Anyone not climbed the career ladder?

[Celebrityskin88]

For instance in the school I worked in, many teachers were clamouring for heads of department roles and eventually moving up to SLT. Friends of my age (30) mostly been promoted into managerial roles now.

I feel like it's a societal expectation that we have to keep progressing and climbing the ladder. Is there anyone who's just happy with the status quo and isn't interested in moving up?

Managing a team of people doesn't interest me particularly. And it sounds lazy but to some extent I just want an easy life, I don't really want a job with high stress and responsibilities for more money.

I've had comments from some people about how I could be 'doing more with my life' , and 'do I want to be in this role for the rest of my life?" And I don't understand it.

Anyone else?

DH and I both cut our hours to four days a week to have more time with our toddler son (we now also have a second) and it was made clear to him that that meant no further promotion - he's a teacher and has a TLR but any 'bigger' ones would have to be done 5 days a week. He's happy with that. It's not quite so clearcut for me that cutting my hours (and I dropped fewer than him because I'm able to compress mine) means no promotion but it's certainly not helpful, and I also feel like having that day with my very young children is worth that. I do feel like for me it's temporary, though - I will want to progress again eventually, when the children are older - whereas DH feels like teaching is so much more enjoyable with his break in the week that he says he thinks he won't ever go back up to FT, and I think that's an entirely reasonable position.

I got into a career quite late, 35. Before that I’d had DC and worked mostly school hours jobs. I realised pretty quickly that I wasn’t all that bothered about progressing. The step up in money was pretty small for each level when compared to the amount of stress and extra work it would entail. Also by this time the DC were older, I didn’t want any more so no need to factor in things like maternity leave, childcare costs etc.

I’m in my 50s now and have stepped back further to part time. I love it. I see my poor manager run ragged and I don’t feel any envy! I earn enough for the lifestyle I lead, I have lots of free time to pursue hobbies or just potter around! I really love my life.

I had more management responsibilities and stress in a previous role and now I’m quite happy to see my boss taking all that pressure instead. Sometimes I look at the structure at work and feel so inferior (2nd to bottom, 5 above me), I thought I’d achieve more with a degree and a further higher education qualification, but there are plenty of others in the office in my position.

I've been at the same company for nearly 20 years and have been promoted twice.

I have one more tiny step up to make and I'm done.

I'm a supervisor though I may only have one other person to supervise. The managers who oversee us are always seem to be dealing with budgets, covering staff absence and holidays, dealing with health and safety and a ton of other stuff I neither have any interest in or have the patience to carry out. I like my job as it is now.

Social worker, lots of people do this role and don't 'progress' because it's the role they trained for and wanted to do. Have lots of nursing friends who don't want to go above band 6 for the same reasons.
I'm thinking of moving up but it's not because I care about promotion, it'd be stress but a different kind of stress (both jobs involve long/unpaid hours but as a manager you're more likely to be catching up at home instead of being out in the community late)

My career peaked when I was in my 20s - a couple of promotions and then having to manage people who knew what they were doing better than I did. I didn't go back to work for 12 years after having my first baby, so I obviously couldn't pick up where I left off even if I'd wanted to go back.

I work now, part-time in a more junior role that I enjoy, and I have no intention of progressing.

I do understand where you’re coming from.

The problem is that it limits your income and while there’s definitely more to life than money, it does help!

One of my friends and her husband are both adamant they won’t work full time and each do four days a week (so won’t move up the career ladder as in hardbacks case are both teachers) but then they are both always very stressed about money. I would personally find that very hard.

I've climbed 'down' the ladder , great career in my 20s & 30s with plenty of progression .... took my 40s off to raise my DS and have a 'breather' from corporate life and returned to a much lower 'level' of work in my 50s, still do a job that I love but only earn a pittance ... but the hours suit me as it gives me plenty of flexibility to have other interests, volunteering, seeing my elderly parents etc in my life. I'm not unhappy with the decision but not 100% sure I'd make the same choice again .....

Me, I love my job and don’t want it to change

But while I am returning to work full time I have stepped back in terms of responsibility. But my basic salary is pretty good and OH earns well. If he didn’t I’d be looking at promotion I think.

Me. I was in a managerial role but took a step out (I'd say sideways but some would probably say downwards ) of it into a more creative role with zero promotion prospects. I'm very happy and it's actually pretty well paid, especially the freelance work I do on the side

Every now and again i get a pang of conscience that I'm not 'fulfilling my earning potential' but I also have to remind myself that I'm more than my career.

Alice makes a very good point about financial security, I am now in my early 60s and many of my friends who maintained a career progression have been able to comfortably retire, I won't be able to do that for a number of years .....in fact I can only work part time because my DH earns a decent salary .

I had a friend who didn't. That was her prerogative but over time as people in our friendship group did move upwards in their careers, she started to get bitter. You'd mention you'd bought X, she asked how much you paid for it and it was always "That's so EXPENSIVE!" when you answered her. Every time. I stopped saying anything in the end.

I'm not saying you'll be like this but her bitterness did come out when she complained about not having enough money etc. It got annoying to be honest as she could earn more but chose not to. Trouble we kept hearing about it all the time.

I also do think you have to be pragmatic about the long view.

Let’s say you have been in your line of work for twenty years and haven’t progressed in that time and then a new manager or Headteacher comes in and makes your life difficult, or you need to move house, or redundancy is on the cards.

A lack of ambition then can make any job difficult.

Far from climbing the career ladder I never even set foot on the bottom rung! Some people are very career focused, others just work to earn money to live life - neither is wrong, but no-one should feel pressured to take on more responsibility and stress if they don't want to. Money isn't everything.

It depends, actually.

If you don’t have any, it is!

I really hate this concept of the only way to progress a career is by moving into management. Organisations need to stop this. It encourages terrible people managers, and people with zero interest in supporting other people, to accept jobs they're not right for in order to earn more money.

I managed a team of six once and absolutely hated it. It was so stressful trying to keep everyone happy, I had some really difficult team members too who were quite childish and unpleasant to each other. I was not equipped to deal with all this.

Also when you become a manager in my industry, you tend to move away from doing the actual job, in order to make task organising spreadsheets nobody ever looks at, and end up in meeting after meeting after meeting. This kind of work gives me zero satisfaction and is mind numbingly dull. It's not why I did my degree or worked so many years to get into. Fortunately I get paid as much as managers for my experience and expertise.

I stopped climbing once I was financially comfortable and knew my mortgage could be paid off long before retirement. YANBU and your health (and everyone else's) is precious.

I’ve had accidental promotions on the back of being good at what I do. I won’t go any higher as I have no intention of selling my soul and being out of touch with those on the ground floor.

Most women I know. Even those with careers are in roles which don't have progression. I could sidestep into a similar role which I would earn more money but like you I don't really want a big team, I manage 1 paid staff and 20 volunteers, it's plenty! Kids stalled most of our careers admittedly others opted out even before despite degrees etc

Ps what I do is definitely a vocation, certainly not for the money and I genuinely love it, even though I have to deal with upsetting things eg arranging a funeral today

I work in tech & love my job. I’ve had two promotions in the past 4 years but I have no interest in managing people. I watch my boss, who is brilliant at it, & think I’d much rather be where I am.

@Aliceandthemarchhare

I do understand where you’re coming from.

The problem is that it limits your income and while there’s definitely more to life than money, it does help!

One of my friends and her husband are both adamant they won’t work full time and each do four days a week (so won’t move up the career ladder as in hardbacks case are both teachers) but then they are both always very stressed about money. I would personally find that very hard.

This is a very fair point. At this point in our lives both working PT costs us relatively little because we cut our salaries by 20% for him and 10% for me but that meant we could cut our childcare bill in half, which is a big saving for two children both of nursery age. That calculation will clearly change over time, though.

Sorry hardback I didn’t mean you personally! It’s wrong really that going part time does limit your career.

I did-14 years in teaching and refused to go for any tlr’s etc. Pre-DC it was about having mental space to do other things like run trips on my terms. Post DC it was the literal conflict of time v money; part time, no additional responsibilities more than compensated for church-mice level of income.
The potential extra income was ‘spent’ on buying time /mental space rather than a newer car or fancier holidays.