Why I Turned Down Chances for Promotion in Corporate IT
By: Regina Clarke
Tags: Creativity, Corporate Culture, Life Lessons, Business, Self

I was a technical writer for Information Technology for twenty-three years. It is a world that has no secrets from me. At the same time, all those years, I saw myself as a fiction writer, though my own writing happened only at night and on weekends or on the train to and from work. I worked twelve-hour days in IT. And nothing I wrote mattered, ever, to any company, because technical manuals were a legal necessity, not a business choice.

I know some technical writers stayed with the same corporation, but I was perpetually looking for greener pastures, some imaginary place where not only was my work appreciated, but management as a whole wanted to explore creative efforts and ideas. I thought I could find this magical place. I really did. I tried to bring that vision into being by transitioning into a different company whenever the opportunity presented itself — a headhunter call, an eager recruiter, a former colleague asking me to join him or her in their new startup. I felt like a voyager always in expectation of finding wonderful worlds to experience.

What happened, though, never altered in its process and outcome. For some years I thought maybe I had inadvertently passed by a witch, unaware— I imagined one of the three witches from Macbeth — who had sent a curse my way. Why? Because every time I was hired to a new job, the manager who chose me above many other candidates was so simpatico and welcoming, I felt I had reached my creative, edenic destination at last. And then, I tell the truth here, six months later that interesting person with a creative outlook would leave their job and their replacement would be, every time, the stereotypical middle manager — the one from the movies, usually a villain. Quite real.

Middle Management As the Joy-Killers

I used to think — actually, I still think — the middle manager was given a certain pill upon his or her promotion to the position now vacated, one that made their behavior immensely dull, totally non-creative, but absolutely sycophantic toward upper management. It meant the very last people this middle manager would help were the employees they “managed”— their first concern was in pleasing their boss, and their boss’s boss. Mere employees were left high and dry, never defended, and never praised. I was looking for a Captain Jean-Luc Picard supporting his crew, no matter what. Alas, not in evidence.

This was not only my experience. It was a way of life for most that permeated each company and corporation I joined. I watched managers bungle projects and blame employees. And I watched employees lead lives, as Thoreau said so well, of quiet desperation.

One incident burned into my memory was walking past a windowed conference room and seeing a likeable fellow worker sitting at one end of a long table, alone. At the other end were nine people, including his middle manager, three people from Human Resources that I recognized, the head of the division, the project manager, and three people I didn’t know. It was like seeing an alien world through the wrong end of a telescope. He looked so lost. I never saw him again. They fired him and walked him out of the building. What could he have possibly done? I learned later, he had gone over the head of his manager to complain, apparently about something serious. Not a good idea. No one in the management and executive branches of the company seemed to care about anything except the entitlement and privilege of their jobs — which they intended to keep.

I had the same experience myself, of being the lone soul at the end of the table facing hostile management, all of whom sat at the other end like jellyfish stuck together, and bonded in their uniformity of status and self-importance. Why? Because I had dared to challenge the release of technical manuals that had not been reviewed — by anyone. I was a writer, not an engineer. Had I interpreted the engineers’ intentions accurately, I wanted to know? Would my steps ensure the clients buying the software could make it work? I needed the reviews from the developers and project managers and marketers so I could ensure quality.

No one cared. They all wore not-so-invisible jackets that said so, loud and clear. They wanted to meet the product release deadline — that was all that mattered.

(As an aside, I have often told people to never buy a first release of any technological software. It is buggy, buggy, buggy. Not everyone knows this, alas. What a company would do — and does — for good measure, was release what they called a free upgrade a few months down the line, which was actually the finished product devoid of most — never all — bugs. This approach never changed in my experience, whether the company was building network monitoring or management software or had created new cell technology, which I worked on in the 90s. The customer never got the real thing right away. Deception was the rule.)

So Why Did I Stay?

Good question. One I asked myself constantly. I had a PhD in English and had taught at a university and loved it. I loved interacting with students. I loved September when the new semester began as autumn came.

I left that world for one reason. I stayed working at corporate for the same reason. Money.

Several times, joyfully, I stopped being a technical writer and took a sabbatical and wrote my own work for hours a day. I became familiar with the seasons again, and the wonder of the earth, and the happiness of sitting down mid day in a coffee shop to write more. I was in my element, in a world I understood, and happy.

But writing fiction is far from a guarantee of income. After nine months of gestation, back I would go into corporate. I would always be hired, within days of applying. I worked on all three coasts — in the northeast, in California, and in Texas. The money followed quickly. A lot of it. I was safe. My son was safe. I had the guarantee of food and shelter. I could buy what I wanted, go where I wanted, take holidays, and money was never a problem.

Corporate pays well, really well. And has a lot of perks. Those things are seductive. White collar welfare.

But doing work you don’t love sucks the soul out of you, eventually. I almost let that happen. Until one day, my son now grown up and doing extremely well in his life choice, knowing I could not any longer sustain the deadening lack of creativity in the business world and its opposition to independent thought, knowing I surely had to be here on earth to make a difference somehow in my own corner of the universe — to make a contribution that at least attempted to bring peace of heart and some measure of entertainment and enjoyment to others, I quit corporate for good. I have been writing on my own ever since.

My income dropped 75%. Like I said, corporate is good for money. And yet, I have never been happier.

What Has All This to Do With Not Accepting a Promotion?

I was asked in every job — or it would be suggested — that I consider management. It was evident such a promotion would benefit me. No more pandering required to a mini-despot of a boss. And I had experienced personally three examples of managers who were not only creative, but wonderful, compassionate human beings. I remember their names: Mary Kennedy at Codman & Shurtleff, Steve Wujcik at Codex, and Keri Sefton at EMC. Alas, they were early on in my life as a technical writer. I mistakenly thought their outlook and humanity was the standard. For the most part, instead, I experienced over and over again the dreadful do-nothing outlook of the typical middle manager. I wonder now why I did not go screaming into the night.

Only, I know why — again, I wanted the money.

BUT, I didn’t want a promotion. I knew, not always consciously, that it would align me 90% of the time with people whose values I did not share. I knew I would have to succumb and take the sycophantic pill. I knew I would have zero independence to do otherwise. I knew that along with the promotion, agreeing with the powers that be was essential — required. I knew I was not likely to find work at a company run the way Sir Richard Branson runs his Virgin enterprise, the only one I have ever admired and feel is intended to do good works, where employees are allowed to flourish, not to suffocate.

By some blessing of God, I stayed free of being promoted. I could have made a lot more money that way. And sold my soul.

Now — though it took a long time — I have chosen my own way. And have never had any desire, even for a moment, to look back.

Life is far too precious to spend it where one doesn’t belong.