I’m Tired of Acting Like I Want to Climb the Ladder | PeonyMagazine

 

Like allergy season, it occurs every quarter. We’re all auditioning for jobs we don’t really want when someone mentions “stretch opportunity” during the Monday stand-up. There are new OKRs, a new round of “visibility,” and another calendar block that is inexplicably named “Career Pathing.” I watch my colleagues click into performance mode: bright voices, bullet points, cross-functional collabs, and I feel it again: that small, stubborn honesty rising like a blush. I’m tired of pretending I want the next rung.

There was a time I did. I collected mentors the way other people collect houseplants, arranging them near sunny windows and asking for watering tips. I volunteered for special projects, took a course in “influencing without authority,” and learned the taxonomy of titles. I kept a promotion packet like a scrapbook, curating artifacts of productivity: dashboards, kudos, and before-and-after slides. I knew how to say “impact” while pointing at a bar chart. It was a decent game, and I played it.

But somewhere between the eighth “leadership offsite” and the week I spent writing a memo about a memo, I noticed how much maintenance the performance demanded. Title-chasing requires a constant shine: the coffee chats, the pre-reads, the consensus tours, the high-stakes presence in rooms where the air gets thin. It takes energy I used to spend on the actual work: on craft, on care, on thinking. And, if I’m honest, it takes energy I’d rather spend on my life.

Here’s the part that sounds indecorous in corporate air: the ladder is not neutral. It rewards the loud, the available, the political, the person with childcare coverage, and a high tolerance for Slack pings after 9 p.m. It favors extroverts and Saturday responders, the reliable attendees of “optional” networking happy hours. It asks for more time, then pays you with a title that will demand even more time. Yes, there’s money in it. But I’ve run the math: the additional hours, the commute creep, the emotional tax of being “on” for other people’s egos. The raise shrinks in the dryer of reality.

Meanwhile, there’s the work itself, the part that got me into this field. The calm satisfaction of solving something thorny. The unglamorous dignity of documentation that saves the next person a hassle. The subtle power of helping a less experienced coworker gain confidence. They don’t ladder very well. They are challenging to present in a three-point format and to measure. However, I really want to keep them.

When recruiters slide into my inbox with “Director, fast track,” I picture the calendar that comes attached: a mosaic of status updates, fire drills, decision decks, and the soft-skills theater of managing up. I also picture my evenings, what’s left of them. The dog that needs a walk. A dinner I actually cook. The phone calls I owe to people I love who live in other time zones. The version of me that reads a book slowly and remembers it. I don’t want to give those pieces away and write them off as “this season is just intense.” I’ve been in that season for years; it looks suspiciously like a climate.

So I’ve been experimenting with other shapes. The lattice instead of the ladder. Lateral moves that trade prestige for autonomy. Projects that deepen my skills rather than broaden my political footprint. Saying yes to work I can be proud of and no to work that makes me a noisier person with a shorter attention span. I track my wins differently now: hours slept, walks taken, the number of times I closed my laptop when the sky still had color in it.

There’s a minor rebellion in letting your ambition change names. Not smaller, different. I still want growth, but not the decorative kind. I want to be sharper at the core tasks and kinder on the edges. I want time affluence, those wide, unrushed hours where ideas can steep. I want more money too; I’m not above rent and groceries. But I want to earn it without mortgaging my quiet.

More: https://peonymagazine.com/career-money/tired-of-climbing-the-career-ladder/