This is a follow up to the article I wrote way back in July 2016 on the real story of a friend of mine who’s got 9 jobs in 2 years.
There has been quite some feedback including some readers who emailed me directly. Interestingly, most of them including the comments in KC Lau’s blog point to one thing: Attitude.
But what if I tell you this charming lady possesses a great attitude – She is hardworking and knowledgeable in her area of work; she is brilliant as she was the recipient of some scholarship awards that financed her entire university education in Structural Engineering. She is also quite helpful as she will share her knowledge.
How do I get to know all these?
Because we are ex – colleagues (though for a short period of time). When the feedback suggests she has an attitude problem, we decided to dive deeper to explore what the root causes are. She introspected her real motive in each and every career move she had done and we concluded there is one huge mistake she made: She has forgotten what she is chasing and get lost along the way.
She always wanted to polish her technical skills and aimed to handle more complex technical work, but she didn’t realize as she moves up the ladder technical skills matter less and she needs to spend most of the time managing people – the Client, the bosses and the direct reports. Every time when she accepted a new position she is thrilled with the new salary and she would fall in this trap which is a moronically simplistic notion defined by the mass of the society – Higher salary means the ultimate success.
I have had this experience where I bumped into my old classmate years ago and she had achieved financial success way better than I did. Without a second thought, I got myself a new job that offered some 20% more in salary; I thought that would be the solution to my situation. After taking up the new roles for a couple of months, I came to realize I still got stuck in a similar situation; what I needed was a new platform to grow and widen my horizon. Needless to say I left the organization in a few months time.
Now I am not advocating money is not important, in fact I think all top performers deserved the top dollar. But it’s meaningless when money is the only reason that we go to work every day. When we go to work because we ‘have to’ and not because we ‘want to’, and our jobs no longer align with who we want to be, this is a sure fire way to get upset miserable in our career lives.
Coming back to this charming lady; she now recognizes she values technical excellence more than management functions. She was supposed to oversee the team to ensure everyone meets deadlines, and not getting herself deeply involved in all design tasks. And now it makes a lot of sense the immediate past few jobs where she was resuming the Project Manager role is not a right fit for her. She doesn’t enjoy managing people, she knew in the bottom of her heart she is not good in communicating with people. When she couldn’t handle her job functions well, doesn’t matter how brilliant she is, the boss will always be difficult and she will always be miserable. It is in this downward spiral she is currently trapped.
When she asked herself the right question:
What is the one thing she values the most? Everything seems to be crystal clear. She wants to pursue a technical route that normally presents some taxing challenges. She still longs for the sense of accomplishment whenever a complex technical issue is resolved.
After identifying the right choice, the next thing is to have realistic expectation on the chosen path. She knows very well technical position is very demanding in terms of commitment and the working hour can be long as compared to the current management role. She is ready for a life that is ‘not-so- work-life- balance’ than continue to get stuck in a role that she doesn’t enjoy at all.
Milliw is right about being realistic; but it works better after we know what our choice is. You may be wondering: How is she doing right now? Well, she still sticks to the 9th job and is still miserable with the PM role, but she had initiated a discussion with her boss 2 months ago. The discussion went pretty well as the boss acknowledged her strength in technical skills; despite the fact he wasn’t too happy with her performance on her current role. There is a plan to restructure her role within the organisation by early next year, and based on the latest update from her last week – She is now be given increasing technical responsibility which is a good sign.
The key things we learned today are:
1. We must know what we are after, always keep that in mind and never lose sight of that along the journey
2. Set realistic expectations in terms of commitment or what we are willing to sacrifice after identifying our chosen path. Based on the lessons above, what is the one biggest insight that you can take to immediately improve your career or any area of your life?
This article is contributed by Deanie, the founder of Deanieyap.com. She believes everyone possesses the potential to create an extraordinary life. When she is not busy with her day job as Structural Engineer, she enjoys writing life & career advices for ambitious people.
