How to screw up your life by getting promoted

"Building something interesting requires a surplus of time and money. Salaried jobs provide neither."

The trap is not the salary job promotion, but the raise of middle class lifestyle. You wont leave middle class, as long as you raise your lifestyle with every income increase, and stay in dept.

The solution is to keep a frugal lifestyle. e.g. my lifestyle is around Euro1000/month, even including my sailing boat. A typical good payed coders job leaves Euro2000 surplus every month. So working for salary for one year means, that I have two year runway to work for myself.

That's especially true for high-paying jobs in finance, law or management consulting. Here your wage raises so fast that most people don't see how their tastes are evolving. For example, after 2-3 years most cannot go to a nightclub without buying a bottle of champagne.

I quit Bain right before my first big pay raise and I feel that was a good decision. I eat pasta more than often but most of my friends who stayed have lost sight of their dreams. "I would like to quit but I can't" is something I hear SO often.

I actually once read something like financial companies prefer to promote people with family, house etc instead of single guys because that's the way you lock them down. If they cannot afford to quit the job you basically own them and you can exploit however you want.

I think in a similar fashion to the writer but have a different approach. By learning to live with very little and be happy with the minimum, I'm not afraid of having to leave a place and give up a nice salary. Having the money is a nice plus and I can enjoy buying stuff and nice restaurants, but I don't make it part of who I am or the foundation of my happiness. Or at least I try ;)

Another related problem is called "golden handcuffs". Many work in jobs that provide great salary and/or benefits and would like to leave, but they think that they will sacrifice their family's well-being by leaving. I was like that for years and recently switched to a new job that is a lot better for me. It is still far from perfect: I am more stressed-out, and I work more hours. But, the pay and benefits are better, and my skills and marketability are improving. I want a job that I love, and I'm still working on finding that, but if you have "golden handcuffs", don't fall into the trap that you can't do better. If you are aren't struggling and learning and you are unhappy and spreading unhappiness, you are a drag on yourself and everyone else. You can't always be unhappy, in fact you may continue to be unhappy (I am, or at least I tell myself that I am), but if you find yourself making others unhappy and feeling that they should realize that they are unhappy as you, that is not a good situation, and you need to change. There are plenty of other opportunities out there, but you won't find them unless you are looking for them. Just decide what you want, and do your best to make it happen. Don't buy into the self-help books either. They make promises they can't keep.

There is nothing wrong with being promoted. You just need the self discipline to realise that like everything in life, it is only temporary and you need to be ready for the job and salary to disappear at any time and for any reason. Greatly increasing your living expenses makes no sense when getting a sizable pay rise.

This advice is also similar to what I tell undergrads who are about to step out into the workforce for "just a couple of years before going back for grad school." A few people do it, but the vast majority will get used to the new salary, get married, and that pretty much ends it.

I tell them that the experience, particularly at a google/MSFT/apple, is worth getting because you'll have a much more well-rounded perspective than those who come straight from undergrad. But no matter how frugally you lived while working, it's the strong spouse that is OK with a 10x pay cut (> $220k -> $22k, at least for me in the sciences).

There's a big difference between downsizing - leaving you with spare cash to do stuff with - and "Salaried jobs [...] stay the fuck away from them" which has seriously harmful potential.

A botched "promotion" attempt can also backfire for employers.

I had one joker boss/startup owner try to promote me (his words were "what job title do you want?") but had no intention of giving me a raise! Suffice to say the working relationship did not last, I went on to more than double my salary within a year of leaving.

I am reading a very interesting book at the moment with a similar sort of theme called "Your Money or Your Life": http://www.amazon.com/Your-Money-Life-Transforming-Relations...

Same thing here. I can't start a lot of things i (now) have experience to do and which i am sure will still work, just because i can't imagine myself flying coach again - and that would be the way of life for the next coupe years if i do. Was my mistake.

One policy I've implemented in my group at an SF startup is when I want to promote someone into a new role, I first put them in the role before giving them the title and raise. That gives them a chance to evaluate how much they actually like the role, while giving both sides outs if the role doesn't end up being a good fit.

I've done this with two lead PMs and an engineering lead so far, and it's been met with a positive reception.

I disagree with the premise. Sure, you can increase spending and get hooked to a salary, or you could just learn how to make more and have more.