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It all starts with a tiny itch: a pesky skin irritation. You can try to ignore it, even slap it a little (like your mom told you to do). If you’re lucky, nothing more becomes of it, and life goes on.

The time train chugs along and work hours turn to days/weeks/months.

Then sooner or later, when deadlines have been met, workload storms have come and gone, when that ‘office lull’ slowly creeps in, that darn itch acts up again. But what started as a simple annoyance, has now flared up into a full-fledged rash.

This time around, there’s no ignoring it and slapping it a little no longer kills the urge to dig your nails right into it and scratch the bejeezus out of it. It blurs your concentration. It fogs your thoughts off-hours.

It affects you emotionally, physically. There’s no use trying to hide it any longer, because you murmur a thing-or-two with your water-cooler crew… Your friends and family soon become aware of your full-blown infection because you whine about the discomfort. Your work suffers. You play harder to forget about it, to keep your mind off it…

But when the glorious weekend comes to a screeching halt on Monday morning, there’s no denying it, your tiny little itch has become a disease.

Alright, alright, alright…drama, much? But for some of you twenty-something’s out there starting your professional careers, cruising through year 1 or 2 at your “launch-pad” job, or recently hopped on board with a new employment suitor (makes you sound easy but NOT cheap that way), this soap-operatic interpretation isn’t that far a stretch.

Sure, one can argue that there are those who are smarter/luckier/more hooked-up fortunate enough to land that ‘most awesomest job ever’ fresh out of the gates. If you’re one of those, then chances are, you’re scoffing at this post, marveling at how mere mortals such as I can even muster the intelligence to input a password and string a few coherent sentences together on a keyboard. I buy that argument 110%, cause I know a few cowboys and cowgirls who’ve skipped to that chapter in their own little Choose-Your-Own-Adventure novel.

But if you’re like me, you’re that shmuck (or you’ve been that shmuck) stuck on the “You turn to see a brick wall of employment; the Opportunity Ninjas end your adventure here. The End.” page of your own choose-your-own title, thumbing curiously through the pages of what could have been/what can still be.

Not surprisingly, there are quite a few of us; uncertain of what remains in store at your job, what more you can do in your position, unaware of how much more you can benefit from your employer.

But these feelings of irritability, un-appreciatedness, lack of fulfillment and boredom, can easily be misinterpreted as impatience, ungratefulness, a lack of self esteem, laziness or even un-professionalism. Heck, I thought I was really babying things up at one point until I stepped back and assessed my own situation thoroughly (at which point I realized that I should get my walking boots on…). Each situation has their own tell-tale signs, their own red flags that simply say “Let’s reconsider things here” or “Hey, buddy..Vamos a la playa”- the latter being lost in translation.

All kidding aside, next time, I’ll share a few indicators/warning signs/omens from the abyss that more or less hurled me back into the job hunt. In the meantime, what were some interesting thoughts or behaviors that made you finally scratch your itch?