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Note: This is the third in my Forum series of previously written pieces that I never submitted to the editor for consideration.
AN INTERNET ARTICLE I printed out over 15 years ago set the work-life balance standard for me. The article has been relegated to the dust bin of cyber space so I can’t link to it or even identify who wrote it. The author discusses a friend who “seems to have found the ultimate sweet spot in his career.”
The friend made a comfortable living working less than 40 hours a week. He was highly respected at work and had a great boss. He had lots of autonomy and didn’t have any employees to supervise. Could he have made a lot more money? Absolutely. He knew he could land his boss’s job at another company and score a huge increase in salary. But that new job would require supervising people, travel, longer hours, and accountability to higher powers who might not be as accommodating as his current boss. He wasn’t interested.
The article makes the point that people with more income generally have more responsible jobs. The additional money comes with strings attached: extra hours, the stress of hiring and firing people, more complex problems to deal with. Given tradeoffs such as these, increasing one’s income often does not have as much of an effect on happiness as might be expected.
While working full-time, the career sweet spot to which I aspired looked similar to that achieved by the author’s friend. Although I was assessed to have some management potential, I didn’t have the desire or especially the stamina to take that career path. Engineering managers at an operating nuclear power plant are subject to many stresses, frequent long days and inconvenient off-hour demands. In general, they have considerably less control of their schedules than individual contributors.
I was fortunate in that most of the dozen or so bosses I had over my career were very good. I couldn’t always hit the career sweet spot when supporting refueling outages or leading large projects that took on a life of their own. Still, outside of refueling outage season, I was almost always available to watch my son’s soccer games, help with schoolwork and eat dinner with the family.
Although I’m still employed part-time, work no longer takes up the bulk of my day. Job burnout is not a risk. What does the sweet spot look like in retirement? Since everyone is wired differently, individual sweet spots vary considerably. My retirement sweet spot involves a mixture of things:
-Cultivating quality connections with family and friends
-Working on spiritual disciplines and participating in church life
-Maintaining physical well-being
-Keeping mentally sharp
-Taking a balanced approach to leisure activities
-Having a sense of purpose and accomplishment
What does your sweet spot look like? Have you been successful at achieving it to some degree?
My goal through my career was to be a vice president in my company. While I achieved it, it took over 40 years and was not so sweet because it was not handed to me, I had to fight for it.
Before that I did manage people, up to 35 at a time. I disliked it every day so much so I don’t think I was very good at it. In fact, a boss saw me as too easy on people- a boss who later stabbed me in the back after I retired.
Giving honest performance evaluations was the worst. Once as a result of giving a needs improvement rating the employee filed false charges against me claiming I stole 401k funds, and had a vendor pay for my car. When I rejected some of her ideas at a staff meeting she went to auditors claiming I was mismanaging things.
So Dick, it sounds to me that although you had a very successful career, you weren’t operating in your personal sweet spot much of the time. Was there a period in your career where you felt like work was particularly enjoyable for you?
Actually despite not enjoying people management, I enjoyed most of my career except perhaps the last three years when personnel changed along with attitudes toward employees.
The thing i enjoyed most was negotiating with and working with our unions.
Ken, that article could describe my career choices. I think I even have notes about including it in a future article. I came into PT thinking I would own a clinic, but circumstances steered me in a different direction, and I didn’t resist much. I’m happy with my choice, even though I think I would have found contentment in the other direction. I’m not sure that’s true of my wife.
The biggest negative among many positives has been several subpar bosses, but the built-in autonomy of a therapist helped me survive with my psyche intact. I love my present boss, and I wouldn’t have her job. She looks after me with a care that’s only surpassed by my wife. If she retires before me, that may be the event that precipitates my own.
I passed on opportunities to move into management while employed at the beer distributer. As a driver-salesman doing the job well I never had the stress of someone looking over my shoulder, I earned a solid middle class living, and only worked about 34 hours per week; not a bad sweet spot at all. I left that job for health reasons. My new career as a tax preparer came about almost by accident. Now I was earning a years worth of wages during the 11 week busy season, semi-retired the rest of the year. That was truly my sweet spot. I still can’t figure out if my working life was intentional or just good old dumb luck….. I’m thinking the latter.
When I was at The Wall Street Journal, switching from columnist to mid-level editor always struck me as a downgrade, so I never did more than muse about it. At one point at Citi, I had two people reporting to me, and I felt like I wasn’t a particularly good manager. Still, here at HumbleDolllar, I’ve belatedly end up as a quasi-manager to dozens of writers — and I’ve really enjoyed it. On the other hand, I’m not sure it counts as managing: All the writers are doing it out of the goodness of their heart, plus they’re a great group of folks to deal with, so there’s not much cajoling and motivating that needs to be done.
Jonathan, I consider writing for HumbleDollar to be my second part-time job. I even list it on my LinkedIn profile. I may call you my editor rather than my manager, but to my mind, your HD role counts for both.