Job Advice You Might Need One Day

A frequent complaint of the personal finance community is that it’s too focused on frugality and not enough on earning more money.  I attempted to address this issue from my perspective with a post detailing things I did to get ahead in my career and move up faster than others. 

In that post I focused on some very important behaviors and practices that really got me ahead.  But while reflecting on my career recently, it occurred to me that I missed a big one.  It’s not as specific as the others or something that you can necessarily start doing tomorrow, but it’s something that everyone will likely have the opportunity to do. 

 

Me?

After working my way up to senior analyst at my agency I reluctantly took a first line supervisor job.  My own supervisor retired, and my team was good but needed better leadership.  The last supervisor wasn’t bad per se, he was just spectacularly mediocre.  He knew many things needed changing but didn’t want to rock the boat to do it.

So next thing you know I was in charge of the very teammates that I had been working with.  That’s not an easy thing to do but I really I wanted to change things.  I told myself I could always go back to being an analyst. 

Of course I immediately started rocking the boat and making changes.  When I see a stupid or wasteful practice or something that can be improved, I fix it.  What I was doing rubbed some people the wrong way, but most agreed with the changes.  

Then one day I got a call from a senior executive in an entirely different business unit of my agency.  He got right to the point. 

Executive – “Dave, I’ve seen some of the changes you’ve made in your team and heard great things about it from others.  I think what you’re doing is spot on.  My technology office chief departed recently and the job is vacant, I think you’d be great for the position.  Whaddya think?”

Me – “Me?  Office chief?  Uhh.. I’ll have to think about it since I haven’t been in this position for too long.  Can I get back to you?”

Executive – “Sure, let me know!” 

It was the best “stall answer” I had at the moment. 

 

This Is Not How It’s Supposed To Work

If you’ve never worked in the Federal Government, you don’t realize how hierarchical it is.  It’s a super old-school culture of line and block charts.  And you’re expected to serve your time at each rung on the ladder on the way up – even if you’re good. 

You don’t skip rungs, that’s verboten.

This executive obviously didn’t care too much for the “this is how we’ve always done it” mentality.  I knew him and respected him, he was one of our best. 

I was a first line supervisor, and those typically lead 8-15 people.  There’s no budget, it’s just basic supervision. 

An office chief however typically leads 70 – 250 people or more with multiple divisions.  He or she usually has a huge budget, many projects, legal responsibilities, and supervises other managers. 

Between first line supervisor and office chief are the “mandatory” ladder rungs of deputy division chief, division chief, and deputy office chief.  Those are not necessarily pay changes, just rungs of increasing responsibility.

This executive was offering me a position that jumped three rungs of the ladder.  It came with no increase in pay because I was at the same general pay scale of the position.  It was just tons more responsibility. 

And in a stodgy culture where you’re not supposed to do things like this, it was the equivalent of bringing Mad Dog 20/20 and a bag of Doritos to a Hamptons cocktail party and then peeing in the pool. 

People are going to notice, and get upset.

 

Someone Believes In You

So what is this work advice I’m telling a long story to get to? 

When someone you respect and who’s in a position of authority believes in you enough to ask you to take a position you’ve never considered or that you think is over your head, you should take it.

I had never managed a budget in my federal career, or my entire career for that matter.  Hell, I’ve never even had a personal budget!!

If you’ve ever dealt with a budget in a federal job you know how massively difficult and bureaucratic it is.  Getting any money spent requires navigating a complex maze of procedural hurdles and reams and reams of paperwork (yes, often still on paper, with fax machines!!). 

I had also not been supervising for very long, and now I was being offered a position to be in charge of about 70 people including experienced managers, most whom had been with the government longer than me. 

Do you think some of those veteran managers took offense to this?  Is a frog’s ass water-tight? 

Well, I accepted the job.  It didn’t even take me much time to make the decision.  I knew I had to get out of my comfort zone and take some risk.  And since I respected the executive who offered it and would be reporting to him I knew he’d help me along.

 

Mixed Reviews

I’m semi-retired and gave up that job to get where I am now, a happier place.  How did the job actually go?  I posted about it so I don’t need to rehash it here.  It’s one of my most popular posts.

Regardless of the foul taste it left in my mouth, I learned a lot and I still think I made a good decision to accept it.  Just the sheer process of diving into the difficult unknown boosted my confidence. 

The position did teach me tons about dealing with large teams.  It’s just that I don’t want to have to practice those new skills for the Federal Government going forward.  Because the Federal Government creates an environment in which it’s really difficult to perform them well.  More bluntly, they suck at it.

Maybe companies in the private sector do it better, but in the government the day to day of the job and the often inane bureaucracy got the best of me.  Much of it is the epitome of a bullshit job.

I still had some great learning experiences in the position and it contributed to my professional and personal development. 

The takeaway from my experience is that one day someone who’s not your Mother is going to show confidence in you and maybe ask you to do something you hadn’t considered.  When that happens, consider it. 

It might be a good decision.