I spent the bulk of my working career as a shop foreman in large truck repair shops. I lost count of how many times I have been offered service manager or fleet manager positions. I preferred to stay in the union and build up my retirement and keep my 8 hour days. If the raises would have been more substantial I might have made a different decision.
Frankly, saying “no” to a 30% bump is the tough part. Pay increases don’t come often, or big, in the public sector. Financially I’m pretty comfortable, but I could do some nice things with a nearly 6 figure increase. Really lock in a very comfy retirement, funnel more funds to the kids and some of our charities. But not at the cost of my sanity, or the cost of an early demise. What’s the point of being the richest guy in the cemetery?
WhenI started with my copany, right away they were pushing me into the lead>supervisor>manager track, but I didn’t like the way the supes were treated by middle management. MM made poor decisions and the supes got shit for trying to carry them out. I said no, what I wanted was to be an analyst. Which is what I eventually ended up as. I probably don’t make as much, but my time is my own, as long as I get done what needs to be done.
StG
When my boss was promoted to VP, HR, I was offered his position. I was 40 years old and had two teenage sons still at home and a husband who traveled, usually 3 weeks at a time. Since the position I was offered involved 50-60% travel, as a conservative estimate, and because I was offered much less money than I thought I deserved, I declined.
With a more appropriate salary increase - enough to hire someone full time to keep on eye on the boys - I might have taken the promotion. I feel that I made the right choice, although my future at that company was toast.
Many many times. I’m in the IT field, and the push was always to move away from the work into Project Management or Leadership. I have seen many people make the transition successfully, but it’s not for me!
Unfortunately, I’m really good and smart and present myself well, so my bosses want to see me move up. I understand it, really I do. They want to be able to move up themselves, so they need to be able to fill in behind. Sorry, can’t help with that, I’m not the one.
Luckily, my decisions haven’t had any negative repercussions. I’m always on the lookout for those. Some organizations have an Up or Out model, either you move Up or you move Out. So, I avoid those companies.
Mid 90’s.
Was working as a programmer, on a part-time contract over the summer. $32 an hour for 25 hours a week. $40k was not a bad wage in those days.
Boss got hit by a car crossing the street in San Diego. Had to move back to his parent’s farm in Iowa and re-learn how to walk, talk, take care of himself. 
His boss straight up offered me the job. “But… You’ll have to wear a suit at all times and have your suit jacket on any time you leave your cube. You’re required to be here from 6am to 6pm Monday through Friday and all of that will be spent in meetings. Any time you need to spend on managing your team will be outside those hours, so you can plan on a good 80-90 hours a week.” :eek: The pay for this? $75k.
Yup, three times the hours, or more, chained to meetings and a monkey suit, for less than twice what I was making working 7am-noon and going home to play in my yard.
Yeah, technically a raise. And being elevated to the lofty ranks of MANAGEMENT!!!
The last 20 years it has been my touch-stone for “Eh, I was offered IT management back then, wasn’t really interested and still am not, so no current boss, I don’t want my goals to include working toward being a manager.”
Absolutely correct. In the private sector you get bonuses for a job well-done, or an annual performance review that leads to some form of pay increase (usually with some kind of expected minimum).
In the public sector you don’t have such things. Generally you’re in a pay class and the amount you make depends on what you do. Which leads to the stereotype of the lazy public worker; he gets paid the same no matter how hard he works so why work hard. (In my experience lazy people are lazy no matter where you work and I see no more or fewer in the public sector than the private one.) You usually don’t even get cost of living increases so you often are in a situation where due to inflation, technically you’re making less each year.
In my agency a wage increase generally means the union negotiates with management, then that agreement (which affects many people and costs lots of money) has to go to the legislature, who have to factor it into the budget and consequently raise taxes on people who don’t want to pay more taxes, then the governor has to sign it. It’s a big deal and I think we went through an eight year period without wage increases.
So if you want to make more money you need to switch to a better-paying position. It could mean a direct promotion from doing what you do or a change to a totally different kind of job. Either way there is going to be stress and at least an awkward transition period where you’re trying to learn new things. And in the end you could hate it and wish you’d never changed positions. Compare this to someone saying “you’re doing a great job, keep it up and have more money”.
Not that I’m really complaining, if I disliked the way things are too much I’d go back to the private sector. I still think public service is worth it. But there are serious drawbacks and the lack of raises is one of them.
Several times I’ve turned down promotions and substantial raises that would have taken me from engineering and put me into upper management. I don’t mind being a tech manager, or even a principal engineer, but being a director or department head just hasn’t been appealing to me in the past. Yeah, it’s a lot more money and all that, but it’s also a huge pain in the ass dealing with personnel issues as well as upper management (and in the government elected officials).
Slowly, as I’ve gotten older I’ve changed my mind a bit on this, and now I’m sort of between both worlds…manager but still principal engineer. And, perhaps someday soon I’ll take the leap fully into management as an IT director of a large county or maybe an IT department head for the city. But, to paraphrase the Gladiator…not yet. Not yet. 
Not really the same, but one job offered me a contract for 40 hours a week and I talked them down to 25 hours a week. I enjoyed that for a while (working 11-4, Mon-Fri), but eventually my position was changed to a permanent 40 hours a week.
I snipped out the two relevant parts of the equation. Everything else is noise.
I made a mistake by accepting a promotion which I shouldn’t have. I made a lot of money for about 10 years, but things didn’t go well. I would have been better off staying in the position which I loved rather than the position which I sucked at.
I’m reminded of the Peter Principle.
Every time I’ve been shown an opportunity to “advance” I’ve tried to keep it in mind.
I’m good at what I do, or at least those who depend on me think I am and I rarely feel out of my depth or panic because I have no idea how to resolve an issue. I don’t ever want to end up in that position. I love being challenged but that challenge has to be reasonable and manageable.
One of the best ways to avoid being out of your depth is to not exaggerate or fabricate your qualifications or accomplishments. Ever. You will regret it.
I was offered a substantial bump in pay if I would move overseas to a country I had absolutely no interest in living in. I said no thanks. I had been trying for a gig in an European country, but that never worker out. Bummer.
I had someone internally try to recruit me for a promotion; apparently I had been recommended by some of the people she had asked. It was a great opportunity and 3-6 months earlier than I had expected to move up to that level. I said no. I already had an understanding in place with my current boss that I’d get a promotion to that level in said time period, and from the spot in my existing group, I’d have a much clearer path to the next level.
It ended up working out even better than that: I got my ‘expected’ promotion on time, and about six months later my boss left the company. I ended up getting his job, at least a year ahead of schedule. It could have easily backfired - I mean, an “understanding”? - but I felt comfortable with it at the time and trusting my gut really helped my career.
Honestly, not really. I’m either committed to being faculty (and a chair) or up to full blown Dean
Never turned down a direct promotion offer, but I have rejected headhunter offers for management positions that probably would have paid much more.
I know enough about my skills, my likes/dislikes, and my weaknesses to know that even if I got the job, I’d probably be miserable and stressed out of my mind for the short time I held it. I’m much happier in the creative area I’m in now.
That’s more or less exactly what I told them, too, adding that if any jobs for writers/editors/translators came up, I’d be more than happy to meet them.
Yes. I had a job as the manager of a department. The owners wanted me to start also selling the product we sell and start getting commission. This included a new title and a raise but I had no interest in selling so I said no. A few days later the hired someone to take that position and asked me to train the new person to be my boss. I quit instead.
I could say twice, but neither one really counts.
The first was offered after I had already resigned and given two weeks notice. I was getting a 25% increase at the new company; the then-current employer countered with a promotion and a 4% raise. Sorry, that’s not even trying.
The second one - well, management claims I turned down a promotion, but I don’t see it that way. I was a technical lead of a software team. I went on vacation for 2 weeks, and when I returned, project management’s favored fair-haired golden boy had my position and was my boss. Zero advance notice. I only figured it out when I noticed all my meetings had been removed from Outlook and I stumbled across a draft of the new org chart. I said fuck this and demanded to be reassigned to a new project, which happened.
6 months later FHGB decided to move up to a even bigger role on another project, and my former project asked me to come back. I said not only no, but hell no. “But this is a great opportunity for promotion!” Excuse me? Giving me my old job back after demoting me is not a promotion. “We can’t do it without you” That’s not the message you gave me 6 months ago. But during my annual performance review, my line manager shared with me that the former project had put a note in my file indicating I had declined a promotion opportunity.
A couple of times.
The biggest one was a move to the USA with a near doubling of my salary. Trouble was, once I did the sums (this was in the New York area) it was going to be an expensive place to live plus more hours (I knew the expectations on my US colleagues) more travel (I’d just had my first daughter) less holidays (I love my holidays) with a likelihood of more pointless projects and increased management of direct reports.
Ultimately I would be better off financially by a net 5-10% with all of the above downsides. Sod that. I declined politely and took a lucrative redundancy package a couple of years later.
The most recent was an offer of a permanent position with a startup company that I did contract work for. It is always flattering but after the excitement of getting them set-up and on their feet I think (I know) that I’d get bored with the routine day-to-day running. Plus during the contract work I was commuting to London, 90 minutes each way on the train, two days a week. Fine for a short time but to do it day-in day-out would cripple me mentally. I remain on good terms with that company and helped them recruit a cracking person for that position who was much better suited than I.
This thread runs the risk of stealth-bragging for a lot of us but I think that pretty much anyone who is moderately intelligent and willing to apply themselves will get tapped up for promotion at some point. What is more rare is being self-aware enough and confident in your own abilities and motivations to turn one down.
Ultimately, as I’ve got older I’ve got much better at understanding what makes me tick, what I get excited by, what I am motivated by. For me it is a constant variety of work, interesting projects, the ability to be home at 5:30, free at weekends and long holidays. As long as money is above a fairly modest amount it doesn’t concern me, power and influence through position is irrelevant. I’m not even sure what “promotion” actually means to me anymore.
A few years ago I had the chance to take a promotion and big pay rise, but instead transferred to a role offering roughly half pay (the transfer was to China though, where living costs are lower, plus the idea of working in another country was exciting to me).
Then recently I was offered a promotion in my role here, but opted instead to change to a part-time role for a few months, while I improve my Chinese.
Anyone would think I was allergic to money 
I did several times with my most current former employer. I’d originally stepped down from a management position because I’d been caring for my mother at the time and was burning out left and right. A couple of years after she passed I was asked again. I said no, because I’d witnessed the pressure that had been put on the other managers, so much so that a handful of them left for other jobs. I was asked to take over my then-manager’s job after she’d been demoted for reasons with which I still disagree. I said no to that because I didn’t want my head to be next on the chopping block.
I’m supposedly “in line” for a promotion with my current employer solely because of my seniority. I’ve been told by those “in the know” that it’s the practice for TPTB to promote the senior people so they’ll burn out and leave quicker, thereby letting the younger folk move up the chain. One of my coworkers is of this ilk. She’s in her early 20s and is chomping at the bit to move up, so of course TPTB is going to do everything in their power to keep her.