A Pay Cut for Personal Growth?

As as follow-up to an Ask Slashdot from earlier this week hatch815 asks: "I have recently been extended an offer to come work as an engineer for one of the internet search companies. In responsibility, this will be a step back, as I am currently in a management role, but as a career direction, it will provide me with unlimited exposure, learning, and advancement. The place where I work now is a small non-IT centric shop. Although I am management, I am at the top of the ladder. The tough decision is the pay decrease I would take if I did take this new position. Is the prestige and exposure worth giving up responsibility? I am too stuck in the big fish small pond mentality? Is going back to the forefront better than the psuedo-management I do now?"

Comments

Go with what will make you happy

[Morgalyn]

If you are happy with your current position, I'd say stay. If you are yearning to be more hands-on and less managementy, and your lifestyle won't take a major hit by the move, then totally go for it. If you have family to consider, make sure you talk to them about it first, especially if you will have to move / make major spending changes (depending on the difference in pay).

Re:Go with what will make you happy

[Atlantic Wall]

I agree. I left a high paying management Job, for an IT job that i love. In the end i am happier because i am learning more and growing as well. Being at the same job, postion, and state everyday gets boring and eventually the money will not matter, Take the chance now. Eventually your new job will pay you more in money and peace of mind. Make a mistake now is better than making one later

Re:Go with what will make you happy

[Fuzzle]

Best advice. Don't worry about career or money, unless those are what make you happy. Just do what you enjoy, and the rest will fall into place.

Re:Go with what will make you happy

[Morgalyn]

Whoa dude slow down. All the money in the world isn't worth it if you don't enjoy your job. As long as you make enough to support yourself, you should always try and do what is going to make you happiest at the end of the day. If you are utterly shallow and can only focus on the 'prestige' that money can bring, then fine, whore yourself away at whatever job pays the most. That way you can become a bitter old person who never focused on what was important in the real world, and instead just focused on the bottom line. It's attitudes like this that make all these large corporations we all seem to love to hate.

Google!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you stop being lazy and just type "Pay cut for personal growth in Google"
Damn, people just don't know how to research their proble...

<embarassment>
oh, wait...

(come on, you know someone did this ;)

I did this twice, never again

[gruntvald]

I thought I was getting some excellent experience, and I was, but I could have achieved the same result if I'd spent my extra income on some targetted certification. The pay cut just wears at you. I'd recommend confirming this by making an accurate cash flow for yourself. Once you've got your bottom line "I must make this much to operate my household" dollar figure, see if the offer covers that. Then think about how much excess cash is left over for "fun". If there isn't any, it's unlikely to work out.

Re:The risk.

[killmenow]

It comes down to this. You have kids? Stay where you are at. As long as the company is not going to go under anytime soon its not worth putting your family through the stress of you working the ladder again.

Well, I'll add my two cents. I do not necessarily agree. I have four children. I quit my job last year to start my own business. On a wing and a prayer. I have told my children more times than I can count: the only thing you can gamble on in this world is yourself. it's the only thing you have any control over. I thought it better to teach my children to follow their dreams, take risks, and try, try again to succeed...rather than to keep the safe job and work 30+ years taking orders from somebody else.

Now, to be fair, had that job had any of a number of certain qualities...I might not've taken that risk even though running my own business has always been a personal dream of sorts. Anyway, I'm happier this way. Even if I fail and lose everything. It may make for some difficult times for my family, but it will not kill us and the risk is worth it, imho.

This is not a rule just an opion, responses to this can state their own opinion but cannot prove me wrong.

My head asplode.

Personal Satisfaction

[bleaknik]

My personal advice: Money is not everything. Ask yourself these questions:

• Does this new job pay your bills?
• Does your current job offer you a greater sense of self-satisfaction when the day is over?
• Do you like Psuedo Management roles? I personally, do, but it may not be for you.
• Is there room for growth? If you don't like your new job title as well as you could, are there promotion opportunities?

I guess the biggest thing you have to worry about is your bills. Sure everyone likes a fatter paycheck, but all in all more money doesn't make you happy. Money only keeps you happy for a short while, after that happiness expires it becomes a question of personal satisfaction. Without personal satisfaction in your career choice, you're always going to dislike going into work. You're always going to dislike your job.

What do I know, though?

Dear Slashdot

[bcrowell]

Dear Slashdot,

I've been going out with this one woman, Sara, and I really like her, but recently I met this other women, Gina, and she's really cool too. Which one should I pick?

Re:Dear Slashdot

[SwimsWithTheFishes]

I you are posting on Slashdot, then both those women are blow-up dolls. Keep them both.

Re:Dear Slashdot

[killmenow]

This reminds me of an old joke about men:

A man had been dating three different women, all of whom he enjoyed very much. He actually felt he was in love with each of them, but he realized he could not keep up seeing all of them and he needed to pick just one to marry. The problem was: he couldn't decide. After a great deal of thought, he finally came up with an idea. He would give each of them $1000 and see what they did with it.

So, he gave each the money and waited. The first woman spent the money on herself, bought new clothes, had her nails and hair done, etc., and said she wanted to look good for him. The second woman spent the money on him, bought him gifts, etc., and said she just wanted to show him how much he meant to her. The third woman took the money and invested it, tripling it to $3000 in a week.

After he saw what each woman did with the money, he thought for a while, then disregarded the whole thing and married the one with the biggest tits.

Managerial vs Engineering responsibility

[Morgaine]

In responsibility, this will be a step back, as I am currently in a management role

That is a stunning statement from my perspective, stunning in the worst possible way. It presupposes that a technical role carries less responsibility than a managerial one, which is a terrible indictment of how you perceive relationships in the workplace. It certainly doesn't reflect my approach to responsibility in software and systems engineering in any place where I have worked professionally.

Perhaps it reflects the outlook of some hypothetical 9-5 techie who couldn't care less what he does in the office, but it's not an outlook that is at all common. Quite the opposite: it is usually the middle management that is 9-5, and the technical people slug their guts out around the clock. While hours beyond the call of duty do not mean everything, nevertheless they do imply dedication and responsibility.

Of course, management always thinks that it is at the top of the pyramid of responsibility and authority, even in a company whose business is entirely technical and where the actual wealth creators are the technical people. Well, it's up to every professional technical person to disabuse them of that. It can be tough and confrontational, but it is also rewarding in the long run to be recognized for carrying out a key and indispensible engineering role.

My answer to your question is simple: do the job that you find most rewarding and fulfilling. If you were a bum-on-seat tech laborer with zero authority and no responsibility in a company run by managers who treat their techies as menial labor, then not only should you flee the technical positions, but abandon the company in its entirety.

A bad Haiku

[Vodak]

Asks help from strangers,
For answers allready there,
Look into one's soul

Apply the Doug Lang Formula

[zenbanana]

Why do people stay at jobs, or choose to switch to another job? I asked a colleague, Doug Lang, this question in 1994 when he chose to quit rather than start commuting 20 miles instead of 1 mile despite being the second highest paid employee (after the company president). He said "There are three things you get from working: money, learning and fun. Everyone decides for themselves what ratio between those three variables they want to have at any given time by either staying or leaving. If you're making a lot of money but not having fun or learning anything, maybe it's time to make less money and learn something."

Ever since, I've applied those three variables to every job I've had, and it's helped me leave boring, plateaued jobs that paid well.

In the words of Al Bundy:

[mckwant]

It doesn't matter. Eventually, whichever one you pick will have her flaws exposed. At that point, you will find yourself thinking wistfully back to the one you didn't pick, and the ideal, if totally fictional, life you and she would be leading.

As such, which one you pick makes no difference whatsoever.

Re:Happiness Myth

[mpapet]

What happens if everyone in America suddenly decided to follows this advice?

Some of the more immediate impacts would be:
-Would anyone work at a retail chain?
-How may garbage collectors find driving a truck around the city their eternal source of happiness?
-Do you think postal workers get their happiness needs met at work? I believe the term "go postal" pretty much makes my point.
-What about air traffic controllers? Managing airspace would have to be another eternal spring of happiness.
-In a serious blow to most /.'ers the pool of available talent for pornography would likely get a great deal smaller. Because, every woman I've met *really* wants to be in porn for the artistic value rather than the money.

The vast majority of jobs are just that, jobs. Do your work, get your pay and go home. Now, if you have the financial resources to wait until your perfect job comes, then you are indeed part of a small group of luxury workers.

I'm not saying don't seek happines and fulfillment. But just casually throwing out feel-good statements in this context is potentially damaging.

Please STOP spreading this myth.

Re:Happiness Myth

[Jjeff1]

I've read comments like this twice this week. Am I as an IT person unfulfilled because I'm not a concert pianist? No, I don't have the desire or ability.

A lot of people just don't have the IQ to do anything more than sling burgers. They do what they can. Maybe they think their job sucks and want to do something else, but that kind of thinking isn't limited to just janitors. Frankly a job I don't ever need to think about unless I'm punched in doesn't sound so bad.

Garbage collector - decent pay, paid overtime, drive to/from work not during rush-hour, no on-call pager, no hair-thinning level of responsibilty. I wear gloves and take a shower end of the day. It's just trash, it won't kill me.

To each their own.

Re:Happiness Myth

[mpapet]

What if your source of happiness was playing the piano? According to the original post, it's recommended you quit your IT job and immediately try to find work playing the piano because as he states, "do what you enjoy and the rest will follow."

Based on my experience living in Los Angeles and working with countless musicians/actors that did and didn't make it in entertainment, The most likely turnout of "The rest" in this case would be debt, hunger and homelessness because you'll be in a very long line of unemployed musicians.

Therefore, the "do what you enjoy" is more greeting card platitude that gets one into dire straits than anything else.