“you’re really good at this and enjoy it so let’s get you into middle management where you won’t do it anymore and will hate your life”
Yep.
“Field promotions” we used to call them. I have done the management thing, I was “okay” at it, but it wasn’t my passion.
When I was studying for PMP, I remember there was even a term for this. Because you’re good at one thing, it was expected that you would be good at something else as well, not taking into consideration that managing people is completely different from the domain they were an expert on. Of course, sometimes it helps to have some previous domain knowledge to be able to lead a specific team, but that doesn’t mean it’s automatic.
What companies really need to realise is that there should be different promotion tracks, and some of them are individualistic, i.e. being promoted as an expert in their field, rather than being promoted to have to manage people.
It’d be fine if the pay raise matched the workload.
Triple my responsibility while giving me a 25¢ raise smh my head
deleted by creator
You got a raise?!? They took my commission and said managers don’t get commission or a raise
It’s been tough switching from managing data and processes to managing people. But I make a LOT more money. It’s also nice not having to watch someone else make poor decisions all the time, but I guess now everyone else is now watching me make the poor decisions! 🤦♂️
Yeah… I feel like I contributed so much more before but managing people, but this is where the money is sadly. I went from supply chain/purchasing/logistics manager to operations manager. I used to be a one man team and single handedly saved maybe $200k this year so far, and took our aged inventory from about $1M to basically nothing, all of our KPIs are primo. This is a company that pulls $10M/yr in revenue… small company.
I got rewarded with spending half my time babysitting the warehouse team, getting reamed by my boss when they’re not getting through things fast enough, and fixing their mistakes and bandaiding bad processes. But I got a 30% raise so I guess it’s worth it? I could be doing so much more.
Great. More responsibility and being the scapegoat for everything bad coming from the ones under you.
I’d need 150% of my salary to start thinking about doing that.deleted by creator
Lol this is my career. I am close to retirement but I always rejected management. Respect the Peter Principle
I’m not close to retirement, but I see this starting to happen to me.
I’m not opposed to managing people, but I would rather self immolate than to review timesheets.
I feel this. Just because I’m good at what I do doesn’t mean I’m leadership material. I’m too nice.
I’m at a spot where I’m headed towards technical leadership rather than managerial leadership.
I have a small team, and it’s up to me to use them to magnify my effectiveness with my work. It’s actually kind of a good spot, but I’m worried I’ll be asked to do more management stuff
Management is just making other people do your work 99% of the time. And it’s expected! I’ve run a few teams with good results and it’s always the easiest position in the group.
It’s only easy if the team is competent and motivated. I can literally hand some people on my team step by step instructions and they still come out wrong 50% of the time because they either think they know better (they don’t) or they’re just lazy. On top of that the HR policy here makes it take 6 months to replace a person and get us up to speed so if I get rid of the shittiest ones I’m still in a worse spot than I would be if I just deal with coaching them all the time. Working on jumping to a new role that isn’t a leadership position because I’m so tired of being responsible for other people’s performance.
Until two people hate eachother on your team. And act like children because of it. Never again.
Those are the employees designated for under-the-bus duty. Easy peezy.
I’ve been avoiding people management for years - and about a year ago, I was apprached by a company I’ve worked with for an exec gig. Dream job that would have shot me forward 10+ years in my career.
I lost it because I haven’t managed people since I worked in retail. It’s held me back pretty seriously, and I understand now that it’s better me leading a team than most of the schmucks I’ve worked for.
I don’t have any meme that can represent my thoughts in a more precise way.
First thing I told my manager was when he asked me where I wanted to end up was: not managing people
Great for the career, not great for me.
I just straight up tell everyone I have no leadership aspirations. I write that shit on my yearly reviews.
Do they force you into it anyways? Two jobs ago I told them that all the time. They used to make us fill out a career advancement plan every year, and every year I said “I’m exactly where I want to be”, but every 6 months they’d stick me at the head of some team and I’d have to do that for a few months until I weasled my way out of it.
I strongly recommend Freakonomics episode 495 “Why Are There So Many Bad Bosses?” which discusses this exact issue. Great listen as well!
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-are-there-so-many-bad-bosses/
Managing people is absolutely NOT good for my career. MAYBE it’ll be good for my salary (but I doubt it at my current company).
That’s the case with my previous workplace before I left. There is pressure to move up. I just want to work in a standardised manner and have fewer responsibilities. Because I want to leave early or on time and do my hobbies after work instead of staying overtime. I will ask for promotion if I feel ready.
“It’ll be great for your career… But we aren’t going to raise your pay right now for it.”
Hey, the peasants already bought the trickle down, we’ll piss prosperity on you one day economics bullshit, so they’ll believe anything!
I dont care about people’s bullshit so just let me work and not deal with them.
I had this. I was a happy scrum master in an area that said scrum masters must not be managers - conflict between duties of the two
I moved to a different project and suddenly I’m a manager. Not even a pay rise.
At least I feel I’m good at it, though I favour scrum master methods for getting people to perform, rather than manager tools
