How I achieved peace with successful colleagues
It's painful to be turned down for promotions. More so as you watch junior colleagues go past you.
My govvie organization has a number of salary caps within the pay structure. Passage into the next pay band involves competing against other candidates in an interview process — colloquially a “high-grade interview.”
I've been maxed out in my current pay band for over a decade. I've gone through five high-grade interviews and have been unsuccessful each time.
It's a game, like any other.
Career navigation is a game like any other.
If it were a soccer game, the winners are the starting lineup. The runners-up are the substitute players.
For most of my career, I've been the ball. A few times per game I'd make it into the goal, but most of the time I was just kicked around by the players.
I've learned, probably too recently, that loyalty within the workplace isn't a virtue nearly as much as it is something to be exploited.
At least with soccer balls they generally go predictably and reliably where they're kicked, so that makes me an asset to teams.
Loyalty is a bit of a charade
But what makes someone a team player doesn't always make them a good leader, or someone in charge of their own career.
One of my previous managers was making strategic plans for her organization likely at the same time as they had accepted another job at another command. We found out about their exit with very little notice.
I suppose it was naive of me to equate long-term strategic plans with loyalty to the organization, but I do know that it didn't sit well with me.
What's more, I found out that the same manager had returned to our organization — via promotion. They had interviewed, and won, a higher-level management position then they left as.
Career navigation with successful outcomes treats loyalty as a game of charades.
As in it is a charade.
That's why I'm playing a different game.
My current position does have the possibility of a high-grade within a year or so. The current project manager is retiring and I'm learning from him.
I was asked to come over to the project during the pandemic. The door opened to me, and I was slightly less ball-like than normal and accepted the invitation.
If a high-grade does come of it, it won't surprise too many people, and I won't be abandoning people that worked with me.
That would sit well with me. It will have been a successful outcome to the game.
But even if this doesn't happen, which is always a possibility, then I'm still all right with it because I'm playing the content creator game on the side.
Sure, it would sting not competing successfully for a position that I would know well. But my current job is still fine, and I wasn't planning to quit my job anyway, so little would change.
Having a five-to-nine relieves career game stress.
Should you play the best game you can with your career? Sure, nothing against that.
Broadening the game to income generation instead of just career, though, offers a different control than simply angling for promotions.
By building something outside of work, we open the possibility to go beyond the income of any promotion inside work.
Then, the career becomes one of several games we play, and we can get really good at any of them and still improve our lot.
Even the best soccer players get tired, and even the best soccer players get red-carded.
Building a business outside makes off the field a good place as well.
Thanks for reading!
Here are three ways I can help you achieve financial peace of mind.
- Join 300+ savvy people with my Solid Cash Tips newsletter for insights on side hustling and saving money, with a generous portion of productivity, habit-building and working smarter! Oh … and there's a free ebook in it for you!
- Subscribe to get notified when I publish on Medium.
- Follow me on X / Twitter.
photo by Van Tay Media