16 signs it’s time to start looking for a new job

Now is the time of year we all start dreaming of throwing it all in and going travelling or writing that novel. Here's our checklist to help you decide if it's a good idea for you.

Job Advice
(Image credit: Rex Features (Shutterstock))

Now is the time of year we all start dreaming of throwing it all in and going travelling or writing that novel. Here's our checklist to help you decide if it's a good idea for you.

You know it's time to leave your job when:

1. Your life is a mirror image of Girls - except you're not Lena Dunham, you don't live in New York and you haven't won any Golden Globes.

2. Your Sunday night blues start on Friday night.

3. There are so many people crying in the ladies at work you have to use the gents.

4. You realize you’ve eaten breakfast, lunch and dinner at your desk, you haven't even had time to bin the debris and there's a family of mice nesting behind your hard drive.

5. You’re finally heading home at 8pm and someone asks if you’re having an early night for a “joke".

6. You’re on holiday and the office starts emailing "quick questions" before you’ve even fastened your seatbelt.

7. You find yourself making a voodoo doll of your line manager.

8. You start smoking just so you can have the fag breaks.

9. Going to the loo comes out of your holiday allowance.

10. You’ve got more clothes and toiletries in your office drawer than you have at home.

11. You get more creative satisfaction out of separating your laundry into lights, darks and coloureds than you do from your job.

12. You realise your manager has the inner life of a pair of hair straighteners.

13. Your role expands – to include walking your boss’s chihuahua.

14. Your boss's idea of a pep talk is more Alex Ferguson than Sheryl Sandberg.

15. You'd rather be broke and eat cat food than put up with your whining colleagues for one more day.

16. You describe your work as a "career" and your friend laughs so much she squirts coffee out of her nose.

If you do think it's time to start looking for a new job, this is the stuff you need to know.