Author Topic: Not wanting to climb the corporate ladder for a while and/or ever again  (Read 2175 times)

BOP Mustache

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Current situation is I’m 33 and my wife is 35. We have two daughters aged 1.5 and 2.5 years old. We don’t intend to have any more.

I’m the sole income earner (wife is SAHM and runs a small business on side which doesn’t make much money, more a passion project to stay sane).

With the two kids, wanting to spend more time with them and being able to support my family on my income plus save a bit towards retirement each year for the first time in my life I’m considering stopping to climb the corporate ladder and pushing so hard at work for a time period until the kids get older and we are getting more sleep and less run down from catching illness off the kids, etc.

This is such a monumental mental shift for me as since birth have always strived for the next step (preschool, school, university, entry job, management job, bigger management job). I’m wanting to just sit tight and have a bit more balance for the next few years but unsure how to go about it talking to the boss, how to change my mentality, etc.

Valley of Plenty

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I'm in a similar boat career-wise, though my home life situation is different (no kids). For me it came down to finding the balance between work and life. I could absolutely climb higher within the company I work for, and there would be significant pay incentives to do so, but I can't really go any higher before I start getting calls and emails on my days off and having to basically be on the job at all times.

If you already have a significant savings rate that will allow you to reach financial independence in a time frame that is acceptable to you, there's really not much benefit to taking on more responsibility and stress, and losing more of your free time for additional pay. We Mustachians tend to be able to manifest income at will when we really need/want to, but these childhood years with your kids are not something you will be able to get back once they are gone. Keeping your stress levels low and your free time high is worth prioritizing here, in my opinion.

clarkfan1979

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Current situation is I’m 33 and my wife is 35. We have two daughters aged 1.5 and 2.5 years old. We don’t intend to have any more.

I’m the sole income earner (wife is SAHM and runs a small business on side which doesn’t make much money, more a passion project to stay sane).

With the two kids, wanting to spend more time with them and being able to support my family on my income plus save a bit towards retirement each year for the first time in my life I’m considering stopping to climb the corporate ladder and pushing so hard at work for a time period until the kids get older and we are getting more sleep and less run down from catching illness off the kids, etc.

This is such a monumental mental shift for me as since birth have always strived for the next step (preschool, school, university, entry job, management job, bigger management job). I’m wanting to just sit tight and have a bit more balance for the next few years but unsure how to go about it talking to the boss, how to change my mentality, etc.

I just finished reading Scott Trench's book, "Set for Life" about two weeks ago. He states that there are two types of jobs. One is a salary job that is based on 40 hours/week and produces annual raises of 3%. The other job is not based on hours, but production. The more you produce, the more you make. You can double, triple or quadruple your income, if your production does the same. If you want to put your heart and soul into a production job, that is a good use of time. However, increasing your hours from 40 hours/week to 50-60 hours/week to try to get the attention of your boss for a 3% raise is a waste of time.

If you are in the typical salary job, put in your 40 hours and do a good job. However, it's typically a waste of time to go beyond that. I have always felt this way, but Scott did a much better job of describing it. I had a conversation with a friend regarding this about two years ago. He is a computer programmer and was previously in a salary job. I'm guessing his salary was 120K. When he was given opportunities for extra work at his salary job, he pretty much always said "no." However, he did consulting gigs on the side. I think his hourly rate was $100-$150/hour.

He did the math and it was way more lucrative to do 5-10 hours/week of side gigs than use that time on a salary job in which he simply "hopes and begs" for a raise to justify the extra time. The side gigs were guaranteed.

My college builds in a small amount of merit pay for raises for faculty. In a typical year if you "meet" expectations, you get a 2% raise. If you "exceed" expectations, you get a 3% raise. My salary is 54K/year. If I bust my ass and go "above and beyond", I get an extra $540/year. Do you think that is where I'm going to spend my extra time? That's a hard no. 

My most difficult year of teaching was 2020 and all faculty didn't get a raise. Last year was probably my easiest year of teaching and we are scheduled to get a 5% raise. I'm not sure of how they are going to do the split. It might be 4.5%/5.5% for "meets" or "exceeds".

So for 2020, you could have "exceeds" expectations and received no raise. For 2021, you could have "meets" expectations and received a 4.5% raise. It really doesn't matter how hard you work. What really matters is the state budget.





 
« Last Edit: June 19, 2022, 09:29:17 AM by clarkfan1979 »

Dreamer40

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I stopped seeking promotions around that age. I didn’t talk to my boss about it. I just stopped volunteering for extra opportunities and did good work with the stuff I was assigned. That’s actually what most people around me were doing anyway so I blended in pretty well. Since my work quality remained high, my supervisors still appreciated me. When I was 40, my team was restructured and I got a crappy supervisor who made work miserable. So I FIREd. :) I heard later that this supervisor was quickly reassigned to a non-management role. People knew she sucked for years but nobody else working under her was ever in a financial position to actually quit. That team now has yet another crappy manager running it. Directors never learn…

lucenzo11

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As for talking to your boss, just be honest about it (as long as you think your boss is understanding and wants you to keep working there). State what you want and how you are going to approach your career a little differently going forward and just talk about how that aligns with the company. I think honesty gets everyone on the same page and then there isn't any misunderstanding or disappointment next time you turn down an opportunity to take on more work. I'm finding right now that with such a competitive job market (YMMV) employers are much more likely to go along with a simple request from an employee just so they don't lose them to a competitor. I would suggest having this talk about 6 months or more before your performance review to set expectations well in advance and they can revise any of their targets in case they were relying on you to pull more weight. My company actually has dedicated mid year conversations specifically to talk about long term career goals.

There's obviously some career paths where it is expected everyone fights their way to the top and those who don't make it move to other companies, but I'm going to assume you aren't in that boat. I think it's more common for companies that operate with a hierarchy to have fewer positions the higher up you go so you speaking up and saying you aren't looking up as high, just makes it easier for everyone else to move up and locks you into a secure position. But that doesn't mean it has to be forever. My current boss did exactly what you are trying to do now. She moved her way up and gained lots of good experience, then dropped her hours, had a couple kids and just coasted for a bit. She worked hard during the time she was in the office, but always put her family first. Now, her kids are in late elementary and middle school so she went back to full time and got promoted to her current position.

As for your personal mentality, it can be tough to disengage from the nonstop pressure and drive to accomplish, especially when you've been doing it for so long. A few ideas to break the habit:
- Set an alarm for when you need to stop working at the end of the day. Make that a hard cutoff and stop working. You can always do it the next day.
- Make a routine at home that requires you to be there and therefore stop working. Maybe it is getting a kid off the school bus or making dinner.
- If your job permits it, don't look at emails at night, don't answer calls after work hours. If you have a dedicated work phone, turn it off or silence it.
- Put up more photos of your family in your office. This helps you think about them more as the priority and not the work that's in your office.

Affable Bear

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I just finished reading Scott Trench's book, "Set for Life" about two weeks ago. He states that there are two types of jobs. One is a salary job that is based on 40 hours/week and produces annual raises of 3%. The other job is not based on hours, but production. The more you produce, the more you make. You can double, triple or quadruple your income, if your production does the same. If you want to put your heart and soul into a production job, that is a good use of time. However, increasing your hours from 40 hours/week to 50-60 hours/week to try to get the attention of your boss for a 3% raise is a waste of time.

This really hits home for me, I read a really interesting article about 10 years ago called the Gervais principle, its about the TV show but also relevant in the workplace I think. You can read the article here: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/

It breaks down the workforce into 3 generic groups of Losers, Clueless and Sociopaths. Losers produce the value (sales, accounting, programming etc), Clueless are burecratic middle management and Sociopaths are people who create the business or put all their energy into career progression over all else including being any good in their job.

I read the article mostly for entertainment rather than a way to navigate my profesional life but it opened my mind to new ways of thinking. For example I am currently a 'Loser' and whilst I am certainly not incompetant in my role I only do enough to keep me in the job and maintain my reputation. This means no overtime, I don't volunteer for new projects and I don't check emails when I am at home or on holiday, I don't take on any stress of the company and its objectives, I simply show up, do the work that is expected of me and go home. If I go higher this would require actual effort on my part for a job I wouldnt be pasisonate about and yes maybe I could FIRE a year or 2 earlier but for me it wouldnt be worth the trade off.

When I started out I had the traditional work hard ethic and you might get noticed or a raise etc.. This led to a promotion where I fell into the Clueless catagory, had that job right up until the start of Covid and was miserable. Lots of stress and responsibilities and I saw first hand half the people playing games to get to the top of the corporate ladder and the other half were clueless. I took a lower paid stress free job back as a Loser and I have never been happier, the money is meh but the life is good!

Not saying middle management or rising to the top is bad but I think this thought process could help some reduce burnout and lead to people having more time and energy to develop/family/hobby/side business outside of their traditional 9-5 day job. I might be crazy I dont know, I would consider a promotion if the money shaved 50% off my FIRE date but other than that I am content.

FLBiker

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Personally, I've always been very ambivalent about climbing the ladder.  I didn't really start working full-time until I was 30, but once I did, the company I was working for went through tremendous growth and change, and I had a bunch of opportunities to climb the ladder.  I took some of them, but said no to many of them as well.  I don't really like supervising people (although I've found it to be virtually unavoidable -- I can get away with it for a year or two, but I seem to always end up with a small team under me).  And I absolutely have no interest in higher level management -- I'm fundamentally a Loser (in the parlance of the article that was shared) but I keep getting promoted to the Clueless level, and I've been invited to the Sociopath level a few times.  From work, I'm just looking to punch in and punch out -- I get a good salary (relatively speaking) and work 40 hours a week from home.  That suits me.  Many of my colleagues work way more than 40 hours a week for the same (or less).  And all of the folks in the management layer above me work more than 40 hours a week (hence my disinterest).

I've found that people have a hard time understanding that I don't want to climb any further, but that's fine.  If anything, I think my next move (if not full retirement) will be asking to move a rung or two down the ladder.  We shall see!

ATtiny85

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I worked pretty hard the first bunch of years in engineering. Once I understood how the system worked at the company, it was clear that there are those on a list that are going to keep moving up (almost regardless of what they do). Once I took a couple shots and never made it to that list, I went through about a five year evolution to where I am now. Do my work at as high a level as I can without stress. Happy.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2022, 10:02:46 AM by ATtiny85 »

joe189man

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Do it, your kids are only little once

LightStache

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As for talking to your boss, just be honest about it (as long as you think your boss is understanding and wants you to keep working there). State what you want and how you are going to approach your career a little differently going forward and just talk about how that aligns with the company. I think honesty gets everyone on the same page and then there isn't any misunderstanding or disappointment next time you turn down an opportunity to take on more work. I'm finding right now that with such a competitive job market (YMMV) employers are much more likely to go along with a simple request from an employee just so they don't lose them to a competitor. I would suggest having this talk about 6 months or more before your performance review to set expectations well in advance and they can revise any of their targets in case they were relying on you to pull more weight. My company actually has dedicated mid year conversations specifically to talk about long term career goals.

I wouldn't announce that you're going to slack off. Just do it. Stay as likable as you can, don't fall down to the bottom third of your team, and you'll be fine.

Dicey

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Do it, your kids are only little once
Amen to this and +1 to all the other comments.

DeepEllumStache

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I’d recommend not having a discussion with your boss. Or framing your approach as pickiness if you can’t get around it. You don’t want your boss to treat you differently or put you in a short list for a layoff.

Especially in larger companies, people really aren’t paying that close of attention. If you are likeable and doing a good enough job, they won’t notice you aren’t volunteering to do the extra mile.

I backed off from the promotion hamster wheel and started avoiding the discussion. Many bosses are nice people that dislike the stress of unhappy discussions, such as frustration when there are limited promotion opportunities.

Occasionally I had bosses or peers that noticed I haven’t gotten promoted. With them, I frame it as wanting to be more selective about my future. A good fit in both work and boss is important. It’s true and it’s not like they need to know just how picky I have become.

No one has said anything that I have only applied for only one promotion in the past 8 years. Make the occasional disappointed noise if the topic comes up in passing and people won’t notice.

Viking Thor

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Agree with all of this advice.

Early in career I wanted to go far and advanced a few levels. Have been at this same level over a dozen years at a megacorp.

I make nice money and my work and team are pretty good, of course not as good as FI.

I do not even want to get promoted at this point. That would create a lot more pressure dealing with Sr leadership more, monitoring things on evenings and weekends, etc.

Of course I still need to sound eager to grow in my career, continue to do good work, etc.I would never tell my boss I don't want to get promoted or reveal my lack of ambition as that would be detrimental for ratings, bonuses, etc.

FLBiker

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Just to provide a counter example -- in my previous position, I was very direct with my boss about my not wanting to be promoted any further.  I don't feel like it hurt his opinion of me -- if anything, I think he appreciated the fact that I was giving consideration to how I wanted my life to be instead of just blindly climbing.  And he was not a work-life balance kind of guy -- he worked all the time.  Similarly, I told him when my wife was on leave (for 2.5 years when our daughter was born) that we didn't need the money (in other words -- we didn't urgently need her to come back to work).  She worked there as well, which is why it was semi-relevant -- I'd gone to his office to give him the paperwork to extend her leave for another 6 months.  And he responded by asking how we could afford that.

Some people felt like that was a bad approach (telling him we didn't need the money) because it would dissuade him from considering me for raises, but I didn't find that to be the case.  I feel like, making it clear by actions and words that you are not beholden to your company -- that it is a mutually beneficial agreement -- can actually be beneficial.  I think it can give people a sense that, if that relationship were to change so that it was no longer mutually beneficial, you would be willing to walk away.  At least, that's been my experience.

FIRE 20/20

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My experience is closer to what @FLBiker wrote about.  I had a few bosses who I talked to about this, and it always resulted in improved understanding all around.  Maybe I just had great bosses, but they all supported me in my career goals and the better they understood what I wanted and didn't want the better my work life was.  Well, not all - I had about 20% bad bosses but I quickly moved away from them. 

If you are in the typical salary job, put in your 40 hours and do a good job. However, it's typically a waste of time to go beyond that. I have always felt this way, but Scott did a much better job of describing it. I had a conversation with a friend regarding this about two years ago. He is a computer programmer and was previously in a salary job. I'm guessing his salary was 120K. When he was given opportunities for extra work at his salary job, he pretty much always said "no." However, he did consulting gigs on the side. I think his hourly rate was $100-$150/hour.

This I REALLY disagree with!  I started work in 1999 at $40,040 and finished my career in 2019 at $155k.  I was in a salaried, 40 hour a week position.  That equates almost exactly to 7% annual raises.  I did some "unpaid" extra work to make that happen, and it always paid off financially.  Those regular, large raises are a big part of why I was able to FIRE when I did.  Most of that extra work was about 4-6 weeks of insane hours (like 70-100 hour weeks), but that only happened once every other year or so.  Volunteering for those assignments are a big part of what propelled my career and salary increases.  That work also put me on the radar of higher-ups and led to most of the great job opportunities I ended up with during the second half of my career. 

Viking Thor

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My experience is closer to what @FLBiker wrote about.  I had a few bosses who I talked to about this, and it always resulted in improved understanding all around.  Maybe I just had great bosses, but they all supported me in my career goals and the better they understood what I wanted and didn't want the better my work life was.  Well, not all - I had about 20% bad bosses but I quickly moved away from them. 

If you are in the typical salary job, put in your 40 hours and do a good job. However, it's typically a waste of time to go beyond that. I have always felt this way, but Scott did a much better job of describing it. I had a conversation with a friend regarding this about two years ago. He is a computer programmer and was previously in a salary job. I'm guessing his salary was 120K. When he was given opportunities for extra work at his salary job, he pretty much always said "no." However, he did consulting gigs on the side. I think his hourly rate was $100-$150/hour.

This I REALLY disagree with!  I started work in 1999 at $40,040 and finished my career in 2019 at $155k.  I was in a salaried, 40 hour a week position.  That equates almost exactly to 7% annual raises.  I did some "unpaid" extra work to make that happen, and it always paid off financially.  Those regular, large raises are a big part of why I was able to FIRE when I did.  Most of that extra work was about 4-6 weeks of insane hours (like 70-100 hour weeks), but that only happened once every other year or so.  Volunteering for those assignments are a big part of what propelled my career and salary increases.  That work also put me on the radar of higher-ups and led to most of the great job opportunities I ended up with during the second half of my career.

I think the value of the extra effort (how much more they can earn relative to extra effort required) varies a lot by individual and job/career.

There was the example above of the tenured faculty member with high job security and upside of 1% increase for extra effort. If they wanted to make more a side gig would probably be more lucrative.

In my case I put in extra effort early in career and advanced a few levels and got my salary to a place I can spend well and have a very high savings rate. But another level would be more stress than I want, and not much impact to my FI plan. So I am fine where I landed.

Like if you make 50k and extra effort can get you to 150k or 200k that will greatly help reach FI faster. But if someone is already at 200k and it takes a lot of effort to go much beyond that they may not find as much value in taking more on.

ricelife

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I’m in the same boat as you. My son is around 1 years old and I’m going to take a step back in my career. Previously I was always gunning to get ahead - working 50-60 hours a week as necessary and constantly thinking about work.

As per other posters I am in the Loser category. I feel a lot of regret that I wasted some of my youth working all those extra hours in my Loser job and I didn’t get promoted as high as I wanted. If anything I burned out and my boss noticed and basically refused to promote me any further.

I’m in a far better place now in my career (changed jobs) but now I’m going to take a step back to have more time for my son. Think of this time (next x number of years with your children) as a season in your life. A season that means coasting in your job, being more present with your spouse and kids, and prioritizing free time. In x number of years you can choose to enter a new season where maybe your career focus will be greater. You’ll be older, wiser and satisfied from the last few years. Then you’ll be refreshed and ready to focus on the career again.

Archipelago

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Another vote for dialing back and not climbing. The only thing you'll wish is that you hadn't done it sooner.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!