Cult of Success
I was offered a chance for a promotion at work. By offer, I mean bordering on brow-beaten to the point that we ended our weekly leadership meeting at work with our GM saying "As the last item for our meeting, I need everyone to beat up on Oz to take this manager's position."
Yes, it's flattering that they want me to go back into management. They want me to a lot.And it would mean a significant jump in pay. Significant... they had already talked about meeting my money demands knowing that I wouldn't take anything that meant the equivalent of a loss of hourly rate. When I quoted how much that worked out to as salary, including figuring for overtime, the response was immediately, "Would you take it if we agreed to pay you that?"
Ever since this has come up a couple of days ago, I've been stressed about it. Mainly because I'm at odds with myself. Part of me thinks that turning down this promotion equals failure, part of me thinks that I am stupid to turn down the money, and part of me thinks that it is my responsibility to take the position because they will be hard pressed to find anyone better qualified. These parts are in conflict with the part of my that doesn't want to do this.
Why don't I?
1) Quality of life. Right now I work a very predictable schedule that borders on being civilized with a 40 hour work week. I have a life outside of work and have time for that life. If I ever get a girlfriend, I'll have time for that. Becoming a manager means a minimum of 50 hours a week with an unreliable schedule that will probably involve a lot of nights and weekends. And no paid holidays guaranteed, plus a 6 day, 60+ hour work week during the holiday season. Hence the offer for copious cash... it would be based on my current rate x55 (40 + 10 hours of o/t).
2) Stress. Dealing with asshole customers, corporate crisises, etc. Not to mention worrying about the performance of the departments under me.
3) No support for the position on a district/market/corporate level. I've seen plenty of other managers in this position left to the wolves and they've castrated the job. At the market level the job is split into 2 disciplines. At the supervisor level it is split into three. At the manager level... it's still all one. Instead of doing what's needed for those disciplines, these managers get used as bitches to run the sales floor in most stores.
4) Poor job security. The turnover for this position is horrible. Corporate can't seem to get a clue. See the aforementioned wolves.
5) No guarantee my replacement will be even close to my caliber. Right now we have a great team and the only person I would consider to be a suitable replacement doesn't want it... and even if she did we'd need a replacement for her position of the same caliber. See Stress above.
Fortunately, the GM took my "final answer" today and has started looking elsewhere, so I should be able to chill out over the weekend.
Yes, it's flattering that they want me to go back into management. They want me to a lot.And it would mean a significant jump in pay. Significant... they had already talked about meeting my money demands knowing that I wouldn't take anything that meant the equivalent of a loss of hourly rate. When I quoted how much that worked out to as salary, including figuring for overtime, the response was immediately, "Would you take it if we agreed to pay you that?"
Ever since this has come up a couple of days ago, I've been stressed about it. Mainly because I'm at odds with myself. Part of me thinks that turning down this promotion equals failure, part of me thinks that I am stupid to turn down the money, and part of me thinks that it is my responsibility to take the position because they will be hard pressed to find anyone better qualified. These parts are in conflict with the part of my that doesn't want to do this.
Why don't I?
1) Quality of life. Right now I work a very predictable schedule that borders on being civilized with a 40 hour work week. I have a life outside of work and have time for that life. If I ever get a girlfriend, I'll have time for that. Becoming a manager means a minimum of 50 hours a week with an unreliable schedule that will probably involve a lot of nights and weekends. And no paid holidays guaranteed, plus a 6 day, 60+ hour work week during the holiday season. Hence the offer for copious cash... it would be based on my current rate x55 (40 + 10 hours of o/t).
2) Stress. Dealing with asshole customers, corporate crisises, etc. Not to mention worrying about the performance of the departments under me.
3) No support for the position on a district/market/corporate level. I've seen plenty of other managers in this position left to the wolves and they've castrated the job. At the market level the job is split into 2 disciplines. At the supervisor level it is split into three. At the manager level... it's still all one. Instead of doing what's needed for those disciplines, these managers get used as bitches to run the sales floor in most stores.
4) Poor job security. The turnover for this position is horrible. Corporate can't seem to get a clue. See the aforementioned wolves.
5) No guarantee my replacement will be even close to my caliber. Right now we have a great team and the only person I would consider to be a suitable replacement doesn't want it... and even if she did we'd need a replacement for her position of the same caliber. See Stress above.
Fortunately, the GM took my "final answer" today and has started looking elsewhere, so I should be able to chill out over the weekend.
posted by Oz at 5:12 PM
1 Comments:
Oz all in all you made the right choice. The BS never goes away.
Gordon
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