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Quit Your Job, Before Your Job Quits You

You know it's time to quit your job, or at least work on a "quit-your-job" plan when your industry is becoming obsolete or changing right before your eyes.

Prior to working in higher education, I worked for almost 20 years in the aviation, airline and travel industry. I began my career as an Air Traffic Controller, spent 5 years in airline operations and several years in leisure and corporate travel management.

As the travel industry evolved I recall several turning points where colleagues quit their jobs to pursue new, more profitable directions. When airlines phased out commission payments to travel agents for airline, hotel and transportation bookings, several agents quit their jobs, went back to school and acquired new skills. When e-tickets revolutionized the ticketing side of the house and travelers no longer needed to call reservation centers for flight changes, seat assignments or special meals another group of call center agents quit their jobs When airlines went directly to passengers via the Internet and new consolidators like Priceline.com and Expedia took market share, travel agents had to find other ways to make a living. Some went on to work for these new entities and others left travel completely.

My last job in travel was for a Southern California corporate travel management company. The company provided 24-hour service to the largest clients of thousands of individual travel agencies. A critical new service, since smaller agencies had lost leisure fare commissions but could still do well with corporate travel fees.

Each agent in the company sat before a bank of five computer terminals; each loaded with a specific airline computer system. Each travel planner had to become equally competent on all five major airline computer systems used by the major carriers at the time. These computerized systems included Apollo (original to United Airlines which became Galileo); Sabre (from American Airlines), System One, (affiliated with Eastern Airlines which later evolved into Amadeus used by European carriers) and Worldspan (from Northwest and TWA). This was a cutting edge at the time. Most travel agents might have worked in travel for years and knew only the one system they used in their offices. To find employees able to learn all the systems and alternate use of the systems, call after call, was not easy. Within three years after working with that company, the 5 five computer systems were consolidated into one desktop where agents could access the five software programs in a Windows environment.

Within another 12 months the company was working on virtual access. In 1999, I was one of four agents who tested the project by working remotely from home. Corporate clients could call us from anywhere in the world at any time and have access to a live travel agent, who could virtually access a member agency's office system and literally access all the caller's records from frequent flyer miles, corporate discount numbers and authorized travel protocols.

Since I was a supervisor with additional responsibilities for training, ticketing etc, when I first volunteered to work from home, our manager said "No" since I was a supervisor and needed to be on site. I then volunteered to give up my supervisory status and return to agent, if I could test the system from home. He approved that and so I took a pay cut to go home. Working from home significantly benefited me since it reduced my daily commute from 120 miles to 20 feet. We worked four 10-hour shifts and had 4 days off. Since I was already back in school to finish my business degree, I would be off the phone at 7a, drop my kids at school and be on the college campus 4 miles away by 7:45a.

Within a month of working from home, I was asked one Saturday to perform some of my former ticketing supervisory duties to remotely issue e-tickets and pre-paids. By that Monday I had another conversation with my supervisor and my job description was rewritten. It turns out there were many supervisory duties that could be done remotely. We developed the Virtual Supervisor and the On-Site Supervisor roles.

Although many travel and airline agents lost their jobs or quit their jobs, there were many fellow travel agents who refused to quit the industry even as the industry was quitting them. While some of us gained new skills and grew with the industry others refused to change as the industry evolved.

As the travel industry evolved, some employees couldn't fathom the speed at which the Internet was changing the travel business and stayed hooked. I finally left the travel industry in June 2000. The September 11, 2001 tragedy was yet another turning point in that industry.

Transitioning through that process and seeing those who successfully transitioned, versus those who held on way longer than was prudent; was instrumental in my choosing to focus on the career management and personnel development side of Human Resources..

Here are a few tips from my own experience to quit your job before your job quits you:

  1. Do your own research. No one in your company is responsible for managing your career. Only you can know when it is time to quit your job.

  2. Before you quit your job, start building new skills that can help you with the transition. The last thing you want is for your job to quit you, before you are ready or close to ready.

  3. Act for the current situation, but stay focused on the future. If you see the writing on the wall that your job might be disappearing, continue to be productive. This is not the time to become a slacker at work. However, think about assignments as they can impact your future.

  4. Be careful how you reveal your plans to colleagues or bosses. Some may be able to assist you and some will have other motives.

  5. Make an effort to connect with others in your profession via social networking sites like LinkedIn and Twitter. Some of your colleagues could be the source of lead to a possible spin-off career.

  6. Research disappearing occupations at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

  7. If you can't get information on your own company, watch what the competition is doing.

Need help making your next career move? Use our career insights tool to research education and certifications needed to succeed in your field, salary ranges in your profession, and the overall prospects of your industry.