Quitters always win!

Switching companies is a great option if you are looking for time-out. No one put in long hours continuously and then, your productivity starts diminishing. I have found that work in I.T. quite challenging and satisfying, in its own ways. You deal with weird, wonderful, smart and adamant clients. Its fun to try to rack your brains sometimes and put your problem-solving skills to test. Sometimes, you go wrong and learn. Sometimes, you come up some brilliant solution, and it gives you a high. So far, it has been a learning experience  with some glorious moments thrown in. How much ever the top management says that programmers need to pick up skills on the go, undergo continuous training and adapt to any technology, nothing beats the wisdome that experience alone brings. Only your previous work teaches you to avoid the customary pit-falls and come up with robust design or write elegant code. There may be many of knowledge-sharing sessions and papers published about learnings from other projects, but only when your fingers are burnt do you internalize the lessons learnt.

Anyway, the point is, it is a stressful job and you need relief now and then. Time between projects helps. Else, bench. But, once you are a key resource, bench is a luxury, not easily bestowed on you. So, what do you do? Quit your company!

Change of scene, new people, new challenges, not to forget, better pay. Add to that, you surely don't need to be productive for the first two weeks. So, you can soak in the new place, do some bird-watching, leisurely look at the mouth-watering menu and generally feel as if you are on vacation.

So, feeling the heat? Quit!
Disclaimer - I didn't quit to escape the heat. But I welcome the side-effect.