Is all work "a pie-eating contest where first prize is more pie" now?

Post date: 2019-11-12 02:51:35

This phrase used to be how lawyers joked about what it was like to advance in their industry, but it's starting to feel like all work is this way. Are there exceptions?

I'm pretty good at my job. It's in tech, but it's not coding. But I haven't seen any movement in my career for the better part of a decade. I get paid in the low six figures, well enough as a manager with three good directs, and money isn't that important to me. But I also feel a little stagnant.

I've seen less accomplished and less competent colleagues get promoted and get more responsibility just because they were willing to put in more hours, and their title and pay goes up but their work week goes from 40 hours a week to forever on call. I would be wiling to bet they were now making less on an hourly basis.

I thought I'd be able to increase the value of my time to my employer by going to business school part time, while avoiding those long hours, but life hasn't panned out that way. I could probably increase my salary by multiples by going into finance with the MBA, but the marginal costs on my non-work time don't make that exchange attractive.

I'd like more responsibility and remuneration, based on experience and acquired wisdom, but it seems like so much of the world doesn't work that way anymore. To move into management or to employ my MBA, means sacrificing my humane work week.

I suppose once I get used to those 50 to 80 hour work weeks, I might be able to get more money and responsibility for that experience and acquired wisdom. But I don't even want to go there. Is this what you have found as well, and is there any way around it?

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