scraping tape residue off your light table to find something to do to fill an eight hour day? If there's a shortage of work that lasts longer than the average lull, there's going to be a shortage of money, soon, too. When companies start losing money, they stop spending money - which could mean anything from cutting back on expenses to cutting back on people.
Is your position transferable or expendable?
If you're in a low-level position, whether you're scaling bitmap textures endlessly all day or erasing pencil smudges on line art, odds are you're part of a team of people all dedicated to doing the exact same thing. The problem with teams is that they can be downsized, and the work of one person can be distributed between the remaining personnel. And that brings us to...
Have you started taking on others' work lately?
You might find yourself going from being too bored to too busy - one moment bored and blowing condensation fog onto blank cells to draw on it with your fingertips, the next swamped with unfinished in-betweens and wondering where Jenkins two tables over went, and hey, wasn't this his scene to sketch? You have new responsibilities, without a change in title or change in pay. That generally means that the company can't afford to hire (or keep) another person to handle the workload, and so they're piling the work and the stress on you.
Have you taken a pay cut?
If you're a freelancer, your clients may be fewer, farther between, and less willing to pay the same prices for your services. If you're employed by a company, you may have just taken a drop in pay when you were hoping for a raise to combat inflation - likely with the excuse that the entire company has had to tighten the belt, and everyone's wages are going down. That's a sure sign that the company is suffering from the economic setback.
Has your company (or your freelance business) started cutting back on expenses?
Are staples suddenly such an expensive commodity that spent ones are being retrieved from the trash and unbent for re-use? Does bending paper clips into funny shapes now require an expense report?
Are you unhappy in your workplace?
This is the most important question of all. Some people, even with additional work and stress, less pay, and shaky job stability, will still be happy in their job and think it's worth staying no matter what happens. These are the people who stick it out with a company until the ship goes down, until they're fired, or until (with hope) the ship sails through into clear waters. But often times these changing conditions can add hardships that make work a chore rather than a pleasure; in the animation industry this is more true than ever, because many of us work in this field out of love of animation more than anything else. If changing working conditions remove that love, then sometimes it may not be worth it. It all depends on the perspective.
If you answered yes to at least half of these questions, you may want to look at your job and consider whether you should stay or go - now, soon, or possibly some time in the future.
