Saying No To Promotions Away From Tech? 410
lunchlady55 writes "I have been happily working for my current employer for five years. After moving up the ranks within my department from Intern to Technical Lead, a new manager essentially told me that I have to move into a different role, oriented toward 'administrative duties and management.' We are a 24x7 shop, and will now be required to work five 8-hour days rather than four 10-hour days and be on call during the other two days of the week. Every week. Including holidays. My question is: have any Slashdotters been forced into a non-technical role, and how did it work out? Has anyone said 'No thanks' to this kind of promotion and managed to keep their jobs?"
Try it! You could be the first! (Post?) (Score:3, Interesting)
Honestly, I can't tell you.
At worst, it could kill any advancement (if such exists) in your company.
From the sound of it though, it's "get a soul-ectomy and become a manager" or you've hit a career plateau.
Your work schedule reveals all (Score:3, Interesting)
As you mention in your question, your business runs 24/7 and you work 4 days a week, so this likely puts you into the IT department. With all due respect, it's unlikely that your experience to this point has prepared you for people-oriented work. Your managers are setting you up for failure.
Has someone else recently left? Has there been or does there appear to be a project that is destined to fail?
Sorry to say, in this economy, you're pretty much screwed. You'll be fired soon from your current job and there probably won't be another company hiring a sysadmin for a while yet. Good luck.
depends on the company/job/management (Score:5, Interesting)
My dad managed to hang on at the top of the engineering ladder at a major oil/chemicals company for about 20 years after the first attempt to promote him, resisting an attempted promotion into the managerial ranks about every 2-4 years. A lot of companies, especially old-style companies, are set up with the assumption that everyone wants to climb out of the "working" ranks into the "management" ranks if they can, perhaps because that was more true when the working ranks involved more physical labor. It got a little easier to "stick" at his desired place when someone managed to dig up some sort of super-senior-engineer ranking that was rarely used, which let them give him a promotion without the usual promotion to management.
If the lower levels of management is okay with it, it can work, and they might even like it. Engineers who "should" be in management are essentially experienced enough to manage themselves, and maybe even de-facto manage a few of othe other team members, which can make the manager look good by making it easier for them to pretend they know what's going on--- at large companies, the lower level of management right above the engineers are often people who rotate in/out of jobs every 5 years or so, usually on a quest to move up the ranks to VP, so they honestly rarely have much idea what's going on or any historical perspective/experience.
Re:You can't say NO (Score:3, Interesting)
Disagree. Presumably, they would need to fill the Tech Lead role once they promoted him, so his old job would need to be filled. Only a cartoonishly f'ed up company would bring in two outside hires just to spite a long-time employee who does not want to be a manager.
On the other hand, it would amount to constructing a ceiling over one's own progress within the organization.
Both of my parents moved up from teaching/tech work to managerial positions, and neither was particularly happy. My father eventually went back to teaching at a lower salary and is much happier in general.
Part of me thinks there is a serious problem when skilled labor is force-funneled into management. On the other hand, after a point it only makes sense that pay increasse would eventually taper off to cost-of-living adjustments if an employee is unwilling to move out of their current position.
Get in touch with your inner PHB (Score:3, Interesting)
It really depends on the situation.
If The New Manager is intent on making their fast-track bones by shaking things up, the entire tech level may soon be outsourced.
What is important is what you want.
Do you want to give management a try?
Do you want to learn The New Manager's style of managing?
Have you ever thought 'if I were running things we would not be doing X, we would do Y'?
I suggest you give it a shot, maybe you will like it.
If you turn it down, be sure to give The New Manager every reason to know that you are just too darn essential in the tech role to be moved out of it.
Either way: Get your resume out there, and start actively looking for a new job.
Good Luck!
Re:You can't say NO (Score:5, Interesting)
The unemployment rate of people who have graduated college is still in the low single digits (3 or 4% last I checked) - still well above normal, but hardly devastatingly so. It's the non-college-educated crowd that's well into the double-digits of unemployment, something like 25%... crunch.
A lot of bad suggestions... (Score:5, Interesting)
She clearly doesn't want the management job, which is why she's asking the question. The question is, "Will she be fired" if she turns down the promotion.
First - where are you? In the US, in an at-will state? They can let you go pretty easily. In Canada, with nothing but great reviews (ie no reason to fire you)? Well, you'd get a month of severance for every year you worked at the company, maybe more if you can show you would have a hard time finding an equivalent job, or you are getting on in years. Somewhere in between? YMMV. If it will cost the company 6 months of salary, they will give careful consideration about letting you go.
Have you moved up because you are indispensable? You're a unique snowflake of competence? Well, I doubt they'll let you walk out the door. Are there 10 people in your company that can do what you do? A cog in the machine? They can easily let you go.
If you don't want to take the job (and it sounds like you don't), then review how vital you are to the company, and what it would cost them to lose you (in severance and lost expertise). If you aren't vital, and they can replace you, then you have to be prepared to be let go.
If it will cost them a large severance package, and you are valued and needed, you won't be.
Negotiate (Score:4, Interesting)
If you're being forcibly moved, try to negotiate for everything, including extra compensation for being on-call.
As for the managerial side, this is nothing new. If you show a) competence, and b) any signs you don't have a serious attitude problem, it's expected. Then, if you want to go back in a few years, it'll be based either on your job performance (or lack thereof), and whether you're okay with sacrificing larger salaries in the future.
Some people aren't cut out for management, for a variety of reasons, and they either go back to non-management, or transition careers. It's no big deal these days. 40 years ago, different story; there was a social stigma attached to switching companies more than a couple of times, or even worse, ending up in a completely new line of work.
Tell them no. Simply and straight forward (Score:2, Interesting)
I was promoted to management against my will, and eventually had to arrange my own "demotion", which was not an easy thing to do.
The management position sucked. I hated trying to herd programmers. It was also right at the beginning of the tech bubble bursting, so I had to lay some people off. NOT fun.
I eventually got myself moved from Management to a Technical Advisor position that was at the same pay grade. That worked great until my next boss decided I needed to do the management stuff for all of the people on my teams, even though I wasn't their manager. That's when I applied for another job in the same company at a lower level. People thought I was insane, but I get to see my family, my weekends are mine for the most part and my current manager LOVES having me.
Do NOT get let them promote you above:
1. Level of competence (sucks)
2. Level of COMFORT! (more important.
Wow, where to start (Score:5, Interesting)
My question is, have any Slashdotters been forced into a non-technical role, and how did it work out?
Badly. I got pushed from the technical lead into a VP position managing that whole end of the business in a mid-cap company. In that role I got pulled into budget battles, which are normal, relationship management with partners, also normal and locked into the quarterly numbers game, which means a lot of meetings with the auditors. Too keep the technical aspects on track we had to bring in a new technical guy. You can see where this is going. I could have fired the new tech guy so I had a job to go back to when we streamlined after the initial development phase but it just didn't seem fair. I got a nice bonus and severance, plus my options were golden, but I essentially worked myself out of a job and was penalized for hiring competent people.
In that scenario you'll be unhappy if you do a bad job or if you do a really, really good job. You'll put in a lot of extra hours, do a lot of extra traveling. There were some perks I miss. The secretary, the expense account, the $1,800 bar tabs, meetings on the golf course, the membership at the club and the options I cashed in. Those eased the pain a bit. But it doesn't sound like you get any of those perks.
Has anyone said 'No thanks' to this kind of promotion and managed to keep their jobs?"
After getting burned the first time, the next gig I went back to being a head down developer and stayed in my office, only coming out for coffee, to urinate and to feed. I built three critical systems and was the only person the client wanted to work with. I was that guy in Office Space. I turned down promotions, turned in paperwork late, stood up mandatory meetings, re-wrote my performance eval when I didn't like it and just generally made the people dumb enough to accept the supervisor positions miserable. Sometimes because I genuinely didn't like them, other times out of a perverse sense of tradition and once because I was being a royal dick. Wish I had that one to do over. But I got away with it.
So all you have to decide is which job would you rather have? As a manager, at some point you're going to be in a position where you either have to dick someone or take a bullet. If you're okay with that decision, then go for it.
Have you reached incompetence level? (Score:4, Interesting)
Organizations sometimes like to promote good performers until they are out of their depth.
i'm kinda sorta joking here.
But as most people are saying here, it comes down to what do you want to do? Do you want your hands dirty or to wear a tie? Neither is good or bad unless you dislike which ever you are doing. Don't make the choice based on money. It might not be worth the raise.
If you want more money, get a financial education and get it that way. If you must work, strive to do something you enjoy (even if it doesn't pay as well).
Re:You can't say NO (Score:1, Interesting)
This has never been a problem for me. My response is always, "If you no longer have worthy technical assignments for me, I know where the door is. It is ok. We can still be friends."
To make this work, one has to be in the top third of the skills pyramid. It has been my experience (did my first consulting job in 1974) that, even in a bad job market like now, companies can not get and keep enough good people.
If they want to off-shore jobs so they can go cheap, just remember that cheap is cheap for a reason. Go with a company that does not do cheap. Keep your skills up and your personal economy stable so that you can make that decision.
Re:Please clarify... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ask yourself where you want to be in 3-5 years (Score:3, Interesting)
Technical staff in my country tend to be salary too.
However, the long term career path is the correct answer to this question. If a management career is desired then this may be a great opportunity. If management is the great evil then turn it down.
My experience is that employers welcome honest assessment of career opportunities and don't penalise people that choose not to pursue inappropriate paths. I've disappointed managers by turning down Project Management or other management roles, but highlighting the rationale for my choice has appeased them and overall I've enjoyed my work far more as a result.
It also hasn't stopped me getting promotions. My job titles, and the companies that I was with when I first got them:
- programmer (A)
- software engineer (B)
- senior software engineer (B)
- senior developer (C)
- technical specialist (C)
- architect (C)
- application architect (D)
- solutions architect (D)
- enterprise architect (D)
- enterprise architect (E)
Still at company E, doing a hell of a lot of management, but still not a manager, still technically a technical person (well, a specialist), but my role preferences have evolved as my skills have expanded and I've enjoyed the progression.
Each company move has been for different reasons, but each promotion has been within the same company thus far.
So a technical career path is available, there are many managerial (and a few technical) roles I chose not to do, but at each decision point I make sure I'm staying true to what I enjoy doing.
It's working so far..
Re:The Peter Principle (Score:1, Interesting)
After 10 years in technical roles, including team lead, I started moving into management. It was accidental at first, the usual, "you've been a developer this long, you must know how to manage projects, poof, you're a manager". And of course, like 99.999% of technical people, I sucked at project management.
But then I started to get good at it, and I realized that working as a competent project (and now process) manager, I can make a far greater contribution to my company than I could in nearly any technical role.
The people I manage appreciate my technical experience, which motivated them to give my techniques a chance - actual planning and process improvement, what concepts! And now they're starting to pick up on how to manage their work. And I'm pushing them to manage the contractors. And it's working; we're more productive than every.
So, consider trying management. You might not suck at it.
Don't be afraid to stretch your capabilities (Score:1, Interesting)
Most techies got into technology because they prefer the (relatively) determinate interactions with computers over the dramatic shenanigans of people. Remaining in a pure dev role is attractive precisely because it provides an arena with a minimum of interpersonal BS in which discrete goals can be achieved based on a known system of parameters. Management is a whole other story, it is presumed, because it's all about politics and nothing ever gets achieved except the occasional back-stab.
Having transitioned from development to management myself, I found it to be just as (if not more) interesting than development, mainly because I was still solving problems (resourcing, behavioral, budget-related) but the parameters were more complex and, most importantly, the experience was applicable to real-life scenarios that extended beyond the technology realm. So the question really comes down to: are you willing to make yourself uncomfortable for the purpose of growth?
Re:Only you can answer this (Score:3, Interesting)
Your the only person who can answer one simple question about this "Will this advance a career path that I wish to go down?". If this won't help advance a career path you want, than you should look for an alternative.
My father had the same problem at his job.
He did not want to ride herd on 4 other people just for a pay raise.
The solution his boss came up with was to look at all the non-management job titles,
then picked one that had a higher salary. The title changed, the work stayed the same.
Everyone was happy.
If you don't want to move up, move sideways.
Re:Just say no! (Score:3, Interesting)
> Some companies have no trouble letting you stay in a non-managerial position for as long as you want, or even letting you move back to a technical job after trying out management and deciding you don't like it.
Heh. The founder of a company I worked for, once it became successful, hired a CEO and just kept on writing perl scripts. Still majority shareholder, of course. Luckily, he either wasn't much of a back seat driver, or the CEO didn't mind, because it worked out fine.
Then what? (Score:4, Interesting)
The risk is in what happens after you're in the non-technical role for a few years. In my case, with the marketing job, it was in the early 1990s and I ended up missing the transition from DOS and C to Windows and C++, because I was no longer doing any technical work. Yet, I didn't have an MBA, and was never good enough at marketing to be able to make the kind of money I wanted when I moved to another company.
You can imagine how the interviews went when I was trying to get C++/Windows jobs, which was the shiny new thing back then.
So, my advice is that, like a chess game, you have to think a couple moves ahead and figure out what your choices will be like in 3-4 years. What will this admin job prepare you for? Who do you know who has moved into a better role after doing this type of job for a while? Are you going to make friends in the industry in this job or just piss off the people you're supposed to be keeping tabs on? Does this role tend to be filled on a revolving-door basis by recent ex-techies who can leverage their old skills or do people stay in the role for a while?
Re:Negotiate (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:You can't say NO (Score:3, Interesting)
Which is due to management not being taken seriously as a skill in our culture. Thus, at every level of management you are bound to find many frustrated people who would rather be practicing the functions that inspired them to pursue a career than doing Management. They may see up-and-comers with jealousy because they are doing the "real" work. They may also feel threatened. Sidelining them with enthusiasm-exterminating managerial duties kills two birds with one stone. Thus the cycle perpetuates itself.
Of course, one person's trash is another's treasuer. I believe that there are many people who would enjoy and excel at management duties if our society recognized it as a distinct and valuable set of skills. But as long as "Manager" is synonymous with "Boss", this will never happen.
I've managed people in the past, and it struck me that Management should really be a support role. My most valuable contribution as a manager was making sure my people understood what was expected and getting them the information and resources they needed to do their best work. This involved a lot of spreadsheets and scheduling, which had nothing to do with the job I was promoted from (mechanic). The second most valuable contribution was protecting my people from the whimsy and downright predation of higher management, who felt that their purpose in life was to crack whips and make sure everyone below them knew they were being watched.
Ideally, I would put a manager alongside a Tech Lead (or equiv) and make it the responsibility of each to make the partnership greater than the sum of its parts. You can't be a good Tech-type if you are out of too many loops, and you can't be a good manager if you don't understand the technology. In most cases this problem is 'solved' by promoting a Tech to Management, but that assumes that Management is easy and can be learned by anyone. Alternately, we have a class of Management Professionals who know everything about Management Theory but little about the real world trying to dictate real work. Neither is optimal.
Re:Negotiate (Score:4, Interesting)
Problem is most people are idiots and crank up their cost of living with their salary increase.
you lived on $60,000 a year just fine, just because you are now making $120,000 does not mean you HAVE TO live in a mc-mansion and drive a BMW525i the idiots piddle it away on that. The geniuses do not change their lifestyle and stick the extra away so they can retire really early.
My nephew is doing that. He lives on a $40,000 a year income lifestyle, he makes $180,000 a year as an architect. He is currently 29 years old and told me that as his plan is figured out, he will retire at age 43 with enough money to travel the world until he dies of old age. Much Sooner if the stock market recovers.
it's why he has made even more money over the past 4 years while everyone else has lost their shirt.