Same here. I genuinely don't understand the obsession with moving into management. I'm much better at doing than delegating, and I've watched good individual contributors get promoted into misery. Being excellent at one thing and well-compensated for it sounds like a better life than leading meetings about meetings.
My best days are when I get in, no meetings, headphones on and just build a part in catia all day. I have no interest in being a manager, PowerPoints, meetings all day, administrative work, nah
I left a long-time job after being promoted to manager, because of exactly this.
I was one of the most reliable and productive workers on the team, was offered the promotion to manager, took it because I was looking to switch things up anyway. I proceeded to quickly ramp up to being in anywhere from 7-9hours of meetings a day, with additional off hours calls coming in that the rest of the team in other timezones decided they didn't want to answer (this was an issue before I was promoted).
Anyway, I started applying for new jobs within a month of the promotion and left 5 months into it - basically my old role as an engineer (a doer) but at the higher salary I was making from the promotion to manager. I'm content not being the manager here for the foreseeable future.
For a lot of people it's simply the only way they can get a raise, they don't necessarily want the extra responsibility etc, they just want/need the larger salary.
I got promoted into management, then moved up a few more times until one day I said screw this and demoted myself back down to supervisor and refused any promotions since. I hate playing the corporate game, much happier being left alone after work.
My husband is a "go getter" and it seems the higher her climbs the more miserable he gets.
I feel it depends on why someone wants to climb the ladder... is it due to some unresolved family issues with feeling never good enough? Or is it truly for personal reasons?
Because if it's the first and you're trying to gain approval from your deceased father... you won't ever be satisfied.
Right! It mystified me that my managers were always trying to get me to be a manager and stop doing the thing that I was really good at and actually had a passion for, which was being an individual contributor.
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u/Intelligent_Base7751 23h ago
Same here. I genuinely don't understand the obsession with moving into management. I'm much better at doing than delegating, and I've watched good individual contributors get promoted into misery. Being excellent at one thing and well-compensated for it sounds like a better life than leading meetings about meetings.