I am getting a promotion I don't want

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

But surprisingly similar issues there.

When I was teaching, I watched my compatriots get sucked into interminable meetings of this task force and that committee and the “cross-departmental initiatives” (CDIs, everything had to have a 3-letter acronym).

But I’d heard about all that before I got hired (taught part-time before). So on my first day, when the dean handed me a list of committees, I just “filed it” in my briefcase. As he was saying “It’s expected that you’ll join two to four committees or CDIs. Email the chair of each one and prepare to put in 10-15 hours per week meeting with them.”

I never did. I think that list is still in that briefcase, neither of which I’ve looked at since. There were SO many cases of this, where the school had a big push and we were all supposed to stay up late(r) at night writing reports. I just never did any of them! Yeah, I’ll admit to a bit of internal smirking when the VP of Excellence or Whatever would email “Some of the faculty haven’t turned in their SHT Reaction Papers on the BFD Campaign. This is just a motivational reminder that they were due last Monday…”

A fellow teacher was given a “wonderful opportunity”, and had the title “Lead” appended to her job. Which slowly morphed into filling out spreadsheets, and wrangling all the teachers’ schedules, and eventually took so much time that she was given “academic release”… half her classes were taken from her so she’d have even more time for organizational minutiae. That would kill me.

My line was “I was hired to teach, not write needless reports.” I guess I cared about the students but not the administration.

So, just like I did in the private sector, I kept my head down, focused on the job, and avoided anything with a whiff of management or more responsibilities.

22

Just wanted to support the OP’s feelings about managing. I managed fairly large groups for over 12 years and pretty much hated every minute of it. I was paid well, but I was also responsible for all the mistakes and dumb moves under me. Overall, I probably did as much actual work fixing problems or guiding people through their challenges as my direct reports did, while earning only about 30% more than they did for handling all the other headaches. The owners seemed to think I was doing a pretty good job as a manager, but it really bummed me.

I finally just gave up and left to join a consulting company. My first question at the interview was not, “What do you pay?” but, “And you’ll guarantee I won’t have any direct reports?” It changed my attitude by 180 degrees.

I admire people who are good managers, and they deserve every cent they earn, but it’s not for me.

23

This is one of the advantages, or not, depending on your POV, of federal work. Almost no one is promoted directly, there are simply “job openings” and “applicants.” Being the “next guy down” usually gives you the inside track, but it’s by no means a guarantee you will get the job.

My own supervisors recently created a position pretty much specifically for me. It was a marginal title and salary increase for a major increase in responsibilities. They both spoke with me about it several times and were very encouraging, almost pushy, for me to apply. My current job is a dead end, but this new position is still a dead end, just another block down the road, so to speak. I had to politely decline. One of my colleagues took the position, and now she’s quite miserable. Man am I glad I turned that down!

24

This description of management meetings is already problematic for me.

IME it’s common for engineers to scoff at the notion of any meetings whatsoever.
I’ve been in at least one team where the only time engineers were obliged to get out of their seats was for a once a week, 10 minute meeting, discussing what they would be working on for the current week. And this meeting frequently got cancelled following complaints of being a “waste of time”.

And those days also included feature creep, missed targets and frequent “crunch time”.

Nowadays I work in an agile environment. Yes there are meetings, but they are very much focused on what we need to do next, and why. And we don’t have the aforementioned problems.
Meetings don’t have to be pie charts and circle jerks.

25

Yeah, I should admit, as much as I hated the long management meetings*, I LOVED the quick Minion Meetings (8-8:08 every morning)**

*where each Account Executive (salesperson) had to justify their continued employment by going over how exciting (and lucrative) each of their dozens of two-bit clients are going to be any day now. Often repeating their spiel from the previous meeting.

**For those eight minutes, it was nothing but “This and this have to go out the door by noon, and that and that by the end of the day. Any problems hitting those deadlines, and if so, how can we help each other?”

26

I work in Egypt, and there are very few protections of employee rights in the private sector over here, but that’s not the reason I don’t want to bring it up with management. I don’t think they’ll come after me for saying no. They are genuinely nice people.

The issue has an element of what @Sam_Stone said: It could be a career killer, and it could lead them to naturally exclude me from decision-making at project level. This is the mindset over here. And there is a lot of decision-making that I exercise over projects that involve other team members and other departments, and I am usually the person taking charge of a project, defining - not assigning - roles, chasing someone for something, and acknowledging people’s work when it’s over. I don’t mind this kind of seniority.

What I do mind is the seniority that requires me to listen to bullshit about aunts that die at 6am and ‘food poisoning’, and whatnot. I don’t mind steering work, and I don’t have a problem having difficult conversations. It’s just that I don’t want to ‘present a plan about what the team will be doing for the next six months to improve process’, and I don’t want to be in a suit in a car driving to a client’s office for an emergency meeting over scoping and timelines, or how an account manager needs to fuck off.

I am naturally terrible at making strategic decisions, and I am always the last guy to notice something everyone is already aware of. I have a lot of ‘woosh’ moments. I do not easily spot general patterns. I am much better at directly and personally communicating my ideas, I’m good at explaining projects, improvising solutions to overcome situational challenges, analyzing a situation to identify what really is a problem and what is irrelevant and should not bother us. And I am happy to lead a group of people on all these fronts.

But I don’t want to be the person deciding who goes on annual leave, or how much force I should apply to a reprimand.

Back to the point, we don’t really have IC here, and the professional culture in the Middle East is all about vertical movement. People are primed to pursue vertical seniority because of the perks that come with that, and because the reward system is built this way. In other words, things are pretty hierarchal over here.

I can probably have this conversation privately and in confidence with a couple of people at the C-level, but that is unlikely to solve it because this will always be the ‘next step’.

Next appraisal takes place in December, and there are no tricks I can pull to relieve me from this new role that wouldn’t also relieve me from certain responsibilities I would like to retain due to their direct impact on work, and which no one else steps up to assume.

27

This all assumes that you are very self aware and when you say you’re good at something or important to the company, that it is in no way an overstatement. Based on what you’ve laid out, I see absolutely no reason to doubt that assumption.

You’re right that it’s pretty tricky in that you not only have to navigate the corporate hierarchy, you’re also dealing with a culture that isn’t particularly familiar with the hierarchy I laid out. The only other option I can see you putting forward is perhaps co-managing. Let a schmoozer have that side of the role and you focus on the technical side that you enjoy. Does there have to be a single person at all levels, or is that possible? On paper, it’s probably even okay if you technically report to them, as long as they and their boss understand that you are the one who should be making certain types of decisions.

So, while it’s tricky, being miserable in a job at a company that you like is extra shitty. I’d try to fix the miserable aspect of your future over leaving, based on what you’ve shared. Only if that fails would I then tell you to find somewhere that lets you be you, but you make it sound like that might not be an option in your country.

How married to Egypt are you? :slight_smile:

28

Or Utah Phillips:

You are about to be told one more time that you are America’s most valuable natural resource. Have you seen what they do to valuable natural resources?! Have you seen a strip mine? Have you seen a clear cut in the forest? Have you seen a polluted river? Don’t ever let them call you a valuable natural resource! They’re going to strip mine your soul. They’re going to clear cut your best thoughts for the sake of profit unless you learn to resist, because the profit system follows the path of least resistance and following the path of least resistance is what makes the river crooked!

29

Look up the “Peter Principle.” Basically, as soon as you are doing a great job you will keep getting promoted. Then one day you will be promoted to a level which you can’t handle. Then you suck at your job and hate it. The Peter Principle calls it like something like being promoted to your level of incompetence. That’s where I am now.

I made the mistake of chasing the money. The cost was mental illness and the collapse of my marriage.

I’m now looking for a lower salary and lower responsibility position, which isn’t easy in lockdown, It’s also difficult when a prospective employer reads my resume and thinks that I am overqualified for a role.

If you don’t want a promotion then don’t take it. The result may end up with you being like me, and if you do, it may ruin your life