The money is probably the thing that keeps most people in the job, but it's not like willingness to take a pay cut magically makes jobs fall into your lap, eith

The money is probably the thing that keeps most people in the job, but it's not like willingness to take a pay cut magically makes jobs fall into your lap, either. It expands the pool of companies you could possibly work for, sure, but everything else above that I said still applies. There's also rarely a guarantee that the new company you're trying to join is significantly better, and companies intentionally make it difficult to get the inside scoop on work-life balance/on-call responsibilities until after you're hired. Personally, I would love to find a new company to join... but my experience interviewing is that it takes months of effort for a potential pay cut and no guarantee that I won't just end up in another shitty situation and paid less, so I struggle deciding if it's actually worth it.