Ever regretted a promotion? why?

[Wannaretireearly]

I'm interested to know whether any of y'all have ever regretted a promotion.
If you have, please share the promoted position and the old position & reasons for regret.

I'm a Program/Project manager with a relatively good work/life balance. I see the next steps up towards Sr. Manager/Director as a cluster with daily early meetings (7am/8am), wide responsibilities & generally too much work to actually ever feel 'above water'.

Anyway, interested in knowing the experiences of fellow Bogleheads. Especially as our community here seems mostly made up of non-type A's.

Cheers.

[norookie]

Happy to see you read my response.

[chaz]

I was never promoted but always liked my work.

[JupiterJones]

I haven't so far, because I've still managed to maintain a good work/life balance in all my positions. But I am now at the point where the next promotion would probably make me ask the same questions you're asking, so I get where you're coming from.

I guess the thing I'd consider is the degree to which I, as a manager, would have the power to reshape the position to be more suitable to me. Would I be able to get those morning meetings changed (or reduced/eliminated)? Could I delegate responsibilities more than my predecessor? Are there efficiencies to be found that are currently being missed or ignored?

Sometimes a job seems like a Type-A insane asylum not so much because that's inherent to the position itself, but because it's brought to that job by preferred work style of the person currently holding it.

JJ

[Wannaretireearly]

I haven't so far, because I've still managed to maintain a good work/life balance in all my positions. But I am now at the point where the next promotion would probably make me ask the same questions you're asking, so I get where you're coming from.

I guess the thing I'd consider is the degree to which I, as a manager, would have the power to reshape the position to be more suitable to me. Would I be able to get those morning meetings changed (or reduced/eliminated)? Could I delegate responsibilities more than my predecessor? Are there efficiencies to be found that are currently being missed or ignored?

Sometimes a job seems like a Type-A insane asylum not so much because that's inherent to the position itself, but because it's brought to that job by preferred work style of the person currently holding it.

JJ

Great points. Thanks for sharing Jupiter.

[Fallible]

I'm interested to know whether any of y'all have ever regretted a promotion.
If you have, please share the promoted position and the old position & reasons for regret.

I'm a Program/Project manager with a relatively good work/life balance. I see the next steps up towards Sr. Manager/Director as a cluster with daily early meetings (7am/8am), wide responsibilities & generally too much work to actually ever feel 'above water'.

Anyway, interested in knowing the experiences of fellow Bogleheads. Especially as our community here seems mostly made up of non-type A's.

Cheers.

I never regretted a promotion because the new work was a challenge to do something new and different. But I'm responding because from what you've said, the promotion doesn't seem to be to a job you want, or at least want so much that you'd be willing to put up with its drawbacks. If you can't make changes in the new position (as JupiterJones suggested), if the additional pay alone is not worth it, and since you highly value a "good work/life balance," this particular promotion could be wrong for you.

[Sam I Am]

I worked for a large company, and never stayed in the same management position for more than a couple of years.

I thrived on going into a brand new job and learning new things. The further away from my present job the better. Some were lateral moves, and some were promotions, probably about the same number of each.

I was fortunate enough that upper management allowed my frequent moves, sometimes over the objections of my immediate manager.

What I found was I had energy to improve things, as often a new set of outside eyes could do. But after things were running to my satisfaction, I tended to get bored. Bored employees aren't good, and I knew myself well enough to start making preparations to move on before I started declining.

I have turned down promotions as some would have forced me to move, and family considerations prevented me from doing so. I wanted my children to have stable lives, and my wife had a good career after she rejoined the workforce after being a SAHM for a few years. And one job was in San Angelo, Texas. No thanks! I would have been strung up had I accepted that one. Nice folks, but not my idea of where I'd want to live.

I can't honestly say I ever regretted accepting a promotion, but I was usually seeking something I wanted, rather than having something thrust upon me.

And, I've turned down opportunities that would have required more hours than I was willing to give, at times. I was always interested in IT, but the hours they worked just wasn't something I'd want to do all the time.

Honestly I don't think I would have had the same opportunities in a large company today, most likely my changes of scenery would have had to have been through seeking a job with another company.

Company changing wasn't the norm for most in my generation, but it certainly is for my daughters' generation. My oldest is in the business world and is on her third great job, and she is only 33 years old. Each job she has held was found on monster.com. Each job gets her higher up on the food chain. She has worked for a defense contractor, a soft-drink company, and now works for a large European company. I honestly didn't think such outstanding jobs could be found on a site like monster.com, but she sure has found some great ones. My fear is she might have to do a stint in Europe, and I would really miss my grandkids, but it would give her career a boost, I imagine.

Times, they certainly are a-changing.

Sam I Am

[Wannaretireearly]

Thanks for the responses.

[pennstater2005]

I've never received a job promotion and probably would not take it even if it was offered. The promotion would be to director of the clinic I work at and entails significantly increased hours from what I'm currently working. I'm salaried now working approximately 38 hours per week and am fortunate to be home early enough to spend time with my young son before he goes to bed Oh, and no weekends at my current position either.

[yakers]

I once was offered a nice promotion to our head office, an initial step up and more promotion potential. I consulted my wife who really did not want to move. I reluctently passed on the offer. Within 3 months a new person took over at HQ and totally made life miserable for everyone there including a lot of people I respected. Many were purged or left for better prospects. I am so glad I did not go. Imagine getting my wife to quit her job, selling the house and moving and then ending up in job hell. Just the luck of the draw but I still feel like some angel was looking out for me when I turned down what appeared to be a very decent promotion offer.

[DaleMaley]

I have worked for the same large company for 33 years. For about the first 20 years, I changed jobs on average about every 2 years. Some changes were promotions, some were laterals. One was actually a demotion back to a previous job I had held, in a business downturn. I never regretted any of these job changes, except the demotion. Fortunately, the demotion was only for about one year, then I got back on track again. The demotion prompted me to go to night school and pick up an MBA.

I applied for but missed a promotion. I was 2nd in command at a Southern mfg plant, the new job was plant manager of another Southern mfg plant. In retrospect, it was good luck I did not get the job. My wife would not have liked the area, and the scope of the plant's products changed for the worse also.

I have now passed up 3 offered promotions. All of them would have involved changing my daily commute from 15 minutes to 60 minutes one-way. The bosses that offered me the jobs all retired within a couple of years. Since I like my current job and the people I work with, I'm glad I passed up on the 3 promotions.

There is such a thing as balance.......meaning how you spend your time......between work, family, religion, hobbies, etc. I have seen too many people tip the scale toward work, and they end up burned out and divorced. Life is also too short to work at something you really don't like.

[stan1]

I think it would be a mistake to say that we aren't Type A's here. We probably have more than our share of introverts, but I suspect we have quite a few introverts who are very passionate about our work (as we are about investing).

I advise my direct reports, formal mentees, and informal mentees to strongly consider lateral opportunities as well as upward opportunities. Human beings flourish when we are learning new things and are mentally challenged. I've seen many very smart, capable people get in a rut because they have stopped growing in their careers. If you don't feel the passion for the more senior job you shouldn't take it, but at the same time you should make sure that you continue to learn and remain mentally challenged in your professional career.

[pennstater2005]

I think it would be a mistake to say that we aren't Type A's here. We probably have more than our share of introverts, but I suspect we have quite a few introverts who are very passionate about our work (as we are about investing).

I advise my direct reports, formal mentees, and informal mentees to strongly consider lateral opportunities as well as upward opportunities. Human beings flourish when we are learning new things and are mentally challenged. I've seen many very smart, capable people get in a rut because they have stopped growing in their careers. If you don't feel the passion for the more senior job you shouldn't take it, but at the same time you should make sure that you continue to learn and remain mentally challenged in your professional career.

Agree, especially about staying challenged in your career. I have the ability to take continuing education courses and receive certifications in areas of specialized skills.

[stan1]

Agree, especially about staying challenged in your career. I have the ability to take continuing education courses and receive certifications in areas of specialized skills.

It's great to have that opportunity (which many no longer have as part of their jobs), but I think most people need more stimulation than just taking classes. You can take many classes to pick up knowledge, but if you are still doing essentially the same job day in and day out you can find yourself in a situation where you lose your passion. I think its important to be able to apply what you learn in the classes you take to your job -- essentially setting yourself up to encounter frequent periods of "on the job training" where you are challenged to apply your critical thinking skills to new problems or stimulate your creativity by being exposed to new ideas. Put another way building breadth is just as important as building depth. I've worked with many people over the years who were worried about making a change that pushed their comfort zone, and they almost always come back a year or 5 years later saying they are so glad they stretched their limits and grew into an opportunity.

[livesoft]

I have never regretted a promotion, but then again I have not had many promotions. At every job I have had I started on day 1 to find, recruit, and train my replacement.

I think I have maintained good work/life balance throughout my life. Part of the reason is that I always took jobs with a very short commute, I have control over what I do, and I have been able to get great people to work with me. I stopped working full-time about 5 years ago when I was able to get someone who worked for me to do my job.

[Fallible]

I think it would be a mistake to say that we aren't Type A's here. We probably have more than our share of introverts, but I suspect we have quite a few introverts who are very passionate about our work (as we are about investing).

I advise my direct reports, formal mentees, and informal mentees to strongly consider lateral opportunities as well as upward opportunities. Human beings flourish when we are learning new things and are mentally challenged. I've seen many very smart, capable people get in a rut because they have stopped growing in their careers. If you don't feel the passion for the more senior job you shouldn't take it, but at the same time you should make sure that you continue to learn and remain mentally challenged in your professional career.

I've always thought most Bogleheads might be Type A's (though A and B characteristics can overlap) and that could partly explain where the passion for investing comes in. BTW, I believe that introverts (also some overlap between introversion and extraversion) can be Type A's. Some of the quietest, most reserved people I've ever met were also highly ambitious super achievers. Whatever, I agree that the OP should be certain he has the "passion" for the new position before taking it; how well he does in the job will depend on that.

[stoptothink]

In June my boss was let go and the program director called me into her office on Friday to let me know and offered me the position. I quit on the spot and was moving across the country by the following Monday. My loyalty was to my former boss and not the organization, I had stayed a year longer than I wanted to (both the job and the area) because I felt obligated to help her. No amount of money or office view was going to keep me there.

Fast forward six months and 1500 miles, the program director at my new job took a very big appointment at the state department. Although I have only been at the new job for 5 months and feel completely unqualified, the chairman of our organization's board contacted me and asked if I was interested. I offered to help in any way I could and have no interest in leaving my current employer, but they couldn't pay me enough to take over the director's position. I like knowing that I can leave the office before 6pm most days and not be hesitant to make weekend plans because something will inevitably come up. The 50% salary increase doesn't make up for the 20-25hrs a week more and bureaucratic BS I'd have to deal with...at least for the time being.

[Alskar]

I have definitely regretted a promotion. Several years ago I was working for a well known photonics company. I had only been there about 18 months when I was asked if I wanted to be promoted from my position as a Staff Electrical Engineer (Staff Engineer was more senior than Principal Engineer at that company) to the manager of the Electrical Engineering and Software (EE & SW). I was offered an 8% raise in salary and the potential for another 20% in management bonus to compensate me for the additional responsibility. I readily accepted the new position without asking enough questions.

As it turns out, the new position was a so-called "working management" position. That is, I kept my individual contributor responsibilities in addition to my new management responsibilities. Good engineering requires huge expanses of uninterrupted time. Good management requires an open door and a lot of walking around to check on the troupes. So in my experience, a "working management" position is a guaranteed failure. One of three things can happen: 1) You focus on your engineering work and you're perceived to be a terrible manager; 2) you focus on your management work and you're perceived to be a terrible engineer; or 3) you manage by day and engineer by night spending endless hours at work and eventually hate life to the very depths of your soul. I chose #3 and ended up hating life to the very depths of my soul.

My situation was made worse by the fact that the manager that promoted me wouldn't give me hire and fire authority. He felt I was too green to have those responsibilities. During the early months of my new position, my employer acquired a competitor and went about assimilating them. Turns out that the competitors engineers didn't want to be assimilated so they quit. I ended up having to hire about six new engineers in about 6 weeks. That led to some extremely bad hiring decisions. One new-hire turned out to be a sociopath. His references said as much when I called them, but my manager said "He meets the minimum requirements for the job, hire him and move on". So I hired him. I then spent the next 18 months managing this one guy by day and doing my engineering by night. This problem employee was on and off PIP's (Performance Improvement Plans) every few months. The corporate attorney's wouldn't let me fire him for fear of a lawsuit. Eventually he filed a "hostile workplace" complaint against me because I was "riding his behind all day".

Meanwhile the economy was going into freefall (this was mid-2008 through 2009). That meant mandatory time off without pay. The management bonus hardly paid out. My pay was cut 15% by the mandatory time off. So as a result, I was making LESS money than I had made when I was "just an engineer".

There is simply not enough money on the face of the earth for me to put up with that kind of crap all day. When I gave notice they offered me increasingly large sums of money, and a demotion back to being an individual contributor if I would stay. Eventually they offered me a $30K a year raise to stay. I'd had enough and I left.

Everybody is different, so I can't tell you what you should do. However, if you don't enjoy clusters and daily early meetings, and feeling overwhelmed, I recommend that you don't move up. If you do take the position, make sure that the financial remunerations are worth the loss of work/life balance and stress.

To answer your questions directly: I was promoted from Staff Electrical Engineer to Sr. Manager of EE & SW. I regretted the loss of my free time, my equanimity, and my sense of competence. I may take another management position in the future, but I will not accept another working manager position. That's a guarantee of failure.

Hope that helps!

[Wannaretireearly]

I have definitely regretted a promotion. Several years ago I was working for a well known photonics company. I had only been there about 18 months when I was asked if I wanted to be promoted from my position as a Staff Electrical Engineer (Staff Engineer was more senior than Principal Engineer at that company) to the manager of the Electrical Engineering and Software (EE & SW). I was offered an 8% raise in salary and the potential for another 20% in management bonus to compensate me for the additional responsibility. I readily accepted the new position without asking enough questions.

As it turns out, the new position was a so-called "working management" position. That is, I kept my individual contributor responsibilities in addition to my new management responsibilities. Good engineering requires huge expanses of uninterrupted time. Good management requires an open door and a lot of walking around to check on the troupes. So in my experience, a "working management" position is a guaranteed failure. One of three things can happen: 1) You focus on your engineering work and you're perceived to be a terrible manager; 2) you focus on your management work and you're perceived to be a terrible engineer; or 3) you manage by day and engineer by night spending endless hours at work and eventually hate life to the very depths of your soul. I chose #3 and ended up hating life to the very depths of my soul.

My situation was made worse by the fact that the manager that promoted me wouldn't give me hire and fire authority. He felt I was too green to have those responsibilities. During the early months of my new position, my employer acquired a competitor and went about assimilating them. Turns out that the competitors engineers didn't want to be assimilated so they quit. I ended up having to hire about six new engineers in about 6 weeks. That led to some extremely bad hiring decisions. One new-hire turned out to be a sociopath. His references said as much when I called them, but my manager said "He meets the minimum requirements for the job, hire him and move on". So I hired him. I then spent the next 18 months managing this one guy by day and doing my engineering by night. This problem employee was on and off PIP's (Performance Improvement Plans) every few months. The corporate attorney's wouldn't let me fire him for fear of a lawsuit. Eventually he filed a "hostile workplace" complaint against me because I was "riding his behind all day".

Meanwhile the economy was going into freefall (this was mid-2008 through 2009). That meant mandatory time off without pay. The management bonus hardly paid out. My pay was cut 15% by the mandatory time off. So as a result, I was making LESS money than I had made when I was "just an engineer".

There is simply not enough money on the face of the earth for me to put up with that kind of crap all day. When I gave notice they offered me increasingly large sums of money, and a demotion back to being an individual contributor if I would stay. Eventually they offered me a $30K a year raise to stay. I'd had enough and I left.

Everybody is different, so I can't tell you what you should do. However, if you don't enjoy clusters and daily early meetings, and feeling overwhelmed, I recommend that you don't move up. If you do take the position, make sure that the financial remunerations are worth the loss of work/life balance and stress.

To answer your questions directly: I was promoted from Staff Electrical Engineer to Sr. Manager of EE & SW. I regretted the loss of my free time, my equanimity, and my sense of competence. I may take another management position in the future, but I will not accept another working manager position. That's a guarantee of failure.

Hope that helps!

Thanks. That does help. I fear the same as what you experienced. I've been told I would be 'in-line' for a promotion next year. However, I know that the pay increase would be small or none, as I'm already at the same salary grade as a manager. The bonus would likely be 5 or 10% larger, but that is the only real remuneration upside.

[Default User BR]

I've only ever had technical level promotions, like Engineer 2 to Engineer 3. Those don't bring any change to the job for the most. They are really a recognition to the changes you've already made.


Brian

[VictoriaF]

I doubt many people have regretted promotions along the professional/technical ladder. Most concerns I am familiar with are about transitions from being a top performing engineer to becoming a supervisor. Frequently, there is a distinction between being a team lead, a technical role, and being a supervisor, a managerial role. A supervisor gets dragged down into numerous planning, reporting, financial, personnel, and other issues that have little to do with his technical expertise. And the open-door policy is a menace for those who like to think. Alskar's story is very instructive.

On the other hand, middle management is the barrier to entry into top management. At the top tiers, mundane responsibilities are delegated, a secretary ensures a closed-door policy, and various perquisites compensate for occasional long days.

Victoria

[Fallible]

I doubt many people have regretted promotions along the professional/technical ladder. Most concerns I am familiar with are about transitions from being a top performing engineer to becoming a supervisor. Frequently, there is a distinction between being a team lead, a technical role, and being a supervisor, a managerial role. A supervisor gets dragged down into numerous planning, reporting, financial, personnel, and other issues that have little to do with his technical expertise. And the open-door policy is a menace for those who like to think. ...

True also in many ways of journalism, where reporters/editors/feature writers, etc., would be offered management positions as rewards for their work. But management had all those non-news duties and becoming one usually meant an end to concentrating on the news, on the part of the job that was most rewarding, and why you got into the business in the first place. Some who did move into management regretted it. BTW, i'd almost forgotten about all this so thanks for bringing it up as it may further help the OP. Interesting, too, to see the similarities with engineering.

[eschaef]

Right out of college, I got a (very) entry level hourly job in a field I hadn't planned for just to pay the bills. Five years and 4 promotions later, my responsibilities no longer matched my interests. With each promotion, I lost time to do the parts I enjoyed and gained responsibilities that made work increasingly a chore. That served me as motivation to get out and find the path I had originally intended.

I don't regret anything as I gained valuable skills, experience, and personal relationships along the way. So, no regrets, but I was definitely unhappy in the job at the end and would have been increasingly unhappy had I not had an alternative career path to jump to.

On the bright side, in my current job (I'm a teacher), I have moments that hit me where I think, "I get PAID to do this!". I don't know if I would have such an appreciation for how much my current role fits me if I hadn't had my previous experiences.

[02sbxstr]

I worked as an aerospace engineer for 40 years, retiring last June. I was far from the executive track, but had a number of promos over the years. 10 years ago, I was up for one against a younger fellow who had been promoted to my level a year before. He got the promo and I was more than a little peeved, but as time went on, I understood that it wasn't a big deal. I had a job I loved, leading a great team, made 6 figures plus a bit, not a lot of hours in excess of 40 / week, not a lot of micromanagement (it was on the commercial side, not military, which I always tried to avoid, most easily by refusing to get a security clearance). We put a commercial product on the wing in about 3 years, takes 2 or 3 time that for a military product. Not long after the promo fell through, I realized I was perfectly happy where I was.

[JDCPAEsq]

Early in my career I was offered a position at the New York City offices of Megabank, which entailed moving from my position in an upstate New York city. Having lived and grown up in Western New York, NYC wasn't my idea of where I wanted to live or pursue my career. Shortly thereafter, in 1976, I was offered a position in Florida during the period when Northern banks were expanding into that state. Although I knew that New York was the heart of the trust business at the time, it all worked out well in Florida and I never regretted turning down the transfer.
John

[Wannaretireearly]

Thanks All.
To be clear, i did mean the big jump promotion from an individual contributor to a manager when I started this thread.
I've experienced mini-tech level promotions, without much/any impact to the actual job or pay.

Cheers.

[Atilla]

About 8 years ago the president of our company personally offered me a management position. I refused immediately without blinking an eye.

Now I make more money than the guy who got what I refused.

[HomerJ]

I worked for a large company, and never stayed in the same management position for more than a couple of years.

I thrived on going into a brand new job and learning new things. The further away from my present job the better. Some were lateral moves, and some were promotions, probably about the same number of each.

I was fortunate enough that upper management allowed my frequent moves, sometimes over the objections of my immediate manager.

What I found was I had energy to improve things, as often a new set of outside eyes could do. But after things were running to my satisfaction, I tended to get bored. Bored employees aren't good, and I knew myself well enough to start making preparations to move on before I started declining.

Heh, I'm sure you were an excellent manager... But let me give you the view from a worker bee...

Me: "Oh boy, yet another Director/AVP... Wonder what he will want to change?"

AVP: We should do things this way, because that's how we did it at my last company (or it's what I read in a airplane magazine).

Me: Work, work, work

AVP: Well, I got my big bonus, now I'm bored... off to do something else!

New AVP: We should do things this way (THE EXACT WAY WE WERE DOING THINGS TWO YEARS AGO), because that's how we did it at my last company (or it's what I read in a airplane magazine).

Me: Work, work, work.

I seriously went through a VP who decided our standardized server environment was no good because we could get a lot of cost savings by having multiple vendors, and playing them against each other in bidding wars... He may have saved the company some money in the short-run, but my job got harder... and then we had to get more people or pay for some more tools to be as efficient as before. But he had already gotten his bonus and moved on. Then the next VP came in, and declared we should standardize to reduce operational costs. So we spent two years standardizing again... And he got his bonus and moved on.



Anyway, to answer the OP, work-life balance is huge... I've never aspired to be a manager because I've never thought the extra 30% pay was worth 100% more headache.

I'm in IT though, and worker bees get paid a lot... Things change a lot in IT, so I rarely get bored, and on the few occasions where I have got everything working perfectly and was getting a little bored, I just changed companies.

Honestly I don't think I would have had the same opportunities in a large company today, most likely my changes of scenery would have had to have been through seeking a job with another company.

Company changing wasn't the norm for most in my generation, but it certainly is for my daughters' generation. My oldest is in the business world and is on her third great job, and she is only 33 years old. Each job she has held was found on monster.com. Each job gets her higher up on the food chain. She has worked for a defense contractor, a soft-drink company, and now works for a large European company. I honestly didn't think such outstanding jobs could be found on a site like monster.com, but she sure has found some great ones. My fear is she might have to do a stint in Europe, and I would really miss my grandkids, but it would give her career a boost, I imagine.

Yeah that's the way to do it nowadays. The best way to get a good raise is to move on to a different company. It's unfortunate but true.

[HomerJ]

Thanks. That does help. I fear the same as what you experienced. I've been told I would be 'in-line' for a promotion next year. However, I know that the pay increase would be small or none, as I'm already at the same salary grade as a manager. The bonus would likely be 5 or 10% larger, but that is the only real remuneration upside.

See, that's why you have to move to a new company to get a good raise... Everytime I've jumped jobs, I've gotten 20%-30% raises... Every promotion I've gotten inside a company was like 5% or 10%.

Companies are crazy to let their good people with institutional knowledge leave, but it happens all the time... And then to fill the position, they usually have to pay more anyway.. They should have just given the money to the guy who had been there 5 years and knew all their systems and procedures like the back of his hand.

[Wannaretireearly]

Hi Homer,

I did all my jumping around for good 20-30% pay increases in my 20's! (3 major changes every 3-4 years).
So, an actual job change at this point, wouldnt yield more than 10-15% max. I would like to be suprised but with some limited exploring I've done recently I would be lucky to even get a 10% raise with a job change. I'm also in the tech industry, in Silicon Valley.

If I'm approached by my boss (who i get along with well) about taking a step up to management next year, I think it would be hard to refuse without impacting my reputation....I feel like it would be a 'blessing in disguise' if i wasn't approached.

Cheers.

[johnep]

It sounds like you are comfortable and content in your program/project manager role and reluctant to accept the challenges and faster pace a senior manager job will require. If that is the case, then you are wise to stay put. I made the transition to senior manager many years ago and never regretted it. However, senior manager is not for everyone. It brings more money and other perqs, but it ususally has more stress, longer hours and risk. Program/project managers are in great demand, provide valuable services, and if you find this satisfying, then why change.

[burt]

Yes, I have regretted a promotion.

Got a promotion with only a bonus, no pay raise. Now being measured against higher level performers. Your ratings against peers has to go down.

There is a big salary overlap between pay grades.

Be careful.

burt

[Wannaretireearly]

Yes, I have regretted a promotion.

Got a promotion with only a bonus, no pay raise. Now being measured against higher level performers. Your ratings against peers has to go down.

There is a big salary overlap between pay grades.

Be careful.

burt

Thanks Burt. I agree on both points. Big overlaps with salary bands and a great point about reviews ratings being tougher at a higher level....

[peppers]

How true Homerj


AVP: We should do things this way, because that's how we did it at my last company (or it's what I read in a airplane magazine).

Me: Work, work, work

AVP: Well, I got my big bonus, now I'm bored... off to do something else!

New AVP: We should do things this way (THE EXACT WAY WE WERE DOING THINGS TWO YEARS AGO), because that's how we did it at my last company (or it's what I read in a airplane

I seriously went through a VP who decided our standardized server environment was no good because we could get a lot of cost savings by having multiple vendors, and playing them against each other in bidding wars... He may have saved the company some money in the short-run, but my job got harder... and then we had to get more people or pay for some more tools to be as efficient as before. But he had already gotten his bonus and moved on. Then the next VP came in, and declared we should standardize to reduce operational costs. So we spent two years standardizing again... And he got his bonus and moved on.

Bold Mine

"We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up in teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing, and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization." Petronius Arbiter 210 B.C. From " Sun Tzu, The Art Of War For Managers"