Welcome to the Jungle Gym
We don’t have fun and games
A Coworker of Mine Once Said…
That a career is not really like a ladder. The term “corporate ladder” is a bit of a misnomer. She told me “work is like a jungle gym.”
Huh.
She explained that to go up, you have to go over first. Sometimes the way up is much slower, more difficult, and ultimately less good for you as a person, than going over. Going over can mean a new job within a company, or a new job outside that company, but over means exactly that; you didn’t stay in your role and move into the senior version of yourself at the same company.
Let’s go over some concrete examples that I went through in my career.
Associate Consultant -> Product Engineer -> Software Engineer
This was my first set of movements “over” at my first company. It was a great company for a lot of reasons (good people, decent pay), but the role I was in (an Associate Consultant making just over $70K) wasn’t one that I ultimately loved.
The technical aspects and technical problems were interesting to me, but the people and process side were draining for me. I consider myself at best an ambivert, but more likely an introvert that does OK in small group settings…
