It feels easy to think that it's the case that your employer and coworkers are a family. In my case, I stayed six years in my first job out of college - as did

It feels easy to think that it's the case that your employer and coworkers are a family. In my case, I stayed six years in my first job out of college - as did most of my coworkers (the company was pretty stable up until the very end, when I left). I made a lateral shift within the company, and also made it to senior, under their wing. The illusion started to come apart after a layoff (35% company-wide, 45% in my department, 60% of my team). I started looking for another employer at that point, because it was pretty obvious I'd only been retained to keep the lights on. When I gave my resignation, I wasn't met with any attempt at retention like higher pay. I _was_ told that it'd be personally detrimental for me to leave, because the company was my family (they knew I'd had some unrelated domestic issues that year), and without them, I'd be lost. And of course, I agreed with them - for one week, after which I shook my head, said "what on earth am I thinking?", and resigned again. It took some time to realize that it was mostly a manipulative attempt on their part.