is it ok to not have career ambitions

*Extra* money wont save me if I cant make it to retirement age in the first place. Im all for people wanting to stay in a role for much or most of their career, but theres no excuse for that desire to get in the way of staying current. My pension is equal to what Im getting from the job, btw. Of course, the above may not apply to OP; they may have a role that can never be automated. Someone in an earlier comment mentioned that this sounds like a question coming from a place of privilege, and Im with that commenter theres no reason in the world that EVERY job description EVER sounds awful! The US equities market is not going to behave like it did between 1950 and 2007, ever again. Job descriptions will change over time-thats a fact. Introduce the from/to concept to them, send them the from/to examples I gave earlier, and ask them to think about your from/to. What are some good career aspirations? And I signed up for some UX course online and was so bored and lost I couldnt finish day one. I liked teaching. [Manager] finally retired, and now Im in that management job. I liked it. What's the best job for you? Being a reviewer could be an option. Its a corporate version of The Emperors New Clothes. Not enough stimulation leaves my mind open to starting *thoughts*, and thought trains are bad news. When you successfully achieve these challenging experiences, you prove to your company that youre a versatile leader who deserves a chance for larger, more important roles. My passions lie in my family and in the things I do in the evenings and on weekends. Everyone is happy, and I dont need to pretend that Im interested in management. Career development isnt always about moving up. The Red Cross does similar work for more recent conflicts, but I think more recent grief would be hard to cope with. The real problem I have with this emphasis is that it assumes technical competency is a given when its not. They are going on 6 years now. I have politely told administration multiple times that no, I dont want to be a branch manager, thats all the dreadful part and very little of the fun part. And I say all of the above as someone who literally told a supervisor Im not ambitious, meaning Im not really looking for more responsibility, or to move on or move up. . Right? Theres a technical development track, and a management development track, and the technical folks can still advance and get raises, working on bigger and bigger projects, but they dont end up managing people as their primary day-to-day responsibility. I dont know how people cope with jobs where they are in non-stop meetings all day with constant deadlines. It was maddening. I justdont know how that happens in reality. That lack of ambition can really frustrate people and bring to light some . And then think about how your job does or doesnt support that and what job would do it better. Our competition gets swifter and leaner everyday, so we need to as well. They allow you to prove that youre highly competent at what you do. Not that those dont require dedication or ambition, but at least if you are an electrician no ones going to wonder why you dont aspire to be the CEO of the Electric Company. The permits a lot of flexibility. The whole point of a paralegal is to take work off the lawyers desk. Working doesnt like me back! I do make a point of revisiting that conversation periodically after all, interests and desires change over time but otherwise I leave it alone. Just plain old teapot designers, who do the bulk of the work, keep the senior teapot designers sane by being able to run with individual pieces without having their hands held, and at the same time, mentor the new teapot designers and hold their hands. I am so glad we did so when we were that age. It allows me to have lots of short-term contracts on a variety of subjects. Id be done I am not my job and my job is not me. The good news is, these conversations are usually a once-a year or twice-a-year thing with most employers (often as part of annual performance evaluations). September 7, 2022 - 17 min read Share this article Jump to section What are your career aspirations? What court matters could you do yourself? report that the roof is leaking again to maintenance!) The reality is that an organization can only accommodate promotion tracks for so many people. I dont know. Your career ambition is to set up your post-career life and get there. What we really need are reliable employees that want to come to work and consistently do an adequate job. Peace out! I never did homework, but I sailed through so my exams so nobody ever really bothered to intervene. Two key steps . . What about adjacent skills? I think I feel more free to think and work this way because of my dad he was also an engineer, and consistently turned down management opportunities because he had zero interest in playing office politics or giving up engineering work to manage people. If thats your goal, though, wouldnt advancing into a higher-paid position help get you there sooner? Other people job hopped from menial position to menial position. I agree with others that its quite useful to have some of these on your team, but its surprisingly hard to hire in a way that avoids accidentally ending up with an entire team like this, and then youre stuck. It's not that you don't have dreams. You never know. and I havent been unemployed a single day in my 25 year career. You can use research to pick a career direction and figure out what you can do to meet your goals. Lots of people do! This is a delicate way of saying I am a paralegal who is also a middle-aged white male. Your quiet colleague is the type of worker who isnt truly appreciated until they are gone. on, but later in life learned I loved to flip houses, always for a profit. But theres a pretty good chance this will nudge your manager into realizing she should adapt her approach with you, because the needs shes trying to address arent your needs. Youve nailed it! You just have to listen to your gut. But the adequate people are the ones that stay, and honestly, theyre the ones that keep things moving. Ive also found that the higher up the chain you rise, for whatever reason, you start dealing with people who are increasingly less emotionally intelligent and often just flat-out less kind. Career advancement can come with duties or hours a worker might intensely dislike, particularly if the worker is already earning enough to support themselves and save for retirement, and if there are some regular pay increases to keep the money in line with the market. These people may not be motivated by learning opportunities, greater responsibility, or challenging projects; so you need to have a strategy in place to ensure that they stay motivated to deliver high-quality work. Do you want to live somewhere else? The chap in a previous company who had been doing the same admin job for 30 years but filed all our papers and ensured we all had hotel rooms when we needed wasnt brilliant or inspiring. Not one person there could blame him. Im the type of person who works for one and only one reason: to earn a living. All that money and she only got to live in that snazzy upgraded house and enjoy the fruits of her labors for a few weeks. Coming from a person who has taken positions after someone was in them for decades, trying to move the work to todays standards after someone else never changed how they did things is exhausting and difficult. One way to think of career development is, Would you like to get paid more money for a job that is more pleasant and less annoying, without having to actually job hunt?. But many hear the word and cringe, thinking of the "get there at all cost . I dont have the responsibility of managing project deliverables which is a real PITA. Im a senior IC and I cant advance any further without moving into management, and Im just glad that my management chain understands and accepts that Im not interested in going that way. They want to maximize their salary at the point of retirement in order to get the biggest pension they can. Anybody here with no career ambition? OP, research the fire movement and barista FI. I just found out Im seriously underpaid now what? He's a nice guy - loving, fun, sweet; that's why you started dating him in the first place. The grief is old. In that department, people *doing the work* werent valued, and this was kind of problematic because most of the doers were hired in straight out of school without any real world experience. I report to a faculty person, i.e. So, we chose to travel in our 40s and 50s. I do okay at my current salary and I dont dread going to work every day, and thats kind of the balance Id rather have. They either sound like worse than what I have or more of the same or I am completely apathetic at them. I am able to come up with a few statistics that show that Im good and fast. I absolutely agree. I like being an individual contributor, I think Id be an OK manager but it would take me away from the day-to-day creative work I actually enjoy. Its easy to be confused about how to grow in your career. OH, this reminded me! I really actually liked that work quite a bit, but most of the jobs that used to be done in-house are now farmed out to bigger companies in fewer locations, so I didnt follow the job. My partner is supposedly on the technical track in his company, because he likes what he does (software development) an absolutely does not want to be a people manager. A lot of well-intentioned managers assume that there is something wrong with employees who dont express ambition/passion/wild-eyed enthusiasm for their jobs. I meanI think we could say that the majority of the problems on this website are privileged problems to have, because theyre all surrounding work and employment. There must be more of us out there who, if we were being completely candid to the boss, would say I work here because you pay me and because I like going out to lunch with my co-workers.. Common Challenges Low Ambition Poses. Hes been with our company for over twenty years and has built up a lot of capital by performing highly on previous projects so now he gets away with a level of coasting that is, frankly, problematic. 2) Reflect on what (and why) you want to do in the future Just because you don't have any career goals, this doesn't mean that you're not happy with your current job. I would rather have an employee who is great at their current position and even with no desire to move up than someone who is super ambitious but doesnt get along with the rest of the staff eg stabs people in the back for career advancement. 6/18/2020 When I was little, it felt like adults knelt down in front of me and asked, "So, what do you want to be when you grow up?" nearly every chance they got. Its not only harder and harder to do their job, but they also end up creating problems for their colleagues who arent letting their skills stagnate. Sometimes you are OK with making sure you stay up-to-date with the industry, looking for process improvements where needed, and just overall continuing to improve in your work in whatever way makes sense for the role. And w/o doing renovation Id customize the house by buying at the estate sales and garage sales I enjoyed, things that fit that house say, the perfect mirror and table for that odd niche in the hallway. Things like job interviews and coffee with mentors demand that you're on time and prepared. Im training to become a lawyer in Germany and I just realized that I never learned what a paralegal does exactly. If I could magically segue into it, great, but it doesnt look that easy to get into at this point in time. Its almost a travesty for someone to be just fine with what they are currently doing instead of wanting more. At the very least, use that moment to look at social security earnings, the conditions on a spouses pension (LUCKY! But thats valid too. Some made their way to project management and stayed there. Other people in the legal community referred to it as their divorce. Also, with some companies, its possible to progress your career as a subject matter expert ie. Working doesnt like me back. Amen to that! Me too. Yes, I think thats a big part of it. Every year at my employer, we have to justify our existences by explaining in our annual evaluation how weve added value to the company and what four or five goals we want to work on for the next year. I was talking to a coworker one day who completely dismissed my quieter, not ambitious colleague, until I pointed out that Quiet Colleague completed more work than anyone else, on time and accurately. Actually, my manager told me I could copy/paste, so that tells me these just to check some box on some form and are not really useful at all. Im not paid big bucks but I also dont have high stress, except occasionally during a big project, but my employer is good with working shorter days afterwards to recover, in addition to decent vacations. The more law-based it is, the more he does it, though I help with the research. But Im wondering if maybe the OP needs to take a step back when theyre looking at these job descriptions, and actually think about what they might look like in real life rather than having a kneejerk Argh that sounds terrible reaction. Yes, some of them are doing wonderful things to change the world and thats great. It varies wildly. This site tends to skew towards more career minded people (quite naturally) but I think most people work cause they have to and work in a certain place cause they happened to be hired there when applying to jobs that sounded like something they might get an interview for. But I struggle mightily with my companys obsession with everyones career development. Its fine that this stuff is there for people who are interestedwhat I dont understand is why those of us who arent interested, and are never going to be interested, are forced to participate too. update: my coworker sent a classist, racist email company-wide after a janitor won our Christmas contest, my boss convinced my hotel to open my room, my manager might have a second job, and more, the deliberately terrible lunch, the vindictive daffodils, and other petty moments at work, Im not sure of my longer-term goals right now. Its a practical planning document that describes how you will produce the highest-performing you. I was a stay home mom for 19 years. Many questions say something like I really like my job except (x problem) or that theyre hoping to not have to leave because the job is a good fit for them. As for legal advice, there is a lot of gray area. The market is tight and you have a better chance if you are will to go just about anywhere for a job that often doesnt pay a lot for the amount of education required. If I had waited til retirement, Id have never traveled at all. If you encounter a manager whos quizzing you about your career goals all the time, that might simply be a manager who youre incompatible with if youre not willing to smile and play along. Im hoping a bit that the LW was being a bit dramatic with wording choice, and instead is feeling perhaps pressured by the find your passion at work crowd, and not that in a literal sense whenever they read a job description their response is thats awful. So now what? Im an admin assistant who has been working, more or less, as one for almost all of my work life. I was burned the crap out at that point. That is all. Im glad that youre happy with your current position not everyone wants to be promoted. I dont want to be in charge of everything, I just want a good amount of engagement and a little more autonomy than I have right now. Nov 20, 2020 2 Photo by Matheus Ferrero on Unsplash Think your goals aren't big enough? My brother took a while to get his feet under him cubicle life was never going to happen, hed have been miserable. Yes! Is the to far enough away so that it will be a meaningful challenge to achieve? You ever think about the massive rise in the cost of rental housing, and how its out of proportion with inflation? Interview those leaders to learn which experiences will build your functional excellence. But my pension calculation tells me that when I retire, Ill get something like $25,000 a year. Or will I really have to keep dealing with this CAREER nonsense until retirement? The massive difference in salary between what I could make at a corporation and what Im making at a non profit cannot be ignored, and while its currently worth it, since being here will qualify me to get certifications that are needed to move up faster and more cheaply than if I leave, there will come a point where I cannot get any more career development if I stay.
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