Writer Jennifer Romolini's latest book "Ambition Monster" is a cautionary tale about how ambition can take over your life and leave you burnt-out and disillusioned. She spent years being relentlessly ambitious, until she was unexpectedly fired one day and realised her ambition was destroying her. "The illusion was broken for me. I knew that the big jobs were bullshit. That they were like a stress prison."
I spent many years as a bookseller, and I was very happy doing the hands-on stuff like serving customers, stocking shelves and recommending books. I had no desire to be a manager, stuck in some office poring over sales figures or CVs, and dealing with feuding employees. That would just be unrewarding drudgery.
I've done all sorts of jobs over the years, but management never appealed to me. When I was doing admin work for a social services department it was obvious that the office manager was severely overworked and severely stressed and I had no desire to go the same way. She may have enjoyed a huge salary but at a heavy cost.
If I was starting work today, I would probably have to take pressurised high-salary jobs just to keep up with the rising cost of living. I was lucky to be working at a time when a modest salary was enough to keep me solvent and pay the bills. But that's no longer the case.
Best thing that ever happened to me was I was fired from a high-stress management job. I then formed my own company and hired my own staff. It was busy but I only reported to myself and it opened amazing other doorways in my life.
ReplyDeleteXO
WWW
www: Sounds like getting fired was the best thing that ever happened work-wise.
DeleteI worked for myself, enjoyed what I did and did not take on too much at a time as my sector rarely required urgency. However I did see colleagues burn out, ambition to afford the high life which meant making a name for themselves taking a heavy toll on them.
ReplyDeleteFly: Why are people so obsessed with the "high life"? Isn't an ordinary, comfortable life enough for them?
DeleteMy first job after college was in management and I enjoyed the work aspect of it and the people. Not so much the hours.
ReplyDeleteBijoux: I take it you had to do a lot of extra hours to keep up with your workload?
DeleteThe corporate world was not meant for me. I have had ambition but none of it was money related, unless you include my spending money. Horses, you know. Certainly not the high life!
ReplyDeleteSandra: A love of horses sounds a lot healthier than a love of management!
DeleteMy Dave worked for many years in IT for one company. When they wanted to promote him to manager, he refused. He liked his job but would have hated management. Fortunately, they kept promoting him within the IT department without requiring he go into management. He was too good for them to risk losing him.
ReplyDeleteLinda
Linda: Looks like that worked out very well for Dave. Lucky that his skills meant that the management had to be flexible.
DeleteI'm ok with a very ordinary life, I've never been well off but I've usually been able to put food on the table and have enough small luxuries to not feel life was a complete grind.
ReplyDeleteAs a young person I wasn't ambitious, preferring to put my energy into things i enjoyed, then of course I spent 20 years totally invested in raising kids.
I'm not sure if I would want to change that but I am sad now that I'm a pretty capable person in some ways and have plenty to offer but have never managed to do more than an entry level job. My ambition has come too late
Kylie: Nothing wrong with so-called "entry level" jobs, if they're enjoyable and they pay the bills. And you've done a lot of demanding work as a doula.
DeleteI was a manager for many years. It was exactly as awful as you describe it.
ReplyDeleteColette: Sorry to hear that. Presumably you quit in favour of something more enjoyable?
ReplyDeleteI never had any ambition. The highest I got was to assistant manager level, but I didn't want to spend my life doing what I was doing. Sometimes I regret leaving because the job paid well and was a complete doddle!
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Ms Scarlet: My first job as a local newspaper reporter was also extremely well paid and a complete doddle. As long as I wrote a story or two a day, everyone was happy.
DeleteNick, Saïd and myself considered our profession from the beginning as being involved in humanitarian projects. I was a pediatre and struggled my life long to save children not always with success. And Saïd as a chirurg ? (do not have the English word right now) worked with Médecins sans Frontières in most of the war regions. We felt this was our way to realise our daily life. The only ambition to save people, not easy but worthful.
ReplyDeleteHannah
Hannah: I admire your long commitment to helping others - Saïd too. Between you you must have saved many lives. (Pediatre is a paediatrician, chirurg is a surgeon).
DeleteThank you Nick. I forgot quite a lot of the English vocabulary but you once told that you speak French. We felt our whole life concerned by the misery in this world. We all can do good things on different levels. Giving a smile and a conversation to a homeless person who is generally ignored or helping children to do their school lessons when the parents are not able to do so. Saying hello to old people who live alone and isolated Giving some hours per week for others is just great.
DeleteHannah
Hannah: I volunteered with the National Asthma Campaign (Now Asthma UK) for a couple of years. And I worked for several years at Diabetes UK. So I've sort of helped others but not as directly as you two. I don't speak French by the way, though I know a lot of Italian.
DeleteNick, that's great you have volunteered in those associations.Without volunteers our society would be so much poorer.
ReplyDeleteHannah
Hannah: It certainly would. Especially in the UK where public services are crumbling and more and more volunteers are plugging the gaps with food banks, help for refugees etc.
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