Promotion Or Job Change: Which Is the Best Way To Advance In IT?

I've had a couple of management consultants tell me that if you want to move into management, it's better to change jobs or change where you work within your current company than to stay where you are. What if you have to fire one of your old friends? Not cool. Or are you better off starting your management career surrounded by people who know and (hopefully) like you? Read the rest .

Comments

Job Change

[Nerdfest]

Frequently people who are promoted wind up doing both their new job and their old one. There are advantages too, like a lower learning curve, but this would be the big downside for me.

Re:Job Change

[Splab]

Indeed at my last job every promotion meant more responsibility, but also had to do my old job. Was fun for a while, but you can easily get yourself killed with the stress.

Personally I'm done with chasing that career, a job paying enough for me to pursue my hobbies is all that I need.

Anyone going for a career out there should do it by changing job, internal advancement is a killer.

Re:Job Change

[JaredOfEuropa]

Often this is not the case, but it'll still work against you. If you are good at what you currently do, management will always be reluctant to promote you. They'll prefer to leave well enough alone, and instead promote the guy with mediocre performance but strong communication skills; maybe he'll improve his performance in a management role. From your manager's perspective, it kind of makes sense to take a chance on promoting a non-performer or hire a new guy, rather than promote they guy who is already doing a good job. That is why it makes sense to look for the next step in your career outside your own company... or you should be training your replacement from day 1. Never be irreplacable.

Re:Job Change

[dintech]

If you have to ask, you need to move job. Although my yearly reviews and bonuses are in the top 10% for my pay grade, I was having trouble getting promoted for political reasons. I could maybe accept their promise of 'it will happen in 2012', but since they've spent the last year hiring a tonne of people in the grade above me, my prestige has been lowered.

So, I just handed in my resignation. The gaping whole I am leaving has my former employer in a bit of a bind now, since I was the last person with the knowledge and skills to support a key system. They have offered to promote me now, but it's too late.

I will earn more than double as an IT contractor at a competitor, so that is what I'm lined up to do. I've seen the other side and the grass is definitely greener.

When I'm ready to go back to being permanent in the next year or two, I will automatically get that grade and set of responsibilities as well as a much bigger pay-packet. It's a no-brainer.

Re:Job Change

[kangsterizer]

to take with a grain of salt since if you're replaceable you can also just be dumped when you ask for a better salary after 5 years.

Re:Job Change

[Anonymous Coward]

Seconding this. I must say I never got promoted, I just finished school so I went from part-time to full-time. Now I get delegated lots of tasks and I manage projects. Before, I just programmed. Now I don't really have time to program anymore, yet I'm still expected to make my deadlines.

Re:Job Change

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm thinking of how non-IT organizations handle this. I'm also looking at it from the viewpoint of your employers. One group I can think of is the military, where the ideal is to progress within your existing unit. On the other hand, I think of the Michigan State Police where they automatically include a location transfer with a promotion. The argument for the former is that it helps unit cohesion; for the latter is that its difficult to be a supervisor over people you've worked with. Like most things, there's an element of truth in each.

Unit cohesion isn't a big deal in most IT organizations, so that argument really doesn't apply. A big question is would this promotion put you in the position of supervising your former co-workers? If not, then you can dismiss the latter argument.

Other factors would be the stability and health of both companies. If you're leaving a stable place to take a shot at a place about to go into bankruptcy, why not just go to the casino and bet your career on red. Loyalty, in either direction, is the first thing to go. It boils down to what is best for you. Chances are you'll go faster and farther if you move.

Re:Job Change

[AmiMoJo]

Don't you guys get yearly increases? Anything less than the rate of inflation is a pay cut.

Re:Job Change

[umghhh]

you mean there is anybody on this earth except Mama that is not replaceable?

Re:Job Change

[bemenaker]

Everyone is replaceable. If you think you're not, you have an ego problem.

Re:Job Change

[cervo]

Mostly increases are at rate of inflation or slightly more....... Job change tends to be much more of an increase

Re:Job Change

[flyneye]

The cure for your scenario, which I've been in, is simply chuck the whole damn thing. Admit to yourself that the overhead of learning, the stress of competing, the possibility of outsourcing make this profession a sucker trap.
        I personally invested a bunch in shop equipment, found a day job while I did so and now provide custom stringed instruments to those with $, talent and taste.

Screw IT

Re:Job Change

[Anonymous Coward]

to take with a grain of salt since if you're replaceable you can also just be dumped when you ask for a better salary after 5 years.

But you generally won't be, because of the cost to hire and train, plus the 6-12 month period your replacement would need to get up to your current level of productivity.

Re:Job Change

[GaryOlson]

The gaping whole...

The look on the face of every person in manglement in the conference room when you pull out the really old email which places responsibility on manglement for the current clusterduck they are trying to hang around your neck. Generally characterized by slack jaws, rapid mouth breathing, and rapidly shifting eyes.

Re:Job Change

[J4]

Or just denied. Let's face it, if one's strategy for success consists of asking for a raise after 5 years, you aren't hungry enough to leave.

Re:Job Change

[JoeMerchant]

If internal advancement was the way to go, they'd be offering you significantly more than your external opportunity. This rarely happens. It worked for me in my first job (10 years from entry level programmer to top of R&D), but at the second, I hired in just below director (better benefits and equal pay to "top of R&D" in the other town), and I would have remained just below director for a veeeeeery long time if I had stayed - that place was more interested in "cross pollination" than developing their existing staff.

Re:Job Change

[DrgnDancer]

Typically promotions in the military come within a unit (so you're much more likely to go from Squad Leader to Platoon Sergeant, or Company Commander to Battalion Operations Officer inside the same company or battalion), but they move you around every few years anyway. So you may get your promotion to SSG or MAJ when you moved inside of a unit, but next year you're going to Ft. Stewart anyway. It's kind of a combination of both promotion from within, and moving around a lot.

The military is also setup in a way that makes continued and regular advancement relatively easy, if not required. Especially for officers. If I decide I really like being Battalion Communications Officer, that's really too damn bad. When the opportunity comes along for company command I better bloody take it, then take the next job to make Major. After more than a few years of the same job (or more importantly the same rank), my raises stop coming; year or two more and I'm looking for a civilian job.

Using the military as a comparison is really kinda flawed for these reason, as well as a few others (the process of "getting into management" in the military (getting a commission) is not exactly straightforward there either).

Re:Job Change

[Phreakiture]

This is true, at least for a time. The same goes for transferring between teams.

However, if we consider delta salary per year worked, I would say that I had the biggest delta when changing employers anyway. It makes sense, when you think about it, because changing employers is a bigger risk than waiting for a promotion or transfer, so naturally, the reward should be greater, else why (save for an employer from hell) would you do it?

Re:Job Change

[gander666]

I am not in IT, but I wholeheartedly agree with this. I have never had my old job removed when I got promoted. Oh sure, there were thin promises of finding (or authorizing) a replacement, but reality has ALWAYS been that I now have two jobs.

Go to a new department, or better yet, to a new company. It is the only way to be sure you don't get jacked into doing double duty.

Re:Job Change

[gander666]

My company's OFFICIAL policy is no annual pay increases. I just went through training on how to explain to my staff why this is a good thing, and how they should value the true merit based pay scale.

Yes, I am looking for a new job.

Re:Job Change

[Maximum Prophet]

Depends on the definition of "Replaceable". Many small, and some large businesses go under because the founder left or died. Apple almost went under after Steve was forced out.

Often, I'm not replaceable because I'm the low bidder. My employer would never be able to find anyone who could do my job, at the salary I'm currently making.

Thinking of it from an employer's view: Could I live without this person? Yes, I can live no matter who leaves me. Will I die without this person? Yes, everyone dies.

The short answer: Everyone is replaceable, except for those that aren't.

Re:Job Change

[DrgnDancer]

There's replaceable and replaceable. Everyone is replaceable if you *have* too, but some people are hard enough to replace that managers will go out of their way to not have too. To use a very high level example, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates are replaceable. Indeed, Bill's been replaced, and Apple will have to figure out Steve in the next few years most likely. Doesn't mean MS or Apple want (or wanted) to replace them. Doesn't mean the boards of directors won't go out of their collective ways to avoid it. At lower levels, the only guy who really understands how the network works is really hard to replace and the Manager or CIO over him will go out of their way to avoid having too. He shouldn't exist, and if you're him, and you're smart, you're teaching someone else the network too. Unless you really like your current job and never want to do anything else.

Re:Job Change

[tripleevenfall]

Good for you guys, but I think you'd find that at 99% of all IT shops, documentation is an issue.

Re:Job Change

[DogDude]

Why would you go back to "permanent"? Less money, more hours, less flexibility...? I worked permanent at one IT job once, and I couldn't understand why other people did it. I worked as a contractor for the rest of my IT career.

Re:Job Change

[BVis]

Health insurance. Contractors don't get it.

Re:Job Change

[jellomizer]

This stuff is due to the fact companies fail to take HR as a serious part of the business, they limit their jobs to just handling vacation and making random policies. Employee turnover cost roughly 150% to replace an employee, but will do little in terms of inside promotions and raises often account more of a cost of living adjustment (FYI Inflation averages 3% Raises are usually over 10% a year) then a real raise. HR is limited in actually evaluating each employees skills and making a choice if they should get promoted or not. It is usually left to the local manager who really doesn't want to loose a top performer from their department, and sees your professional growth on a day to day bases and not as overall so they forget that your starting salary that you are getting paid at was for work that you could do then and not what you do now. Because they are not getting paid what they are worth an employee will look for additional work which will give them.
1. An honest assessment of their value.
2. A job that will pay their current value.

Back in the old days when people worked for the same company for their professional life. It was mostly due to the fact that there wasn't much competition for jobs in the area, and most people wouldn't or couldn't travel to the next town and city to see if there is something better. Today it is much different companies need to realize that and invest into HR. It is better to keep the employees then loose them, but they need to keep in mind that they are in competition with more then just there competitors but with the rest of the community for human work resources. During recessions there is less competition so the businesses and get good talent for less but once the economy picks up the tides turn to the employees who have more choices.

Re:Job Change

[Slashdot Parent]

Health insurance. Contractors don't get it.

Not true. Many contractors get in on a group policy, either through a professional organization or a staffing firm for professionals. Getting married is another option, although that idea isn't to popular among the slashdot crowd.

Re:Job Change

[g0bshiTe]

Wild guess here but

"move job", "tonne", "pay-packet"

From those terms my guess would be poster is British, national health care, health insurance in this instance may not be an issue.

Re:Job Change

[mrsam]

Health insurance. Contractors don't get it.

Sure they do! I've had health insurance for the last fifteen years as a consultant. I incorporated and got myself the same group health policy that big companies get. Of course, I pay a little bit more, but I'm not really paying that -- my client is paying that :-)

Plus I have a retirement plan too.

And the best thing is, if I don't like my health insurance, or a retirement plan, I can switch any time. If you don't like what your employer offers, your only option is to change jobs.

Re:Job Change

[SQLGuru]

Parent has it right.

I've been at the same title for 11 years. During that time, my salary has gone up at a decent clip, but at some point, you want recognition that you are worth a lot to the company. While I haven't tendered my resignation, I'm looking for the right opportunity. Strongly considering the contractor/consultant direction for a while.

Re:Job Change

[Mongoose Disciple]

That's what wives are for!

Well, one thing anyway.

Re:Job Change

[Slashdot Parent]

Often this is not the case, but it'll still work against you. If you are good at what you currently do, management will always be reluctant to promote you. They'll prefer to leave well enough alone, and instead promote the guy with mediocre performance but strong communication skills; maybe he'll improve his performance in a management role. From your manager's perspective, it kind of makes sense to take a chance on promoting a non-performer or hire a new guy, rather than promote they guy who is already doing a good job.

I've found that good worker-bee skills don't always translate into good management skills. I can see why you'd see things the way that you do, but it's worth looking at it from the other side.

In no particular order, here are some qualities that I look for when I'm considering promoting an employee to a supervisory role:

• Be a people person and be good at communicating, and enjoy interacting with people. You can't manage a team with your nose buried in your monitor.
• Caring about others and wanting to help others succeed. A huge part of a manager's job is developing the careers of his/her direct reports.
• Ability to work toward a goal and drive chunks of work to completion.
• Estimation skills. If you can't estimate your own work, how will you estimate a team's work?
• Organization. Can you keep track of what an entire team is supposed to be doing?

That's what's coming to mind right now. It might be worth doing a little research on your own on what the experts say are good management skills in your field. Those are the skills you'll want to develop if you're interested in developing your career down a management track.

Re:Job Change

[ShavedOrangutan]

If he's "a decade away" from settling down, health insurance should be cheap to purchase individually. I paid $100/month in my late teens and $150/month in my twenties for an individual single policy. Despite what a certain political party claims, you don't have to be employed by a huge corporation to have health insurance (and it would be even cheaper if that same party would lift their ban on shopping nationally for cheaper policies).

Re:Job Change

[mcmonkey]

The gaping whole I am leaving has my former employer in a bit of a bind now, since I was the last person with the knowledge and skills to support a key system. They have offered to promote me now, but it's too late.

Well there's your problem. If you make yourself irreplaceable, you'll never get promoted. If you wanted to show your previous employer you were serious about changing positions, you would have trained someone to replace, or at least documented as much as you could, so you could be replaced.

In other words, if you were really ready to move on, you wouldn't be leaving a hole.

I see so many folks in IT and IS who set themselves up as gatekeepers of information and then complain when they don't get promoted. As much as your boss wants to help your career (and many bosses really do want to see people advance in the company) they don't want to leave a gaping hole when you're gone.

Make yourself easy to replace and you make it easy for your boss to promote you.

Some might reply, you make it easy to fire you as well. So be it. Look around. Is this where you want to be, what you want to do, for the rest of your professional life?

Re:Job Change

[IceNinjaNine]

The military is also setup in a way that makes continued and regular advancement relatively easy, if not required.

Even though it's not directly relevant to the topic at hand, anybody with technical inclinations and aspirations who does not want to lead others needs to know this before the joining the military.

I pulled a six year active duty hitch as an electronic intelligence systems repair tech in the army. I loved the training, liked the job, and thought about staying in. The issue here is that at one point decades ago ranks such as Specialist 5 (same pay grade as sergeant) and Specialist 6 (pay grade the same as a staff sergeant) existed, and you could get away with being a senior technician. Now you'd better be ready for hard stripes (in other words, to get to those pay grades you must be an NCO), and the pain in the ass that it entails. I decided that herding other soldiers for an additional couple hundred bucks a month wasn't worth it and got out via ETS. I'd rather be a sysadmin and play with electronics on my free time.

As a caveat, YMMV in the Air Force, Navy, or Coast Guard. The Coast Guard was the one I should have checked into but didn't.

And, as the parent said, if you don't make rank every couple of years you're out. In addition, you get to see quite a few examples of the Peter Principle in action.

Re:Job Change

[Vancorps]

How long ago was that? Health insurance premiums here have more than tripled, the company I work for used to cover it all but about four years ago started splitting the cost 50/50 with us. Now I pay about $160 for my portion alone and I have no medical issues and am in my 20s.

I'm not sure about the logic of not being able to shop nationally, that should definitely get lifted. These days only huge corporations can afford to cover the entire cost of healthcare premiums but of course they don't because they need to maximize profit.

Re:Job Change

[linear a]

True. Most of the time when you 'hold up' an employer (whether or not maliciously) you end up gone within the year.

Re:Job Change

[zero0ne]

Did you think that this may have something to do with management? IF they are micromanaging us, prioritizing our projects, tasks, requests, incidents, etc, how can we ever spend time on documentation? They see it as a waste of time ("why should I pay you to document? You will be here to do it again anyways").

I would love to NOT be a gatekeeper of information, and frankly, I technically am NOT a gatekeeper. The problem is management not properly following the procedures, and instead coming directly to me for anything "IT". 80% of the information they ask me is either already documented in some system (sharepoint primarily) or a simple ticket to our support desk could get the ball rolling on getting the information from the proper group.

Management keeps forgetting that the more people you add in the middle when trying to get information, it becomes outdated, less reliable, and takes longer to procure.

Re:Job Change

[ShavedOrangutan]

I just checked Kaiser for DC/MD/VA. Base plan for a 25 year old is $113/month - which is actually cheaper than when I had the same policy 10 years ago.

Re:Job Change

[drsmithy]

Why would you go back to "permanent"? Less money, more hours, less flexibility...? I worked permanent at one IT job once, and I couldn't understand why other people did it. I worked as a contractor for the rest of my IT career.

Some people prefer stability and job security which - outside of the USA - a permanent position offers much more of.

It's a lot easier to live with a predictable and constant income stream than one that comes in fits and starts - especially when you have more responsibilities than just yourself.

Re:Job Change

[berashith]

getting married is plenty popular as a concept. There just isnt a clear man page on how to start the process.

Re:Job Change

[FatAlb3rt]

Yet here we are, pounding out a comment on slashdot. 20 minutes here and there for documentation - before you know it, you have a good base. Refine over time - the hardest part is starting.

Re:Job Change

[berashith]

I thought you were my last boss, until you said subtly. He straight out told me i was getting screwed, and offered to be a reference.

Re:Job Change

[samsmithnz]

Everyone thinks they can earn double as a contractor, until they realize they have to pay taxes, benefits, 401K. Add to this the fact that you don't have work guaranteed, and suddenly you're about even with a salary worker. Yeh, there are benefits to working for yourself, and sometimes you make more, but I know that we outsource the really shitty projects to contractors and keep the 'good' ones for ourselves.

Re:Job Change

[s73v3r]

Just like lifting the ban on cross state credit cards made them soooo much better?

Re:Job Change

[NJRoadfan]

...and what kind of coverage does that $150/month get you? I've seen premiums that low with coverage to match it. I certainly wouldn't want to have medical problems and rely on that coverage.

Re:Job Change

[Stiletto]

"Base plan?" Hmm... Good luck if you actually get sick and learn the hard way what they don't cover.

Re:Job Change

[nomad63]

Unfortunately, military and management in military does not scale properly in a business environment. In military, people are judged by making decisions on the spot because they do not have the luxury to form committees and discuss all available and most of the time unavailable options. And their value is dependent on how high of a percentage these momentary decisions yield a successful outcome.

Enter business world, if you are making momentary decision without going through the proper channels and evaluations, you are asking for a dismissal. Yet, some ex-military people, hired as a business manager of some sort, due to a reason not based on merit, (can you say nepotism, buddy system, good-ole-boys network ?) still make these decisions and if they are in low enough management levels, they get protected by their hiring authority because they are buddies. Few gets to let go but most of them stay, their mistakes swept under rug and these people make the notion of ex-military makes good managers because they can decide fast.

In my experience, when my immediate management changes from someone from a techie or b-school background to an ex- military person, it means the time for me to leave that position come. I am in the IT industry full time for the past 19 years following a 7 year stint as an EE for a military electronics manufacturing plant, this pattern never failed. In my last job, I made a stupid mistake because someone asked real nicely to provide some information to them. I diagnosed the problem and got it fixed in about 35 minutes but did not go back to the office directly. When I got back, I was told that what I did (not immediately going back) was equivalent of reckless-abandonment in military terms. Guess where did the guy who told me this come from.

So comparing military career path tracks to real world, don't make much sense in my opinion.

On the other hand, jumping from ship to ship is setting one's self for career disaster in today's economy. Changing my last job to my current one 4 months ago, I had to take about $15K pay cut which is more than 10% for me, but I had to do it because I wanted to keep my sanity. Management is something I aspire for not because it is going to pay better (I hope it will) but more because, I worked in too many places and too many different roles. I now know how things go wrong, what the precursors to things going wrong and how to and how not to deal with them. As a sysadmin, I still know these but can not voice a strong opinion without jeopardizing my livelihood. Also, I am tired of having to learn the flavor of the day when it come to OS, applications or tools. I am not saying management does not have to know any of this but they do not need to know the intrinsic details that I am expected to know. And synapses in my brain are dying fast, amking it hard for me to remember these things as the times goes by...

Re:Job Change

[ShavedOrangutan]

It covers everything but has a $8,000 deductible (no deductible for preventative care). The "cadillac plan" is $317/month and has no deductible. The cheaper plan is better if you get sick less than 17 times a year or go more than three years without breaking your leg. Which is most of us.

I don't understand why doctor visits are covered at all. It's like expecting your car insurance company to pay for oil changes. It makes more sense to buy catastrophic illness insurance, bank the difference in an interest bearing account, and pay out of pocket for routine care.

Re:Job Change

[clodney]

Don't forget that the skills that make someone a good manager and the skills that make someone a good developer are not the same. Some genius developers simply don't have the people skills to be an effective manager. In many cases the result is the loss of an excellent developer, the addition of a crappy manager, and both a manager and team that are unhappy.

And on the flip side, sometimes someone who is only an average performer as a developer has the organization, people skills and interrupt tolerance to make an effective manager.

Much depends on the role - is the manager also the architect/analyst for the team? Obviously strong tech skills are needed. But if most of your work is tracking progress, assigning people to projects, managing training and equipment, and responding to whatever is broken in operations at the moment, your programming prowess will take a back seat.

Re:Job Change

[Slashdot Parent]

getting married is plenty popular as a concept. There just isnt a clear man page on how to start the process.

That's preposterous. The following should pretty much talk you from the procurement stage, right on through midlife crisis:

man find
man nice
man tail
man get
man date
man chat
man talk
man sh
man talk
man sh
man talk
man sh

man touch
man unzip
man finger
man strip
man head
man mount
man make
man fsck
man login
man logout
man login
man logout
man more
man yes
man more
man yes
man more
man yes
man eject
man raw
man umount
man awk
man sleep

man get
man jobs
man fork
man wait
man yacc

man complain
man whoami
man look
man split
man dash
man get
man ex

Re:Job Change

[ShavedOrangutan]

Cheaper policies don't have less coverage. They have higher co-pays or higher deductibles. Buy the cheap plan, pay out of pocket for routine care, and make a claim if you get cancer. People want health insurance to pay for everything, which is one of the root problems with health care. It's $125 out of pocket to see a primary care physician. Is that worth an additional $200/month insurance premium? And if basic care was always an out of pocket expense, I'll bet that $125 would drop to a more realistic $60-$80.

Re:Job Change

[n7ytd]

Yes, and good risk management means that you must assume that at some point, everyone MUST be replaced.

The reality is that people die, find new jobs, quit due to family problems, etc. Counting on someone always being there is a bad plan. If the company cannot continue with the hole one person leaves, they are only one heartbeat away from failure at any time.

Re:Job Change

[berashith]

well played. You forgot man bash after man complain

Re:Job Change

[Kjella]

Maybe I'm saying this a bit cruelly, but teams usually work something out even if you get a mediocre manager. We might more or less end up as a self-organizing team working around the manager rather than through him, but we make it happen. Technical systems like servers, networks, software and so on for the most part give you "Uninformative error message #54122: Illegal operation at 0xFACB4464" or better yet, no error at all if you don't know what you're doing. It simply does not work and won't work no matter how long you stare at it.

That is why in my experience why you never pull a good technical resource into a manager role. There's always some "soft skill" person that somewhat can do the job, probably no better than me and sometimes I'm pretty sure worse. But they're always short of people that really understand the technical side and they can't drop someone in that position the same way. Even with documentation and training colleagues it was never enough to get me to the top of the list.

I found that I had to change jobs and start with new systems where I didn't have the deep geek-fu in order to get those opportunities. Suddenly there were sentences like "Yeah, maybe [person] can cover that as he's worked on it before while you manage getting a new solution up and running." that I'd never heard before. I wasn't irreplaceable at my old job, but you accumulate a burden from having worked there for years knowing all the ins and outs of the system. The only way you really get away from that is by leaving.

Re:Job Change

[Slashdot Parent]

True enough.

Oh well, at least you weren't hoping for a 'man kill' to be worked in there somewhere!

Re:Job Change

[Slashdot Parent]

No offense, but an employee whose only job security is his ability to type "Uninformative error message #54122: Illegal operation at 0xFACB4464" into Google doesn't have much job security.

I know what you were getting at, but I think that a lot of people overestimate the damage that the loss of a single, key employee can do. Certainly in a well-managed department. One of my firm's clients lost two key people within the span of 1 month (for different reasons, by the way), but they were able to recover. It was expensive for them, but I'm OK with that! :)

Re:Job Change

[AuMatar]

Because every contracting job I've ever seen pays about the same or less, has no stock, no benefits, is the first to be fired, gets treated like shit, has no vacation, and has to track hours. No thanks. Full time at a startup is the only way to go.

Re:Job Change

[JWSmythe]

There isn't one. Well, there used to be one, but it was removed when it was shown to be futile. Apparently there is a peer process that frequently has severe conflicts with it, and then the child processes are a nightmare.

Due to this, the man page was removed, and users with longterm experience usually suggest against ever using it. Failure to heed their warnings usually result in comments such as "man, I told you so".

The first bug report with the process dates back from approximately 4000 B.C.E., and is still marked as "pending". I expect it won't be resolved until shortly after DNF is released. :)

Re:Job Change

[scot4875]

And if basic care was always an out of pocket expense, I'll bet that $125 would drop to a more realistic $60-$80.

And you'd probably be correct on your bet; however, we've got a prisoner's dilemma to get to that point. If everyone dropped coverage for doctor's visits, it would be better for everyone, but until everyone drops coverage and prices are forced to drop, nobody can afford to drop coverage.

--Jeremy

Re:Job Change

[ajlisows]

It may depend on your definition of shitty. In my career as a contractor I tended to get the more interesting project that were closer to cutting edge stuff. The internal IT staffs would push it off so they could just hold the line and didn't have to spend time learning stuff. Of course, those IT departments were not very impressive.

Re:Job Change

[DerekLyons]

I decided that herding other soldiers for an additional couple hundred bucks a month wasn't worth it and got out

If you stop and think about, it should come as no surprise that the military doesn't want 'pure' senior techs. Ninety five percent of a senior techs job is doing stuff that a mid grade or junior tech could do, and that's a waste of money and manpower. So what they want is senior techs who will lead, teach, and supervise the mid grade and junior techs - and be there to pull their fat out of the fire when they get in over their heads or one of those five percent of the time problems show up.
 

As a caveat, YMMV in the Air Force, Navy, or Coast Guard. The Coast Guard was the one I should have checked into but didn't.

No, all the services are pretty much the same for the same reasons.

Re:Job Change

[tehcyder]

I don't understand why doctor visits are covered at all. It's like expecting your car insurance company to pay for oil changes. It makes more sense to buy catastrophic illness insurance, bank the difference in an interest bearing account, and pay out of pocket for routine care.

That is why I thank God I'm English and we have a national health service. Do you not see the stupidity of putting financial disincentives in the way of preventative medicine?

Re:Job Change

[pnutjam]

If my car has a catastrophic incident, I repair or replace it. I myself, would like to avoid a catastrophic health incident.

Call 5 doctors and ask them their fees for a visit, be sure to ask about cash discounts. Your probably looking at anywhere from $70 to $150. Now pull out any records you have from past insurance visits. It should list the amount the company was charged, and the amount they pay, it's probably considerably less, like $55 to $90. I've seen bills come in over $100 and be paid out at less then $20. Do you know enough about the health industry to negotiate fair payments? Do you have the time to haggle over every bill?

Last time I had a child, I called every hospital in the area to get pricing for delivery, nobody would even give me anything but the most generic ballpark figure (usually they said, "this is what you pay with most insurance). Price comparison is impossible in the medical field.

Re:Job Change

[tompaulco]

Company sponsored health insurance is usually too expensive anyway. I am no longer tethered to my company by health insurance, and as a result, my take home pay has gone up by $500. Instead of shelling out more than $800 a month for my company's "Health plan" which they tout as a benefit, even though I am the one that has to pay, I now shell out only about $180 a month for private health insurance through Assurant Health. Of course, this is a "high deductible" policy, but even if I hit my deductible limit every year, it still ends up being cheaper than what I was paying for the group health through the company.

Re:Job Change

[tompaulco]

Companies are stupid. Rather than promote you and pay you what you could get at another shop, they would rather that you go to the other shop, then hire someone else at the salary that you are getting at the other shop (because that is the going rate, by definition), and then have to spend time training the new person how to do your job.

Re:Job Change

[tompaulco]

Well, one reason, I guess would be that it became really hard to find a contract position. But even worse, was that it became hard to find a company position because a lot of job positions clearly stated (probably illegally), "Full time position, no former contractors". Companies felt like they needed to punish IT professionals for trying to earn what they were worth by becoming independent.

Re:Job Change

[tompaulco]

Lucky you, in the last three jobs that I have had, your net take home pay changed every year only by however much the medical plan payment went up, and of course the real value of your money went down by however much inflation went up.

Re:Job Change

[JoeMerchant]

At that company that wasn't promoting me, they (more than once, I think) laid a guy off, he got a job at another company, then was sent back in to the company which laid him off as a consultant - making more money for himself and costing the company over 2x what they were paying him before the layoff - not 2x hourly rate, 2x overall per month.

Re:Job Change

[tompaulco]

That has happened to me, as well. But I guess they are not as dumb as we think. For every time they lose 2X the amount having to pay us as consultants, they gain back from 10 other sheep that never ask for a raise.

Re:Job Change

[Thing 1]

I do. My tribe? Not so much.

Wrong job

[OddJobBob]

If you want to be in management and want to be liked then you are not suitable for the job.

Re:Wrong job

[MadKeithV]

-1 wrong.
Well, not wrong if "being liked" is the only thing you want to do. You can never get everything done with everyone by simply keeping the peace. However being a good manager includes being liked or at least thought fair, most of the time.

Not even sure why people want to be managers

[gmack]

Being a manager means spending more time dealing with politics and paperwork rather than technical issues and I know from experience it's a lot less fun so I don't understand why people crave management so much.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[Nerdfest]

Advancement doesn't need to mean management.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[Rik Sweeney]

Amen to that. A colleague at my previous company was promoted to team lead and then spent about half his day in meetings.

When quizzed by his boss as to why progress on his project was so slow, he complained that it was because he was spending so much time in meetings he simply didn't have time to work on the project. His boss simply replied, "But you wanted to be a team lead, and this is what happens!"

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[ciderbrew]

Does it mean not giving examples?

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[stranger_to_himself]

Being a manager means spending more time dealing with politics and paperwork rather than technical issues and I know from experience it's a lot less fun so I don't understand why people crave management so much.

I like management because there's only so much you can get done on your own - as a manager you can achieve a lot more by building guiding a team. It's also a way to build capacity by imparting your technical wisdom to your underlings. It's important to keep up with some techincal stuff as well, but it can be hard to find the time.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[iangoldby]

Depends where you work.

I think there are still a few places where you can reach the top of the ladder in a purely technical role.

There are probably others where you clearly have to become a manager and this is explicitly stated.

But the current thinking seems to be that certain universal 'behaviours' or 'competencies' are required for more senior grades, and these always include things like being able to provide examples of where you have dealt with performance issues in others - even if your particular job isn't management.

So the official line is that, yes, you can get to the top in a purely technical role, but in practice if you don't have examples of all the standard corporate 'behaviours' then you won't get anywhere.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[WrongSizeGlass]

Amen to that. A colleague at my previous company was promoted to team lead and then spent about half his day in meetings.

Keep in mind that you can affect the direction of a project or product in meetings. If you're not involved in the discussion then you usually end up coding what you're told.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[kangsterizer]

Being a manager means spending more time dealing with politics and paperwork rather than technical issues and I know from experience it's a lot less fun so I don't understand why people crave management so much.

money and making the proper decisions for their lower-in-the-chain friends

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[Just Brew It!]

Unfortunately, at the majority of companies it does. So if you work at a company like that, and you want to remain in the loop technically, the clear answer is "job change".

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[Just Brew It!]

Heck, I'm not even a team lead and I spend way too much time in meetings!

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[jellomizer]

Money: more responsibility the more you get paid. Money doesn't buy you happiness but it prevents many areas that can make you miserable.

Power: you can get things done your way and the higher up you are the more of your way you can have done.

Security: you could be high enough to not be targeted in the first round of layoffs.

Respect: fancier title allows people to respect you more.

Sure they arnt noble reasons but they are real ones

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[MadKeithV]

money and making the wrong decisions for their lower-in-the-chain enemies

Fixed that for you ;-)

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[luis_a_espinal]

Does it mean not giving examples?

Here, let me help you with some examples where technical advancement does not imply moving into management: Programmer/code monkey > Entry Level Software Engineer > Sr. Software Engineer/Tech Lead > Software/Systems* Architect > Principal Engineer/Architect of a major engineering project.

Obviously, each technical advancement *must* entail some type of managerial skills as you will be expected to lead, mentor and delegate junior members under your belt while performing technical tasks that you possess via your extensive expertise. But that is not management proper (as in a pure definition.) Besides management runs the spectrum - you don't need to be a manager you to "own" a particular responsibility, and if you have to work with peers and juniors while supporting the section of the system that you "own", you have to displays implicit management skills. Otherwise, you will suck at it from a technical point of view.

To be technical does not mean having to do anything but l33t hax0r mayhem in complete isolation. Engineering does not work that way. * and by Systems Architect, I don't mean the guy who lays out the hardware (which is how we typically use the term in IT), but one who has an architectural role in the realm of Systems Engineering.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[TheRaven64]

DEC had a system where management and technical tracks were parallel. You could transfer between them, but managers did not earn more than the engineers that they supervised, so the only reason to switch to the management track was if you actually wanted to become a manager. It's a shame that more companies don't understand this.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[tripleevenfall]

It's a bad idea to have people who are supposed to be managing others also working on technical projects. There is never enough definition for the role and people expect basically two full-time equivalents out of you.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[elPetak]

Don't be so sure about money. Where I work becoming a manager means you don't get paid overtime anymore and you don't get a raise immediately (maybe in the long long term they may give you some, but not right away). So basically becoming a manager where I work means you have more responsibility, work more hours and get paid less... but you get a reserved parking slot... great deal, isn't it?

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[JoeMerchant]

I don't understand why people crave management so much.

Because, as you approach the top 10% of any company I've ever known, techies hit a glass ceiling. They say that there's a parallel technical ladder, but it in reality it doesn't reach the top. Technical track compensation hits the wall before the hockey stick curve gets interesting.

Even if you don't care about making 7 figures, if you're not being invited to board meetings, they're "protecting you from details you shouldn't have to worry about or don't care about," and also steering the ship without your input.

It's hard for me to feel content as an engineer below decks on the Titanic.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[elPetak]

That's not a general rule.
Where I work things are not exactly like that.

Money: managers don't get overtime and they don't get a raise instantly when they are appointed managers, so NO, more responsibility in this case means less money.

Power: not exactly... most of the decisions are made by senior management and/or executives and the manager is just a communicator.

Security: last week an Executive got fired and a couple of months ago a manager got fired too. Looks like it's easier to fire people up in the food chain at my workplace. Every time they try to fire a simple worker HR kicks in and delays the process to the point it's not even worth to try firing someone, but managers and executives apparently are easier to fire.

Respect: when everyone knows a manager is just a puppet of senior manager and also knows what I've said about money, you don't get respect, people feels sorry about you.

So honestly, I don't understand why some people insists in getting management positions at my workplace.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[ciderbrew]

thank you.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[elPetak]

So here is an example for the skeptics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0DxmthvkKU

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[JoeMerchant]

Depends where you work.

I think there are still a few places where you can reach the top of the ladder in a purely technical role.

Define "top" - anywhere I have been, the ownership sharing (stock options, etc.) topped out around 1% for techie types, while the "leadership people" would be holding 20% (each) and up.

In larger organizations, the percentages were smaller (due to higher overall head count), but the ratios were similar - management track always brought high multiples of the tech track for stock options and bonuses. They'd whine and cry about how techies got a higher base, but the numbers broke down something like 100 base for a top tech, 90 base for a similar level manager, 10% possible bonus for the tech (awarded 80% of the time), 30% bonus for the similar level manager (awarded 45% of the time), 3-5x more stock options for the management types, typically awarded on advancement.

The kicker was that a top tech had no upward mobility, the equivalent level manager had 6 more layers of advancement below CEO, each with bigger bonuses and stock options than the layer below. Base never went much above 130, but bonuses could exceed 100%, and stock options frequently netted 10x that.

As for stress levels, is it more stressful to have meetings where you discuss how the axe is about to fall, or to know that such meetings are happening but not being invited or informed until the day the pink slip comes?

In good times, a top tech can work 20-30 years and retire to a modest but comfortable lifestyle. A manager a couple of levels up can (potentially) net the same retirement nest-egg overnight and pursue their own goals at age 30 or 40, instead of 55+.

Sort of like the stock market, risk vs reward - tech track is a little safer day to day, but on average it nets less in the long term.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[Anonymous Coward]

Many companies do this. I am an engineer on the management pay scale.

Too many people with the "senior engineer" title were leaving because there was no where to go. Now an engineer can go to manager level, senior manager, director and even get all the way up to VP level pay, bonuses and stock options while remaining an engineer. It's not common, but we have a few at VP level. They have been here a LONG time and know our systems inside and out. Of course, they designed a lot of those systems.

You can keep a lot of good engineering talent this way. Kept me here.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[luis_a_espinal]

This is very true in industries which deal with specific and complex hardware... such as medical and defense. You can make a career as an expert in some specific piece of hardware, because that chunk of hardware is gonna be around for a long time... and there are very few people with detailed understanding of it.

Obviously you don't bet the farm on this.. but being _the_ expert in something tends to result in good things.

Yeah, with medical and the DoE/DoD, it can be a rewarding ($$$) career. I also believed (actually, have seen) it is also possible within the commercial sector to be an expert at something and make moolah up to the wahzoo. In the JEE arena, it pays to be an expert WebLogic/WebSphere admin, or an Oracle DBA. Not the typical type that does the every day job (like I was with WebLogic), but the actual experts that fly around to where the fires are. They can make a shitload of money with short 3-6 weeks emergency contracts (though it involves way too much travel for my taste.)

Being a real expert at something (compilers, OS development, sysadmin, some enterprise stack or software metrics), that can be a rewarding (and very safe, long-term) career.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[larwe]

That's not necessarily true. Anyway, an "individual contributor" at the bottom of the totem pole can easily get frustrated because his/her job is just to build whatever he/she's told to build, even when it's clear that the world has moved on from whatever legacy internal "truth" is driving the company. Moving up to a management level gives you the authority to make the strategic decisions about WHAT to do, not just HOW to do it.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[Anonymous Coward]

There may be another reason to be on the management track. A manager is, in practice, unbounded in how far they can get promoted, whereas an engineer will likely reach a career cap. I don't know any engineers able to move straight into a vice-president position.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[fishbowl]

Where are these jobs that are so easily changed?

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[fishbowl]

Every place where I've worked, the curve of that hockey stick represents either personal investment of capital, a person with enough wealth that the *prospect* of his personal investment is high, a political appointment to a public board, or all of the above.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[steelfood]

That's what happens in an engineering company. How many of those are out there these days? And DEC isn't exactly the best example out there of a successful company, though management types probably wouldn't know any bettter if you wrap the idea into a nice powerpoint. Not that they'd ever go for it...

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[schlesinm]

I work as an architect and recently promoted a developer up to team lead. When he started as a team lead, I sat him down and told him to never sign up for more than 10 hours of actual development a week and never anything in the critical path. He will be spending 30+ hours in meetings for analyzing new projects, production issues, clearing issues for his team, sizing new project requests, status updates to leaders and many other tasks that a team lead needs to do which a developer can safely ignore. The worst thing a team lead can do is put themselves on the critical path.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[Glendale2x]

If they still expect you to code as much as you did before being promoted to lead and spending half the day in meetings, that's where the problems begin.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[Stiletto]

You have it nailed. I've never EVER seen a company where the top-earning technical role's salary was more than the top-earning non-technical role. Or where the top tech had more bonus or stock than the top non-tech. I highly doubt they exist.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[frank_adrian314159]

This is true in most good hardware and software companies. In my last three management positions, I've managed engineers who make more than I do. None of them have ever wanted my job and, to be honest, there are days I think that maybe I should transfer back to the technical track. But then there's also the days when I am quite thankful that I'm not trying to debug synchronization issues in some crufty bit of multi-threaded code that someone in another part of the organization wrote.

So, what's the final answer here? All jobs suck in their own way; all jobs provide reward in there own way. Moving to a job in another company will probably allow you to garner income more quickly, but the risk comes from not really understanding the suck/reward profile (which is never clear going in) and ending up a loser. Choose carefully.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[frank_adrian314159]

If you truly think that you are in the same situation as an engineer below decks on the Titanic, your choice is obvious... abandon ship! Preferably before it hits the iceberg. Ships turn slowly, no matter who is at the wheel.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[JoeMerchant]

I worked near (unfortunately not for) a director who classified his best engineers as managers so they could participate in the higher level party, but didn't drag them along to all the higher level meetings.

Sadly, in my experience, that was a unique situation.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[Penguinisto]

The trick is to keep what you have but actively look for better.

I have a relatively ancient resume on Monster from 3 years ago that I haven't bothered to update or touch (I haven't even logged into it in all this time), and I suspect that the moment I update it, the number of headhunter and recruiter calls will go up from one every few weeks to one every other day.

While most outside cold-call offers are temp/contract, the FTE slots that do come along are pretty impressive IMHO, and have so far almost always caused me to stop and at least do some sort of analysis and even active research - mostly on what I have now with its potentials, versus what I could get '...if I moved to {position} with {company}.' Once in a great while (call it every 3 months or so) it's enough to call up the employer and make a few inquiries, and on rare occasion (call it once every 8 months to a year) go to an interview.

The jobs are certainly out there - just that the employers have certain expectations (both good and bad - your job is to weed out the crap from the gold, and hope you do it right).

As for TFA? If I ever get tired of being the Sr Technical Guy and decide to jump to management, you can bet your ass that I won't do it internally... too much would be expected from above, lost from below, and be ultimately frustrating all around. Upper management would expect me to not only do my new job, but continue my old one until I get my lower-level replacement up to snuff. My colleagues would become either nervous (because I know them), or would expect preferential treatment (because they know me). It's much, much easier to start fresh with a new crew, so that you can not only make your expectations clear, but because they won't have any pre-conceived expectations that you would then have to break.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[Penguinisto]

Actually, the engineers below decks were the first to see the water rushing in, and knew before anyone else to get the hell out of Dodge. This explains why the bulk of the men who wound up oarsmen on lifeboats were the engineer types.

Also, the first person to declare that RMS Titanic would sink within a few hours of striking the iceberg was Thomas Andrews... the Chief Engineer.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[gmack]

Tell that to the last two managers who got smacked down for crossing me. I have a very solid say in how things go in my office without having to deal with the extra paper work and politics of being an official manager.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[larwe]

You're lucky (or have good skip-level connections). By and large throughout my career, I've been lucky too. However for someone working in a traditional top-down authority role, it can be very difficult to get dumb directions reversed even when they are clearly (to a child of three) asinine. Being a manager doesn't NECESSARILY involve an onerous amount of extra paperwork and politics - it just TENDS to. Heck, my job title has had "manager" in it for many years (off and on) and in some of those years I did no paperwork at all :) Where I work now, everyone at every level spends 80% of their time doing procedures anyway, so there is not much margin to add more.

Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers

[CAIMLAS]

Managers manage. You can be the best sysadmin or programmer in the world, but if your program or IT dept. manager is a tool, driving things into the ground, you're basically wasting your efforts.

As a manager, you still have to deal with that, but you're enabled to a greater degree to allow (and enable) others to get things done. As a manager, your job is largely to listen to your managers and employees, and to play middle man, doing what you can to keep your managers off your employees' backs so they can get their job done. If you fail in that last one - and allow your managers to get on the case of your subordinates - you fail in an epic fashion. There is no way they will ever trust you again, once you have cast them to the wolves. It's your job, as a manager, to take responsibility for their failures as well as their successes.

A new record!

[clickclickdrone]

Quickest ever dup on slashdot!

Re:A new record!

[bobdotorg]

So sad half of the comments will disappear.

Take a close look - all of the odd numbered comments have disappeared from this article.

Job Change FTW

[Kaleidoscopio]

Truly, job change has been the pivotal point in my career. Every time I change company (willingly) I get a promotion and a pay rise, only exception was when I delivered my resignation and my current company made me a generous counter-offer to keep me (I stayed). If I hadn't delivered my resignation I would still be doing the same thing for the same salary, few companies that I know promote inside people, most prefer to pick an outsider... :(

Re:Job Change FTW

[DrgnDancer]

Don't counter-offers just make you feel all warm and squishy inside? When I turned in my resignation and my manager sat me down and said "We really like you, and want to keep you... How about we just give you more money and responsibility?" it really made me feel loved. Of course I had to threaten to quit for it to happen, but still... They are in business to make money after all.

Re:Job Change FTW

[RobDude]

Quite the opposite, I find it horribly insulting.

If the company values you, they should compensate you accordingly. There should already be policies/reviews in place to adjust your compensation equal to your value. If they are doing any less, they are, quite literally, ripping you off because they think they can get away with it.

"Joe's productivity is up and he's learned a lot since his last review....he is easily worth an additional 5%; but the economy is in the crappier and a lot of people are worried about losing their job, let's just tell him he did a good job, times are tough and give him a 2% raise. We'll tell him it's more than most people got and emphasis how awesome he is."

Assume Joe started at 50k....after five years of that, and Joe is earning significantly less than what he could make elsewhere (54 vs 60). And, they company has saved 16k by underpaying him. Joe finds another job that will pay him 60k and he tells his boss he's leaving and they counter and say, 'Well, we like you so much, we want you to stay. We'll let you do more work and we will pay you 60k.

If Joe accepts, he's still out 16k because his company underpaid him for those years. And it is incredibly likely his next review will follow the same pattern as his others. And, it's very likely he'll get additional work dumped on him along with his raise; such that he is working longer hours for the same (or less) pay.

Maybe I'm just cynical.

Re:quick dupe...

[martin-boundary]

According to modern physics, two stories can suddenly appear out of nowhere. One is made of antimatter, the other is made of matter. Roblimo has to keep them separate, otherwise there could be catastrophic server cancellation.

To be on the safe side though, I suggest you also type the exact opposite of your comment in the other story, to allow the anti-threads to grow normally.

The summary links to another summary

[Mouldy]

Here's the actual article.

leave and come back

[Migx]

I often see people leaving a company and then returning at a much higher level a few years later, something like "internal promotion" cannot beat the "go away and then come back" strategy.

Re:leave and come back

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, I can't even believe someone in IT needs to ask this question.

IT is treated as a cost and anything but an investment at almost all companies. Bar a few software firms out there that are run by developers.

Seriously, you don't notice the higher ups looking down on you like you're trying to swindle them out of a few more bucks? Its part of that dull dumb look on their face whenever you try to explain something technical and they just can't figure out if you're telling them the truth or just trying to play them, let alone understand what you're saying.

Ship out for better pay, up skill, if you really like the old job: go back later like my parent is saying.

This all reminds me of an old daily wtf post (short version linking to the much more informative article: Up-or-Out-Solving-the-IT-Turnover-Crisis)

Haven't read that horrid place in years but this article is one I consistently find myself Googling to give to friends in IT wondering if its their time to move on.

Re:Deja vu

[alphatel]

I could have sworn I have seen this post before.

Great job, you are promoted!

Re:quick dupe...

[WrongSizeGlass]

According to modern physics, two stories can suddenly appear out of nowhere. One is made of antimatter, the other is made of matter.

In some cases both are made of the common element "doesn't matter".

Don't stress it.

[hattig]

Ugh, management. Paperwork and stress, and loss of creativity. It sucks when that is the only option for career advancement, when you really want a technical promotion path so you can do more with the skills and knowledge you actually have, rather than suddenly be expected to balance budgets and make reports!

Anyway if you are promoted to management ask for some training courses, and they should clear up professional boundary issues. I guess that if you are open and honest with the people you manage, and try not to become aloof, then things will be alright. If you want to protect your friends, then enact a 'last one in is first to go' policy (however ridiculous that is in reality). Be honest, how many coworkers have you stayed in contact with once they left the company? Is the term 'friends' correct, or are they actually colleagues with whom you might enjoy a beer or two after work sometimes?

Re:Don't stress it.

[Thing 1]

The term 'friends' is not correct.

Re:quick dupe...

[Nerdfest]

When I commented on this story, I'd selected the first (and only) entry listed for the story. There seemed to be some trouble saving the comment. It posted, and then staged on "working". I refreshed the session and found I'd wound up with a first first post on a duplicate copy of the story. There may be more broken on SlashDot than just the new CSS and Javascript.

Not exactly IT...

[larwe]

... but I agree with the "go away" comment, if you've been in your current position for at least two years. Two years is long enough to have been given a development plan and had it successfully execute. Faced with the same problem (stuck at the same org level for ~5 years, and in fact technically pushed down the org chart due to ever-multiplying middle management layers), I changed job functions totally - engineering to marketing - which gave me an instant promotion, and allowed me to earn a second promotion six or seven months later, as a kind of "catchup".

Re:quick dupe...

[bvimo]

Where is the upvote arrow?

Re:quick dupe...

[Tridus]

No, he's currently busy filing a patent on Slashdot's new SpeedDupe(TM) technology. Then he'll sue Twitter for millions, because their users have memories just as short as his.

Well, they would say that ...

[petes_PoV]

I've had a couple of management consultants tell me that if you want to move into management, it's better to change jobs

By "management consultants" I presume we're talking about recruitment agencies. They have a vested interest in getting people to move jobs and will frequently say anything to make their case. Not only do they earn a huge commission from placing a person with a new company, they then have prior knowledge of a vacancy at the old company and will try to fill that one, too.

It certainly used to be common, that the route to promotion was to change company. However, these days with so few places hiring and the loss of (in the civilised world, at least) job security when taking a position with a new company, the advantages may not be as great as they were - though still better than having to wait for someone in your existing company to die, before you can move one step up the ladder.

Although why a techie would want to move into management is a question worth asking. Generally management jobs pay better, but they carry greater risk. At least when you're producing stuff, or even just solving problems, you have an inherent value to your employer - they can see and count what you do. As a manager, your value is not directly quantifiable and in most cases imaginary. That makes the position much harder to justify and much easier to cut when times are tough. Management jobs are also harder to get at the interview stage, since there will be many candidates applying: none of which will have any quantifiable skills that would justify their employment. That makes the selection process a lottery (which could work in your favour, if you're not very good).

So, it's a high-risk/medum reward strategy. The "consultants" advising you have nothing to lose and a lot to gain by having you switch jobs. You could, possibly, go back to a technical job if the management career doesn't work out - although you'll probably find that the position you left will be filled by someone earning less than you did, so you'll probably take a drop in pay if you can scramble back in. It's not a career choice I'd make and most management positions are incredibly dull and unrewarding.

Re:Well, they would say that ...

[Maximum Prophet]

As a manager, your value is not directly quantifiable and in most cases imaginary. That makes the position much harder to justify and much easier to cut when times are tough.

Any decent manager knows how to take credit for the output of her workers, even if she credits them. Everyone, in any position, always needs to know what they bring to the table, and during performance reviews makes sure that gets noticed.

"Last Quarter, we saved the company one millions dollars, because of my project XYZ." Part of the trick of management is to dodge assignments that aren't going to have a payback, and take or create assignment that have real dollar value in revenue or cost savings. If you get stuck with a money sink of a project and can't shake it off, then yes, polish your resume and jump ship.

Re:Well, they would say that ...

[businessnerd]

By "management consultants" I presume we're talking about recruitment agencies

You're definition of "management consultants" is pretty narrow. In this case, it may be a recruitment agency, but more likely, these are consultants who work for a management consulting company (e.g. Deloitte, Accenture, PwC to name the big boys, but there are plenty of boutiques) who have been contracted by the poster's company for a relatively short term project or need. I should know, I am one. They are also not necessarily "The Bobs" from Office Space who are just there to clean house. While I have been on projects where we are looking to improve efficiency, laying off people is not our decision, nor is it even our goal. Even if having someone leave was in the best interests of the client, the issue is way too sensitive for the consultants to even hint at with that individual. My guess is that the poster has become chummy with the consultants and they were simply offering some free career advice. If they were actually hinting that this guy should leave because it would be good for their client/project, then a certainly hope they don't work for the same consultancy that I do.

Given that, you are right that management consultants would say this, because in the world of consulting, it is generally better to switch companies than to move up internally. This, however, does not necessarily hold true for non-consultants. The reason this is in consulting, is because the work is all project based. You work on one project for anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple years and then you move on to the next project. The next project may be with an entirely different team in an entirely different subject area. So what's the difference if your next project is with your current employer or a new employer? Sure there are a lot of benefits to staying where you are, but often, moving to another company nets you a big pay increase. Plus, since this is common practice, you might even be working with some of your old colleagues at the new company. Consulting companies have always had an incestuous relationship with one another. In fact, most consulting companies have an open door policy, where if you leave, you are welcome to come back any time. I have colleagues who have left the company for a competitor and then come back a few years later, netting 20% pay increases and promotions each time.

So yes, in consulting, moving to a new company is often the best way to go, but that is due to the general nature of the consulting industry and may not be a good indicator for someone outside of consulting.

Re:Well, they would say that ...

[metlin]

Management consultant here. I usually help companies define their market strategy, find new ways of increasing revenue, new market research, customer segmentation and all that fun stuff.

One of the biggest advantages as a management consultant is that you've a direct channel to client executives and senior leadership. As a result, once you're done with the travel, it makes a lot of sense for you to settle down and take up a job in a leadership position at a client.

Plus, management consultants are aggressive Type A people and notorious workaholics, which works out great for both the company and the guy switching. Better yet, you can always use your consulting network to help solve problems you may encounter.

dup

[ccabanne]

come on

Two answers

[mangu]

This is a quantum type of problem. The answer to the first story was Promotion, the answer to this one is Job Change

Re:Two answers

[Just Brew It!]

So after enough people have seen both stories one of them disappears?

Re:Two answers

[MadKeithV]

No, but the promoted person dies.

You have to ask?

[Virtucon]

Subterfuge. It works every time. When I started in this industry nearly 33 years ago it was your attitude and your quality of work that determined your path of promotion and success. Nowadays the people I work with are more interested in Social Networking, gossip and "Diversity." It's not just in IT but all industries within white collar environments. The smart players keep their head down, know when to throw in a political jab and to document failures and whine about the mistakes of others. Don't sell it short but schmoozing pays too.

        Don't get me wrong, I still consider myself successful, it's just now I work as a consultant and get to watch this go on all the time. It never ceases to amaze me when my clients promote some of the worst folks that I've ever seen and watch the ensuing anger and confusion it causes. You see if you want to get ahead in an organization you need to not create too many waves. That's for entrepreneurs and companies that want to be progressive. By and large, most organizations just want peace and quiet with the associated slow, I mean really slow, progress that it promotes.

        If you're aggressive and talented, don't get into a large organization. You'll be frustrated and upset with the politics that go on and constantly in bewilderment at why Joe down the hall who hasn't produced anything in 4 years and who's last major project was a disaster is now a VP.

Re:You have to ask?

[David Off]

> and constantly in bewilderment at why Joe down the hall who hasn't produced anything in 4 years and who's last major project was a disaster is now a VP.

As you allude, and contrary to popular wisdom, those are the guys to watch. If they've survived 4 years in an organisation without producing anything tangible they must have a lot of powerful friends. You have less trouble with the producers, because they are doing stuff the scope for doing something wrong is much greater.

Re:You have to ask?

[Maximum Prophet]

Subterfuge. It works every time. When I started in this industry nearly 33 years ago it was your attitude and your quality of work that determined your path of promotion and success.

It's always been this way, since before the Roman Empire. When you are young, attitude and your quality of work do make a difference. Alternatively you can get ahead if your dad owns the business.

When people get older, they tend to get more conservative. They tend to get locked into where they live, and what they do. That means less risk taking, less wave making. Once people find a comfortable job close to where they live, they'll settle into a groove and learn politics. There's a lot of political power in being able to quit anytime. The reverse is true, if your direct supervisor knows you won't quit no matter what, there's no reason for him to give you a raise or not overload you.

Management consultants...oh yeah

[Lord_of_the_nerf]

What's the difference between a shopping trolley and a consultant?

You can fit more food and wine into a consultant but at least a shopping trolley has a mind of it's own.

Re:quick dupe...

[johnsnails]

Yeah I noticed this as well. One of the best topics every time it comes up on /., so more the merrier eh?

Re:quick dupe...

[dam.capsule.org]

It's no matter/antimatter problem. I'm pretty sure these dupes are part of an experiment about transmitting information at speed greater then light by quantum entanglement of slashdot stories. It will make the headline in popsci next week...

career advice

[cthlptlk]

--if you want a job in management, try failing as a programmer or admin
--if you want to avoid firing (or laying off) people, don't go into management
--if you want to avoid winding up with a job jacking off elephants at the zoo, don't look for career advice on slashdot

Change

[bbroerman]

In almost 20 years as a developer, I've noticed that the best means of obtaining a promotion and pay increase has been to change companies. This also seems constant between small companies and fortune 500 companies...

Quit.

[jafiwam]

Quit.

It's as simple as that.

Quit, after finding another job that is.

Promotion means shit if it doesn't produce more money. And in 20 years in the business my best raises came from the old FU to the previous employer to move on. Even the smallest job switch is still over twice the dollars of any 5 year period of "raises". Even when promotions come, or more likely some "redefined job description" BS that includes all the higher up's work (or more likely, the work of some fool that knows some higher up who's dead weight they finally couldn't tolerate anymore) but no change in status, power, or pay. 30%, 50% jumps in salary just DONT HAPPEN unless you are the CEO or similar. If you are still a tech in any way, there's little extra money room to go for.

So quit. Make sure you are always polishing your resume, and getting skills that can be written down and skip over the company specific complicated crap you can't take with you. (Hint: if you learn their proprietary and crappy system well, guess what you'll be doing for the rest of your stay there? Being invaluable at your job means no promotion. Be good but not in a way that keeps you down.)

Change Employer

[scottfk]

I don't know about other companies, but where I work (major financial services firm) "advancement" only means increased workload and responsibility -- it is not reflected in your paycheck. If you change employers you can expect a pay raise anyway (~15%), and you can argue for a bigger bump still to match your new responsibilities.

Leave on good terms, and you can always hop back to your previous employer in a few years to advance (in responsibility *and* in pay) again.

It depends

[jsprenkle]

Are you a real tech head or just in it for a high paying career?

A tech focused individual should change jobs. They are almost certainly very poor managers and almost no companies offer promotions unless you go to management. It's a common misconception but their knowledge of technology does not make them a better manager.

A careerist should take promotions to management.

Re:It depends

[Lumpy]

I am both. because I discovered you cant afford the full tech head toys on the techie salary. If you are a real tech head, you have to have the high 5 or low 6 digit salary in order to afford the real fun toys.

The grass is always greener..

[biodata]

People recruiting for a job almost always think that the unknown person is better than the known, because they don't know the faults of the unknown person. You will always do better by moving due to human nature and bias.

Re:Gaping Whole

[TaoPhoenix]

Gaping Wholes are the Paradigm Shifts that the submitter is wrestling with!

Is it worth the money?

[XxtraLarGe]

I know my manager makes probably 50% more that I do, but she's in meetings over half the time she's here, has boatloads of reports to file, etc. She's also salaried, (I'm hourly), so she often has to put in more than 40 hours. I hate meetings & paperwork, so I often tell her I'm glad I don't have her job, and she says I'm welcome to it any time I'd like.

If you're just looking for extra income, I'd strongly recommend checking into your local community college and seeing if they have any openings for adjuncts in technology courses. I teach a couple of computer courses and its easy money, and its also pretty fun.

Change jobs

[willith]

I'm 33, and I've worked for a single large aerospace company since getting my undergrad degree 11 years ago. I started off as a desktop support guy making $42k, and then was bumped to $43k after a year, then to $45k after another year, then to $46k after another year. In late 2004 I was promoted to junior sysadmin and was bumped to $50k, and through yearly raises got that up to $55k by 2006, when I transferred formally from sysadmin to the enterprise architect side of the house. That got me a bump to $68k, which brought me up to the minimum salary level for that position, and then between 2006 and mid-2010 the pay rose to $74k through those yearly incremental raises.

In 2010 I was a senior architect, making decisions that directly affected the technology direction of a Fortune 50 company with $65B in revenue, making $74k a year. It was nice, of course, and the job was fun, but the compensation just hadn't scaled to the job. There were other benefits--outstanding and near-zero-cost insurance, stock, a functioning pension program, and as near a thing to stability as it's possible to get in an American job--but I wanted more money, so I left. Now I work as a presales engineer (that's "engineer," not real engineer) at one of the same vendors that used to sell to me, making $120k. I would have had to stay at the first job for another 20 years to hit the same level of salary. More, I left on excellent terms, and I wouldn't mind going back there some day.

This experience echoes that of my much-older peers at the aerospace job, where I was one of the only folks in the group less than 50 years old. All of them, without exception, had left at some point for between 1-5 years and then come back, bringing with them a large salary bump. Even in a company that gives you near-guaranteed 2-5% incremental raises, the only way to get a massive salary increase is by leaving.

Re:Change jobs

[BoRictor]

++++1!

If you really want the Big Bucks(tm) though you're better to go the independent contractor route. If you can bill yourself out at a high enough rate (and get a good accountant to find those tax loopholes!) you'll be laughing all the way to the bank.

Plus as an indie you can stay out of all the office politics that always go on at every company and if you don't like where you are, find another gig. With enough xp this should be easy enough in our industry.

Re:Change jobs

[jomama717]

When I started as a lowly tech support/junior developer at a software company making $39k in Chicago it didn't take long for me to realize that I needed more money. I did good work for 3 months then asked to sit down with my manager and laid out a case for more money including evidence of similar jobs in the market that paid much more, and evidence of my own good work and accomplishments - this resulted in a 25% pay increase after 3 months on the job. I left that job 3 years later around $70k, took a consulting gig at $75k, pulled off a similar bargain shortly thereafter and left at $85. In the two jobs since the same tactics have gotten me around $115k, and I'm in a position to ride this up and continue techie work, or go the mgmt/lead route and make much more.

The moral of this story is when you think you should be making more money, just tell your company that. I've never heard of anyone getting fired for asking for a raise. Even if you don't deserve it the worst they will do is say no, and then you leave on your own. It's a business, they will do everything they can to hire you below your worth - all you have to do is call them on it - if you're worth it they will gladly pony up the cash.

Re:Change jobs

[JohnnyConatus]

For anyone reading this: yes, change jobs. You can never be a prophet in your hometown and the value of being new and an outsider is valuable, even when you're selling yourself

For the author, if you were getting paid $74k in 2010 to be an architect - be it software, hardware, or network - you were getting tremendously screwed.

Re:Change jobs

[Anonymous Custard]

Boeing?

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2010/snapshots/59.html

Did hell freeze over?

[J4]

Where am I? Since when is aspiring to management a slashdot thing?
I thought suits were to be distrusted and ridiculed?

Re:Did hell freeze over?

[steelfood]

Suits are to be distrusted. But middle management plays an important role in a company. Too many layers is a problem, but upper management simply doesn't have the time to deal with the wants and needs of every productive employee. Middle management is meant to bridge that gap, to provide the attention needed to the individual worker bees, while filtering those same needs from upper management.

A good manager is one who's capable of understanding the technical (and hence the needs of the technical) and also good at communicating those needs to upper management in a way that the typically non-technical upper management can understand. It's not a common ability, which is why most managers are non-technical in nature, and thus projects get bungled, wrong decisions are made, employees become disgruntled, etc.

Re:Did hell freeze over?

[MaWeiTao]

If you want long term job security you damn well had better aspire to management.

The people I know who've stuck to the same roles for 10+ years have seriously stagnated. They haven't expanded their skill set and are so dependent on their current job that if they ever laid off they'd be seriously screwed. They're too expensive given their now limited set of skills.

It may be possible to thrive without ever getting into management or starting your own business, but it's certainly a challenge.

Re:Did hell freeze over?

[DerekLyons]

It's like the old saying "Don't trust anyone over thirty" - you're point of view changes when you hit thirty yourself.

A lot to do...

[warGod3]

If one is interested in making the change to management, especially in IT, first you have to identify the skills, experience, and qualifications within your company for similar management positions. If you meet these qualifications, by all means apply for positions, both within your company and outside of your company. During your reviews, let your superiors know that you are interested in making the transition to management and ask them what kind of route they took to get that position. Doing that allows you to subtly let them know of your desire to progress and it puts them at ease by having them talk about themselves.

Now, if you want to progress into a position outside of your company, you will need to make sure that you have identified management qualities that other companies look for and tailor your resume to those qualifications. One thing that you could that might help you out would be to simply open your own side business. This shows others that you know how to manage and run your own business (even if the business isn't IT related).

Progressing within a company, regardless of the size, can be a difficult thing. It is frequently said that it's not what you know, it's who you know or who you blow. So make sure that your friends at work are not the kind of people that are anywhere near being any kind of troublemaker or bad influence or on someone's shit list. That will keep from being promoted just as fast as you being a shithead.

It's not about being liked

[plopez]

It's about being effective. If you can be effective and liked for that effectiveness, that's good. All-in-all, this makes managing people you do not know easier.

Also, even if you don't have to do your old job you can get pigeon holed at your place of employment. You can be the person known only as the "foo expert" and expected to solve their problems in that area. It's better to start fresh.

If you want to go down the management track I suggest you learn and develop soft skills, including negotiation skills. A project management and accounting class or two would also help.

Follow the dilbert school of management

[Anonymous Coward]

Just barely do you job and get certifications only in the path YOU want to go. Then come promotion time you are the least valuable member of the team and hence can be promoted.

Move to a new company is the best way. Just leave on good terms as then you can return after a few years if you really want to.

From my experience I am best at what I do and have be officially recognized for my contributions to projects but that has the detrimental effect of type casting me. Come promotion time I have been told straight up that I am to valuable where I am and the risk is to high to move me and try to replace me. I typical then ask for a simple 25% raise. They follow up by saying it would hurt but they could replace me for finical reasons only and I should be happy that I I have a job and get paid for it. So I look for work out side the company in the direction I want my career to take. It is difficult because my current employer refuses to give me any opportunities in that direction.

If you are a hard worker and feel you really deserve the promotion (I mean really truly believe it and know it) then your only choice is to leave. It is obvious that YOUR career plans and what your employer's career plans differ. I know for myself the only way to get ahead is to leave a company I generally like and some of the best co-workers and friends I have ever had. But it about your life and what is best for you... not what is best for the company.

Reinventing Yourself

[InsertCleverUsername]

Sounds like an awful waste... But if you're completely burnt out on the technical side, I guess it's either management or recruiting --assuming you have the soft skills. My advice, in changing job functions or your entire public persona, is that you need to make a clean break. Coworkers at your current job will have difficulty not thinking of you in your old role and it may be difficult and alienating to go from comrade to boss. (I have seen some people pull this off by erecting an emotional wall overnight. We missed the old coworker and they didn't seem happy with the loss of their work friends.) Familiarity has a way of persisting the same behaviors; with new people and a new environment you have no habits or preconceptions to fight.

Yes

[hoppo]

Particularly in IT, every situation is unique. Changing jobs can enable you to broaden your knowledge and skills, but it can also mean a bunch of lateral moves. Promotion can show a progression in your career, but that can often lead to dead end middle management paper pushing. It really depends on what you're looking to do, and what the climate is like in your current situation. I hate to speak in such useless platitudes, but you really have to look at your own fulfillment, and decide for yourself whether you can find opportunity to achieve it in your current company, or if you should look elsewhere.

Re:Well this is depressing

[digsbo]

Where do you live? What do you do? Do you want to change your situation, or are you resigned to it?

Re:quick dupe...

[sorak]

No, he's currently busy filing a patent on Slashdot's new SpeedDupe(TM) technology. Then he'll sue Twitter for millions, because their users have memories just as short as his.

Then he can sue them again. If someone does complain, he can say "this isn't double jeopardy, I'm just retweeting the last suit".

From my experiance

[DarthVain]

They don't promote anymore. I kept waiting and it never happened. Managers are happy to just giving more and more work and responsibilities, while only giving you incremental pay increases. If you want to get ahead, change jobs, multiple times. I think it is sad, but it is apparently how things work now. The most successful people seem to now only stay long enough in a position in order to put it on their resume and then move on. The crazy thing is, it usually takes longer than their tenure to actually finish large projects, so they never really finish anything. Perhaps get your underlings to finish a project that your predecessor left, and then claim the credit, and move on. This is how people are rewarded now.

The answer is ALWAYS to leave

[euroq]

A lot of commentors here have discussed lots of different interesting topics, but I thought I might offer this advice.

All things being equal, you are better of salary-wise to leave than to wait for promotions.

Not only does my experience along with many other people I know confirm this, I know more than one headhunter who also confirm this. I hate to tell you an anecdote about my own personal experience, but it won't hurt: every time I have been laid off (twice now and I'm not even 30) I've received a massive pay raise. I just recently got promoted 2 weeks ago and got a mere 8% pay raise. When I have been laid off I've gotten a 20% and 30% pay raise.

Think like a chess game. . .

[jafac]

. . . and think about what your opponent (management) will be thinking.
And they will be thinking: "The devil we know, is better than the devil we don't."
That is: the employee they have. You are the devil they DO know. And can take advantage of, who knows the job, and is somewhat entangled, socially, and entrapped, are a better deal for them. However - most employers don't *know* this. Or they do - but they don't show it, in the compensation, advancement, and opportunity department. But this is really one of the huge reasons why employees get "stuck" at one level. Why promote an employee when you'll have to invest in a replacement?

So, go to a new employer -- you become the devil they do not know.
You bring all that the previous employer valued (and failed to reward you for) to the table. The new employer should be rewarding you for bringing that.

All this said - every time I have had an internal promotion, it has been a huge disappointment, mostly.

Every time I have had a "forced" job change, it's been a decline in pay or compensation, one way or another.

When I have changed employers on my own, it's always been somewhat of a risky proposition, (you never know if there are going to be bad factors; unreliable or psycho bosses or coworkers . . . bad business model. . . bad market position. . . etc.) but it's ALWAYS been a huge bump in salary and standard of living for me.

Even in tech track your best option is to leave.

[drummania]

Especially when the current job does not match your level of capability. I graduated in 2009 (the worst possible time) with a PhD in EE and joined a large software company as an entry level QA. The pay was pretty good for that level but did not at all match my capabilities. I got a pay level promotion that amounts to 6% increase in salary. It was a joke. After the "promotion" I still make less than people who join at same level as my after-promotion level. It will take 7+ years within the company for me to advance to senior level. I left in 2010 to join another internet company as a Sr. dev, making a 50% more salary.

Job Change

[blair1q]

You can convince someone who doesn't already rent your productivity that it's worth 10-20% more. You may be able to convince someone who does already own your time that it's worth 1-2% more, in the current market. And you can grow old and die waiting for the time-serving droid in the boss' seat to grow old and die.

Depends on employer

[DaveGod]

3 broad categories of employer (with the usual pros and cons of stereotyping):

1. The Screw gradually steps up responsibilities and workload without corresponding increase in pay & conditions. Key here is the gradual stepping up which is never individually enough to warrant being called - or pay increased as - a promotion, however each year you can compare to the previous one and realise you're doing a lot more for little extra money. "Turning the screw" tends to be more common with smaller businesses, you'll notice a corporate culture against disclosing pay with colleagues and it's probably a faux pas to raise pay with management, even at appraisals. Here you get promoted by leaving and joining a new company every few years, starting off the new job at about par (similar responsibilities, much better pay) before they start turning the screw.

2. The Slave-Driver ridiculously overworks staff without paid overtime, or even TOIL, incentivised with the promise of fast promotion. Promotions are incremental and usually not much of a pay bump, though they might look bigger when they forget to mention it includes the annual inflation increase. Actual performance doesn't matter so much, just whore yourself and you'll keep being promoted until you are over-promoted to the point that your undeniable incompetence is such a risk to others that they make your life hell until you quit. More common with large companies where HR is the friend that leaves you wondering who needs enemies; beware job adverts highlighting 'career opportunities'. Trying to find a new job elsewhere isn't really a promotion route, it's a horizontal move if looking for a type of work or conditions better suited to your personally (i.e. you're over-promoted or you realise there's more to life than these bastards).

3. Yes, there are actually some employers who increase pay and give promotions as and when deserved... Or would like to, anyway. Such employers are looking long term, understand the value of retaining staff experience and the costs of obtaining and training new. However, it is easy for the employee to mistake this for a screw-turner as naturally everyone over-estimates both their own worth and how green the grass is elsewhere; we have an innate assumption that we're being screwed, usually true but a false belief in this case. The employer is also very likely to be restricted by available opportunities - they know you could do a manager's job, want you to do a managers job but simply have neither an opening nor the money. While you may have to resort to getting a new job to be promoted or else find yourself going nowhere, do understand what a rare gem you have found. Typically a small to medium non-public company.

OK, so there's a 4th:

4. Cushy places where pay is a bit low but you spend half the day on the interwebs and "coffee and cake mornings" are considered important meetings. They might even be called a team-building exercise, which is strange because it's mostly that bitchy gossip that you get from people who are deeply unfulfilled by their 'career', lack any sense of genuine achievement and are so devoid of real stress that they have to go create some. Often easily identified by their gibberish emails using some cartoonish font, because they actually have time for that and don't understand being professional. Most however continue to believe they are underpaid, commonly comparing their salary with advertised (i.e. outlier) salaries no matter how obvious it is that those jobs come with 65 manic hours per week while subject #4 simply has no comprehension of what a hard day's work is for everyone else. As alluded to, this is probably the worst employer of all.