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?

Job Advice You Might Need One DayAfter 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

Job Advice You Might Need One DayIf 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.

Job Advice You Might Need One DayI 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.

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Dave @ Accidental FIRE

I reached financial independence and semi-retired in my mid-40's through hard work, smart living, and investing. This blog chronicles my journey and explores many aspects of personal finance including the psychological and behavioral factors that drive our habits.

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24 Responses

  1. Great advice, Dave. A C-level boss once took a big step of faith with me, as well. I said “yes”, jumped some rungs, and never regretted the decision.

  2. Xrayvsn says:

    My fiancee has been rocketing up the corporate ladder as well and I’m sure she feels some heat from people who have been at the company longer that she quickly surpassed.

    Talent recognizes talent and if you have it you should accept any promotion thrown your way

  3. i remember about 20 years ago the president of my little company tried to get me to stay by offering up some plant management position of our small plant. i knew i could do the work and the people in charge were regular straightforward no BS people like me. it was tempting but i left because the future mrs. smidlap lived 4.5 hours away. i don’t regret it but it reminds me of your move.

    then i got to the big conglomerate type place where i work today and i’m betting it’s a lot like the gub’mint bureaucracy. even if they wanted me in management (they don’t) i wouldn’t last a week. sometimes its better to be a peon,

    • Dave @ Accidental FIRE says:

      we still have yet to meet, but in reading a ton of your writing and exploits I’m guessing you wouldn’t like managing. You’re a no b.s. guy, managing always involves a decent portion of b.s.

  4. Great points. I said yes most of my career and it accelerated my path. But I do recall one no to a position high in our Corp structure that may have been a game changer…. You are definitely right about stretching when you have a supportive mentor/boss.

    • Dave @ Accidental FIRE says:

      Sometimes ‘no’ is the right answer too though, so you might have been right on that one as well.

  5. Mr. Fate says:

    Great post, Dave and excellent advice. I, too, was exceptionally fortunate twice in my career when someone believed in me to give me a rare opportunity. I said ‘yes’ and never looked back. I still tell them to this day, even retired, that they made my career and how grateful I am.

    • Dave @ Accidental FIRE says:

      Very cool that you still talk to those folks. The exec from my post is retired but I do have his email, I should reach out.

  6. Joe says:

    I’ll forward this to Mrs. RB40. 😉

  7. Steveark says:

    Although I loved troubleshooting and the elegance involved in chemical engineering design the real money was always in management. When I hit the top job at 41 all of my direct reports were older than me, and were people I had worked with for the previous 20 years. I continued to give them the same respect I always had and had no problems.

    • Dave @ Accidental FIRE says:

      All of my reports we older than me a well. While I gave them respect, they sometimes didn’t reciprocate. As I mentioned, skipping rungs in the government is offensive to most old-schoolers.

  8. onepercentbetter says:

    This is great advice – I turned down high-paying leadership positions three times before finally going for it. Sure, it was high stress and I’m glad I don’t have to do that again, but that pay raise helped me get to financial independence, and I learned a ton in the role. In retrospect, I wish I would have trusted bosses that believed in me and went for those leadership positions earlier.

    • Dave @ Accidental FIRE says:

      Glad you decided to go for it in the end. Making those decisions can be tough for sure in the moment

  9. Dan F. says:

    Dave, first time poster long time reader here. I also live in the DC area and work for a govt contractor. I can totally relate to the burracratic culture you are describing about not being “allowed” to jump rungs on the ladder. Working as a contractor may allow people to hop companies to skip rungs but it always takes someone to notice your talent. Therefore, I agree with a previous comment that “talent recognizes talent”.

    I enjoy reading your post and hope to be a great cyclist like yourself some day.

    • Dave @ Accidental FIRE says:

      Cool, glad to see another D.C. area reader, thanks for reading! And haha, but I’m not a great cyclist – those are the ones you see on TV riding around France in June. I’m just a weekend warrior, but I’d like to think I’m a pretty good one of those :

  10. Chris@TTL says:

    Good one, Dave.

    I’ve personally worked with and then encouraged others to take on larger responsibilities, often where I had the authority to directly offer them the responsibility, only to be turned down because they felt overwhelmed or illequipped.

    There’s some real risk aversion to “moving up the ladder” in the corporate world. It’s surprising.

    Then again, maybe they just didn’t want all that responsibility 😉

    • Dave @ Accidental FIRE says:

      There’s something to be said about avoiding that extra responsibility and staying in a role that your more comfortable with. In many cases those roles are what keep the company or organization going, not the management.

  11. Annie says:

    Moving up several levels and gaining more responsibility/work/stress but with no increase in pay? Yeah no.

    • Dave @ Accidental FIRE says:

      Ha, “yeah no” is a phrase I use on t-shirt designs a lot… While I don’t recommend more work for no extra pay as a regular thing to do, I do think it’s a good thing to do in certain circumstances and it worked wonders for me. I posted about it a while back.

  12. Mrs. FCB says:

    I hear you on government jobs! The inability to skip rungs on the ladder or get promoted early for being awesome incentivizes mediocrity. It feels good to be noticed, but I’m proudly in the camp that intentionally makes sure to not get noticed too much–because I don’t want more responsibility without considerably more pay. But I’m impressed by people like you who are still willing to take that leap. Nice job.

    • Dave @ Accidental FIRE says:

      Lots of things in the government system incentivize mediocrity, it’s sometimes painful to see. I alwyas tried to rise above and focus on myself and my performance. It worked, usually…

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