# Have you reached the pinnacle of your career? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 7, 2010, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-reached-the-pinnacle-of-your-career/563335 "2010-12-07T21:22:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![sevenwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@sevenwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sevenwood)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2010, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-reached-the-pinnacle-of-your-career/563335/21 "2010-12-09T01:08:44Z")
63 and happily retired. No boss (except for the wife, of course), kids are grown and doing fine, no worries. Three weeks ago I bowled a 232 - highest bowling score of my life. I’m at the top, baby! ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2010, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-reached-the-pinnacle-of-your-career/563335/22 "2010-12-09T01:13:12Z")
> [@Hakuna\_Matata](#): > > Anybody else feel that way? That they are as high in their job as they will ever go? Pretty much. _Could_ I move up? Yes. Will I? I really doubt it. The initial pay increase would be minimal and my working conditions would be worse in my estimation. Also the next step up is sufficiently unattractive I’d feel I’d have to push to the level above that and I’m not a driven person in general - it’d be an uncomfortable push and would take a highly uncertain period of time to accomplish. But even beyond that I’d have take on certain managerial responsibilities, including employee discipline, that I’m just not comfortable with. > [@](#): > > If so, how do you feel about it? Fine. My job is fairly stable and I make a comfortable living with a good retirement system, within a usually relaxed work atmosphere, with a fair degree of autonomy and a moderate amount of responsibility. I’m quite happy with that. Fair to say that, good or bad ( and really it’s both ), I’ve never been particularly ambitious. ---
**Author:** ![NinetyWt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/cc9497/32.png) [@NinetyWt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinetyWt)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2010, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-reached-the-pinnacle-of-your-career/563335/23 "2010-12-09T02:59:25Z")
I don’t know if I’m at the pinnacle or not. I do own my own company, but it’s just little ol’ me. I don’t have a staff or huge billings. Does that fit your definition of “the top”? I like what I’m doing, and I plan to do it until I get tired of it. Hopefully I’ll continue to grow professionally - I agree with what **panache** said; I should continue to get better the older I get, the longer I work, and the more I learn. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2010, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-reached-the-pinnacle-of-your-career/563335/24 "2010-12-09T03:16:09Z")
Considering I’m quitting my job in a few months, yeah. I’m as high up as I’m gonna get. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2010, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-reached-the-pinnacle-of-your-career/563335/26 "2010-12-09T17:52:43Z")
I suspect so. I’ve tried jobs above mine, and hate them, since they are all budget crap while I can do the technical stuff I want. In my outside work technical career I’ve been both program and general chair of the big conference I am involved in, and have done pretty much every role in it. I’m close enough to retirement, and get paid well enough, so that I’d much rather have fun than get promoted. ---
**Author:** ![Hakuna\_Matata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@Hakuna\_Matata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hakuna_Matata)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2010, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-reached-the-pinnacle-of-your-career/563335/27 "2010-12-09T18:57:41Z")
Glad to find out that I am not the only one. I love my job as an Architect but the higher one goes up, the less actual Architecture you end up doing. Above my level it is all about staffing, marketing, running a business, etc. Things that I just have little interest in, I can do them and do them well, they just don’t excite me. There are plenty of people here who enjoy those roles but I guess for me I didn’t go into Architecture to be mainly a paper pusher. I like actually designing and building things! So I am happy and content at my current level and likely will finish my career here unless circumstances change. But I don’t know what the incentive would have to be in order for me to push for the next level. Right now I am not seeing anything that would make it a draw for me. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2010, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-reached-the-pinnacle-of-your-career/563335/28 "2010-12-09T19:13:45Z")
I think I can make VP before I die, but that is a different role from what it seems most of y’all would get. It is possible to be a VP senior techie, which is the fun part for me. Maybe in a year or two. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2010, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-reached-the-pinnacle-of-your-career/563335/29 "2010-12-09T19:32:25Z")
Yes, I totally feel like that. I’m a graphic designer and I rose pretty quickly for my profession, making Creative Director at age 31 in a mid-sized firm (basically, the top of the tree for designers unless you start your own company). The next step would’ve been to get equity in my firm, or take a CD role in a bigger firm, and I was just on the cusp of getting equity when the owner decided to sell up and emigrate. So, I was back to square one on the equity front. I moved to take another CD role at another company and had a fairly poor experience - being expected to behave like an equity partner, take all the stresses, but without the actual power or reward (their previous CD had been a full equity partner and they’d had their fingers burned, so weren’t going to give me equity any side of armageddon). So I went it alone, which is where I am now. I make a good salary, about the same as I did as an employee, but without any of the bullshit, but there’s nowhere for me to progress or earn more, without starting my own agency, which I don’t want to do. I’m actually thinking of leaving it all behind and starting afresh on a business project with my partner. Totally different business. I’m 40, so you can call it my mid-life crisis. It sometimes seems a bit crazy to leave my profession that I’ve spent so long in, but I figure I have acquired a life-long skill which will serve me well when I want to brand and market my new venture. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2010, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-reached-the-pinnacle-of-your-career/563335/30 "2010-12-09T22:17:39Z")
Way over the hill and down into the vale of retirement. From teaching, that is. Still doing a fair bit of research, but it is perfectly obvious to me that I haven’t done anything really important in about 15 years. Sigh. And my absolute best work was sone in the years 1967-1974. Since then, it’s been downhill all the way. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-reached-the-pinnacle-of-your-career/563335.md?page=1)