To find colleague’s zen like contentment inspirational?

[Gratitupe]

I have a colleague, male, in his 40s. He’s married with one child. He’s a solicitor. The firm we work for has four levels of solicitor from Associate to Partner. He’s on the second rung of that ladder, having qualified in his 30s following a career change.

He’s a brilliant lawyer. I mean brilliant. Encouraging to others, a good mentor. Good with clients. He’s clear got what it takes to be promoted.

But he doesn’t want it. He’s been approached several times to put himself forward and says he’d rather not. He likes his job as it is, isn’t interested in the business development or management he would have to do at the next level. He earns more than enough in his current role, doesn’t think the pay increase is worth the extra work.

He has an air of almost zen like contentment about him. It’s got to the point where people who are less experienced and less good are getting promoted around him - and seek him out for guidance in their promoted roles.

It’s inspirational really. AIBU?

If he’s happy that’s great. Someone can be equally zen and happy climbing the ladder.

I don't know of any zen like lawyers, dh is one. They tend to be stressed out workaholics but hide it well. Calm on the surface and paddling like hell underneath.

I hope this is me… though I doubt I’m that inspirational.

Im a band 6 allied health professional, which is one level above band 5 graduate entry level. I have played around with applying for band 7 roles twice, didn’t get them, and have always been profoundly relieved afterwards. I like seeing patients. I like taking students and teaching them that they have what it takes and the work is enjoyable. I feel lucky in the job I have.

I think any of us who can afford to stay at the level we like are lucky, lucky, lucky.

My son is a lawyer. He is the most zen person I know. He's very very good at his job too. I think it helps that he knows his worth, and doesn't feel the need to compete with his mostly older colleagues.

I asked him whether he’d fancy the extra money and replied to the effect of “what, to spend on more shit I don’t need?”.

Agreed. One of my former colleagues has gone into law in a big firm in London and he’s not the man he was as an academic. Not that we aren’t also stressed and frantically paddling too - we are - but he seems a bit soulless to me now.

You come across people like this in all walks of life. I had a fantastic college tutor years ago and when asked why he hadn’t gone into lecturing he simply said “why bother when it’s more stress for not much more money”. I don’t know if it’s zen as such, just seems a bit apathetic.

Why is it apathetic to take a view on whether an additional level of responsibility is worth it given the compensation on offer? Surely that’s normal.

As the child of a man who remained working in the same low-paid manual job for the same company his entire life (literally — he started as a messenger boy at 13), continually refusing offers of promotion to foreman because it would be (I quote) ‘too much hassle’, I’m not sure I see this as necessarily admirable. Yes, we were very poor and needed the money, and this man says he doesn’t, but still. Lack of desire to progress might be admirable, might not be.

From my experience it can sometimes be hard for people to sustain a career if they aren’t interested in progression. Over time, their salaries increase and then there are people coming up ten years behind them who are good at the job and cheaper. I know some law firms have created a counsel layer for senior lawyers who aren’t pushing for partnership. That’s probably what I would look at if I was in the right area.

My DH is like this. He's an architect, and being a qualified architect is the first rung of the ladder really - after that the roles include architect but a lot of people management, project management and business dealings (eg bringing in new business)
He just wants to design buildings. He's very good at it, and doesn't care that he's now 15yrs older than most the people at his level. He's dropped his hours to part time because our outgoings are low and he'd rather have the free time. He's technically very good and it took his bosses a long time to accept he didn't want to progress!

It maddens me that "progression" seems to mean "promotion to a business and/or personnel management role". Heaven forbid you work well at your role until you're very, very good at it. The skillset to master the work is different to the skillset for management, but only management is seen as "progression". Recognising the worth of excellent employees makes more sense to me than pushing them into roles they dislike and are unsuited for in the name of supposed progress.

Sorry but sounds complacent and stagnant. Sounds like the wrong job for him if he’s got no drive - nothing to aspire to. Being an “excellent “ lawyer in private practice is not just about knowing the law- that’s not what drives the business. He won’t be around long with attitude like that.

Agree! And it seems to be working for my DH, architect practices have a lot of redundancies as the work ebbs and flows and he's survived many because he's got a lot of technical knowledge and can be given work to 'fix' when there's been issues, eg taking over from another practice.
He can do the project management side and hustling if he wants to, he just doesn't enjoy it.

I think it's a success to do a permanent 4 day week in your forties really!

You realise that drive and ambition are not the same thing? You can be very driven to do your work very well, without any management ambition. Likewise, one can be ambitious to gain management role without any drive to actually do a good job...

This could be me. I've got a degree and PhD in one subject and a masters in a totally different field. But I discovered I had not one jot of interest in climbing the greasy pole of academia or the corporate world. So for 20 years have been self-employed, never expanding to a point of needing to take on staff, responsible for noone and to noone. Do I earn a lot, absolutely not, but I love the tranquility and stress free nature of my lifestyle.

I don’t think so. People with aspirations strive to improve and succeed in life whereas the more apathetic folk are like your colleague, they don’t want the hassle or stress of more responsibility so just float along in life doing the same shit.

I agree, it takes a certain insight to find your happy level and stick to it. If the money's good enough, by all means keep doing what you like! It's rotten to be pushed into a management role when you don't want to manage.

And a four day week is definitely a goal to aspire to

Hmm, mixed feelings on this one as I've seen it play out before.

Career progress can mean more money, and he's not fussed about money- that's fine. But within a law firm it also means responsibility and autonomy- it is the partners who are ultimately responsible for the actions of the firm and therefore they are the decision makers- even if they are happy to listen to the views of junior colleagues, the buck stops with them. This can be frustrating for people who have as much ability (if not more) but who for whatever reason haven't progressed.

You see this all the time with women who haven't progressed because they want to maintain some kind of work/life balance due to caring commitments, and end up feeling bitter and exploited as less able colleagues move ahead of them. This is miserable for them and can also be disruptive for the firm. It is a very "up or out" profession. Firms are constantly trying to come up with new career paths for talented lawyers who don't want to become partners- people who are talented and also extremely cheap- yet in practice the new roles that are created for them just end up becoming new stages on the partnership track.

Hope it works out for your colleague and that his is able to carve out a role for himself that recognises his abilities.

But you made an intelligent decision to take yourself out of a field whose career model you knew didn’t work for you, and put yourself in one that did — you’re not refusing to go for promotion because there’s no promotion in a solo venture, and you are clear about not wanting to run a company that contains other employees. Good for you, obviously, because it sounds as if you’ve arranged your working life exactly as you want it, but it’s a different situation to the one the OP describes.

I accepted a manager role and I’ve never been more miserable. Have asked to be demoted but so far no luck. I wish I’d done what your colleague did! I was worried if I hadn’t accepted the promotion I would eventually be managed out.

But I did back in my employed days turn down promotion opportunities. I would have been happy staying in the shop floor as a software developer (my favorite employed role), but also had no interest in engaging with all the corporate nonsense that went along with it. My manager used to love our appraisal meetings.... Their best dev, but one who couldn't give a shiny one about progress.

But are you not making the assumption that success = increased material wealth? Might success mean not bringing stress home, so he has a happier marriage and family life? Or more time at weekends to go hiking or sailing or whatever instead of fielding endless calls from clients? There are many ways to succeed at life, and having lots of money is only one of them. It's not one I aspire towards. Having enough money is hugely important to me. But more than enough seems like a pointless exercise if there are things you prize more, like free time and less stress.

My dh is like this, although hes an engineer, not a lawyer. Hes worked for the same company for years, initially had a couple of promotions but after that started doing a few sideways moves in various departments rather than continuing to climb the ladder. He now works in his favourite bit of the job, he manages a lovely team, and he has an excellent life balance of very little work stress, flexible wfh, decent salary, etc.

Every time a director position opens up, hes approached about applying for it but he doesnt want the extra stress, the endless travel, all the internal politics drama, etc.

He plans to retire in about 5 years (when youngest dc finishes a levels) and i adore how involved he's been as a dad during the teenage years because his job allows him to be around for school runs, lifts to sporting events, dinner as a family evey evening, etc.

I dont see this as apathetic. To me, apathetic would be lounging around at home and not working at all or not doing any chores but if this person is a successful lawyer I am not sure why the fact he doesnt wish to work an 80 hour week is a negative thing?
As he points out- the ability to buy more stuff isnt really the mark of a successful life and I am pretty sure ive never heard a deathbed confession saying "I wish I'd worked more so I could buy more stuff"