Moaning is curiously addictive, like a packet of Pringles - once you start you can't stop! But you can overdo moaning and for me people whining endlessly about their job falls into this OTT category. The reality is of course that somewhere along the line, some poor sod is paying them to whine.

For example, today, as if my daily commute to work isn’t hideous enough, I had the added torture of listening to two people moaning on, at length, about their terrible jobs and their awful employers. My advice: “if you hate your job so much, then bloody leave!”

It got me thinking though, it is easy to get stuck in a rut. So to make sure you aren’t ignoring warning signs that you should hand in your notice pronto, here are some telltale signs:

You take up smoking. Just in order to get out of the office for five minutes.

You always volunteer to make the tea. If you’d rather stand by the kettle than sit at your computer, perhaps you need to be doing more interesting work.

You think looking at Facebook is fun. Facebook is NOT fun. You are essentally either evesdropping on the very ordinary and boring lives of others, or becoming jealous of somebody else's made-up perfect life. The Book has a role to play in all of our days, but I find five minutes while on the loo pretty much meets my requirements.

You volunteer for brainstorming meetings. There are no depths you won’t go to in order to avoid the tedium of your work. If it gets to the point you are volunteering for brainstorms, it might be best to polish up that Linkedin profile, start blogging again and deleting various incriminating images from Twitter.

You have filled in an application to emigrate to Australia. We've all done it, for me the mother-in-law was the catalyst, but should loathing your job really be a reason to leave the country?

You pity your boss. I used to absorb, sometimes even write down, the pearls of wisdom my boss shared with me, now I just pity her. I've heard it all before and I know very little of it will have any significant effect on anything very significant.