Can you work without career progression?

[Bugz]

Interesting question I think. Are you happy to stay in the same job position for the rest of your career or do you feel you want to progress, move up in ranks, take on more responsibility etc.?

I'm still a uni student but kind of got that feeling with my current part-time job. I've achieved everything I can achieve there, short of becoming a duty manager and being a full-timer. There's nothing that new to learn, the same procedure occurs every day and it just sucks knowing that tomorrow there won't be an extra responsibility I can take on or something like that.

Makes me dread the future, if I end up in some job with no promotion prospects, working the same routine day in day out!

 

[SilverHood]

Right now, no. But work is challenging and will be for another 3-4 years. If I had family, kids etc, then I might not care about progression if work was easy and I was paid well.

 

[nath]

I actually quit my job because they were offering me some quite good career progression, it's just that I found the prospect utterly soul destroying. As a result, I ended up going freelance (computer fixeryupper) and as far as I'm concerned it's the best situation for me. Not a full time job, book appointments when I want, potential for more money and more free time.

Ultimately, I feel much the same as the chap from Office Space - when asked "what would you do if you won the lottery" his response was ".... absolutely nothing", i.e. watch TV, hang about doing sweet fa. Currently I'm happy to earn enough money to get by with no further aspirations - who knows if that'll change in the future.

 

[Tom]

I'd rather change jobs than move up the ladder tbh. I tend to think that climbing through the ranks is an indicator that you're not happy with work.

Mind you I've never had a full time job so what do I know.

 

[Raven]

Yeah for now... Until I can afford to go and study forestry. Pretty fucking bored of working indoors now and I seem to get more into the tedious world of finance by the day.

 

[Zenith.UK]

Interested in science so I got lab jobs.
Got interested in computer maintenance, so got qualified and done an IT job ever since.
I don't worry about career progression with my job (EPOS Field Engineer), but I don't worry about boredom either. Every day is different to the previous day. One day I might travel 30 miles and do 3 calls. Another day (like yesterday) might see me travel over 220 miles or do 12 calls in a day. Each call might be something simple like a till peripheral repair/replacement, or something more interesting like reinstalling and configuring a till PC system from scratch, or tracing down and correcting a network fault.

That said, I've found my mind drifting towards studying particle physics a lot more lately. I've had an interest for over 20 years and I'm more than familiar with the concepts. All I need to do is get my maths back in practice and study through OU.

 

[dysfunction]

I'm not sure I want to climb the corporate ladder. The higher you go the more responsibility you have to take on and the more grief you get...

Also you tend to have to work longer hours etc.

I'm quite happy to do sideways moves just to keep myself interested in work as well as getting a better salary increase!

There may come a point where it's unavoidable and you are forced to take a promotion. This may happen if I get really bored with my work or I'm not getting paid enough.

Quite a few of my friends have moved up the ladder and they seem to be working themselves to death and don't seem all that happy in their jobs. I certainly don't want that.

 

[Sparx]

ive been with the same company 7 years almost and in the same position 4 of them. Im quite content as i know the job inside out and i can do it half awake. Basically im just cruising through life at the moment and it suits me just fine

 

[PLightstar]

Depends on the Job, if its something you love doing then going higher may take you away from what you love and you are more likely to succumb to the pressures and stresses that brings. But if you don't like your job you will be waiting for the next thing to be coming along and you should take it. My dad always says to me, 'do what makes you happy' or at least work towards something that makes you happy.

My old job was a network admin and I couldn't go any higher in the company and each day became a repetitive drill, when a job came up to be a CAD tech for a Building services company I jumped at it just for a change, so much happy now, I may be lower on the ladder but I work less hours have better pay and have so much more freedom.

 

[Gumbo]

I'm running my own firm now, so unless I give myself a new job title, I can't progress up the ladder any further. I do have ambitions for the company though so as I'm sort of tied to it now, I suppose that counts as striving to climb a ladder.

In previous jobs I have always gone for the next move up, mostly for the money. That kind of attitude gave me the experience and confidence to now do what I am doing. If I had gone from a cycle boy at Halfords (my first job) to running this company, I wouldn't have had a clue.

It's one of those questions where you need to ask yourself where you want to be, not in 5 years, or 10, but in 20. Believe me, time flies, and you don't get a second stab at this.

 

[DaGaffer]

I'd like to say no, but it can be difficult not to want to progress if you actually feel you could do your bosses job! I certainly feel I've hit a glass ceiling now (my own fault for accepting a series of sideways moves for the last few years, as well as taking a year off), leaving me in a position where I can't really afford to do something less stressful/lower level (I'd be bored and less in control of my destiny, which would make me more stressed), but am unlikely to progress where I am (dead man's shoes, especially as the company is delayering like crazy). Ah well, there's always the lottery...

 

[kirennia]

It all depends on the circumstance. Before uni, I worked i na multitude of factories doing crappy hours for crappy pay because there waas nothing better available at the time but I knew these jobs were short term thus, I didn't care about progression.

Since compelting my degree, I'm working towards the ultimate goal of being involved in R&D style programming, although job specifics are quite lose at the moment. I couldn't imagine myself not wanting to progress past that however, there are of course limits. Job satisfaction will be more important then money once I'm established in the field. As a result, I'm not so sure I'd want to be too far divorced from what I actually am doing into the field to do...to create. As such, high placed management isn't on my agenda and thus, I will eventually come to a point where I wont want to progress any further up the business food chain.


All I'd suggest for advice to anyone entering a field is to set an ultimate goal and really consider the upper limits in a business hierarchy, going past which would lower their levels of job satisfaction. Money isn't all, afterall.

 

[- English -]

promotion also comes with respect and often age. You dont see 25 year old police sergeants, most police officers at that age would probably not take the role up

 

[Pfy]

No real progression in my job for me but I'm happy doing what I do, get paid enough to afford the bills/house and there is a good pension / payout if i die 'in service'. Lots of time off and lots of times paid for no work. It's great on the whole.

Wouldn't want to blacken my soul and move to management anyway

 

[Chilly]

Working as a paid nerd (programmer) I feel I could quite happily be a dev for a decade. Thats not to say the job wouldnt change, but I wouldnt gain direct reports or have to go to shitty meetings all day.

This is why tech companies often have technical track and managerial track career paths. Most nerds dont play well and make terrible managers, so why promote them simply because you have no other way of paying them more? This is where many tech compaies go wrong, they promote nerds who couldnt manage a pissup in a brewery because they dont want to lose them when all they need to do is stick Senior in front of their job title and give them 30% payrise.

I dont want to be a manager (now, anyway, im only 25). I'm only interested in developing my expertise in my field and writing interesting and difficult code. EG we're about to increase the performance of some of betfair's services by an order of magnitude, running on 5% the number of servers. Purely down to the work the lads on my team and I have been doing - that's the kind of job satisfaction I want - not being able to tell people what to do.

 

[Aada]

Happy with what i do really, the other week i was offered the chance to move up but i said no.

Why? My current job is stress free i like my start time 6am-2pm i like my weekend off+ Wednesday off and most of all i don't have to take my work home with me.