My Jobs, The Dream Job Turns into a Nightmare

Last week I shared some of my career history and left off where I had just accepted my dream job. Today I want to continue this series by giving details on the next position I held.

The dream job was everything I had hoped it would be -- lots of great projects, interesting people to work with, a growing company with lots of energy, a bigger title, more money, and on and on. I was performing well too and my career was headed up, up, up. The only real downside was that my hours were pretty long -- 55 or so per week -- but I accepted that as part of the "break-in phase" that's required of almost any new job (though after awhile I expected things to settle down and they never did.)

Work sailed along well for the first year or two. Then there were rumblings about the future of the company. The short story is that there were three equal divisions of our company -- all in the same business and working cooperatively, though still each having its own president. Rumor had it that the company would soon be merging all three of these into one, single company with no independent divisions and that's where the rub was -- who would actually lead the new company?

Then it all came down very quickly. Out of the blue, the head of one of the divisions was bought out of his contract and allowed to "pursue other opportunities." His division was rolled into one of the other divisions. Then, one day my boss (the head of our division), didn't show up for work. We wondered where he was, but no one was saying anything. The next day, he didn't show up either. We called him at home with no response. On the third day we got him and he said he couldn't talk. On the fourth day, we found out that our division was being assimilated into the Borg. :-) We were now all one big company, my boss was no longer employed by the firm (he left with a very handsome severance package), and our staff was left in limbo.

The next day, I was called into the office of the new president. He told me that I was promoted immediately as the new VP of Marketing for the single company (FYI, he wanted to promote me with no increase in salary, but I made the case for making more and he ultimately approved an 11% increase. How did I get it? Mostly by following this outline plus showing that I was doing much more than before -- and the work of three people previously.) In addition, I was also to work with him, our CFO, our lawyer, and a couple other executives in "right-sizing" the company. Translation: we were going to have to fire 15% of our workforce and many of the people were in my group. After all, why did we need three of some divisional positions when we now were one company?

There's no way I can describe the next couple of months. I could not sleep (I averaged fours hours of sleep during this time). I worked from 7 am to 9 pm most weekdays as well as much of Saturday. Every day was spent discussing what positions we needed, which ones we didn't, and so on. And then, once we made the decisions, I had to execute the plan (which meant firing people.) It was brutal. In the end, the company emerged to be even more profitable than it had been before (the goal of our parent company), but getting there was quite painful.

Once things settled down, I made two massive mistakes: 1. I became over-confident in my new-found authority and 2. I underestimated the politics that go along with being at the higher levels of a company (I knew the game at the lower levels, but who knew it could be even more tough at the top?) It all came to a head in a board meeting where I expressed my frustration, got reprimanded publicly, and lost my cool. The next day, the president took me to lunch and told me I was being moved a notch down the rung and an executive from the sales department was replacing me. It was a bitter pill to swallow on many fronts, and I must admit I was devastated. But my family needed the job/income (which was still a high-paying job BTW -- my income didn't go down) so I decided to bide my time.

Over the two years that I was biding my time, I had some of the greatest successes of my career. I was given an industry-wide award that had previously only been given to a handful of people. I led my department to a different industry-wide award, the first time this had ever been accomplished by a company like ours (we actually won it two years in a row.) I made my bonus goals both years and thus added to my annual income in a big way (which played a major part in us paying off our mortgage). But despite the fact that I was doing so well, I wasn't really being challenged and I wanted out. It took me two years, but I eventually found a new position -- with an Internet start-up about a year before the bubble burst. You can guess what happened in that position, but I'll save the details for later. :-)

For now, here's what I learned from this job:

• Arrogance can kill. I got a bit caught up in my new role and was way too into myself. Soon thereafter, I was humbled. It was a tough lesson to learn, and one I still grapple with from time-to-time, but in the end it was a valuable experience for me and made me a better executive. And now that some time has passed since then, I can look back on the experience and appreciate it.

• Watch your back as you progress. As I was shooting myself in the foot, a key executive at my level was shooting me in the back. He was a long-time friend of the president and I found out later that he'd been undermining my efforts since day one (telling the president I was doing this or that that wasn't acceptable.) In many cases, what he said was true. But he often twisted the facts to serve his purpose -- which was getting rid of me and putting his man into my position.

• Don't let pride be your paycheck. Part of me was simply happy with the major promotion and didn't want/need a pay increase. But the other part pushed me on and I eventually got a pay raise -- one that moved my salary up a significant amount. If I had let it go, who knows how long it would have taken for me to earn that 11% back?

• There's nothing worse than firing people. This was the first time I had to let people go (unfortunately, it wasn't the last) and it's gut-wrenching. If you've ever had to fire someone -- even if they deserved it -- you know how tough it can be. And if you never have, there's no way to describe it. At least in this case many of the people knew that lay-offs were coming. Even more brutal are the surprise firings. Ugh.

• You can bloom despite tough times. Those two years after my demotion were very tough in a number of ways, but somehow I kept going and made a success out of it. Sure, I could have sat back, sulked, and wallowed in self-pity, but what good would that do? Instead, I delivered some major results for my company which allowed me to climb the next rung of the career ladder (though at another company.)

In the next post in this series (next week), I'll tell you how I was in the middle of the dot com bubble when it burst.

Comments

[Mike Hunt]

FMF,

Another great post. Sounds like you got promoted into the VP of Head cutting, not marketing! That said, cutting heads is something that happens as a matter of course as you get higher up into any organization. Never fun, but needs to be done when the decision is made.

You've really had some great career experiences!

-Mike

[cyn94601]

Thanks so much for this. I'm in the middle of writing a proposal about getting a raise and your article "how to demonstrate you deserve a raise" is most helpful. I was recently promoted and while I got a raise it only matched the incentive that the other job had, so it's has a net effect of zero. I'm writing the proposal to get what I know I deserve and while I can't see that they will say no, if they do- I at least asked.

I think I have been embarrassed about this type of thing in the past and I always have gotten increases, but you are right, I don't want pride to be my paycheck.

[Concojones]

Every story is stronger than the one before. FMF, you have a damn fascinating career to look back on. I hope that hunger is still there today.

I can relate to "the bitter pill" of being downgraded after becoming too self-confident and thinking you can skip politics as a result. Something similar happened to me too, although not professionally. It was painful at the time, but afterwards it's liberating: it helps you to take yourself and the world less serious. Status? No big deal. Been there, done that! :-)

[Bad_Brad]

I found in my own career that getting promoted can be every bit as much of a curse as it is a blessing, and that getting laid off can be every bit as much of a blessing as it is a curse. Goes to show that it's your relationship with your family, your friends, and your God that matters, not your career.

[George]

It is great post. Greatest of wisdom are acquired from experience. The point you are trying make is obvious. Arrogance can kill so is pride. People in the higher up have no time to listen to our frustration. If you are aspiring to go up in the corporate ladder, never find your self in the wrong side.

[Eric]

Ah..another good post. As if I haven't said it enough by now, I'm really digging this series.

I'm completely surprised about the part where you lost your cool. It doesn't seem like you (or at least something your internet persona would sugggest :) so I can only assume that you must've been extremely irritated.

[Lee]

Always like that promotion to do the work of more than 1 sort of like getting a 2 loafs of bread for the price of 1.
I had a promotion like this at an "old" job of mine. They were most thankful and promised to support me etc. But just like you I had to bring up the fact I was doing the work of 2 others so they relented and gave me a small raise with more promised in the future.
As they say "no good deed goes unpunished". The work increased and they forgot it used to take three salaries to do it. They just wanted more and more. When they reminded me about my great raise I reminded them I was expecting more as they had sort of promised. Sometimes you think you hear people say something they have no recollection of..ya know? Always get it in writing..ink remembers and I left.