This month would have marked my 16th anniversary at State Farm if I would have stayed. I did not stay. I left 5 years ago at the height of the ET shakeup when The Farm unceremoniously booted long term employees in an effort to get them off the books and fired all of their remote employees who didn’t want to move to BloNo or one of the hubs, including some of the most talented and brilliant people I’ve ever worked with.
I wasn’t “impacted” and left for personal reasons, but I can say it was, far and away, the best career decision I’ve ever made. I initially took a job with one of The Farm’s major competitors but since then I have worked for several different companies in several different industries. I’ve survived two mergers and a buyout from private equity vultures and I learned at each step of the way. I’m now making $100K more than I did at The Farm and I laugh to link that I probably wouldn’t even be making $100K if I would have stayed there because The Farm always used things like the pension and the low cost of living in Central Illinois to justify paying people ridiculously low salaries.
Most of the people I worked with at The Farm and considered close friends have moved on to other companies and are much happier and better compensated than they were when they worked for Big Red.
The era of remote/hybrid work has opened up opportunities to those in BloNo that just didn’t exist prior to 2020. State Farm is no longer the best show in town and they know it. My advice to anyone reading this is to polish up your resume and use what you have learned at State Farm (the good, the bad, and the hideously ugly) and get on the job market. While tech companies that hired irresponsibly during the Great Panic of 2020 are laying off people left and right because the era of free money is over, small companies that budget and spend responsibly are still hiring and having State Farm on your resume still means something…for now at least.
If you leave you probably won’t get a pension at your new employer, you won’t get to send your kids to the park for free babysitting in the summer, and you won’t get your Founders Day cookie, but I guarantee you will be happier, better compensated, and learn skills State Farm will only teach “the chosen”.
Best of luck to all of you during this time of change at The Farm. It isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last time, but always remember that there is life after The Farm.