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I remember meeting a married couple back in my 20s. Both had graduated med school and were doing their residencies. He was specializing in internal medicine. I forget what she was doing, but I know it was something that had far more earning potential. About a year or two ago, I ran into them at a wedding of a mutual friend. She was now the director of her department at her hospital. He had done a sub specialty of internal medicine, one that paid even more money and came with more prestige. Turns out his wife pressured him into it. I didn't chat with them for very long, but the impression I got from him, both when I first met him and again when I saw him at the wedding, was that he was never that ambitious and that his wife was pushing him. In a way, I felt sorry for him. It almost felt like she was embarrassed by him and that's why she wanted to aim higher.
There was a thread on here recently about online dating where one poster claimed that quality men over 40 aren't on dating sites since most are managers, directors, CEOs, etc. and would have no trouble attracting women offline. It was almost as if this person, who's male, was saying that men over 40 who aren't at the managerial level aren't quality men. Apparently, some women feel that way too.
Personally, if I had a boyfriend who wasn't pushing himself along the "high achiever" track, I'd be delighted. I'm going to break six figures in a couple of years, and my job is becoming correspondingly more demanding. I'd love to be with a man who had the time to tackle or at least oversee the day-to-day crap.
I work from home, so in theory, that should make it easier, but when I have workmen come to take care of household repairs, it just disrupts my entire day - same with going to the mechanic or the vet or whatever. And I spend far more of my income than I should compensating for the free time I no longer have - for example, I spent a few hundred to have a bunch of junk removed from my property. If I had the time, I'd have just made a few trips to the local dump for a fraction of that cost. And because I don't have time to exercise my high-energy dog when I'm under a heavy deadline, I often end up sending him to doggie daycare. And I eat out more than I should, simply because I don't have time to cook and I need to get out of the house.
I'm not an ambitious person myself, and I respect people who don't feel compelled to climb the corporate ladder. I'm just trying to pay the bills and enjoy my spare time when I'm not working. But I'm also not one to turn away from opportunities - I just keep running into them and each one chips away a little more at my free time.
So if a guy didn't want to keep reaching for the next rung on the ladder, I'd say "more power to him" and wonder how he'd feel about keeping track of the household finances and administrative details like whether we need the gutters cleaned.
I don't know how it is people have to "chase" opportunities... I find in my life I spend more time turning down opportunities....
I think, without bragging, that I've done well and am pretty well respected in my job, that I have opportunities waiting... I don't mean this to brag... but it's just interesting how that stuff works out... you do a good job.. work hard and things just come your way... I think the Buddhist call it Karma... I don't know.... well have to see how it works out when I'm on my death bed...
Life has a way of equalizing things out....... hence the reason I'm waiting to see how things work out....
Personally I'm over being upwardly mobile. Family time is much more important, and I've done the whole work my arse off in my 30s.
My main concern is just a comfortable living, time to spend with kids, spouse, and friends; enough money for at least a reasonable vacation every year.
For some people your status and your pay at your job is the goal, and I don't think it's wrong, it's a personal decision.
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Personally I'm over being upwardly mobile. Family time is much more important, and I've done the whole work my arse off in my 30s.
My main concern is just a comfortable living, time to spend with kids, spouse, and friends; enough money for at least a reasonable vacation every year.
For some people your status and your pay at your job is the goal, and I don't think it's wrong, it's a personal decision.
I agree... but.. to be honest... I'm doing pretty well and we're not worried about paying the bills... so that makes it easier.. but yeah.. I agree... we don't think about money in terms of keeping up with the Jones's or status or whatever.....
From the cursory description that we have, my impression is that Denny's friend and the friend's girlfriend had a simmering divergence of values. The girlfriend's citing the boyfriend's putative lack of ambition was a mere pretext, or just a symptom of a far greater disagreement.
Mid-career engineers face a genuine quandary. Technical excellence doesn't enjoy the remuneration that it used to, a mere generation or two ago. Today, engineers who wish to excel in their careers almost invariably have to segue into management. Engineers with PhDs can delay this, spending a decade or so as "senior technical fellows". Those with just a BSE would have to embark upon the management track by 30 or so. So perhaps the salient point isn't the fellow's lack of ambition, but his love of technical work and of pursuit of the vocation for which he trained. He may be consummately ambitious, but as an engineer and a researcher or designer of things, as opposed to a manager. Perhaps he didn't convincingly explain this to his girlfriend, and she misinterpreted his disinclination towards management as lack of career-interest.
It's also possible that the lady in question is enamored strictly with status and money, and not with career ambition per se. That is, she would not appreciate the ambition to publish scholarly articles, to get patents, to open new plants, to receive recognition from one's professional society. She would merely care about the paycheck and the invitation to corporate soirees.
It's a sad situation - another relationship broken by seemingly trivial causes. But perhaps the underlying causes are more grave than it appears. I wish both parties well.
A friend of mine recently broke up with his girlfriend of 2 years. She was the one who ended it, citing his lack of ambition as the reason. I can understand if he were working a minimum wage job and had no desire to look for something better, but that wasn't the case. He works as an engineer making around 100K per year. But he has no desire to move up the corporate ladder to a managerial position. He likes what he's currently doing, doesn't want the added stress of a more senior position, and doesn't want to work longer hours to make more money which he doesn't need. She, on the other hand, is definitely more ambitious. She makes 80K now and is on track to pass the 6-figure mark in another year or two. It wasn't a complete surprise that they broke up. He had mentioned to me several times how she was pressuring him to pursue a higher job, almost as if she was embarrassed that he wasn't aiming higher.
Do you think it's fair to push your partner to aim higher than what they want? How important is it that two people have the same level of ambition? Would you be upset if your partner suddenly decided they wanted a downgrade (not as drastic as what Kevin Spacey did in American Beauty, but maybe one step down from where they are now)?
i am studying to be an engineer, and one of the great things about becoming an engineer is the heft of it- i mean, it just sounds serious, like being a doctor or lawyer. this is just an added benefit that has no bearing on my own motivation (i am a woman by the way), but someone NOT impressed with a guy who is an engineer is a bit of a puzzler to me. like you said, if the guy worked as a fry cook at mcdonalds and spent all his money on records (ive known guys like that), she might have a point. but this guy has his poop in a group. what does she want, a kennedy?
i think she sounds pretty crass, to be honest. someone who has not yet gotten the message that money is not everything. if it IS everything to her, then her values are somewhat lacking. i mean, what else does she DO? does she have hobbies? is she funny? does she take pleasure in something that doesn't require money (not counting sex)? your friend has the right idea- why make more money i don't need? why not spend some time enjoying life?
i think this isn't a question of ambition, its a question of a lust for money that underlines a deeper lack of character, frankly.
From the cursory description that we have, my impression is that Denny's friend and the friend's girlfriend had a simmering divergence of values. The girlfriend's citing the boyfriend's putative lack of ambition was a mere pretext, or just a symptom of a far greater disagreement.
Mid-career engineers face a genuine quandary. Technical excellence doesn't enjoy the remuneration that it used to, a mere generation or two ago. Today, engineers who wish to excel in their careers almost invariably have to segue into management. Engineers with PhDs can delay this, spending a decade or so as "senior technical fellows". Those with just a BSE would have to embark upon the management track by 30 or so. So perhaps the salient point isn't the fellow's lack of ambition, but his love of technical work and of pursuit of the vocation for which he trained. He may be consummately ambitious, but as an engineer and a researcher or designer of things, as opposed to a manager. Perhaps he didn't convincingly explain this to his girlfriend, and she misinterpreted his disinclination towards management as lack of career-interest.
It's also possible that the lady in question is enamored strictly with status and money, and not with career ambition per se. That is, she would not appreciate the ambition to publish scholarly articles, to get patents, to open new plants, to receive recognition from one's professional society. She would merely care about the paycheck and the invitation to corporate soirees.
It's a sad situation - another relationship broken by seemingly trivial causes. But perhaps the underlying causes are more grave than it appears. I wish both parties well.
She's not in engineering. I think her background is in business or marketing. In some ways, I don't think she respects what he does because she doesn't really see the appeal. So maybe she has a hard time understanding why he likes it. A lot of people see engineering as grunt work, something you do for a while and then after you've paid your dues, you get promoted to management. Being in the technology field myself, I've run into people like this. They don't really care for engineering and see themselves as management material. I've been on teams where 7 out of the 10 guys on the team thought they should be a project manager someday. The reality, though, is that maybe 1 of them was really suited for it. The rest were just kidding themselves. There's a joke in my field similar to the one you hear about teachers. Instead of "those who can't, teach," it's "those who can't, manage." In other words, it's the lousy engineers who get kicked up to manager.
In my friend's case, I think he enjoys what he does and finds little appeal in being a manager. It's not that he doesn't think he would be good at it. He just knows that he would be miserable in that type of job. I think his ex was too concerned with titles and the prestige that comes with them, perhaps feeling like it reflected poorly on her if she were a manager but her partner wasn't.
I see this a lot with people who are very career-oriented. They're at the top of their fields and want a partner who is too. The woman who's a partner at her law firm can't see herself with a lawyer who's only an associate at his firm. Or as in the case of the two doctors I mentioned, the woman is in one of the most lucrative and respected specialties of medicine and can't see herself "slumming it" with a doctor who's "just an internist." I think some people feel this need to be with a partner who's at the same level as them. If ones a manager, then the other has to be as well. If ones the CEO, the other has to be as well. It's sad that some people feel this way, and it seems more common among high achievers.
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Originally Posted by Chowhound
When I was younger, I was going to college got a job at a fortune 150 company while I was still going to school.... I was ambitious I wanted the corner office, all the money, wanted to make at least 6 figures a yr.
After about 23 yrs in my industry... I'm pretty burnt out and realize that the corner office in corporate America is a bull**** job and you are so easily replaced and are frequently replaced...it has no appeal to me... I'm in the technical ranks and they only way I can make anymore money is to hop over into management... but I don't have any desire for that nonsense... it's all nonsense.
Life is short and no one really at the end of the day gives a **** about your job, they care about how you treated them and made them feel... working 60 hrs a week doesn't lend well toward your personal life...
It's just a ****ing job at the end of the day... I mean really.......
I'm 26 and I know I don't ever want to get to the point on the corporate latter where I'm working nonstop. I like being able to decompress from work when I walk through my apartment door and not having to worry about being called into work or replying to a damn email from work. Time over money any day.
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