My 1-year anniversary at a job I am actually really enjoying was this week! In honor of this milestone, and based on something I heard on a recent podcast, today I want to talk about the potential power behind flipping the script at work.
If you’re still working a W2 job like me, do you avoid telling your boss that you don’t want that coveted promotion? That you actually have no interest in climbing up the ladder? If so, you’re not alone. I’m right there with you. But if you think you have to hide these thoughts from your boss, I’m here today to suggest another way.
I was listening to the Mile High FI podcast the other day, episode 84, where Carl Jensen and Doug Cunnington were interviewing Jess from the blog The Fioneers. It’s a great podcast, and I highly recommend you check it out! At one point, Carl (same Carl from the 1500 Days to Freedom blog, which I referenced in last week’s post) said something that gave me pause. Carl, Doug, and Jess were talking about work and how hard but necessary it can be to de-identify yourself with your job. Carl then referenced the typical conversation an employee often has with a boss, where the employee is expected to answer the question of where you want to be in 5 years (in other words, what are your career goals). He went on to describe a scenario of thinking in his head that he just wants to keep doing what he’s doing, he doesn’t want to manage people, etc. But because that’s not the answer a boss wants to hear, he would make something up, something he thought his boss wanted to hear. Based on my conversations with friends and colleagues, I think this is what A LOT of people do.
I’m here today to offer another option. I think there is room at work for being honest. I’m challenging us to flip the script at our jobs.
The type of employee I am now…
My husband and I started watching the show Mad Men a few months ago. After having tried to watch it many many years ago on my own and not liking it, I am now hooked. The main reason behind my obsession is the fascination I have with how things were in the time period of the show (it takes place in the late 1950s/early 1960s), especially when it comes to the dynamics between men and women at the time, and my equal fascination with the eerily similar characteristics of the company the show is based around (an advertising agency) and the company I currently work for (a medical communications agency).
For the most part, the storylines all revolve around the workaholic nature of the men at the company who are at “the top,” their cheating ways, and their basic absenteeism from their families, while the women are at home taking care of everything. And, if women are at work and not at home, they’re struggling with being sexually harassed and taken seriously in their jobs.
But there’s one male character who’s not like the rest, and his name is Ken Cosgrove. Let’s just say, I relate to Ken Cosgrove A LOT.
The first time we the audience notice he’s different from the rest of the male characters, we learn that he has a passion for writing outside of work. There’s a scene where he’s in bed at night with his wife working on a piece of writing, and he asks her for feedback (adorable). Later, we find out that the piece gets published in a local newspaper or magazine. His colleagues find out, and they tease him about it. But it’s not just the teasing I find relatable. They also seem just genuinely shocked that Ken would have any type of passion outside of work, that he would spend his time on anything else outside of the job.
From there on out, the storylines around Ken Cosgrove focus on his struggle to have a family and a life outside of work, and the pressure from his colleagues to work around the clock. At the end of one particular season, he turns down a promotion because his colleagues expect him to do something he feels is unethical to land a client. There’s another scene where he’s freaking out to a colleague because he’s expecting a daughter. He doesn’t know how he’s going to juggle being an employee and being a good father. Finally, with where I am currently in my watching, he ends up refusing to work with a client that is treating him like garbage (and even putting him in danger). One client drives drunk with him in the car, and another accidentally shoots him, non-lethally of course, while out on a hunting trip. Sadly, although slightly extreme, this doesn’t sound all that unbelievable to me, especially for the times, based on what I’ve seen agencies in my industry do to land and/or keep clients (ie, treat their employees like dirt).
I relate to how I think Ken Cosgrove must feel at work. I have side passions (ie, this blog, and everything on my Financial Freedom List) that I don’t feel comfortable telling anyone at work about for fear of teasing and ridicule. Sometimes I feel crazy for not wanting to climb the corporate ladder. I often struggle with the lack of “greater good” of what I’m doing (yes, even as a medical writer, but that’s a whole other conversation). And, although I don’t have kids, I can only imagine constantly struggling with the feeling of juggling work and parenting.
It’s mostly the “not wanting to climb the ladder” that is something I struggle with on a weekly basis at work. It used to be my own feelings toward myself that I would struggle with. I’m a passionate and driven person, and I want to be successful; shouldn’t I want to climb the ladder? What else is there to do?
Now, after getting off the hamster wheel and realizing that yes I’m passionate and driven, but mostly on things outside of work, my thoughts are much different, but they can still be paralyzing. Will I look bad to my boss and coworkers if I don’t take a promotion? If I don’t want to climb the ladder, does this mean I won’t ever get a raise?
The best way I’ve learned to cope with all of these feelings is by starting to be honest, to flip the script at work. But it has taken me a long time to get there.
The early career days
Before I was confident in my Slow FI lifestyle, before I had my financial independence goals and my part-time work goals, I was still on the hamster wheel. I didn’t know what I wanted.
I was back in my pay-cut editor job, but before it turned cushy. Before I had all the extra time in my day to learn that I had passions outside of work. It was the early days of this job.
In the early days, I was squarely on the manager track. I started at this company in quality control, and I didn’t enjoy it. To stay, to be happy (or so I thought), and to increase my salary, I knew I needed to climb the ladder, and this meant management. I loved my boss and she vouched for me, told me I’d be a great manager. I did ALL THE THINGS to prove myself. I was involved in so many activities outside my job description. I was rocking them, and the company loved me, but I was working my ass off, working 50-60 hours a week.
In order to become a manager at this company, you had to take their internal leadership program. Sign me up!
This program ended up being one of the best thing to ever happen to me in terms of my career trajectory. I give most of the credit to when I learned about the GWC concept. The idea behind this concept is that in order to be a good leader/manager, you have to have 3 things when it comes to the job: 1) you have to Get it; 2) you have to Want it; and 3) you have to be able to do it (Can do it). We learned all about what it takes to be a good manager, and what being a manager at this company would look like. By the end of the 12 week program, I had so much clarity. I got it: I understood what it would take and be like to be a manager. I knew I could do it. In fact, I thought and still feel like I’d be an excellent manager.
But the kicker? Now that I understood the job, I didn’t want it. I didn’t want to spend all my days in meetings. I didn’t want to have a set, more rigid schedule, where I’d have to be available to my direct reports (and more available in general). I loved the flexibility I had in my current role, where I could work any time of day I wanted as long as I was meeting my deadlines.
After completing that program, I flipped the script at work for the first time in my career. I told my boss that I did not want to be a manager after all, and instead wanted to switch from a quality control editor to being an actual in-house editor. I wanted to do more of what I loved, not less. I wanted to dig deeper into papers and research and edit from scratch (rather than the quality control step of simply doing a quick check of the quality of someone else’s editing, usually a freelancer).
And, because I didn’t want to be a manager anymore, I gave up all the “extra” stuff I had been doing to look good when I came up for promotion. I kept the one or 2 things that actually brought me joy and that I wanted to do, but I gave up everything else. I figured that maybe I wouldn’t be beloved by my company anymore, I wouldn’t get the “Culture Champion” awards (voted on by my peers) I was used to getting anymore, but at least I’d be happy.
And boy, was I happy. This is when I hit my groove, became so efficient that I could get my work done in ~35 hours a week, and discovered I had so many passions outside of work.
And the best part? I was still beloved by my company! I still ranked as the #1 customer-requested editor. And to my surprise, I still continued to receive those company awards from my peers. I realize now that it was because I was doing exactly what I wanted to be doing, and I was good at it, so my attitude was better than ever.
The only reason I left that job was the pay. The pay didn’t feel so bad when I was working 35 hours a week and barely using my brain’s full capacity. But when they started having me do harder edits, which I loved but I wasn’t paid one extra dime for (I started working more 40-hour weeks AND I was using much more brain power so I was more exhausted at the end of the day), that’s when I decided to walk away for more money.
Starting over somewhere new
The next job I took, while it paid better, didn’t end up working out for many reasons. For one, the job itself wasn’t at all what had been advertised (think project manager vs writer), but secondly, the culture was toxic. The culture was such that everyone worked at all hours (people would even be online while they were on vacation), and no one stood up for each other or helped anyone out. I was an anxious mess. However, I actually really liked my boss. So, instead of just up and leaving, I decided to take the opportunity to practice flipping the script again.
I practiced what I was going to say for days, and I was so nervous to talk to her, but I barely got one line of my perfectly practiced speech out before she was totally sympathetic. To her credit, she tried to make it work. She tried to change my role so that I could write more instead of manage projects. But the way the team was structured, it didn’t end up working.
However, I’m proud of myself for trying, for flipping the script and giving it a chance before giving up. Even though that job didn’t work out, I learned a lot about the industry, and it set me on my next intentional path to find a job 1) that matched the description and what I wanted to do and 2) where I would have a reasonable 40-hour work week.
Finding the right job for me
Lucky for me, I have found just that with my current job. No job is perfect, but this one checks a lot of the boxes.
I plan to work for this company until I decide to downshift (my current goal is to ask them to go down to part-time once I hit Flamingo FI, or half my FI number). Now, I could easily do what Carl was talking about on the podcast and make something up about my career goals. What does it matter what I tell them now? But for some reason, making something up doesn’t sit well with me. Not only because I don’t like lying but also because I do care about my work and my colleagues.
Plus, I’ve realized that I’m actually pretty passionate about flipping the script. Why does there have to be only one way? And why does success have to be defined by climbing the ladder? Nothing will change if people don’t speak up, and I believe that a healthy and appropriate level of vulnerability at work can do lots of good.
My boss and I have weekly 1-on-1 meetings, where we usually end up just chit chatting because we don’t have a lot of work-related issues to discuss, so I have numerous opportunities to bring up my thoughts. I find it’s easiest to just bring the topic up casually and organically, and so I have “flipped the script” several times over the past year.
Before the topic ever came up, however, I was constantly worried about it. I could tell that my boss liked my work and that the topic of a promotion would eventually come up, and I liked her enough that I wanted her to know where I stood before the actual conversation. So, I decided to just bring it up whenever it made sense/wherever I could, and one day, it happened.
I was so nervous, but I just did it. She asked me about my career aspirations, and I told her I didn’t see myself going down the traditional path. I told her I didn’t like interacting with clients, that it stressed me out. I told her I really enjoyed doing the content creation and I knew that if I worked my way up, I would do less and less of that.
To my shock, she wasn’t surprised at all, and she was really supportive! She told me that at a previous company she had worked for, they had a special track for people who wanted to do just that, and they called them Content Creation Specialists. She even told me about a previous colleague who had worked his way up to almost head of the company, only to realize he didn’t like interacting with clients either and went back to the associate level so he could have a healthier work/life balance. I couldn’t believe how well it went.
As I mentioned, this week was my 1-year work anniversary at this new company. I can now say that after 1 year of weekly 1-on-1 meetings, my boss knows 1) that I would be a freelancer if it weren’t for my desire to be part of a team (also benefits and healthcare); 2) that I don’t want the typical promotion that everyone else wants; and 3) that I’m a damn good employee.*
*One caveat here. In all these work scenarios I’ve put forth, there’s always been one constant: I’ve always been good at my job. I have no idea how any of this would have gone if I wasn’t that great at my job.
I will also give one piece of advice to anyone thinking about trying out flipping the script. If you want your boss to really hear you, be prepared to stand your ground over time. It’s not just one conversation and done. Your boss, like mine, is likely incredibly busy with a million things on their minds at all times. I unfortunately have to remind/nudge her often about my desires. But this has actually been helpful for me because now it doesn’t feel so scary. It’s also in her and the company’s best interest for me to climb the traditional ladder, so of course she’s going to try to challenge me sometimes. Plus, I’m good at my job. If this is you, get ready for the constant “Are you suuuuuure you don’t want X promotion??” I promise though, flipping the script only gets easier with time.
Summary: 3 myths
From all these experiences I’ve had with work, I’m going to propose 3 of my biggest myths that, if learned, give us the opportunity to flip the script.
We have to be going above and beyond to be considered successful at work
I learned at the pay-cut editor job that I could give up a lot of the “extra” work I was taking on to try to 1) look good and 2) be promoted and still be seen as a good, hardworking employee. When I decided I was willing to risk not looking good to upper management in order to give up things on my plate because I didn’t want to climb the ladder anyone, I found that it actually didn’t affect the view of me by the company at all (at least to my knowledge). Thus, we can flip the script by asking for what we want, even if it’s less work and we think may make us “look bad”.
If we don’t like our job, we have to find a new one
I think many of us feel that if we don’t like our job, or the role itself isn’t what we thought it would be, the only option is to leave. I listened to a podcast once on “intrapreneurship” that ultimately gave me the courage to try to work with management to change my role at the toxic job. The core idea behind intrapreneurship is that no one is going to have your career but you, so you need to advocate for yourself. No one else (usually) is going to do it. At the toxic job that ultimately didn’t work out, I flipped the script by having a candid conversation with my boss about the fact that the role I was in wasn’t working for me. Ultimately, she did everything she could to try to change the role to fit my needs. Although it didn’t work out, I’m glad I tried and saw that it was a possibility, a learning experience for the future.
We have to want to climb the ladder to be respected at work
At my current job, I was terrified to tell my boss that I didn’t want the traditional promotion because I was afraid she wouldn’t respect me. By flipping the script and being honest that I didn’t want to climb the ladder, I learned that my boss was actually completely supportive of my choice. In fact, she made me feel even more at ease by telling me a story of someone she knew, someone in our industry, who had stepped back themselves. By doing this, she let me know that I wasn’t alone and that, most importantly, I wasn’t crazy.
Upon reflection of all these experiences and all that I learned, I think my main takeaway is that if you’re good at what you do, you’re in a really good position! You have options, and you shouldn’t be afraid of being slightly vulnerable at work and flipping the script.
And don’t forget, one of the best parts of financial independence and especially Slow FI is that they, too, give you options!
What do you think? Am I a fool to be trying to flip the script at work? Is it a waste of time, will it maybe come back to bite me one day? Only time will tell, I suppose! How have you flipped the script when it comes to work? I’d love to hear your thoughts!