Golden Handcuffs
Golden handcuffs are financial arrangements (high salary, unvested stock, bonuses, pensions or perks) that make leaving a job feel impossible even when the work itself no longer fits. The term describes the trap of being paid too well to be unhappy somewhere else, and too unhappy to stay well.
The mechanism is loss aversion; the concrete number you would give up feels heavier than the abstract life you would gain. Vesting cliffs and bonus dates institutionalize this; there is always one more date worth waiting for.
The sober approach is to price the handcuffs: calculate what leaving actually costs across two years, compare it with what staying costs in energy, health and market value, then decide with both numbers on the table instead of only one.
Weighing whether to stay?
The colleague who has stayed fifteen years cannot tell you what leaving feels like, and has an interest in you staying. On Nawaya you talk to someone who left, for 30 minutes, one to one, and the first conversation is free.
Find someone who left