I am in the position now where, with a little bit of extra work, I could earn myself a promotion. This may be my best opportunity to move up since my workplace currently has a lot of openings at the level I would be going for. The thing is, I'm pretty happy with my level of responsibility and pay right now. I also really like the people with which I currently work. The new position would add a slightly higher level of stress and responsibility (really not much at all), a change in the people I work with, and about a 15% pay increase.
I am only considering the promotion because of the pay increase, and because I am being encouraged to go for it by many of my coworkers. Also, it could shorten my working years a bit in the long run. Have you ever passed up a promotion? I feel a bit guilty for some reason, like I'm not challenging myself or am letting somebody down, I just am not sure who. Not sure what I'm going to do yet. Obviously, this is my decision to make, alone, but I'm looking for someone with a similar experience to share.
A few times.
I was offered more than one promotion that I turned down, for the following reasons:
1. The boss. It was the same boss I already had, but was in a new position. In the job I was in, I knew what I was doing. In the new job, it would require learning a lot of new things, and the boss was not very good. I had ZERO faith that he would be able to teach me all these new things. So, I passed. They went outside for a hire. And failed miserably.
2. The job. The next promotional opportunity was a natural one (engineering manager), but ... I had a 5 year old kid. And I knew that job was going to come with the expectation of a 50-60 hour work week. So when the boss (different boss) said "well, there are two people on the short list..." I said "not me, it will require too many hours".
3. The travel. The next opportunity was for a pretty prime job - we were moving manufacturing overseas, and needed to select a factory and transfer our process. There were two people in the entire company who knew enough about how product and processes to do the transfer: me, and my boss (same boss as #2). Boss (who was VP by then) and I discussed it, and I just said "man, I cannot do international travel like that". At that point, I think I had a six year old and an INFANT. In the end, the boss decided he was really excited about it and HE took the job. And my new VP was HORRIBLE and pretty much was the of my upward trajectory.
Anyway, in-between #2 and #3 I did take a promotion. Much like the engineering manager promotion, but on a smaller scale (2-6 direct reports instead of 10-15). It was do-able in a regular work week.
During the #3 time, I had a great immediate supervisor, but it was his boss that was the horrible VP. He got so fed up that he did a lateral transfer and recommended that I be made the engineering manager. That did not happen (of course it didn't! Though I was already doing most of the work.) New boss said "I'm going to see who the *right* person for the job is". I didn't play that game. I transferred. But before I did, there were a few months of "I need you both to be at the 7:30 am X meeting, and at the 6:30 pm production meeting every day".
Well, hats off to my sucker coworker who did that schedule for a year. He finally got promoted after a year, but then 3 months later the entire team got laid off (including sucky VP), but not me and not the sucker coworker.
Anyway, that was long. A lot of promotions come with longer hours and not more money.
