Do you find yourself spending more time moaning about your work with your colleagues than actually working? Perhaps every oh-so-cheery HR email trying to boost staff morale makes you shudder or you find it hard to hide your eye rolls when you hear the breezy optimism of newer recruits?

If these symptoms sound all too familiar, you might have put your job in the ‘end zone’ without realising it. Coined by the careers experts at Glassdoor, the ‘end zone’ is the stage that comes well after the work honeymoon period has worn off, when you’ve totally lost your motivation and you’re struggling to see a future in which you thrive at this company.

It’s the career equivalent of deciding in your head that you’re going to break up with someone: you know it’s going to happen at some point, but you just can’t quite bring yourself to do it right now so, in the meantime, you’ll go through the motions.

The root cause of ‘end zoning’ your job is cynicism, and there are a handful of important triggers, explains Claire Warner, founder of workplace culture and wellbeing consultancy Lift. The first, she says, is when colleagues start to feel unvalued, unheard, ignored or disconnected, or when colleagues find things out by accident or from other people, rather than from their own team or manager. We’ve all been there - and there are few things more disheartening than learning about a major shake-up or promotion secondhand, especially when it will have a major impact on your day-to-day work life.

Have you put your job in the ‘end zone’ – and how can you break out of it?