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It's rarely the work. It's the feeling that nobody's listening.

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Most career-changers think they're unhappy because of the work. The pay. The commute. The latest org reshuffle.

They're usually wrong about which one.

What actually breaks people in jobs — the thing that turns a Sunday-night spiral into a serious resignation thought — is the slow accumulation of moments where you spoke up and nothing changed. The meeting where your idea got ignored, then repeated by someone else 20 minutes later and called brilliant. The performance review where you raised the same issue you raised last year. The exit interview you're now mentally drafting because the entrance interview never landed.

And the worst part: most career-decision frameworks completely miss this. They ask you to score "compensation" and "growth path" as if those are the variables. They're not. The variable is whether you still believe you have any influence over your own working life.

You don't need another pros-and-cons list. You need a way to see what's actually happening — and decide what to do about it.

That's what this worksheet does.

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Should I Stay or Should I Go? is a one-page decision worksheet built on the OOUX framework — a method originally designed for sorting complex software systems, retooled for sorting the most complex system most of us deal with: our own careers.

In 15 minutes, you'll:

• Score the five parts of your job separately — Role, Company, Manager, Influence, and Growth Path — and discover which one is actually pulling you down.
• Name the specific attributes dragging your two lowest-scoring parts down. (Most quitting urges live in one or two parts, not the whole job.)
• Write what you could do about it without leaving — because most stayable jobs get quit too early.
• Map the gap between what your company says it values and what it actually does. The gap is the truth.
• Land on a clear next step: Stay, Go, or Explore — based on your scores, not your mood.

It's the worksheet I wish I had many times in my career. The act of scoring is how I notice drift before it becomes a crisis. You'll be able to do the same.

This is for you if…

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You're in the maybe. You've been thinking about leaving for at least three months. Long enough to know it's not a bad week. Short enough that you haven't yet talked yourself into or out of anything irreversible.

You're a career-changer, not a job-hopper. The move you're considering isn't lateral — it's a different shape of work. Different industry, different role, different rhythm of life. The stakes feel higher because the decision is harder to undo.

You think clearly when you write things down. If "score yourself 1–5 across seven attributes" sounds like a useful exercise rather than a corporate one, you're in the right place. If it sounds like homework, this probably isn't your tool.

Who's behind this?

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I'm Mary Carns. I've been laid off nine times and lived to write a book about it, so I have a lot of experience in looking for and changing jobs. Job after job, I kept seeing the same patterns that defined a place that welcomed people vs. places that made my life difficult. I write about what I've learned in my newsletter, which I send every other Tuesday.

The worksheet pulls from a framework called OOUX — Object-Oriented UX — which I've adapted from the design world into something useful for thinking about careers. You don't need any background in design to use it. The worksheet stands on its own.

What you're actually signing up for

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You'll get the worksheet immediately. Then, over the next two and a half weeks, four short emails: the attribute people score wrong most often, why "Explore" isn't a cop-out, a personal story about the time I got this exact decision wrong, and a sorting email so I can point you at what's most useful for where you are.

After that, you'll hear from me every other Tuesday — one framework like this one, in your inbox, no fluff. Read for two minutes or skip it; either is fine.

You can unsubscribe in one click any time, and I won't share your email with anyone for any reason. The worksheet is yours to keep regardless.

Get the worksheet below:

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