Career Builder has five signs that you should consider quitting your job. A couple ring familiar:

1. You ask your new boss for supplies and she hands you a No. 2 pencil and legal pad — and nothing else. While not all companies can afford to outfit employees with late-model laptops, cell phones, pagers and company credit cards, it is important that you are given the tools that you need in order to do your job. If you aren’t, or if the company questions you every time you ask for a new pen, it could be an indication of financial stress.blockquote>
Before I got to FalStaff, they were considerably more cheap than they are now — and even now I am relatively certain that the thriftiness is costing them money in the long-term and even medium-term. The biggest thing is that they used to have community staplers. Some jobs that might be acceptable, but at the time we were printing out and stapling at least 20 different times a day. There would be lines at the stapler.

The second one, etched into Falstaff folklore, is that we spend a lot of time reproducing documents. For two years the company refused to buy a scanner so all of the documents had to be reproduced by hand. The department complained, but to no avail. They could not see the utility in spending $500 on a scanner and good text-recognition software.

Mr. Fallon, the president of the company, was at a conference when he was asked what kind of text-recognition software we used. He said that we didn’t use any and it took several reiterations before the people he was talking to were convinced that he wasn’t joking. A week later the department had a new scanner and software.
2. You were shown to a cubicle your first day of work, given a company manual and haven’t been spoken to since. Even if you have years of experience, you should always be given some kind of orientation or training during your first days on a new job. The companies that are known as the best places to work all have substantial training programs and processes in place to make sure new employees feel comfortable and supported right from the start. Be wary if you feel like you have been left to go it alone.
I still don’t have an employment contract. They had me copychecking documents before I even knew what they were. The only reason I knew for sure what the company did was by reading a magazine the company puts out while I was waiting to be interviewed. We have no training process — our training process is done through the negative reinforcement of a FAIL stamp.

3. Every time you tell someone about your new job with the company they raise their eyebrows and say “Really? Wow… good luck with that.” A company’s reputation isn’t always completely accurate, but it does usually stem from legitimate information. Good companies to work for are typically well-known and well-respected in their communities. In fact, you should ask others in your industry and the local business community what their thoughts are about the company when you are doing your initial research. If everyone you ask has a negative tale about your new employer, chances are their impressions have some validity.

My last employer in Colosse gave us 5 rather nice shirts with the company logo on them. About one in three IT people in the city of Colosse have apparently worked for the company. Whenever I’d wear the shirts, strangers would periodically tap me on the shoulder and ask if they were still the same horrible employer they were when they used to work there. Complete strangers. Sometimes we would even trade war stories. I can’t believe I haven’t talked about this particular employer more than I have. I don’t even know if I have a pseudonym for them.

4. After two weeks on the job, you are already halfway to becoming the employee with the most seniority. One of the biggest issues for human resources professionals today is employee retention. You will notice that most of the country’s top companies have employees who have been around for years. Lengthy employee tenure is often a sign that the company is doing something right. “I joined a firm in St. Louis and learned that the company had seven other employees come and go in the past year,” says Sarah, a public relations executive. “What’s worse is that it was only a five-person operation. That should have been the first sign that the company was not a great place to work.”

I was in the upper half of employees at my current employer less than a couple months in at FalStaff. The same is true of the above company, except they managed to do it with a lot more people.

5. You answer the phone while the company’s secretary is away from her desk and find that the voice at the other end is a collection agency calling for the third time that week. While this sounds unbelievable, this actually happened to one worker, who said other employees at the company were eventually instructed to not answer the phones. “It became a joke with all of us,” she commented. “We used to run out and cash our checks as soon as we got paid and were always afraid that they were going to bounce!” If you see any signs that your company is in real financial or legal trouble, get your résumé back out on the market.

My ex-girlfriend Julie’s employer fits this bill. For a long while there she had to wait months before she could cash her checks or they would bounce. They’ve expanded threefold in the last year, but the employees are still told they need to wait a couple of weeks. Her employer makes even my worst employer sound like a cakewalk. She’s paid very well, though.

6. You notice that every day for the last five days, at least one person has run crying from your boss’s office. While not everyone’s boss is a bundle of joy, you should expect to be treated with respect in the workplace. If you see signs that the executives running your company make all of the other employees shake with fear, burst into tears or work on edge all the time, look for a greener pasture. There are companies out there that find success without putting employees through the ringer.

No real complaints here. I’ve generally had good bosses. Julie’s boss once screamed at a pregnant employee who wanted to go home before she got ill that he hoped she would figure out how she’s going to raise the baby in a tin shack after he cans her. Such outbursts were not uncommon, apparently.