Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Careful What You Wish For

Robyn Greenspan, the Senior Editor of our Career Smart Advisor newsletter as well as the senior editor and writer of our Executive Job Market Intelligence Report that just went out to our members this week, has, among her many talents, a seemingly unique ability to find the quirky little tid bits here and there and then always has something thought provoking to say about it.

She sent me the following blurb that she found in the NY Times:

FINAL TAKE Some 21 percent of workers said they pitied their bosses, and 54 percent said they "could never be paid enough to take their boss's job," according to Money magazine, which also reports that the average chief executive's salary increased 14.5 percent in 2004, compared with a 3.7 percent raise for the average worker.

This lead the Times to comment:

"That leads to one of two possible conclusions. Either the boss deserves the money, or those who feel sorry for him may want to rethink their position."

Robyn's comment after she read it was: “Every company needs bench strength, so it’s probably a good idea that the 54 percent stay out of the way of the high-achieving 46 percent.” Love her sense of humor!

It also made me think a bit about the shots that bosses take. When I was growing up, the American dream was to rise up the corporate ladder and become a "boss." Sounded great until I got there. Once I got there, I found out in a hurry that it wasn't anything close to being "as advertised."

I also think that my experience in working with different bosses over time was probably not too different from my peers. I had a couple of really good ones, and some who were so bad that I kept saying to myself that they would get a separate chapter when I write my book.

Good or bad, however, I would like to think that I learned from each and as I continued on with what I now must look back on as a "career" it is my hope that I was able to save and apply the "good learnings" and drown the "bad learnings" in apple martinis.

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