Do you love your current job? Maybe it's a Velvet coffin

Out of all the unfortunate souls who ends up in a bad job or a wrong career, have you ever thought that there is an opposite side of it. Yes it is.

People who landed their dream job might be in a hypothetical limbo state called, velvet coffin. Yeah a coffin made with velvet, it feels good and comfortable. But it's a coffin after all, with no future than getting buried comfortably.

So for the lucky ones who found that perfect job, loving the work atmosphere, loving the commute to work, loving the free coffee at work and loving your friends at work. Somedays you might feel little bit bored, as you are too good at what you are currently doing. You don't feel like you are challenged, you achieved your best in your current job position. You are comfortable of your current salary. You don't even wanna think about changing the job as the job is too easy for you. If any of the above describes about you, then my friend you might be in a suicide dive.

A job like such might feel good at the current, but it leads nowhere but to a dead end. You've being stuck in your comfort zone for too long, and you don't feel like challenging yourself. You get a good compensation, and your benefits are good, therefore you might not feel the urge for a change. You feel like, this is the job that i'm going to do forever until I retire.

In a career perspective you seems to have reached your retirement. Yes! Regardless of your age, you have stopped your career advancement.

When you read your current resume, does it looks like that you've being frozen in time? Does it look like, you were working for ABC company for the past 2,5,10 years.

For all those years, you had no serious career achievements (other than a few promotions of being junior to senior), no new technologies learnt or no real value of yourself to the current job market.

Unless you are genuinely happy about your current work and being continuously striving to achieve the very best, you should keep an eye about yourself.

Velvet coffin works like a big bad dark hole. More time you spend there, you get dragged far beneath in it. This is the biggest problem of a velvet coffin job. By the time you realise that you are in a velvet coffin, you might not have the willpower to change, or leave. You will feel that you are outdated and not relevant to the current market.

Solution

Self evaluation of you current situation is the start point. Let's figure out whether you are in a velvet coffin job

1. Velvet: You enjoy your current job. Your are comfortable with your salary. You are confident about your daily tasks and you never feel being challenged by your work. Your company is great, well recognized and your colleagues are friendly. You have a nice working environment, comfortable, good coffee and good location.
2. Coffin: Flat management structure, and no path for growth. No career plan and you don't feel like that you need one. No path for promotions as people rarely leave your company.Technology in your role does not chang. You've being using Core java or hibernate for the last 10 years in your ongoing project. You know you will be using the same for the next 10 years or so. You've only being promoted once or twice. When you look at you resume, your career looks like it's being frozen in time. There were no real learning you've done since you graduated and joined your company. If the company go bankrupt tomorrow, or you've become redundant. You won't be able to find a job easily as you've being outdated for a long time.

How to avoid the velvet coffin or escape from it.

May Busch of Bluesteps, published the following escape plan in 2011 (source: goo.gl/kfZGv5)

1. Enjoy it with your eyes wide open. Consciously choose to stay on and accept that you are likely to be on a flatter career trajectory, and enjoy a pretty lovely work life.
2. Get creative about making the system work for you. Find ways to be the exception to the rule by working the system and creating ways to expand your responsibilities. Not easy to figure out, but perhaps worth the effort.
3. Treat it like a 2-3 year graduate school experience. Use your time there to learn everything you can, get credentials, make contacts and build your network internally and externally. Then be ready to move on to move up. 
4.  The key is not to get caught in the alluring trap unless you want to. 

Conclusion

You are never too late to make a change. If you don't have a career plan, make one. Make a plan, that show where will you be in 3, 5, 10 years. Start working to it. Make necessary changes to your plan when you reach each milestone.

Never stop learning. Regardless of your stream of work, it's always good to be up-to date with all new technologies

Follow courses on udemy, coursera just for the sake of keeping you up-to date. Learn everyday.

Always think, what if? what if I get redundant, what if I get irrelevant. What have I achieved in past 2 years. What am I going to achieve next year.

Am I gonna be sitting in the same chair, using the same workstation, sipping the same coffee and stay the same for the next 10 years. Or am I gonna step forward out of my comfort zone to reach the next best gig.

Decision is up to you. You are never too late to make a change.

Other interesting articles by the Author:

• Are you working in a Toxic Workplace?
• Job hopping, is it the modern way of getting a pay raise?

Article is based on :

• "Executive Career Strategies: Handling the “Velvet Coffin” by May Busch, Bluesteps (April 2011) - retrieved from https://goo.gl/kfZGv5
• "Happy at Work? Beware The Velvet Coffin" by Suzy Welch (March, 2015) - retrieved from https://goo.gl/SYjwjB

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